Five on Friday!

I am unbelievably excited that it is Friday today because...we are going on our anniversary trip this weekend! Our anniversary is actually not until next Sunday, the 18th but we have other stuff going on that weekend so we decided to go this weekend instead. I'm excited to spend a relaxing weekend with my sweet hubby. 

-ONE- 

Might as well continue with the theme! Here is the cute little cabin we are staying at! It is right by a beautiful lake so we will do lots of hiking and sitting outside. 

*Keep your eyes open for an anniversary trip recap on Monday!*

-TWO-

I planted a lot of flowers a few days ago! Love having the pretty colors decorate the outside of our home. It makes me feel like our home is more welcoming and comfortable. 

-THREE-

Still obsessed with this little sweetie. She seriously has made me laugh so much already. 

-FOUR- 

Made this delicious meal last night and it was A-MAZING! I will definitely be sharing this next week! 

-FIVE- 

Want to give a shout out to my beautiful, inspiring, generous, and hilarious mother! She is the best mom I could have asked for and I wouldn't be where I am today without her! I love you mom so very much and I am so thankful and blessed to be your daughter! 

Happy Mothers Day!

Have a beautiful weekend! 

Love,

             Lindsey

Five on Friday!

I have done a crummy job of posting this week but I promise next week will be MUCH better! :)

Linking up with the girls for Five on Friday! 

-ONE- 

We got Miss Phoebe last week and let me tell you, we are in love! She is such a fun kitten and we have had a blast playing with her and snuggling with her when she's sleepy. Love this sweet little girl. 

-TWO- 

I got my hair colored on Tuesday and let me tell you that is one of my favorite things. It is so relaxing! I just sit reading my magazine, drinking my cucumber water with a hot next wrap around my neck! Doesn't that sound like heaven?! I seriously wish it was something I could do every week! HA! But that would not be good for my hair or my bank account! 

Excited for my new blonde hair! Ready for summer!

-THREE-

If you haven't taken advantage of Starbucks Happy Hour this week. You should! Got this beauty yesterday and am seriously contemplating getting another one today.

-FOUR- 

My lovely plants are growing like crazy in my window! I love having live plants in our home and I am so glad they are actually growing! 

-FIVE- 

Jordan is umpiring a tournament all day tomorrow and then is going to a Twins/Orioles game on Sunday so I will be pretty much flying solo this weekend. Phoebe and I will get a lot of bonding time and hopefully I can get a lot of projects and cleaning done! 

Have a beautiful weekend friends!

Love,

             Lindsey

Five on Friday!

It has been a fantastic week and we are going to have an even better weekend! Can't wait!

-ONE- 

I had my retreat day for the month on Wednesday. I love those days. They are so relaxing and I just love spending the entire day reading, journaling, and watching sermons. During this retreat day I spent a lot of time reading about forgiveness and conflict. You can read the post I wrote on Wednesday here. Love the way that God teaches me things every day. 

-TWO-

Yesterday my lovely friend Bree and I went and got pedicures. Love our girl dates. It was so relaxing and when we got back to her house, our husbands had got pizza for us! 

  

-THREE- 

Last night we went to a show at a coffee shop in town called Sidecar. A friend of ours from church was playing for a charity event. It was so fun and relaxing. Love shows in coffee shops! 

This is Holly, she is the proud wife of our friend who is playing! 

  

-FOUR- 

Tonight I am having a sleepover at my house with my college small group girl! I can't wait! We are going to eat, watch movies and go bowling! Love this group of ladies and can't wait to spend time with them. 

-FIVE- 

BEST NEWS OF ALL!!

We are getting a kitten tomorrow! I cannot wait to pick our little sweetie up. Stay tuned for the name! 

So excited for the weekend! I will post an updated picture of her when we pick her up! 

Have a great day beautiful readers! 

Love,

             Lindsey

Forgiveness in marriage

Today I am going to take a break from my Wedding Wednesday post and share a piece of my heart with you. Don't worry; I will begin again next week! Stay tuned for a wedding shower recap! 

I am taking another retreat day for my job today and one of the subjects that I have been focusing on is forgiveness in marriage...

"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also forgiven you." 

Ephesians 4:32

My husband and I had a fight this week. I hate fighting. Like a LOT. Without going into too much detail I will tell you that it was about something stupid. We both reacted poorly and we both said things we regretted later. Fortunately, we have not had many of these moments since we got married but I think that is why it scared me so much. It really upset me that we reacted that way to a stupid argument and that we were both being so selfish. I should have been more respectful of him and he should have been more loving to me. We both sinned and we needed to forgive each other. 

Marriage has definitely taught me the importance of forgiveness. It definitely has presented more opportunities to practice forgiveness than any of my other relationships. To forgive means "to give up resentment or the desire to punish." When we forgive someone, specifically our spouse, we can experience a blessing and an intimacy that could only come from God. Once we forgive, that's it. Feelings may still be raw, but by forgiving them you give up the desire to hold it against them. Just like we choose to love each other deeply every day we also much choose to forgive each other every single day. 

Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” 

Matthew 18: 21-22

Conflict stinks but it cannot always be avoided. The only way to avoid conflict is to avoid relationships. The more relationships you have the more conflict you will have. So it makes sense that you will have conflict with the people you are closest to. Meaning that you will have conflict with your spouse but we must always fight to seek reconciliation and forgiveness with them when conflict occurs. We might not always feel like forgiving the other person because we want to win… but marriage is not fighting with each other in order to win. It is about fighting for each other and realizing you are on the same team.

We need to cling to the hope in Jesus and seek forgiveness from our spouses and continue forgiving them just like Jesus forgave and continues to forgive us.

