365

Photo Challenge for December 31st: Celebrate!

Happy New Year! Goodbye, 2011! Goodbye, (365)TwentyEleven!

Hello, 2012! Hello, fresh start! Hello, big dreams!

2011 was a big year. It was our first full year of marriage, I quit my first-ever job that I'd had for almost six years, and I tackled this huge year-long project. Here we are at the end of the year, and I made it! 
You guys know that there have been ups and downs this year, in regards to my health. But I am so encouraged by how far I've come compared to the beginning of the year. I haven't felt this good since before I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease! Praise God for this restoration, and for His provision which allowed me to stay home to focus on my health! I'm so thankful for my husband too, as he helps me stay healthy. I think this is the biggest deal about this year to me. I still have a ways to go, but I feel like I'm finally beginning to figure this health stuff out. 

Not only has my body been restored in tangible and encouraging ways this year, but I've grown in other areas too. Through marriage, I've learned valuable lessons in patience, honesty, and generosity, to name a few. You guys, marriage is hard! True communication doesn't come naturally. But it's totally worth it, because the best thing in the world is to know and to be known by your best friend! I'm so glad that I get to walk through life with my Josh ♥

Through the commitment I made with this 365 blog, I've grown in discipline and creativity. I can't tell you how proud I am of myself that I stuck with this project! And my camera no longer scares the crap outta me - I feel so much more confident with my "fancy camera" and with taking photos in groups. I'm even going to help shoot a wedding in May! I also feel more confident in my writing - expressing myself is something I've always struggled a little bit with, so I've really appreciated having this blog as a safe place to express myself and hone my writing skills, even if only a little :) I would recommend a 365 project to anyone who's thinking about starting one. Just do it! You'll be glad you did :)

It seriously tickles me every time someone says something about this blog to me in real life :) You guys have no idea how encouraging it is that you all care about my pictures and the things I have to say! Thanks for keeping me accountable, and for putting up with having my camera shoved in your face at times ;) If any of you are interested, I've already got plans for a new blog and project and it's COMING SOON! I'll link to the new blog on here in a few days :)

I love that I'll always have this project to remember this sweet and full first year. It's been a wonderful year of healing and growth, and I look forward to all the things God has for us in this next year!

364

Holy crap. One more day. One more day?? This doesn't feel real.

Photo Challenge for December 30th: Silver 

I made a light box (like this one) this evening! That's why this picture is so well-lit, even though I took it at 10:00 PM inside our dim apartment. I think it looks like a stock photo - you be the judge of whether that's a good or bad thing, haha, but honestly I'm proud of my little light box. It's going to make things easier for me around here, that's for sure! I just wish I'd made one months ago. 

I spent most of today refining my 2012 Resolutions, working out a new budget, and learning more about meal planning/couponing. Why didn't I start this sooner? It's overwhelming, but it's also invigorating! Getting organized, making a plan, setting goals... I love that stuff. It's the following through part that I struggle with, haha. (That's actually one of my resolutions, to finish projects strong :p) 

Josh got a new two-player card game in the mail today! It's called Lost Cities and it is awesome. Josh gets an A in game-choosing. ;)

Yeah, wow, I just can't believe that tomorrow will be the end of this project. Holy cow.  

363

Photo Challenge for December 28th: Smile

We went over to the Turners' tonight for taco salad and games! I left my memory cards at home, silly me, but Mrs. Lesa saved the day with her iPad. The game they're playing in the picture is called "Got 'Em!" (Mr. David mopped the floor with the rest of 'em). We also played Settlers of Catan (the Turners had never played! Steven and Josh were close the whole game, but Josh pulled it out in the end). It was so fun! I love getting to go over to the Turners because they're all so friendly, and we get to play fun games with them. We missed Calista&Alex and Justin, but it was a good time anyway :)

Other than that, I spent most of the day organizing some of the cluttered corners in our house (and now the house is even messier than when I started, haha.. It always seems to work that way! But it'll be awesome once it's uncluttered and finished). Josh spent the afternoon helping Barry clear up the aftermath of the dead tree they took down the other day. Check out the video of the tree coming down that Josh put together here! 

