LOVE

So something God has put recently on my mind latley- LOVE. This is a subject I could write for years about, but I will only be doing a few posts :)

My first thoughts- LOVE is not taken seriously today. People will say I love you, over and over to different people to the point where it doesn't mean anything anymore.

One thing I started thinking on is, hey God LOVED me enough that he gave His one and only son for me, so that I may be here writing this right now! Now you may have heard this over and over, you whole life. But when you really sit down and think about it is exdradonary. Let me ask you, How many people have given their lives for you, with you having not done ANYTHING to deserve it? That is TRUE LOVE.

But now, how can I seriously apply this to my life. I started thinking a praying about this. My first answer is to LOVE my family. Show them LOVE everyday. If once a day, I count to ten and think of the LOVE Christ gave me, instead of shouting or yelling and stomping off, I will soon have a changing life. Now I am not in anyway saying this is easy, or that I am perfect and I suceed at this all the time. No, in fact that is that reason I am working on it. But I can try, and only by the grace of God will I succeed at ONCE A DAY. Second thing, is to not judge. This is something God has been conviting me on for many years. I do judge. And it is a horrible thing. It can hurt people dearly, it can cause me to not make a friend. So God really hit me over the head this Monday night while we were at bible study. Here are 2 of the verses we read,

Gal 2:6 As for those who seemed to be important—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance—those men added nothing to my message.

And this has become one of my personal favorites: Acts 10:34-35 ⁴Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism³⁵but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.

So God does not give one stinken care about peoples race, looks or beauty. He is the one who died for these people? He knows them by name. Why under heaven should I ever sit there and Judge them? So since God hit me over the head, I have been praying that he help me show LOVE to everyone I meet. Not judge them first off, becuase hey, you never know, the person could be my new life long friend, and I will never know unless I accept them, for who they are. So my first chance trying this out is tomorrow at co-op. I am praying, and we will see.

So that is my first thoughts on LOVE. I know it's basic, but hey, it's LOVE!

It is way late and I need to go right to bed, but I thought I would post a sneak peek of a photoshoot I did of two incredibly cute little girls!

I heart faces - Ballons :)

So I had all set up to do a shoot with a neighbor, but it did not work out. So last minute, here is my entry :)

I Love how i heart faces continues to challenge me!

Head over to i heart faces to see some more fantastic entries!!

Beautiful family.

So I sent an e-mail advertizing my business over the homeschool group and I have been absolutly crazy sense! Here is a family I did this saturday. It was lightly raining when she picked me up. We did the first half of the shoot in sprinkiling rain, then it got harder and harder till there were pretty big drops coming down! (Not pouring, but raining hard.) So if you look at one of the last pictures, you will see the kids hair getting wetter and wetter :)

So this is my fav, they are just the cutest family!!

In this one their grandma is behind me making them laugh so they all have really cute faces!

I adore this one, even though I love doing poses I also love abstract-type portraits. SO alot of the time I do a mix. This one totally says to me LIFE. I mean really, look at it :)

Rebekah :)

Sorry

Hello everyone,

I am so sorry I have not been blogging in forever, I have a bunch of stuff I want to blog, but I have just been absolutly crazy, I hope to blog tomorrow, but for now please dwell on this verse:

For in Scripture it says:

"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.

1 peter 2:7

Have a blessed night!

My new favorite picture :)

I have a new aboslute favoirte picture. This is of a little boy I babysit. Every time I look at those huge blue eyes, my heart just melts. He is so adorable. I love this boy. Just thought I would share this with you guys :)

Touring DC

So this week I had my Aunt and Uncle from OR and my Grammy from AZ here. I spent almost every day downtown touring DC. On monday we saw the holocaust museum. And the family went home and my Aunt, Uncle and I went on a bus tour. The bus tour was really cool. It was a double decker bus, and we went all over. The Lincon Memorial was amazing, it is WAY bigger then it looks. It was just beautful! On Tuesday, we went back down in the morning, and toured more, we took the bus again down to the Washington monument, (which again, is just WAY taller then you could ever imagine.) Wednesday was relaxing. Thursday Grammy was added to our trio, and we toured the Arilington Cemetery. Even though it was beautiful an amazing, it was defintily not my favorite part of DC. I like touring places and learning about all the history, but after a while, I just get tired of looking at graves. (And I am a very optomistic person, so I really don't like focusing on death for to long.... 4 hours pushed my limit.) :) Thursday afternoon we went to the White house visiters center, because we had a White House tour the next morning. Friday our White House tour was at 8:30 so we had to leave at 7. The metro really was not too busy even though we were thinking it would be beaause of rush hour. The White House was just beautiful. But, they have EXTREMLY strict rules. No purses even. Only our pockets and one wallet. No cameras at all, and cell phones and ipods turned off. No lipstick. You get the point. So unfortanly I have no pictures of Friday. They were getting set up for the president to fly out on Marine One. (his Heilo) and had to prepare the south lawn. We got to see some very beautiful rooms, and were actually in the same building as President Obama at the same time :)

Here are pictures from our travels

The Changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetery.

Looking back toward the Lichon Memorial from the World War 2 memeorial.

The amazingly Beautiful World War 2 memorial.

In front of the Lichon memorial looking over the reflecting pool ( Forest Gump.) and the Washington Monument.

The Capitol.

Arlington Cemetery

The Three with a beautiful view of DC in the background (at Arlington Cemetery.)

