weekending and Hello Monday

 

Happy Monday, friends! I missed writing blog posts so much last week that I wrote one Saturday night while my hubby watched football. Check it out, if you haven't already, it's the post right below this one and a link-up I've never participated in before, called Four Somethings. Today I am linking up with Tanya from The Other Side of the Road for this Hello Monday blog post. 

Friends, I have watched ALL THE HALLMARK CHRISTMAS movies lately! I definitely have some favorites, so I thought I'd share them with you. I'll list them below.

Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater

Christmas with the Darlings

Five Star Christmas

Cranberry Christmas

The Christmas Bow

The Angel Tree

A Godwink Christmas (third movie in the series)

One Royal Holiday

Christmas in Vienna

A Timeless Christmas

In my humble opinion, these are all the best ones, so if you haven't seen them, set your DVR to record them! There are more, but these are the ones I loved the most. I've been watching one or two of these a day and for a few days when I didn't feel good, I watched movies all day long. It made being under the weather more manageable, but now that I feel better I'll probably go back to watching one a day. (I like to eat lunch while watching a movie.)

A week ago, we had our flower beds landscaped—I just never posted on the blog last week, so I thought I'd share this today. I love the variety of flowers and textures our friend picked out for us and I look forward to seeing these grow over the years to come. (The two beds in front of the house are just alike and the one on the right side of the house is lined with hydrangeas.) These are azaleas (the kind that bloom a few times a year), miniature boxwoods, hostas, pansies, some type of monkey grass and some purple-leafed plants along the back of the beds against the house. I don't know a lot about flowers and don't know the real names.

I have been loving where I've been reading lately in the Bible. I'm in 2 Corinthians in my chronological Bible reading plan and I've also been loving where I've been reading for the Scripture writing plan I write from every day. Speaking of that—

The plan for December is up, thanks to Shannon from Sweet Blessings. This is the perfect way to end out a hard year—would you care to join me in this for the month of December? I love the theme of the plan this month. My favorite thing to do at this time of year is to sit in the living room and spend quality time with Jesus by the light of the Christmas tree. 

Just call me Mrs. Christmas. I feel like I spend eleven months of the year looking forward to this last month, my favorite month, and my birth month. All month long I dress neutral so that I can wear Christmas jewelry, like the light up necklace my best friend gave to me last year and all the Christmas earrings I bought off of Amazon last year. I also tend to lean toward red lipstick for the whole season, when all the other months I wear a neutral color for lipstick. 

Our decked out home is also one of my favorite things of all, and I still love our old windows Todd hung for me a couple of weeks ago. 

Every room gets some Christmas attention. My bedroom is my favorite, though, thanks to the lights, the Santa picture my mom and stepdad made for us last year and the plaid blanket my sister Trish gave to us years ago. I'll do a holiday version of Come On In in the next few days to show you all the Christmas decorations I have this year. I love to decorate and to make things pretty, but I also consider myself to be a cozy minimalist (look it up, it's a thing), so I don't want things overdone. I want our home to feel warm and inviting for all who enter, but more than anything, I want people to feel the love of Jesus when they come into our home. That is my prayer for our home and for our family and maybe that's why I love this season so much—to me, all the twinkling lights represent Jesus, the light of the world. 

And also, people are just a lot nicer at this time of year and more at this time of year than any other, those of us who are believers have a real opportunity to minister to someone who doesn't know Jesus. 

I was bored a few nights ago and not interested in the show my husband was watching, so I made these photo collages to show off my handsome sons. They never let me take their picture anymore, so I had to hunt for these. Noah is the only one who will ever let me take his picture and offer to pose with me. 

I came across this the other day and loved it so much—it's so true. We make time or room for everything in life these days, but do we do that same thing for Jesus? It's pretty humbling, when you sit and think about this for a few minutes. 

This was me a couple of days ago, watching a movie on my laptop with these headphones while Todd watched football. Am I a smart girl, or what? I don't know why I haven't done this before now! I took this picture and sent it to my best friend.

Lately, Callie our German Shepherd has been living her best life while lounging on the Christmas pillows. She cracks me up doing this. Isn't she pretty? 

Well, that's about all I've got for this weekending post, though it wasn't just about the weekend. I feel like we're all caught up again. Be sure to come back tomorrow—I'm hosting a link-up to talk about favorite traditions and memories, and I'd love for you to join me.

Thanks for reading my blog! Love to all.