What a good day :)

362

Photo Challenge for December 28th: Lights. 

Dude. Josh got me a bokeh kit with the Lensbaby lens for Christmas :) I hadn't played with it until tonight, but I think it's so fun! I cut out that starburst by hand :) It's nothing too fancy (next I want to try a snowflake!), but it's still pretty cool.

We just got done playing some Halo Firefight with Barry and EMILY! That was so fun! I'm glad she hopped on and they called us so we could all play. :)

Today I got some pretty good deals on Christmas stuff at HobLob, Goodwill, and Kroger! I also bought some paint and paintbrushes so I can start playing with the canvases the Taylors got me. Feels good. I look forward to learning how to use that stuff.

Josh is editing the tree-felling video. Lots of chainsaw noises and "woo!"s and "HOLY CRAP"s lol.

Hey, Benge is on! We're going to play some more Halo now. OKAY BYE

361

Photo Challenge for December 27th: Animal. 

I'm not saying Barry is an animal. That's awkward. I simply chose to forget the photo challenge today since we weren't around any animals today, and I wasn't going to go out of my way to get one. 

Scott went over to help Barry with taking down this tree. It was cool to get to hang with him on his last day in town :)

Honestly though, these pictures are cooler than a random picture of a random animal. I think these are pretty ballin' for iPod pics, but that's probably just because the subject matter is awesome on it's own. Josh was using the nice camera to get video footage of the event.. And I don't have any pics of the tree coming down because I was videoing too (from another angle). A video of the whole thing is forthcoming. 

Barry's been talking about bringing this tree down for months. The tree was huge, it was dead (completely hollow), and was likely to come down in the next big storm. it was actually pretty cool to watch. I didn't get any good pics of the chainsaw in action (I didn't want to get too close).

So that was exciting! They're going to use most of the tree to make a bonfire on New Year's. :) While we were over, I got to give Emily her Christmas present :) Then this evening we went to Brent and Angie's Christmas Open House Party, where we enjoyed their famed seafood chowder (yum!) before we took Scott to the airport. He's going to South Africa in a couple weeks! So we probably won't see him for at least a year... maybe two. Good ol' Scott. We'll miss seeing him every once in a while. 

360

Photo Challenge for December 26th: New.

I gave these Portal Bookends to Josh for Christmas! (Click the link for a side view of the two pieces. They're freakin' sweet!) We like them a lot :)

Wow, I was completely lethargic and unmotivated today. It makes sense, I guess, because of Christmas lunch and all the processed foods I've been eating lately.. I've got to be better about my smoothies and juices throughout the day! I've been lazy lately, thinking that if I had at least one veggie meal each day I'd be good. That's just foolish wishful thinking! :P I know it should really be the other way around... it should be about 90% fruits and veggies, and only 10% or less of processed foods and meats. I'm still learning, I guess. 

359

Photo Challenge for December 25th: Love.

Merry Christmas! What a good day. We hung out with my family all day! I love them so much ♥ 

Today was seriously wonderful. I'm going to keep it simple and just leave you guys with a bunch of pictures:

On the way to Church!

Joshie terrorizing the cats

MY RING WAS IN ONE OF THE PRESENTS!! It fell in while I was wrapping the other day. Praise the Lord!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

358

Photo Challenge for December 24th: Pajamas.

Josh and I celebrated "our" Christmas today! It was a blast. Josh loved his gifts... I worked very hard on them, so that was super rewarding. Josh gave me a bunch of camera accessories... I've barely had a chance to play around with them, but I did use my new 18-55 lens to shoot the PJ photo :) And here are a couple shots I got with two of the other main gifts:

Lensbaby Control Freak (with a few interchangeable optic lenses):

Macro lens adapter:

I'm thrilled. THRILLED. Seriously the best part, though, was seeing Josh's face when he opened my gifts to him. I was able to surprise him completely with most of them! I love that feeling! Don't tell him I told you, but he even teared up over one of my handmade gifts to him <3 That's what I love about Christmas. 

