Izzie's Early Christmas Present

I bought Izzie a new bed the other day.  She always sleeps under our bed, and when it's time to go, it is usually impossible to get her out from under the bed.  I thought a cute little bed beside our bed just might solve that problem.

And it did.  She loves it!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Matt and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together this year. Not only was it our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, but our first Thanksgiving ever. Last Thanksgiving, Matt and I didn't even know each other existed. Crazy!!

We celebrated at Matt's sister's house. There were 18 people there. Matt's sister Nicole had the table decorated beautifully and coordinated everyone to bring lots of yummy food.
And her husband Bryan did an awesome job roasting the turkey out on the grill.

I am so thankful for so many things this year. Too many to name......but here's a few.

I am thankful for my amazing husband.

I'm thankful for my family and all the new additions this year.

I'm thankful for my new family.

I'm thankful that Matt and I both have good jobs.

I'm thankful for our new home.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Orange

Orange has good and bad on Thanksgiving this year.

THE GOOD:

Pumpkin Cake (another one of Matt's favorite) and Sweet Potato Casserole

**Both of the pictures are uncooked.

THE BAD:

Gig 'em Ags!!!

Ewww!!

I love chicken. I always have.  If I had a choice between steak or chicken, I would pick chicken any day.  I expecially love Chick-fil-A.  It is like a chicken lovers dream!!  When I was a kid the only meat I really like was chicken.  My dad always called me a chickiterian.  I didn't like hamburgers or hotdogs or steak.  I still don't like hotdogs or steak and I get grossed out everytime I cook red meat.  

A couple days ago I decided to boil a chicken.  You can freeze it in little baggies and then pull it out when you need it.  And you can make so many great recipes with boiled chicken.  You can make Chicken Salad, King Ranch Casserole, Tortilla Soup, Chicken Pot Pie, and Matt's favorite Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole.  (I'll post the recipe below)  Although you can make all those yummy things with a boiled chicken, I'm not sure I'll be able to stomach it again. 

I had to have my Mom come over to help me take the chicken out of the packages and put them in the crock-pot.  I could barely touch them without getting grossed out.  Then when I came home from school, I had to have my Mom come over again because I couldn't stand the nasty smell.  There was no way I was touching that slimy smelly chicken to get the fat off.  

Seriously, how can something so stinky and nasty turn into something so good.  

Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole

1 boiled chicken, deboned

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 c. sour cream

2 T. poppy seed

Lemon juice (opt.

1/2 stick margarine

Ritz Crackers

Boil chicken.  Salt while cooking.  Debone and cut into bite-size pieces and place in backing dish.  In a bowl, mix cream of chicken soup and sour cream.  Stir soup and sour cream mixture into chicken.  Squeeze lemon juice over mixture.  Crush Ritz crackers with hands and cover chicken mixture.  Sprinkle with poppy seeds generously.  Pour melted margarine over top of crackers.  Cook at 350 until hot and bubbly.  

I thought that we would have tons leftover, but we didn't.  I ate a normal size portion and Matt ate the rest!!!

Fast forward to November 25, 2008

This is going to be a quick update with lots of pictures!!

I planned our wedding.

We had our engagement pictures done.

I finished my first year of teaching. 

My brother and his wife had Baby Carson.

I had my bridal portraits done.

We bought a house.

I had 4 showers.

I started my second year of teaching with the most amazing women ever. 

We got married.  (this will get a full post when I get my wedding pictures in.)

We honeymooned in Mexico. (this will get  full post as well...sometime.)

I went back to school as Mrs. Link!!

And now we are up to date!!!  It's almost Thanksgiving!!! Yay!

"ketchup": engagement edition

On Thursday of our vacation Matt and I went on a date into town without anyone in our family. It was fun for us to get away from everyone and spend some quality time together. After we got back from our date, our entire family had decided to go ride go-carts at the putt-putt near by. I thought that sounded fun, so I was excited to go. Matt didn't quite feel the same way. He wasn't too excited about going, since we had been out all day. So I stayed back at the house with him, reluctantly.

Matt decided he wanted to go lay out on the beach. I wasn't too excited about that because it was an overcast day and it was windy. But I went out anyway. When we got outside it was so windy. I wrapped up in my blanket and tried to take a nap, but it was too windy. I tried not to complain but I finally told Matt I wasn't going to make it much longer. So Matt suggested that we go on a walk. I would have preferred that he suggested for us to go inside, but I had really enjoyed our walks on the beach, so I agreed to a walk. We hadn't gotten far before I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom. We started walking back towards our house, and right as we got back to our stuff on the beach Matt hugged me really tight.

**Remeber, I had asked the Lord to help me not think about getting engaged. I really had no idea he was about to propose.