Pink Week

This week on i heart faces is pink week in honor of Breast Cancer. So in honor of all these women Past, present and future, I present this picture, have a few notes to add first.

The strawberries represent the "fresh" start the women have once they have conquered the cancer. The bow represents the beauty the women have even if they don't feel that way all the time. The white lace is in honor of all of those women who have lost their lives to this horrible disease.

Check out other Awesome pink week pictures at iheartfaces.com!!

And may God bless and keep all of you women (and their families) who are dealing with breast cancer!

Rebekah

Goals and Strawberries.

Ok so I know the two don't seem to go together, but in my crazy life they do! Alot had been going on and I am sorry I have not been blogging much. My Aunt and Uncle arrived from OR this wednesday, and life has been crazy since! It is not slowing down anytime soon becasue my Grammy is arriving this Tue. We are trying to visit a ton of places here in DC while they are with us for two short weeks. On friday we did our first trip into DC (w/ them.) It was frezzing and raining (had not stopped yet either!) We went to the air and space museum and to the National gallery of Art. Both were intresting. My favorite thing at the air and space museum was the area on commercial planes. They had so many cool displays. Did you know that flight attendeds used to have to fit in these requirements???:

Female

5"2 to 5"6

less then 135

between 22-27

single, not widowed or divorced.

Wow!!! Anyways, flight attendents have certinly changed over the years! There were so many amazing pictures at the Gallery of Art, but we were not allowed to take any pics, so I can't share any of that with you guys (I get to keep it all to myself!) he he.

So, I am taking an amazing life skills class at my co-op here. What we have been talking about lately is managing our emotions, and it is just amazing what I have learned, so I wanted to share it all with you!

First of all, we have been learning about what causes emotions, have you ever thought about that? I mean really thought? Well luckily my teacher already thought it out for all of us :)

The main thing that causes an emotion is something happening to a goal. Any goal, at all, just a goal. Think about it, Anger is a goal being blocked,

Depression is a goal seeming out of reach. I was thinking about this, when I get mad at my brother for bugging me non-stop, what is the goal being blocked? Well peace and quiet, or a perfect little brother ;) This makes sense to me. So as now I have been praying that God will help me apply what I have learned in this class to my daily life. One way God has really helped me is to give me all sorts of wonderful thinking ideas. For example now when my mother reminds me to do something (nicley or not.) And I want to just shout at her, most of the time, I try to think "what if this was my future husband?" And if my brother comes up and asks me to show him something (that and it is a VERY convient time.) I try to think "what if this was my future child?" These are just some of the ways God has helped me control my horrible temper. Now I am sure not all of you reading this want to think about your future husband/children (and alot of you probally already have those) but I think that kind of thinking is a very good tool.

Another amazing thing I learned in my class. YOU ARE SPECIAL! Now I know we have all heard all of this, and we have probally all told it to other people. But my teacher explained it from the view of a teenager and I had never though if it like that before. She read the book "You are special" by Maz Lucado. Now most of you have probally read this, but even if you have please re-read it again after reading my blog :) My favorite part, and the the part that hit me the most: The Maker is talking to the little unwanted, unpopular doll. The doll asks him why "the sticker" (standing for men lifting and putting down of other men.) don't stick on his other friend anymore. Here is the makers reply:"Becasue she has decided that what I think of her is more important then what they think. The stickers only stick if you let them." WOW I mean WOW! If only every teenager in America could reliaze that :) So since then I have really been thinking, (especially when my mind tries to get me to get the approval of man) not to give in to this "game" the world plays with us, be different (ha ha were have we heard that before:) and stand out of Christ. His thoughts are truly, really the only ones that matter at all!

Now onto the strawberry part:) I made Strawberry bars today, I have found these in the June issue of Better Homes and Gardens (my favorite magozine.) I have made them a couple of times before but I decided to make them again. They were a huge hit, the only problem being how incredibly rich they are, and that is even with me cutting half the sugar this time! So if you try them, you might want to try tweaking with them a little, and please share w/ me your results!!! Here is a picture and the recipie, enjoy!

Fresh Strawberry Bars

Prep 25 mins, Bake: 25 mins

¾ cup butter

¾ cup peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp salt

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 ¼ cup All purpose flour

½ cup strawberry jam

4 cups small whole strawberries

1.Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 13 x 9 x 2 pan with foil extending beyond edges, set aside. Cut strawberries into quarters.

2. In large mixing bowl beat butter and peanut butter on medium to high for 30 seconds. Veat in sugars, baking powder, and salt untill combined.. Ass eggs and vanilla, beat until combined. Beat in as much flour as your can with mixer, Stir in remaining flour.

3.Spread dough in prepared pan. Bake 25 minutes or until top is lightly browned and toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

4. Cool completely on rack. Remove from pan by lifting foil. Spread jam and top with berries. Cut into bars. Sear at once or refrigerate up to 6 hours.

Makes 24 bars.

Make Ahead: wrap the peanut butter base in foil.. Store at room temperature up to 24 hours. Before serving top with jam and berries, or freeze the peanut butt base in a freezer container up to 3 months.

enjoy!

First Photo shoot of fall

I photographed this darling family on Monday. They were so sweet! The little boy reminded me of my little brother, he was a total ham :) So please enjoy!!

Excited

This is my entry for the i heart faces contest "excited" this week.

This darling bubbly boy just had so much fun running all around the park we were at! He was a pleasure to photograph!

You can check out other awesome excited photo's at www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com!