The downside to today... Well, last night after I got home from shopping, I realized that my engagement ring was missing. It's been loose on my finger for a few months, and when it's chilly/my hands are dry, it tends to slide off pretty easily. But I avoided resizing the ring since we only get one more free resize on our warranty. Now I wish I hadn't put that off! I retraced my steps this afternoon and nobody had turned it in (it was kind of a long shot anyway, I know). I know it's just a "thing" but I'm so sad that I lost it. That's the ring Josh proposed to me with. I've been wearing it for two years. It's got a lot of sentimental value :/ I'm HOPING and PRAYING that it's somewhere in this house. I didn't notice it was gone until right before we went to bed, and I know that I play with my ring a lot, so I feel like I would've noticed it was gone before then, you know? But we just can't find it.

When I talked to my dad about it, he reminded me that my mom had lost her ring during the first few years of their marriage, too. He said, "..we're still going strong after 27 years, so maybe that's a good sign!" Hahaha. It was interesting, talking to the different workers in my quest for my ring today. A couple of them commented on how that was bad luck. That surprised me! I don't think of the ring as what keeps Josh and I together. Like, I know we'd be okay even if both of us lost our wedding bands.. and our marriage license, too! It's not about superstitions for me... I'm just sad and frustrated with myself for losing such a sentimentally valuable piece of jewelry. Sigh. I have faith that it will turn up... But if it doesn't, I'll just have a less sparkly left hand. Nothing else will change. BUT I STILL WANT TO FIND IT haha. I'm such a girl.

Now I'm finishing up a last-minute project for my family's Christmas :) We're watching Slumdog Millionaire! (well... Josh fell asleep :P) And I'm happy. I'm excited about Feener Christmas tomorrow.

357

Photo Challenge for December 23rd: Aggravation. (Exasperation?)

For Christmas, my parents gave each of us some money to get clothes, with the stipulation that they must be from Goodwill or on major sale. I've been putting it off, so I knew I had to take care of it today. I went to Goodwill and Wal Mart and got a lot of cool stuff :D It honestly wasn't as busy (or aggravating) as I was expecting, but the lines were definitely long! 

I'M SO TIRED; GOODNIGHT. 

356

Photo Challenge for December 22nd: Winter.

Check out my legit snowflake garland! This is about as much snow as we'll see this winter, I'm sure. I had so much fun making this! I owe all the successful snowflakes to Vintage Junky (for her 8 point star pattern) and How About Orange (for her 5-point star pattern). I used a couple tutorials in the beginning to get the hang of making them, but I had a lot of fun making up my own patterns too :) 

Here's another picture of the garland "in progress." 

Josh and I hosted our first-ever Christmas party tonight! The Taylors were kind enough to let us use their house because ours would have been bursting at the seams with this many people in it. I think it went really well! :) We played Dirty Santa (aka "Yankee Swap"):

Jon got these socks. Totally suit him. 

Everyone helped us out and brought a snack food (check out Nyk and Cali's adorable contribution!):

And, OF COURSE, we played games. It wouldn't be a Taylor party if there weren't games involved! Josh got to try out one of his new games, Werewolf, tonight... it's kinda like Mafia, but there are extra rules you can throw into the mix to keep it interesting. We pretty much stuck to the standard rules this time and it was a lot of fun, but you KNOW that the next time we play we'll try out those extra twists. (BTW I have to mention how good Josh is at moderating these kinds of games. He's so fun!) 

I'd say the party was a success! I had a great time, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves as well. That's always encouraging :) And it was fun to have people over that we hadn't seen in a long while... Micah, Luke, Molly, Jon&Katie.. So glad they all could come :)

You guys I did not sleep well last night. I tossed and turned and then I woke up at 5 and just... laid there... Finally at 8 I just got up. It was definitely nice to have the extra time to get things done - today has been very productive! But I'm exhausted. So it is high time for this Kelli to head home and collapse into bed. G'night, friends! 

355

Photo Challenge for December 21st: Borrowed. 

Since the only things I'm borrowing right now are a movie and some muffin tins (and neither of those make for an interesting photo), Scott "borrowed" my camera to take this picture for the blog. Thanks for helping me out, Scott! :) I like the composition, and he was right about the shadows being interesting. 