Matt said some really sweet things that I don't remember, and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes!! Thanks goodness I didn't talk him into going to ride go carts. Getting engaged was much more exciting.

Matt had the ring in his pocket the whole time we were down at the beach. I'm so glad he didn't drop it in the sand. We talked for a while, and then went inside our empty house. We had some time to ourselves at the house to let everything soak in. Matt and I prayed together for the first time then we anxiously awaited the arrival of my family. It was such a fun moment to get to share with my whole family.

The reason that Matt had waited until the end of the week to propose was because we were going to surprise Matt's whole family on Sunday when we went to his parents for Easter. It was so hard not to call our friends and family but it was worth it to see his family's surprised faces!!

I'll leave with you with some pictures we took while we were on the beach!! Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

"ketchup": part 2

Matt and I both knew pretty quick that we were meant to be, but when he told me "I love you" on Christmas Eve it was a for sure. On Christmas, we began talking about marriage and when we wanted to get married. We celebrated Christmas with both my family and his family. It was really fun getting to know each others families and spending our time off together.

Over the next couple of months we spent all of our time together. We lived 30 minutes apart, but we still managed to see each other 4-5 days a week.

We had a pretty routine week for most of our dating. We went to church together on Sunday. Wednesday was either date night or I drove to Dallas to cook dinner for Matt at his apartment. Thursday night was men's softball games and Friday night was co-ed softball games. Saturday night we hung out with church friends, went on a date, or went to a wedding.

This was at one of the seven weddings we went to this year.

In February my brother got married. It was such a fun night. After Ryan and Ashley's wedding we were definitely ready for it to be our turn.

Little did I know that Matt was planning for our time to come soon. A couple days after work Matt drove to Sherman and back to go buy a ring and then he went back to go back to pick it up. I was at Bible Study when he went so I thought he was just chillin' at his apartment. We had talked about getting married in October and I had also told Matt that I needed atleast 6 months to plan our wedding, so I knew an engagement had to be somewhere in the near future.

In March my grandma decided to rent a beach house in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Luckily, all 5 of my cousins, my brother, and my Spring Break all fell on the same week, so my Mom's whole side of the family was going to go stay in a 3-story house for the week of Spring Break. To make the trip even better, Matt was able to take the whole week off and go on vacation with my family. I had kind of convinced myself that he was going to propose on the trip...

The whole family minus Ryan and Ashley

It was Wednesday and he hadn't proposed. I figured that if it was going to happen it would have happened early in the week. I didn't think he would be able to keep a ring in his bag for that long. So when it hadn't happened the first 5 days we were gone, I had a long talk with God that night, asking him to just let me forget about getting engaged. I just wanted to trust that Matt was listening to the Lord and he was going to propose when he knew it was the right time. I didn't want to ruin my vacation because I was so concerned about getting engaged. I promised myself that night that I wouldn't think about it any longer.

Engagement coming soon....

"ketchup": part 1

If you would have asked me last November 14th if I thought I would be married by this November I would have said, "No way." My life has changed so much in the past year, and it has been so neat to see the Lord's hand in it all.

Let me take you way far back to last November, right around this time last year. (haha....not to far back, huh?) I had been searching for a church all summer long and just couldn't seem to find my place in a church. While I was at the doctor's office, I had conversation with my doctor (who is a wonderful Christian lady) about trying to find a church that had a good Young Singles class. She told me to go to Prestonwood because that is where she met her husband. Of course, I went there!!! But I didn't find my husband, and I didn't really like the class I was going to. So after I had been going for a while my friend, Cinnamon and decided to try a different class. We instantly felt connected. We joined a class called Catalyst in mid-November where we meet some really great girls.

Cinnamon, Tara, and Lindsey

All the Catalyst girls

My prayer had been that I would find fellowship, and I most certainly did. The Lord totally blew me away with his faithfulness. After meeting so many great girls, for the first time in my life I felt like I could say that I was truly content with being single. Everyone always told me the right guy would come along when you least expected it. I wasn't expecting anything to happen. I was so content with how my life was going

And that is when I Matt.

On Saturday, December 1st Catalyst was supposed to go to Holiday in the Park at Six Flags. There was a chance of bad weather so we ended up not going. We all just hung out at our class leader's house. And that is where Matt and I were first introduced to each other. We hung out that night and started to e-mail back and forth. He asked for my number and I got a phone call on Wednesday wanting to go on a date on Thursday. We went out on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday!! After that I knew there was something special about this guy. And then when he sent me flowers to school the following Tuesday I knew he was the one that I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

More to come....

WE'RE MARRIED!!!

We're married!! We are having so much fun. Now that I have some free-time on my hands, I am determined to update my blog frequently. I'm still trying to figure some things out here. For example, how do you get a picture in your title, or even better how do you get a cute header. Help me out!!!