Thanks for reading along today!! 

Love,

             Lindsey

Recipe Recap!

Today I am going to share a new favorite recipe of mine that I tried for the first time yesterday! I made this for our dessert on Easter Sunday and it was a big hit! 
It is the Caramel Apple Cheesecake and it is incredible! I got this recipe off of Pinterest and can originally be found here.

CRUST:

2 cups Flour

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

2 Sticks Butter softened

FILLING:

3 packages Cream Cheese (8 oz.) softened

1 cup Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

3 Eggs

APPLE MIXTURE:

3 Granny Smith Apples peeled, cored and diced into small pieces

2 tbsp Sugar

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Nutmeg

TOPPING:

1 cup Brown Sugar (packed)

1 cup Flour

1/2 cup Quick Oats

1 stick Butter Softened

Caramel Topping (to drizzle)

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9X13 baking pan or cover it with aluminum foil.

Combine flour and brown sugar in medium sized bowl and cut in butter with 2 forks or a pastry blender until crumbly. Press mixture into prepared pan & bake for 15-20 minutes.

                  

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, vanilla & sugar until smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time mixing to combine. Pour mixture on to baked crust.

In a medium bowl, toss Apples, sugar and cinnamon until combined. Sprinkle apple pieces evenly over cream cheese mixture.

Combine brown sugar, flour, quick oats and softened butter in a medium bowl until crumbly. Sprinkle topping evenly over your apple layer.

Bake for 45-60 minutes or until filling is set. (You can check it by just slightly jiggling the pan). Allow to cool and then place in refrigerator 4 hours or overnight. (I left it in the fridge overnight and it was perfect!) Remove from pan and cut into bars. Drizzle with caramel topping.

All that was left after lunch. Mmmm! 

Enjoy! 

Love,

             Lindsey

Five on Friday: He has Risen!

Good morning friends!

Linking up with Five on Friday. 

-ONE- 

Thankful for my Savior today. He paid it all. I owe it all to Him. 

-TWO-

Happy 11 month Anniversary to my love. Jordan, these last 11 months have been the best of my life and I can't even describe how thankful I am that you are my husband and best friend. I can't believe that we will be celebrating one year of marriage in only a month! I love you honey and I can't wait to celebrate tomorrow! 

-THREE- 

On Sunday is my beautiful friends birthday! Happy Birthday Keshia! I love you girl! 

 

-FOUR-

Today was a Starbucks iced coffee kind of day. I don't normally do selfies so this is a rare occurrence. 

-FIVE- 

Working on my garden tomorrow! Yippie Yippie!! 

Wouldn't it be awesome if I could make it look like this? Ha! It won't but I am ok with that. 

 

Happy weekend! Don't forget to celebrate the real reason for Easter! 

He has Risen! 

                    

Love,

             Lindsey

Comparison is the thief of joy.

source

I would love to share something that has been on my heart lately.

I love feeling joyful. I often feel so close to God when I am joyful. It is beautiful, refreshing and peaceful.

"Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding."

2 Corinthians 10:12

I wish I could say I have joy all the time and that it is never a struggle for me to find joy. But that would not be true. I saw the picture above on Pinterest the other day and had to post it. I have heard this quote many times but for some reason, this time it jumped out at me and almost slapped me in the face. How often do I start comparing myself to others or comparing my relationship with my husband to other peoples relationships? Unfortunately, the answer is a lot. It seems like every other day I am seeing someone else that I can compare myself to. What does that do? Steals my joy. It makes me second guess every decision I make for the rest of the day and it makes me self conscious of what I look like, how I am dressed, what I say, where I live and what I write. It even sometimes makes me question my relationship with my husband...how scary is that? I feel like I need to ask myself, "what's the point?!" Why do I consistently make myself miserable by comparing myself to other people, often to people I don't even know?!!

Because I care so much about what people think. I care about what others think about me, my husband and our relationship. It is always seems to be on my mind when I am with other people. Did they think what I said was stupid? Is my hair a mess? Did I make them uncomfortable or mad?

I hate that I have a tendency to try to impress people or make myself seem perfect and without flaws. I am never going to succeed at being perfect so why do I even try to make myself seem that way?

"For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."

Galations 1:10

I have been so convicted of this lately, especially with my blogging. I started blogging on a more consistent basis about 4-5 months ago. It has been a consistent joy in my life and I have really loved sharing my heart with ya'll and hearing from others through their blogs. But sometimes that joy gets stolen because of comparison. I find myself worrying way too much about how many followers I have and whether or not people will like my posts. I compare my background and fonts and pictures to every blog I see and it has started to steal my joy of blogging.

 Now, I want you to know that I have absolutely nothing against trying to grow your blog and learn new ways to get more followers but I can sometimes take it too far. I can become apathetic about my blog because in comparison to others it is not much. That is not the reason I started blogging the first place and I refuse to let myself get to that point. The reason I started blogging in the first place was to try and encourage women in their faith and marriages and to share my life with family and friends. 

"Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves."

Philippians 2:3

The only way I can give up control and stop comparing myself to others, is to give it over to my Heavenly Father who loves me just the way I am. He created me and he adores me. How incredible is that? We do not deserve this unconditional love and patience but He still gives it. How awesome would it be if every time we wanted to compare ourselves to someone else we stopped and prayed for that person?!! That is my challenge for you and for me today! 

source

Thanks for hearing my heart today. 

Let's be friends! If you and I don't know each other yet, please don't hesitate to drop a comment with your info! I would love to discover your blog and hear what the Lord is teaching you!

Love,

             Lindsey