Tonight we had some of the old LCA crew over for dinner and games! Will, Victoria, Justin, Scott, and Jen. It was good to see those guys. Check out this intense moment during The Resistance:

I think that's becoming one of our favorite group games. Depending on the group, it can become quite the mind game! During the three games we played tonight, accusations were flying everywhere. It was a good time. 

I almost forgot to mention Will's amazing reindeer cupcakes that he brought:

Are those adorable or what?! I waited too long to get a picture of all of them, but originally there was one with a red nose to lead all the brown-nosed reindeer :) They were so cute! I was impressed. And I sneaked half of one (shh!), so I can report that they were just as tasty as they were cute. :)

354

Photo Challenge for December 20th: Looking Down.

Lookin' down at my cinnamon-covered hands. Totally should've cut  my nails before I started kneading the dough... Oh well! Now I know :) And my hands smell amazing.

This evening, Josh hung out with the MacDonalds to play games and celebrate Mrs Angie's birthday! :) I wanted to go, but I had too much stuff to get done and not enough time over the next few days to do it. So I invited Jen, we went to the store, and I got to work. Today was a pretty full day! Jen helped me put together party favors, I made a batch of cinnamon ornaments, started making a snowflake garland, wrapped up our Dirty Santa gifts, and made cookie dough to freeze, so I can pop 'em in the oven on Thursday (for the party). I had a blast! Having Jen there to crack jokes and select the perfect music made my evening so much better :) 

Dude, I won something today! Remember that amazing-looking gluten-free cinnamon roll recipe + giveaway I posted on here a few days ago? I won a book called Go Dairy Free from Jules! :) AND another blogger who participated in the Gluten Free Easy Holiday event quoted my comment this morning. I showed the post to Josh and asked him to guess which one was mine... He immediately guessed mine and didn't even continue reading to see if he was right haha :P He knows me so well! (Hint: it's the third quoted comment in the post). So yeah, it's been a cool day all around :)

353

Photo Challenge for December 19th: Inspiration.

Josh has discovered a ton of new, interesting games.. his research and these new games have inspired him to explore the idea of doing his own game reviews to put online. I think he'd be great at it. :)

Josh and I had a chill day. No work, no running around town for Christmas projects, no plans... We just hung out. It was nice. Josh edited and uploaded this week's Messy Monday vid, "Batman is Real and Santa is Fake" haha. And we went to Qdoba for dinner! Grilled Veggie Burrito = DELICIOUS. And we're about to watch the last Harry Potter movie! Dude I am so excited. It has officially taken longer to watch the movies than it did for me to read the books. Unbelievable, haha. I guess we're just not movie people anymore... 

352

Photo Challenge for December 18th: Water. 

Forget the photo challenge today. I've got this amazing picture of my family hahahaha... Blood is thicker than water anyway :P Don't you guys love my dorky jokes! 

Today was wonderful. We took the "ugly sweater" Feener Christmas photo (obvs) and hung out over there for a while (good times - it's nice to have Joshie back in town!). Such a sad football day, though :/ This evening, Jared and Anna came over! We had a delicious meal, exchanged Christmas gifts, and played games. It was so fun! They only just left because we were having such a good time chattin' it up. But now, it's time for bed. G'night, friends!

351

Photo Challenge for December 17th: White.

The Taylors are leaving for Florida on Monday, so we had our Taylor Christmas this afternoon. They gave me a bunch of blank (aka white) canvases and money for paints/brushes! I AM SO EXCITED. I've never painted before, so it'll definitely be a trial-and-error kinda thing. But I'm stoked to learn. And then I can hang up my masterpieces in our house so the walls won't look so lonely. :D

I had so much fun giving everyone their gifts :D I was so happy that they liked 'em... Giving specially-picked-out gifts is so fun. Josh got a bunch of games and a freakin' sweet new mic for the videos.

This evening, a bunch of people (Scott, Jen, David, Kayla, and Jared) came over for dinner, to play some games, and to watch the Messy Monday video shoots. Since Jordan won't be around for the next couple weeks, we shot two videos tonight! They are going to be good, you guys. My husband has a great sense of humor. He and Jordan work well together... it's cool to be apart of that.

350

Photo Challenge for December 16th: Vintage.

