Just too excited to save it for later!

Two days ago, my hubby bought this for me and I am just so excited! Most of you are thinking, why didn't you just get a mac? Well, at first, that is what I wanted... it was going to be my graduation present if I kept my grades over a 3.0! (I graduate in Dec. 09) It was going to be a macbook air, but then Mike talked me out of it. He kept on saying, "Hilary, what do you need a mac for?, All you will use a new laptop for is internet, listening to music, doing papers for school, and pictures." Then I thought about it, and He was right, we saved over 500 dollars, and a special added touch, is that IT IS PINK!!!! I am just so excited! Plus, I don't have to wait until I graduate, I get it early! Yes, I do think mac's are super cool, but for my needs, this adorable PINK Sony laptop is perfect for me! Plus, It has these cool colored LED lights on the bottom of it that plays a light show to your music that is playing. It has a webcam too, which I am super excited about, because my laptop that I have right now doesn't have one! Because it is PINK, some of the proceeds are given to Breast Cancer Awareness foundation! I am looking forward to it coming in the mail this week, It's suppose to be here on Wednesday! Yay for my new pink laptop!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday. I kind if lost track a couple of years ago of how old he is, but that is ok, I hope that makes him feel younger! I just wanted to let everyone know about how much I love my dad, and appreciate all that he has done for me! If you don't know my dad, you are missing out. He is probably one of the funniest men you will ever meet! Here are some things that I like about my dad, Tim Singleton:

*He will break out in a song, just about anytime! I mean not just any song, it's normally an old song that he will sing in a deep voice, or it will be a praise and worship song that he thinks he knows all the words to, but he just puts his own words in there! It is pretty funny. He has sung this old song about a "horse that your grandma sent to me!" and it just makes me laugh so hard every time.

*My dad loves sports, he loves baseball, baskteball, football, and just about any other sport that there is. He was my softball coach when I was in the 6th grade, that was so interesting b/c I had never played before! My dad always came to all my swim meets over the 11 years that I swam, and he even showed up at the city meet one year with a visor hat flipped upsidedown, and he wrote on it, "Go Hilary!" That was funny.

*My dad is an awesome cook! I think he gets it from his mom!

*My dad's middle name is Levern, that is an awesome middle name, and not very common either!

*My dad definitley has an announcer voice! If you go to any Northwood Academy sporting event, he is the announcer (known as "the voice of the Chargers", he even does the cool voices when he introduces the players names! He was the announcer at most of my swim meets when I was younger too. Pretty cool, huh?

*The day when my dad walked me down the isle this past year at my wedding, he cried when he first saw me, It was so sweet! I just love him!

Those are just some great things about my dad that I love! I could go on forever, but that's all for now!

Valentines day and LOVE!

Since tomorrow is Valentines day, I decided to do a post about some things that I love!

Here we go!

• Sweet tea, Mt. Dew, Cherry Coke
  
• blonde bobby pins


• list pads!
  
• my nephew Jack


• funfetti cake with rainbow chip icing


• throwing any kinds of parties!


• Penelope from SNL


• painting


• scrapbooking


• anything with polka dots or monograms on it!


• glitter


• Seacoast Church


• blonde haired babies!


• any red heads!


• taking pictures of everything


• pizza, Olive Garden and moe's!


• Baking sweets


• Most importantly my HUSBAND and his sarcastic self, which makes me laugh!
  

Today Mike and I are celebrating Valentines day because tomorrow we are going on a ski trip with the youth group! So much for speninding time together on our first married Valentines day! It's ok though, today I made pizza for lunch and put the pepperonis on the pizza in a heart shape! Tonight we are going to Olive Garden (my absolute favorite restaurant) and using our gift card that we got for Christmas! YAY! I'm so excited. because Mike and I are on a budget we decided to get eachother some of our favorte drinks! I got him a six pack of bottled Dr. Pepper, and tomorrow morning I will be getting my favorite drink from Starbucks; which is a strawberries and cream frap with no whip cream! I am so excited, because I don't ever go to starbucks due to the hi prices! Yay for Valentines day! :)

a few of my favorites

Here are a few pictures of some of my favorite kids.

