HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!

Happy International Women’s Day!!! My friend & co-worker, Jonathan just went out to pick up all the ladies in the office coffee! awwwwwe! fyi: he’s single & a moG ;)

Chances are if you are a woman and a Christian, you’ve read Proverbs 31…

Have a read and be encouraged by this amazing role model! 

10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? 
      She is more precious than rubies. 
 11 Her husband can trust her, 
      and she will greatly enrich his life. 
 12 She brings him good, not harm, 
      all the days of her life.

 13 She finds wool and flax 
      and busily spins it. 
 14 She is like a merchant’s ship, 
      bringing her food from afar. 
 15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household 
      and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.

 16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it; 
      with her earnings she plants a vineyard. 
 17 She is energetic and strong, 
      a hard worker. 
 18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable; 
      her lamp burns late into the night.

 19 Her hands are busy spinning thread, 
      her fingers twisting fiber. 
 20 She extends a helping hand to the poor 
      and opens her arms to the needy. 
 21 She has no fear of winter for her household, 
      for everyone has warm clothes.

 22 She makes her own bedspreads. 
      She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. 
 23 Her husband is well known at the city gates, 
      where he sits with the other civic leaders. 
 24 She makes belted linen garments 
      and sashes to sell to the merchants.

 25 She is clothed with strength and dignity, 
      and she laughs without fear of the future. 
 26 When she speaks, her words are wise, 
      and she gives instructions with kindness. 
 27 She carefully watches everything in her household 
      and suffers nothing from laziness.

 28 Her children stand and bless her. 
      Her husband praises her: 
 29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, 
      but you surpass them all!”

 30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; 
      but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised. 
 31 Reward her for all she has done. 
      Let her deeds publicly declare her praise.

                                                         -Proverbs 31:10-31

I hope you ladies know today that you are loved and valued and worth more than rubies! 

until next time,

s.s.♥.

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AWWWWEEE...

Saw this image a few weeks ago on pinterest and screamed out loud at the cuteness…

How adorable are those little girls!?! And the fact that they look exactly like my future daughter and Rachel’s future daughter…AMAZEBALLS…of course our daughters are going to be besties!

Look at those little cat shoes…puurrrfect!

I started following this blog a month ago. Super cute fam jam. And they pose for pics together all the time..presh!

baby hunters!!!!!

Another sweet fam jam blog.. can’t wait to be a trendy mom one day…in the far, far, far, far future….!

one more cutie patootie… seriously, my little girl will most defs rock an oversized fur vest one day!

images 1 & 4 via my pinterest

Hope you’re having a fab Saturday night. I’m currently sitting in my pjs, watching a chick flick, eating chex mix and catching up on blogs…LIFE IS GOOD.

xoxo,

s.s.♥.

ILLUMINATE 2012

My goodness.

God

is

so

good!

Seriously. I don’t even know why I ever am surprised by how good He is! God’s our Father who loves us dearly, obviously He’s going to pour out his love in crazy amounts.

For those of you who don’t know…we had a conference for girls in grades 6-12 at my church this past weekend. It’s called ILLUMINATE and this year was our third year doing it. 

A huge, huge part of my heart is to see teen girls find their identity in Christ and live out God’s purpose! My teenage years were crappy. Like a lot of people, I had no idea who I was. I had no meaning to my life. I partied because it’s what everyone else did. I gossiped. I hurt others. I hurt myself. I was a brat. I was selfish. I didn’t treat my body with respect. I felt empty on the inside. The list could go on and on and on.

I wish I had a youth leader who saw potential in me, who prayed for me, who encouraged me, who helped me discover that I had value, who told me I could make a difference, who told me there was a God in Heaven who LOVED me and had a plan for me….

I don’t blame anyone but myself for past mistakes but I’m going to do whatever it takes to prevent teens going through hurts that I had to go though. That’s why I’m so passionate about teen girls. It’s stupid hard in high school (and middle school). 

So basically Illuminate is a 2-day conference packed with three main sessions (worship & speaking), breakout sessions (covering different topics), moG panel (getting guys perspectives on different questions!) & more.

We like to go all out and really dazzle these girls. Let me tell you about the ending… Our band busts out this amazing song they wrote (folk/pop goodness) and near the end, lights drop then BOOM 60 GIANT (3-foot wide) balloons fall from the ceiling. Pure goodness. Smiles all round.

We had almost 200 girls & leaders there. And man, did God ever move in their hearts. We had an AMAZING TEAM who served so faithfully and most importantly, so prayerfully. I’m honoured to serve under amazing leaders who place such a high value on prayer. God listens and answers prayer!! God moves because of prayer! The pre-service prayer times we had were powerful, powerful times where we could feel the Spirit heavily at work. I am so thankful for the guy leaders who spent the main sessions praying for the girls. How cool is that!?! 

My favourite moment of the conference was during worship on the final session. The girls were singing Hillsong’s, The Stand. The worship team had stopped singing and the girls continued to sing. Listening to their beautiful voices surrendering their hearts to Jesus, just made my heart sparkle to the moon and back. God showed me His heart sparkling over them, I only caught the tiniest of glimpses and that was bigger than I could ever imagine. Ah, how the Father loves his daughters. What a blessing and a privilege to be a small part of what He’s doing. He is so good.

Here’s a crappy picture from my Blackberry… isn’t it oozing with loveliness!?

I’ll link to more when they’re up on our flickr…

talk to you soon!

s.s.♥.

COOKIES & CREAM CUPCAKES

These are pretty much the BEST CUPCAKES you will ever eat.

I had to seriously restrain myself from not eating the entire batch.

Let’s start from the top..

Crumbled Oreos on top of Cream Cheese Frosting… Some of you out there don’t like Cream Cheese Frosting..there is something seriously wrong with you.

Now onto the middle… 

A basic vanilla cupcake with chopped up oreos inside. Heaps and heaps of oreos.

Oh by the way, did you know it’s Oreo’s 100th anniversary? Because of the big birthday, they made CAKE BATTER OREOS. Simply, amazing. (Side note..does anyone remember those amazing neon Oreos that came out when you were a kid? They defs need to bring those back.)

So instead of putting in regular Oreos, I used chopped up CAKE BATTER one. Delish.

Now the bottom. Usually the bottom of a cupcake ain’t too exciting. But this cupcake has some serious junk in it’s trunk…at the very bottom of each cupcake is half of an oreo. Crunchy, chocolatey goodness. Oh baby. 

If you’re on a diet…I’m sorry, but you seriously have to make these.

Recipe at Annie’s Eats (she’s an incredible baker, I highly recommend checking out her blog!!)

enjoy the sunshine :)

xo,

s.s.♥.