One of the Taylor's annual Christmas traditions is to visit the Christmas-lit-up Opryland Hotel, and we follow a very specific "migration pattern" through the hotel each year, in order to hit all the favorite spots ;) John and Sarah tagged along this time too. It was fun. There were so many options for the "vintage" theme today (I love all the cool carpets) but my favorite of Opryland's vintage decor is the big murals. I think the above picture of everyone is pretty ballin'! :D

As we worked our way through the hotel, I snapped a few more shots that I like:

Christmas Lights

Ladies in Red!

Vintage-Style Carpet

My handsome husband :)

It was a good time. I'm usually not a huuuuuuuuge fan of walking around and stuff, but this year was definitely fun. I was super encouraged by the amount of energy I had tonight, compared to last year's visit! Praise God for getting healthy :) I think it also helped that it isn't too cold outside yet. Also, John and Sarah bring such a silly dynamic to the group... Lots of goofing off and laughing. I enjoyed it :) 

I love my family-in-law. I'm gonna miss them while they're in Florida!!

349

Photo Challenge for December 15th: Green.

My husband has such beautiful green eyes :)

Oh my goodness. It has been a long day. A good day, but definitely a long one. I finished a Christmas present project that I've been working on forever... That feels awesome. I was rushing to finish it while Josh wasn't home... I've had to steal moments here and there to work on it since Josh works at home. So I kicked him out today so I could finish it! That feels so good.

Today was Jordan's and Amy's last day of finals, so we celebrated with Papa Murphy's pizza! Their vegetarian pizza is so so so so so so so good (bye-bye juice fast for real...). They were going to shoot a Messy Monday vid tonight, but Jordan was worn out so he watched It's a Wonderful Life with Sarah instead, haha. I was only over for a few hours, but I enjoyed sitting around the living room with Ray, Laurie, Amy, John, and Josh talking about all sorts of stuff. I love my family! :)

348

Photo Challenge for December 14th: Books.

Can I just say that taking pictures of books holds absolutely no interest for me? I will say, though, today's challenge made me go through my books which made me realize that I have all these great cookbooks that I forgot about. I just found a healthy recipe for hot chocolate in this Smoothie Bible that I may just try right now! You can't really tell but I'm actually holding like five books. And I'm standing in front of a bookcase. Challenge met! 

Thanks to Josh for taking the picture so I could model my new, pretty, red coat! Cool story: Josh and I went over to the Musgroves to watch Survivor this evening, but Katie and Hannah weren't there so it was just us and Uncle Melvin and Aunt Linda. They had this extra coat because they'd accidentally ordered the wrong style for Hannah... So Uncle Melvin pulled it out to see if it'd fit me, and when it did, they straight-up GAVE it to me! It's a brand new coat from Forever 21!! They blessed me so much with this gift... Every time I wear it, I'll think of their kindness and generosity tonight. :D Such sweet friends! I'm so excited about it. I was just telling Josh the other day that even though I didn't need a new coat, it would be nice to have a prettier coat that fit me better than my current black one. Such a sweet blessing :) :) Thank you Aunt Linda and Uncle Melvin!! 

We went to Gabby's today! (Bye-bye, juice fast...) Oh. My. Goodness. I will always love Gabby's. 

It was delicious. And it was fun to go out on a date. It's been a few weeks for us. 

The house smells like cinnamon right now because I'm making some cinnamon ornaments! I love it!

Yeah so today was pretty much awesome. Lunch date at Gabby's. I finished my Christmas shopping. I crafted. The house smells amazing. We got to hang with Aunt Linda and Uncle Melvin. They gave me a cute new coat! :D Seriously a great day, even if I didn't get to do all the things I had hoped to get done today. 

Here is another Gluten-free holiday recipe! This GFE Home for the Holidays Sweepstakes has been awesome so far... so many great recipes and a chance to get some really cool prizes! Today's offering was the Cinnamon Sticky Rolls (Oven or Crockpot method) (gluten free). And again, I get another entry by posting this to my blog :P I see no problem with pimping my blog out every now and then... I'm sharing delicious information with you, my friends!

Yep. Life is good.

