Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

Good morning my bloggy friends! (Or afternoon/evening depending on when you actually read this...) Today I'd like to focus a little bit on Thanksgiving, since it is this very week after all! I just wanted to share a few things I am thankful for in my life, and then share a challenge at the end as well...

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The Bible tells us that we should give thanks in all things! (1 Thessalonians 5:18)  Sounds like a tricky thing to do, but it's something we really should work on each and every day, not just once a year for a special holiday. 1 Chronicles 16:34 says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever." Isn't that great? That God's love endures, forever?! That alone is enough want to make you thank God all day long, right...?!

And then there are also some great Psalms about thankfulness as well:
Psalm 69:30 -- I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
Psalm 95:2 -- Let us come before him with Thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
Psalm 100:4 -- Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise, gives thanks to him and praise his name.

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I am thankful for:

A wonderful, loving family

My super sweet boyfriend

An amazing Savior who died for me and forgave my sins

Living in the Sunshine state

A church family to call "home"

Being called to youth ministry, and getting to work with the youth in my church

My education

Being healthy enough to ride bikes!
Being surrounded by a great group of friends
This amazing life God has granted me with

These are only ten things that I am thankful for. But let's be honest here people, because there about a million more that we can each name in our own lives. My challenge to you however, is to recognize these things every day, not just on one day each year! So, write down at least ten things you're thankful for, make it pretty, and hang it somewhere you'll see it every day.{ I'm going to put mine on my bathroom mirror.} And then make sure you actually read over it every day, and thank God that he has provided a multitude of blessings in each of our lives!

And finally, I just want to share the doxology with you today, because even though it's not specifically a "Thanksgiving hymn," it's still very fitting when talking about gratitude and thankfulness...

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise him all creatures here below,

Praise him above ye heavenly hosts,

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen."

And Happy Thanksgiving to each of you!

Palm Trees Wrapped in Christmas Lights

First up, let's talk about how cute my new layout and color scheme is. But more importantly, the cuteness of my header picture up there now! I am in love with it :) I think it's gonna stay for a while, but I'll probably change the pictures out occasionally as we go along!

And next, we can talk about today's installment of Mani Monday (which I haven't done in a while...), but this is my super duper easy Thanksgiving-themed mani! Just a simple turkey face on my thumb nail of my left hand, and then some polka dots on the thumb of my right hand, (which I forgot to take a picture of...). So simple, and oh-so-cute!

And now moving on to my weekend recap... 

This past weekend, Jeff and I drove over to St. Augustine, to spend some time with my bestest friends! A few weeks ago I heard my friend Nicole and her husband (from Pensacola now) were going to be there this weekend too, I decided we also had to go and make it a little reunion for us! 

We ate lots of yummy food, did a little shopping in downtown, visited a unique gourmet popcorn shop, counted down at the Nights of Lights celebration, played Catch Phrase with all my friends, and then ate some more yummy food before coming back home on Sunday. We took it easy and relaxed and just hung out all weekend, and we all had a great time together. From here on out today, I'll just let the pretty pictures speak for themselves! :)

(Click on the "Read More" below to see more pictures, and the end of the post!)

And one of the great things about St. Augustine, and pretty much all of Florida, is that we even have our Palm Trees Wrapped in Christmas Lights. So tropical and so lovely too! I hope you guys had good weekends as well! I know I sure did. And now I only have to work three days this week, and then we get to celebrate Thanksgiving! Hooray! I love short work-weeks!

Oh, and also - I was a guest blogger yesterday over at Let Them Eat Cake. So if you want my super easy recipe for Pizza Puffs (which let me tell you that you DO in fact want that recipe), head on over HERE to check that out!

And today I'm linking up with Covered in Grace, Glitter & Gloss, Sami's Shenanigans and Synfully Delicious.

Pen & Paper

Remember my cute little notebook from last week that I bought just for blog doodling? Well, here's my next project with it! I have a list of 25 lists (who makes a list of lists I ask you? This crazy girl does...) that I'm going to doodle and write and make pretty, and share them with y'all up until I turn 25, in just a little over two months!

So, here's the list of lists... I won't be doing these in the order they're written, rather just whenever I choose to write that specific one. And I have no posting schedule for these either, so who knows when they'll actually show up on the ol' bloggy-blog. My goal is simply to do them all before my birthday! I'm just using Pen & Paper, and making some cute lists :)

So that's that. Not really much else to this "series," but it's just something fun for me to do with a cute notebook and some Sharpe pens. Because who doesn't love Sharpie pens, am I right?! Also, I once again apologize for the blurry quality of my iPhone pictures. Looks like this is one of those projects I'll have to bust out the real camera for...

Prizes Flooding My Mailbox

Dear Friday: Hooray!!! So glad you're here :) And after only 3 days of work this week? That's just great.

Dear St. Augustine: We're comin' for ya today after work, and we're so excited! Can't wait for the annual Nights of Lights festival tomorrow night! Haven't been back for it since I graduated, and I'm so glad I get to go back this year, and that Jeff gets to come too!

Dear Friends in St. Augustine: Thank you for letting us stay with you while we're there. And more importantly, get ready to have some fun this weekend while we're (almost) all back together again!

Dear Living in Yellow: There are Prizes Flooding My Mailbox, and it's so dang exciting! Thanks for hosting an awesome giveaway, and providing this lucky winner with lots of fun things! {One of which is my new post-footer-signature-thing down there from Chealsea!}

Dear Boyfriend: I'm so excited for another road trip with you this weekend! I didn't make us any road trip questions this time though, but I'm sure we can still entertain ourselves in the car :)

Dear Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup: You were delicious at my work luncheon, and I'm so glad I found the recipe! I will be making you again on Monday night for my family, and I'm pretty sure they'll love you too.

Dear Thanksgiving: Holy moly where did you come from? That certainly was quick...

Dear Bloggy Friends: Thanks for reading and commenting on my posts! I love comments, but what blogger doesn't?! I love making new friends, so don't be too shy to say hello if you're new!

Happy Weekend everyone!!

Plane Ride Numero Uno

And here goes walk down memory lane numero quatro! These are fun for me, so I hope they are for y'all too, since I've done quite a few already! If you need to catch up you can find my past posts about cheerleading, prom and Jr/Sr, and senior girl presentation. Check those out too! :)

This was our senior trip out to Winter Park, Colorado. And guys, this was a BIG deal for me. Why? It was a couple of my big *firsts* in my life. My first time on an airplane! And my first time seeing snow! (I have apparently seen it when I was about 1 or 2 years old, but that doesn't count, OK?!) And then with that, it was my first time skiing and snowmobiling as well! 

There's a picture below of the first time I actually touched the snow. We were rebels and sneaked out of the Denver airport even though our chaperones told us not to, just to go physically touch the snow! It was also my friend Kristen's first time touching snow as well. So look out for that picture towards the end :)

These are the guys from the tattoo show "Miami Ink!" I used to be obsessed with it, so I was pumped
when I saw them in the Atlanta airport! But too embarrassed, so a friend asked them about the picture for me :)

This silly girl wore her ski boots to the park the second day, and forgot other
shoes. So she had to be carried back to the bus at the end of the day :)

Our school was small - and this was almost our entire senior class... :)

First time touching snow in my life!

Practicing our Spice Girls moves...

Spice Girls in action again...

So there are some of the good ones from our trip to Winter Park, Colorado! It's always so much fun reliving some of the better days of high school :)