Highlights in my hair?! Yes, indeed!

I told myself a few years ago that I was never going to do anything to my hair besides get a new haircut every once in awhile, but I did something drastic last night.  I honestly can’t believe I actually did it…

Now, before any of you freak out on me or something, it’s not extremely drastic.  I promise.

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to get Katie to put some light brown/red highlights in my hair to make it a little lighter.  My hair was beginning to look extremely dark and I was ready for something different, so last night seemed like the perfect time to get her to do it.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love having a sister that is a hair stylist?  You always have someone here to help fix your hair or help you decide what to do with your hair… So blessed.  Not sure what I would look like with the help of Katie sometimes. :)

Here are the before pictures..

Ready for the BIG reveal? :)

 

What do you think?! Can you see a difference?

   

InstaFriday {1}

It's Friday!! 

Since I have an Ipod now, I've decided to start participating in the "InstaFriday" posts and show you what my week is like in Instagram pictures.  It should be pretty fun!  

On Tuesday afternoon, I had a lovely visit with one of my good friends from WOL... 
 Thanks for coming over, Becca!  :)

I also did some sewing one afternoon...

 

 I announced some winners...Did you see the post HERE?

 I made some muffins...they were gone in less than two days.  I'm not kidding.

 I've been cleaning out my closet...

 Sarah-Anne came over for a visit too this week!  (Look for pictures of our fun afternoon soon)

 I also was able to find time to reply to some actual "snail mail" this week.

 I was having a little too much fun with my Ipod the other night... hehe.  :)

 

School, school, and more school.

 My awesome grandma came over on one day this week and helped out with some laundry and cleaning.  She is such a blessing to us.  She just randomly calls us and wants to know if we need any help with anything and she doesn't take no for an answer.  Love you, grandma!! :)

 The weather this week has been absolutely crazy... It's been in the upper 60's and it feels more like spring then "winter"??  I'll be glad when it goes back to the colder weather.

That's about it...except for the fact that I'm sitting in the Coffee Shack with a friend at the moment.  I love this place! So relaxing...

Sooo...that's my week in Instagram pictures.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend, friends!

Giveaway Winners!! {4 Year Blogiversary}

I’m sorry to keep you all waiting to hear who the winners were today!  My aunt and uncle came down for a visit this afternoon and I didn’t have much time to post the videos until now. 

Anyway, I made two videos this time because I was recording them on my iPod and I realized halfway through making them that I couldn’t make them very long.  I sound super hyper in both videos, but it’s just because I had to talk fast.  I’m not used to that… :)

Winners #1 and #2:

Winners #3 and #4:

Congratulations to our winners!  Like I said in the videos, please send me a quick email (and claim your prize), so that I can send your contact info to the sponsors.  Thanks for entering all the giveaways, everyone!!  Also, keep your eyes peeled in February because I’m going to be hosting another one.  

Have a lovely evening!! 

Almost Wordless Wednesday: “Moriah? Is that really who I think it is?!”

Last week, I got to see my lovely (and very beautiful) friend, Moriah!! We were super excited (if you couldn’t tell) ;)I’m serious.  We hadn’t been able to get together (for various reasons) since we went to see Courageous together in theater.

That’s the longest we’ve ever NOT seen each other.  It was nuts and if I have anything to do with it, it’s never happening again.  I was having “Moriah withdrawls” or something after awhile.  Hahaha.  Yes, I just said that. We spent the afternoon playing several games of “spoons” around the kitchen table, taking pictures, and…basically just catching up on life, and trying to encourage each other… Oh, so many stories to tell each other.  I don’t think we stopped talking for a minute while we were together.  That’s the best thing about having friends like Moriah, you always feel right at home at their house and feel comfortable talking about anything and everything.  Don’t you love having friends like that?  I’m pretty sure this is what we sounded like the whole time we were visiting that afternoon…”Oh, did you hear about (blank)!!  Oh, my goodness.  Yes, that was so fun.  Wow.  You need to tell me that story…like NOW.”  *insert lots of giggles here* Hahaha…    Seriously.  She is awesome.  I’m proud to call her my friend and sister in Christ.  :)

       Thanks for a fun afternoon, Moriah!  We’ll have to do it again soon! 

{Word of Life} Girls Sleepover!!

Friday night was one of the best nights of my life.  I’m serious.  I haven’t had that much fun in a long time.  What did I do that was so fun?I went to the Word of Life girls sleepover at church!!  We had so much fun!   The main reason that we all came to the church that evening was to work on decorating the gym for a upcoming Christian concert we’re hosting in February.  It’s going to be amazing and I am super excited.  Sarah-Anne wrote about the first part of our fun night on her blog, but I was having too much fun using the staple gun as we all hung up the decorations around the room.  Oh, and eating some delicious pizza for a late supper.  After we finished decorating, we all headed upstairs to the youth room and played games for hours…including the most amazing game of sardines.  We played it in the dark, ya’ll…it was kind of scary at times, but super fun.  Hahaha……even our youth leaders played!

      

As you can tell, we were all having a blast.       Our beautiful small group leaders!