347

Photo Challenge for December 13th: Shoes.

These are my favorite shoes. (Actually, they're my only shoes that are suited for the cold. I'd like to get myself a pair of black boots so I have a less vibrant option during the winter :p) Also these are my favorite pajamas. Don't be fooled by their Christmas-y pattern! I wear them all year long ;)

Gluten Free for the Holidays is doing a giveaway this December and tempting me with daily gf dessert recipes. Today I came across these two gluten-free cookie recipes:

cream cheese cookies (gluten- and soy-free, vegan).

pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (gluten-free and vegan).

I want both of them, haha. Linking to these on my blog gives me two extra entries in the giveaway, boom. But the recipes look freaking amazing, too.... One day my body will deal with sugar better and I will make these vegan cookies for Christmas.

Today I tried my hand at sewing... It wasn't awful! But the gift I was working on turned out a little wonky.. I may scrap it and try again. I'd like to be more comfortable with sewing. I feel like it's something I would enjoy if I could just get the hang of it!

Coming off of the juice fast, I find myself much more willing to eat raw vegetables. Praise the Lord! I think the week-long fast was starting to retrain my taste buds a little, like I don't even hate celery as much :D That's a really good thing. Now I just need to keep it up :) 

346

Photo Challenge for December 12th: Dozen. 

Check out our cute little Christmas tree! There are a dozen ornaments on it ;) I absolutely love it. I think it's a perfect first Christmas tree. It doesn't take up too much space in our little town home, but it brightens up the whole downstairs for me. It just makes me smile :)

Tonight we hosted game night! It's been months since the last game night! Not since right before Josh got mono (that was icky!). But Josh just got a bunch of new games he wanted to play, so we figured we'd try 'em out with our friends :) We only played two tonight, though: The Resistance twice, and Sync Up! once. I enjoyed both of the games... Josh did a good job picking them out ;) It was fun to have friends over.

What a good day :)

345

Photo Challenge for December 11th: Wish.

I wish that Messy Monday hadn't taken so long to film tonight. Hahaha. Can you say slap happy? Good thing I wrote the rest of this post earlier. I'm not even going to edit it. Goodnight guys. 

Yesterday morning I realized thaaaaat I'm losing weight pretty quickly... Ten pounds in five days. That's a lot! It's a problem though, because I'm already underweight (due to malabsorption issues). I just can't lose anymore weight; I already feel like a skeleton and none of my clothes fit me anymore and I never thought I'd wish I was bigger but I DO and I've lost all my curves and if I lose anymore weight I'll look like a preteen! Josh assures me that I won't lol but still. I was going to call doc Rawdon on Monday, to see what he suggests, but after I talked with Josh... I haven't felt this good/healthy in a long time! But the last thing I need is to lose more weight. So we reintroduced solid food today, with the plan of still getting the majority of our calories from vegetable juices... just with the addition of one or two light meals each day. Depending on the day. 

344

Photo Challenge for December 10th: Good Habit.

Getting married is a good habit, right?! Ok, ok, today's picture isn't exactly related to good habits, but my advice to Bethany and Isaac involves a good habit! Make it a habit to communicate about everything. Even especially the difficult stuff. I believe that is imperative, particularly for that first year! I'm so excited for Bethany and Isaac... They are going to do great. The wedding was beautiful! Josh took this picture before the ceremony while Nyk and Cali were taking the official wedding photos:

They got married in the same place that Josh and I did :D I love that lodge! It was so cool to be in the audience for a wedding there.. I loved the decor that Bethany chose! And the live music was a great touch - those Ferrin siblings know what they're doing ;) It was really a sweet wedding, and Josh and I enjoyed getting to help out by shooting video throughout the day :D I can't wait to see what Josh puts together for them. 

ALSO THIS ADORABLE PHOTOBOOTH SESSION: 

This booth was awesome. Our silly scanner messed up the color and cut off the border/into the middle of the "Isaac and Bethany" label that's on the bottom. But I'm in love with this print.. I'm gonna frame it. 

We feel very fortunate to have been involved in the wedding :) And we're so happy for the brand new Mr. and Mrs. Jameson!!!  Let the adventures begin!