What I'm listening to

I LOVE music.  Maybe it's because I have absolutely no musical talent and I'm just super jealous of people that do.  Or, maybe that songs seem to have a way to put into words what I just can't.  I spend a lot of time listening to music when I'm decorating cakes.  Sometimes I find myself, spatula in hand, dancing around the kitchen.  Or sometimes I find myself just stopped...savoring every word of a song.  

Anyways, Pandora is my best friend.  I love being able to plug in a song/artist that I like and hearing lots of songs just like it!  Lately I've been listening to "Casting Crowns" Pandora.  This morning, a song came on from a group called Anthem Lights.  I had not heard of the until very recently but I do enjoy their music despite the fact them they are sort of a Christian boy band ;) But, nonetheless, I love this song!  The video is a little cheesy but I love the lyrics. So, here's a little snip-it of what I've been listening to lately!

Thoughts for today...

Today I have a heavy heart.  My heavy heart comes from the responses I have heard towards the passing of Amendment One- the accusations that Christians are closed-minded and hateful.  Or, that NC did some awful thing by passing the Amendment. Normally I don't voice my opinions of politics too loudly because, to be quite honest, I don't think people's minds are going to be changed by a blog post or a Facebook post.  But, I can't help but speak up.  Marriage is not an issue that can be taken lightly.  We as Christians are called to love God and love people and I believe that voting for this amendment was the loving thing to do.  By voting yes, I was not stating that I hated those in a homosexual relationship but rather I was stating that marriage is a God ordained relationship that exists between one man and one woman and is the closest earthly example we have of God and His church.  The government did not define marriage- God did.  If we change something so fundamental to our society how are we then to understand Christ-like love?  How do we explain that to our children or our children's children if the marriage covenant is distorted?  A marriage of one man and one woman has been the building block of this society and the proven healthiest way to rear children.  This would be lost if God's design of marriage is also lost.

Please know that I believe with all my heart that God calls us to love those who may be homosexual or who struggle with same-sex attraction even though we may not understand.  We should not condone their actions but nonetheless we are to love them with a John 15:13 type of love.  Didn't Christ lay down his life for those very people?  Fundamentally we are all alike- sinners in need of a Savior.

Let me end with a quote from a pretty well known pastor here in NC.  I think this about sums it up and articulates what I am trying to say far better than I ever could:

"Influencing our government to be more fair, moral, and just in its laws is what Jesus meant by being salt and light, and He commanded us to do it. But again, governmental laws are not, by a long shot, our primary domain. We, the church, are a new community, a separate one, “called out” to be strangers and aliens, the Apostle Peter says, to showcase the kingdom of God in our midst. Thus our primary mission is to serve our community, to “wash their feet,” to lay down our lives for them, and to preach Jesus to all.

That is our real mission, and we need to get to it."

28 years...

So, last Thursday I celebrated my 28th birthday.  It was a great day.  Thank you to my co-workers, family, and husband for making the day so special.  I'm praying for 28 to be a great year!!

As you can see, I did NOT make my own birthday cake...but I did receive three!  Clearly, I have eaten a LOT of cake over the past few days... 

Yummy chocolate cake from my sweet co-workers!

Ice cream cake from my hubby.  He admitted this was a little more for him than me (cookies and cream is his favorite).  But,as you can see, we have both enjoyed it!

Another cake I received at work.  Strawberry filled, yum!

Patio furniture from Chris...now we can enjoy our back deck!

And my day ended with this picture text from my sweet family in PA.  If you can't see, my cousins are holding sheets that say "Happy birthday Abbie".  I just love my family!

 

 

 

 

Alison's baby shower

Last weekend I had the pleasure of hosting a baby shower for my good friend Alison who is due with a baby boy, Gray Christopher, in June.  I had so much fun planning for this...thanks Pinterest for all the good ideas!  I think it will be best described with pictures!  Here you go:

Not a great picture but I loved the set up with the balloons above the table!  Once again, thank you Pinterest!

We had a LOT of food!

Amazing elephant sugar cookies made by Stephanie.  They were delicious!

 Baby boy's monogram and cake!