  

The many faces of Bethany and Kelly… They “stole” my camera for awhile. :)Loving the expressions in this picture.  Hahaha…Abbey is such a sweetie!  Love that girl.  She is in the same small group as me, so we’ve grown pretty close over the past few months.    

After we played games, we turned up the music and had a little “dance party”, watched Courageous, and talked, and talked, and did some more talking…late into the night/ early morning.

I think we turned off the lights around 4:30 or 5:00 and got up about 7:45ish...

     

  We basically took a short nap, woke up and packed up our things, ate a delicious breakfast, and everyone went home and went back to sleep… I pretty much slept the day away (9:30ish until about 3:00 that afternoon), but it was the best kind of day to be lazy and sleep because it was raining and windy.  If I hadn’t gone back to bed when I got home, I wouldn’t have been able to function.   

It was definitely worth not getting a lot of sleep, though.  We had such a fun time and made lots of great memories.  So thankful that I was able to go!  :)

Hello Monday {20}

{Hello Monday}

{hello new week (goodbye awesome weekend)}

{hello waking up late- my alarm clock didn’t go off this morning!!}

{hello dreary morning, quick breakfast, and shower}

{hello Quiet time and coffee with hazelnut creamer}

{hello schoolwork and thinking about the fun weekend we had- pictures soon!!}

{hello lunch break and call from my grandma}

{hello finishing schoolwork before 3:00- (happy girl right here)}

{hello visit with a neighbor that just had knee surgery}

{hello emailing new friends and blogging}

{hello receiving texts from out of town friends that make me laugh until my stomach hurts- love those}

{hello family time/ reading a new book in my cozy bed}

{hello bedtime}

This post was inspired by my sweet friends, Sarah-Anne and Lisa Leonard. If you want to participate in {Hello Monday} too, then please give credit to Lisa in your post. She is the first one to start this weekly blog series.

Colonial Williamsburg {Part 1}

Are you all getting tired of these posts, yet?  I thought I only had enough pictures for one more post, but it turns out that I have a few more to share, so I’ll have two posts about Colonial Williamsburg after it’s all over and done.  ;)

****************

Okay, so back to the “Williamsburg trip stories”…

Wednesday morning was a completely different type of day.  We had planned to leave town around lunch originally, but because it rained all day on Tuesday and we couldn’t go to Colonial Williamsburg, we actually ended up getting an “extra” day of our trip.  It’s nice how those things happen sometimes.  We were all pretty excited about the day ahead.

We woke up to beautiful sunshine pouring through the windows of the hotel and the sweet voice of Aunt Kim telling us that the alarm had gone off twice and it was time to get up.  It took all of the girls a little while to finally crawl out of the warm and cozy beds, but once we did, we positioned ourselves behind a couple of mirrors scattered around in the bathroom and around the rest of the room to put our make-up on, quickly slipped on some warm clothes, and finished packing up, and got ready to check out of our rooms.  We headed downstairs for a lovely breakfast of waffles and sausage before we left the hotel, though.  It was so good!      

After eating breakfast and packing up the cars, we drove a few miles down the road to the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center.  We started our early morning tour with a short video and then walked over to the bus stop to catch a ride to the Governor's Palace.   

Waiting for the bus to arrive…

After an adventurous bus ride, we finally arrived at Colonial Williamsburg!

   

                        

We headed over to the The Palace Gardens first…

     

They were so pretty!

   

  

I’ve been to Colonial Williamsburg twice in my life, but I was really young when I went the first time and I didn’t remember much about it.  This time, we actually went down in the cellar of The Governor's Palace and we actually saw some of the original foundation!  It was amazing.  Also, for those that don’t know me personally, I am a huge history person.  Actually, my whole family loves history and whenever we hear of a historical ball or some type of reenacting nearby, we try our hardest to participate. Okay, moving on!  After we walked around the gardens and cellar, we decided to stand in line for the Governor’s Palace tour. 

I love my family…look at all the expressions in the picture above.  Hahaha. By the way, our tour guide (above) was amazing.

 

The two oldest grandchildren/cousins…{Katie and Christopher}  

The Palace was amazing…inside and out and the decorations were simply stunning.  I loved every single minute of our tour!

     

By this time of the morning, the whole family was starting to get hungry, so we made our way down the street to “Shields Tavern”…

  

We had to wait for about thirty minutes (in the cold wind) for a table because there was a crowd, but once we got seated, we had a delicious lunch.

All pictures were taken by Caroline.  She is becoming quite the photographer, don’t you think?    

I guess you could say I’m a little too “picture happy” sometimes, but I can’t help the fact that I’m a photographer at heart.  Just the way I was made… :)

On the bright side (for those that are getting tired of “Colonial Williamsburg pictures/posts”), at least you all have something new to read about from Emily, right?  Hahaha…No, I really do hope you all are enjoying these posts.  It’s fun to look back at all the pictures and try to remember everything that we did and all the memories that were made.  Last post coming up in a few days!

P.S. Did you notice that I’ve got 400 followers now?  Thank you so much!!  I never would have thought that I would have had so many readers with this little blog.  It’s so exciting! 

Next up:  Colonial Williamsburg {Part 2 and a short video}