This is my nephew, Jack. If you haven't met Jack yet, you are missing out. He brings a smile to everyone's face! He is the sweetest and cutest kid ever. I hope my kids are as cute and sweet as him. I just love him so much! This is him playing in the church nursery with me a couple of weeks ago!

The other day Christina and I went to lunch at Jason's Deli. I was on the Daniel Fast, so it seemed like a great deal for me because of the amazing salad bar! After we ate, Christina told Ella and Liv that they could get an ice cream. Ella loves Jason's because they have ice cream that you can get yourself. Liv loves ice cream too, but this was the first time she held her own ice cream cone! She was so proud of herself!

These Pictures were from Ella's 4th birthday party, It was a princess Leia theme!

my life as a minister's wife

Most of you know that of course, I am married to a youth minister, which I think is the most amazing thing EVER. I never thought that I would have married a youth minister, even though I have always wanted to marry a pastor and be a pastor's wife! When Mike and I met, I knew that we would get married and he would be in ministry, even though he didn't say that when I first met him. After a while, he finally changed his major to Youth Ministry at CSU, and I just knew that I would LOVE to be a youth pastor's wife.

Now, I am in love with pastor's wives, and any wife of a ministry leader. I just think that people don't give enough credit to PW. Lately, I have been reading Holly Furtick's blog and it is so encouraging. She is one woman of God who is a great example of being a PW who really fulfills the role. Then I was realizing that just about all of my friends are wives of men in ministry. I have so many friends around me who live just about the same life as I do being at church all the time, and loving it. Sometimes, it seems to get a little tiring, but we are all there to pick each other up. One of my best friends Christina Harris, is also a wife of a middle school pastor, now I realize why we are such good friends, we relate with each other. Plus, I just think she is awesome and I look up to her so much with her role as a PW. Some other amazing pastor's wives that I know and absolutely ADORE are Sarah Chalk, Jenny Miles, Many Santos, Sarah Bolin, Sara Smith, Cyndy Morris and Selina May. I see a little bit of myself in all of them. Also, I didn't even name the PW's that are related to me that I just love: Debbie Surratt, Sherry Surratt, Dee McGarity, Jenny Surratt, Lisa Surratt, Jenna Surratt, Jenny Mayer, Jess Ray, and Bethany Singleton. Anita McCart and Allison (soon to be Rankin) are also PW or soon to be that I hang out with and love.

So, as you can imagine, I am always at church. Last year when Mike and I were first engaged, I decided to use my time wisely while being at church all the time and volunteer in the nursery. I absolutely loved it, and a few months later I was asked to come on staff as a part time nursery worker on the weekends. This meant that I would work 2 or 3 of the services out of 5 of them on the weekend, and occasionally a first wednesday. I have been doing this for about 10 months and of course, I love it. There are 6 nursery rooms at Seacoast church LPR on the "0-24 months" hallway, and you will normally find me in one of them on the weekend, loving all those kids whether they are babies, crawlers, or walkers. :)

My favorite part of being at church for every service is this:
Whichever service I am not working in the nursery (which is normally the 9:30), I am upstairs in "the attic" where the middle school service is held. I get to see my husband speak, and act crazy with all the students that come to Nitro. I love it, and I have realized lately that my most important role there is Mike's wife. I am there to support, encourage, and help him do whatever is needed. Lately he has given me the duty of doing a part of the service on stage called "Tell Me Something Good". It's pretty fun, and most imporantly I feel that I have helped Mike with his job as a middle school minister!

In two weeks, I will be going on a youth trip with my husband for the first time as the "youth pastor's wife". (What a way to spend our first Valentines Day as a married couple huh?) I am very excited because I just love hanging out with the students just as much as he does! We will be traveling to Lake Junaluska in North Carolina for Lift, the ski/snowboard/tubing winter retreat. Mike told me that we are taking over 220 people total with all the campuses. I'm looking forward to joining my husband in ministry and seeing what God has planned for this trip!

