September Photo Challenge

This month I decided to do a photo challenge. The only problem is, I started today... half-way through the month. So instead of taking a picture today, I took a few that I'm going to share with you. Here are some of the topics in the challenge and pictures I took to go a long with them:

Self-portrait(s):

Instead I just taking a selfie, I got my siblings to have some fun with me!

Something that makes you smile:

This isn't technically a picture that I "took", but Bible verses always make me smile!

What you wore today:

Something, or in my case someone, that you miss:

This is a picture of some of my cousins, my siblings, and I with my grandpa.

Something orange:

Flowers:

Black and white:

This is a figurine that my dad got on a mission trip to Mexico to remind him to pray for the people there. He gave it to me so that I can remember to pray for the people of Central America since we just went on a mission trip there!

Here is the photo challenge that I used (that a friend of mine found) in case you all want to try it!

These are a few of my favorite things...

Hey guys! I know I haven't done very well with blogging lately, but we have been so busy!! I have lots to catch up on but right now ill just share a "few of my favorite things" that have gone on the last few weeks! ...(I got the idea for this post from one of my friends).

A mission trip to Costa Rica (which I will talk more about later!!). But I will tell you now, God did AMAZING things!

A village on a mountainside.

A classroom that we visited.

the Gringo Market!

A lady accepting Christ after hearing about His great love!

Field trips... On this one we went to NC State to hear about a language program.

Cousin dates to the Tea Room!

A new photo editing app that I got...

(this picture is from a couple Sundays ago when some ladies from my parent's Sunday class and their girls went to an outreach called Covered with Love where we made blankets for moms who lost their children. It was sad but I'm glad we got to help!)

Spanish-English Bibles

Reunions... My best friend came back from West Africa and boy are Parker and I excited!!!

African gifts... Love!

... and last but not least, Bible verses to remind me of God's faithfulness!

OOTD

Hey guys! I've never done one of these before but I decided I would give it a try ;) Here is an outfit that I just got that I thought just might be blog worthy!

The shirt is from Target and the shorts are from Old Navy.

Catchin' Up

Whew! We've up to A LOT lately so I've got lots of pictures and lots to talk about. I'll start with track-out. A couple of weeks ago my family and I visited Williamsburg, Virginia and then visited my grandma and great-grandma in New Jersey.

Here we are at the hotel pool!

at a tavern in Williamsburg

talking to Patrick Henry and learning a lot!

I wonder what they did now?!?

Oh Luis!

My sweet Oma Oma and I!

 The next week we celebrated Easter with our grandparents!

Easter egg time!

On a hunt for the eggs. . .

for those of you who watch Duck Dynasty ;)

 Here a couple pictures that I took of spring . . . my absolute favorite!!

And last but not least . . . this past weekend my mom and went to see Beth Moore, a motivational Christian speaker, with some other ladies from our church and 8,000 other women! It was absolutely amazing! It was all about secrets. The theme was "Secrets Manifest". She talked about the difference between good secrets, bad secrets, secrets in the Bible and the difference between being authentic, transparent, and intimate. "You don't have to be intimate with your entire social network" was one of her big points when talking about that. It was so cool seeing God move.

Jesus, midnight milkshakes, and more Jesus . . . I mean, what could be better?

 Well, that's all I have for now!

Pinterest Projects and Attempts

 I have always wanted to make cookie bowls. Basically, you take cookie dough and a muffin pan and then you turn the pan upside down. Now, spread the cookie dough on it. Make sure you use A LOT of spray!!! Then you bake it for however long. After it cools for a little you take the cookies off of the pan. Now you have a bowl that you can eat and put ice cream in! Well, that's how it is supposed to turn out . . . I didn't put enough spray, didn't use very good cookie dough, and put too much dough on the pan. As you can see, mine broke when I tried taking them off. We put them on the bottom of ice cream bowls and made yummy ice cream sundaes anyways!

The next day I had a few friends over and we decided to bake something. We looked on Pinterest and one of my friends found a sunflower cake made out of chocolate icing, peeps, and chocolate chips. We made the cake and then spread the icing on. Then, we placed the bunny peeps (the only ones we could find) a long the outside edges. After that, we sprinkled chocolate chips in the inside. Last but not least, we ate it! This project thankfully turned out REALLY GOOD!

Disciple Now 2013

Hey guys! So we just finished Disciple Now! The theme was Exchange. Exchanging our old life, our sinful ways, for a new life in Christ! It was an amazing reminder of the greatness of our God and our complete surrender to Him!
And... we  also got to Skype Abby, my sisterchick in Africa! All of the girls in our group absolutely loved getting to talk to her! Thank-you so much Abby!

Here the lyrics to a song that we sang that is one of my new favorites:

Christ alone, Cornerstone

Weak made strong, in the Savior's love

Through the storm, He is Lord

Lord of all.

Here is a picture of all the youth dancing during the worship services:

It was a great weekend and we are sad it is over, but now, our job is to carry what we learned and the changes that were made into our day-to-day life!

Lately we've been...

running 5k's in the snow . . . freezing!

making snowmen

going to National Dance Honors Society inductions

hanging out with family

getting gifts from Africa . . . the best kind! Thanks Abby!

and celebrating birthdays!!

Camping Trip

A couple weeks ago, during track-out, my family and I went camping! Here are some pictures of some of the fun things that we did:

   

This is the house that the show the Waltons was filmed at! I haven't watched much of this show but it was still fun to see.

A beautiful view of the mountains!! It is amazing to see so much of God's beautiful creation all at once!

One day we visited the Monticello which was the home of our 3rd president, Thomas Jefferson. It was neat how he built his house and fun little details that he put in. . . accidentally or on purpose. One fun thing was that he had a clock that not only showed the time, but also the days of the week. The problem was though, that it didn't fit in the house so he had to cut holes in the floor for it.

These two pictures were taken at an apple orchard high up in a mountain. We got to pick apples and they were HUGE and DELICIOUS and THE BEST apples that I have EVER had!