Close up of the cake...one of my favorites so far

Water bottle labels, one of my favorite "touches"

Momma to be and my wonderful co-host, Lindsey

Onesies and baby picture clothesline

Diaper cake...great job Alex!

Congratulations again Alison!  I can't wait to meet baby Gray!

Superhero cake

Last weekend I made a birthday cake for 2 little boys.  One was turning 5, the other 2.  Last year, I had the privilege of making a farm cake for them.  Remember this?  Well, this year they had a superhero themed party.  Vintage superhero, very cool.  The little boys' mom is a great photographer so she will probably have even better pictures of the cake but here it is for now.  The bottom tier was classic white cake with vanilla buttercream, the middle tier was devils food cake with vanilla buttercream, and the "bomb" on top was made out of cereal treats covered in black fondant.  Check it out!

Photo dump

So, in my last post about DC, I only posted pictures I took from my iPhone.  So, here I'm going to post a bunch of pictures from my camera.  No captions, just picture.  Enjoy!

Family trip to DC

Last Saturday I left for Washington DC.  My nephew is graduating from 8th grade this spring so we took a celebration trip.  The weather was gorgeous, it couldn't have been any better.  

When I arrived Saturday, I met up with my cousin Alison at her family's home in Georgetown.  They have lived there for 20 years so I've been there a few times before but I was super nervous about driving around DC.  But, I found it without a problem.  She and I went together to Union Station to pick up the rest of my family.  I'm thankful she drove...I never would have found it by myself!

That evening we ordered dinner from a great little restaurant called Surfside and took it up to Ali's boyfriend's rooftop deck to eat.  This was our view: 

 

On Sunday, we started our day at the International Spy Museum which was kind of overwhelming.  You could have spent an entire day there if you read every exhibit.  By 1pm we were all starving so we finished the museum really fast and grabbed lunch.  From our lunch place, we kept seeing signs for the White House so we figured we would just walk down to it.  Well, it wasn't as easy to find as we thought but eventually we ended up here:

 

Our next stop was Ford's Theatre.  This was one of my favorite things we did.  We toured the museum, theatre, and the house where Lincoln died. Here's the presidents box where Lincoln was shot:

  At this point, we were really tired of sightseeing but Emily and I still had our smiles!

We decided that we would walk back to the hotel rather than take public transportation...it didn't seem that far.  Yea right.  We were all exhausted and complaining our feet hurt by the time we arrived at the Westin.  We learned our lesson.  That night we went to my family's house for pizza (sadly I don't have a picture...but the pizza was really good.)

The next day, Monday, we went to Devon's favorite attraction- the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.  We arrived there around 10am and I don't think we left until around 2:30.  Emily and I were ready to roll out of there around 11am...but Devon liked it, so that's what matters.  Here was my favorite thing we saw there:

 

Next we met up with my Aunt Fran and went over to the Smithsonian American History Museum.  This one was far more interesting to me than the Natural History Museum but we only stayed here for about 1.5 hours.  But, we hit the highlights.  We did find that there was one exhibit all about Ipswich MA!  That was so cool to us because that's where my parents live.  Ipswich has the most historical homes of any town in America so to exhibit highlighted a few of them.

 

That night we ate at a great restaurant in Georgetown called Mai Thai.  It was delicious!

Ok, so Tuesday started our with a walking tour of the city.  We walked from my family's house, along the Potomac River, by the Kennedy Center and Watergate and ended up here:

 

This is the Lincoln Memorial if you aren't familiar with Washington DC!  Something cool happened while we were there.  The Discovery space shuttle was being delivered to the Air and Space Museum and circled overhead at 1500 feet.  Apparently it was a pretty historic moment that we witnessed!

Later that day we made our way over to the National Zoo.  This was my favorite of the animals:

 Later that evening was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  We went to Sprinkles Cupcakes, the original cupcakery.  If you watch the show Cupcake Wars, the judge Candace Nelson is the founder of Sprinkles.  I was actually surprised by how tiny the shop was.  The cupcakes were good but I'm not sure they were worth $3.50 each!  Crazy.  But, we saw gas for $5.49/gallon so I guess that's just DC for ya.

 

The next morning, after a lovely breakfast, I hit the road back to NC.  It's always so sad to leave my family after spending extended time with them but I'm already looking forward to our trip next year!