This is me and my minister husband whom I will always love!
:)

Bride Wars, Dresses, a Birthday, and Kate!

If anyone has talked to me lately, I have been excited to share with you about one of these events!!! So, I thought I would share with everyone else about what this week holds for me!

This Friday the movie Bride Wars comes to theaters! As soon as my friends and I saw the previews, we planned an offical girls night on the opening night to go and see the movie! This is just the start of the weekend's events.


Saturday is Allison's day! She is getting married this June to AJ and this saturday morning her bridesmaids that she has chosen are all having a brunch and then going to pick out our bridesmaids dresses that we will be wearing in her wedding! Allison has picked the color of the dresses, and we get to pick the cut and style of the dress that we want! I am so stoked, especially for Allison because she is getting married and It's so close!This is a picture of us this summer.


Sunday is one of my other best friend's (Christina) birthday! I am watching her beautiful girls, Ella and Olivia, for her and Kevin to go on a birthday date!This is a picture of us from her birthday a couple years ago, we went to starbucks... definitely a birthday celebration!


Finally on Tuesday..."Coffee with Kate" Kate Gosselin, from the hit tv show 'Jon and Kate plus 8' on TLC, will be speaking at my church (Seacoast on Long Point Rd) and I'm pretty sure she is doing a book signing too! They have book that just came out called "Multiple Blessings" that she will be promoting. I am just so excited to see her in person, and hopefully be able to get a picture with her! I love her show, and have watched it all 4 seasons! Her kids are so cute, I just love little Aaden with his glasses... they are all so adorable!!!


These are all the exciting things that are happening to me this week that I am so stoked about. If you would like to come to the event "Coffee with Kate" you can register for $10 at seacoast.org... sorry guys, this is a ladies only night!
Here is the link to register:
http://www.seacoast.org/Story.asp?storyid=1837

St. Louis Gateway Arch and bungee jumping in Mills Mall

These last two days have been full of adventure! Yesterday, we went inside the St. Louis Arch, and yes, it was very intense! As we stood in line for our way up, I actually realized how small these little carts are that we had to ride up. The ride up the arch was only 4 minutes, so how bad could it be?? There was seven of us going up, but only 5 could fit in one cart, so Mike and I broke away from the group, which is always kind of awkward because you have to make friends for 4 minutes while you creep up the arch in a cart that is about 5 feet wide and 5 feet tall. So we get in the cart, or "tram" as they call it, and here we go! There was us two and another couple in the cart and right before we left to go up, anarch ranger" hopped in our cart wih us. The ranger told us that he had been working there for 16 years, and he usually goes up the arch once or twice a week, to do a 2 hour shift up there. He also made us guess how many stairs there were going up the arch. The answer: 1,076 stairs to go up the arch. He was a very nice guy, making the ride up there with the strangers a bit less awkward. Then when we get up to the top of the arch which was 630 feet high, we get out of our small cart and go into the observation deck, which wasn't very big either. There were very small windows that you could look out of to see the St. Louis side, which had an amazing view of Busch staidium where the Cardinals play, and you could also see the Illinois side from the other side of the arch. One of my favorite things that you could see was the shadow of the arch from the sun shining on it! It was so much fun, you can spend as mich time up there as you want, and then just catch the next tram back down. Here are some pics from the exciting day! It was so much fun!

Today, we went to the St. Louis Mills Mall. Our little cousin Morgan, as you can see in these pictures is so adorable. She was telling us all about the bungee jumping in the mall, and the glow in the dark miniture golf. So we went, and Brittainy and I got talked into going on the bungee jump in the mall. All I knew was that I wanted to do some flips! I had never been on one of those things, and I will tell you what, THAT IS A WORKOUT!!! Especially doing some flips! Here is some pictures of us all, and of me doing flips on the bungee jump! Watch until the end, because I didn't quite make the third jump, I couldn't get my legs over fast enough!!! It was totally fun though!