The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Wow, I cannot believe it has been an entire month since I last blogged! What a whirlwind it has been, too.

Dec. 19th-21st, my sister Lindsey and her hubby Alan came to visit us. We took Alan to a wonderful restaurant for his Christmas present, and also Santa came to visit us while they were here:





Dec. 21st-28th, we visited both of our families in East Texas. It was a very relaxing time of fellowship- well, minus the stomach bug that wiped out about 25 members of my family. It was an interesting Christmas, with everyone comparing bodily functions. :)

At Pop's and Mimi's house:


At Uncle Joe and Debo's house:


Dec. 24th, our new nephew was born. He deserves his own post, so look for that later!

Dec. 29th was our 7th (!) anniversary and we went to a Rockets game- Ben's first NBA game ever. It was very fun, and we discovered a great new restaurant as well!







Dec. 30th- my cousin Tasha and her four kids came to visit us for a few days.

Dec. 31st- my friend Mandy came to visit for a few days as well; we had a New Year's Party at our house

Jan. 1st- Tasha and the kiddos had to leave early b/c her kiddos got sick. Very sad.
Mandy, Fabia, and I went to eat lunch, then Mandy and I spent the rest of the day shopping.

Jan. 3rd- Mandy left to go back home.

So much fun! Now back to real life.
I hope that your holiday season was spent enjoying your family and friends, and celebrating Christ's birth.

Meatless Mondays

In order to help out a family in our area, Ben (husband/pastor) challenged our church to give up one dinner a few weeks ago, and eat only rice for that meal. It was a two-fold challenge: to eat a meal that much of the rest of the world considers normal, as well as to save money to donate to this family.
Now for those of you who know me, I enjoy cooking. A lot. (yes, I'm weird) And I love to eat even more. So just making and eating rice? Hmmm..
But this night was amazing. Really, truly humbling. As my husband said on his blog, we ate pretty early and were both starving (well, not really) less than an hour later. And, we both had two bowls of rice. Many people in this world only get one, if that.
So we decided as a family to designate Mondays as "Meatless Mondays." I will cook a simple meal, without meat of course, for our family when possible on Mondays. We would really like to be able to give more to the poor, both in our city and around the world, and this is one small way we can do this. God has a tremendous heart for the poor, and we are praying to have the same.
Here are some of the benefits that we have thought can come about by giving up meat only once a week:
* The main reason, which is to save money to give away
* To be able to identify with others who eat very simply
* To teach our children that Americans live in excess, and we can do with less
* To be a little healthier: giving up meat once a week can only be good for us
* To have more time with my family that evening, with much less cooking preparation and clean up time.

I would love to hear of more ideas of how you are giving back this holiday season.