Minute to Win it

A couple of weeks ago we met up with some friends from our Sunday School class to spend the evening playing games from the new game show Minute to Win It. They actually give you the instructions for all the games if you're wondering what on earth we are doing in the pictures. It was short notice so not many other couples could come, but we had so much fun anyway. I actually was glad there weren't a lot of people there, because it's hard not to embarrass yourself playing some of the games, and I would have been more self-conscious if there were people there I didn't know very well. We all laughed so hard that night. I guess it doesn't take much to entertain us. I don't think any of us are going to be auditioning for the show anytime soon, but we all had a good time. Here are some pictures and video of our night.

Defying Gravity:

Movin' on Up:

Candy Elevator:

Face the Cookie:

Don't Blow the Joker:

Caddystack:

Johnny Applestack:

Go the Distance:

Hanky Panky:

This is what we did when we saw the huge mess of Kleenex on the floor

Ivory was so sad that the night was over:

Mega Bubble:

Egg Roll

I'm Feelin' Blue

Here are some pictures of our recently painted master bathroom. I love the color and the way it turned out. It was a mess to paint, but now that it's finished I'm so glad we did it. I told Matt today that the color is very calming. I'm hoping to do a little more decorating now that it's painted, but I'm having a hard time finding anything I like (and Matt will approve of). I'm keeping my eye out for something nice to hang on the walls by the bathtub.



We have one room left on our list to paint this year, and then hopefully we'll be done with the painting for awhile. I'm hoping we'll get the office painted sometime this summer. Painting the bathroom and the office were both on our list of goals for 2010. Thankfully, we already have the hardest one out of the way.

Remember That Time

Remember that time when we decided to go camping for the weekend with Matt and Erica.

And we met for dinner the week before and planned everything we needed to take and when we were going to leave. We were excited because it had been awhile since we had gone camping and the weather had finally warmed up enough that we could go.

And Angela kept an eye on the weather all week and there was never higher than a 50% chance of rain and most of the rain chances were 30%-40%, so we figured we would be fine, because there was no way it would rain the entire time we were there.

And we got up early Saturday morning to get everything packed and loaded and ready to go. Rhapsody was curious because she had no idea what was going on while we loaded everything, and then she got extra curious when we packed her leash and food and water bowl.

And we headed out to Greenleaf that morning looking forward to a fun outdoors weekend. And we got there and took the dogs for a long walk to wear them out a little before lunch. And we got back to the campsite and set up our tents because it was starting to sprinkle lightly.

And we still didn't think anything of it, because we just knew it would clear and be a nice afternoon.

And then it started raining harder, and Angela and Erica kept dry under the Escape while the guys hung up a makeshift tarp to keep everyone dry.

And then it kept raining while Matt was trying to grill burgers for lunch so Angela gave him an umbrella she found in the car that happened to be pink and had hearts all over it.

And we all set up our chairs under the tarp and ate lunch while the dogs sat outside in the rain. And we talked about what we were going to do the rest of the day.

And Erica checked the weather on her phone and we found out that it was supposed to continue raining all day, so we decided to pack everything up and head back home.

And Matt and Erica came over that night and we grilled hot dogs that we were planning to roast over the fire at our campsite, and then we played spades and Quiddler after dinner, and Angela wanted to turn the lights off and turn on the propane lantern so it would feel like we were still camping. And everyone in our Sunday School class was surprised when we showed up for Sunday school on Sunday because they all knew we were supposed to be camping.

And we decided to reschedule our camping trip to next weekend as long as the weather permitted.

And it continued to rain constantly until late Sunday night, and we kept saying how glad we were we didn't try and stick it out camping in the rain.

That was a memorable camping trip!

Building or Tearing Down?

I have a Titus 2 relationship with an older woman in my church. Judy has been such an incredible blessing in my life since we started meeting last August. Her encouragement and wisdom has challenged me to be a better Christian and wife. It's refreshing to have a relationship with a more mature Christian, wife, and mother with whom I can be honest, share my dreams and goals and admit my fears and failures. She prays with me, encourages me, rejoices with me and offers advice and wisdom. I can't tell you how thankful I am for our relationship.

Currently we are reading through the book A Woman after God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George. I highly recommend it! The section we have been studying recently is about the home and how the home is the wife's domain and her responsibility. In one of the chapters, the author quotes this verse in Proverbs:

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down. Proverbs 14:1

I told Judy that I didn't think I had heard that verse before. I'm sure I've read over it at some point before in my quiet time studying Proverbs, but it never stood out to me the way it has recently. I've been thinking about this verse daily as I go about my life and frequently asking myself, "Am I building my home or tearing it down?"

Am I building my home or tearing it down with:

The words I say to my husband?
The television programs that are on in my home?
My attitude as I clean my home?
The things I do for my husband?
My priorities?
My words and actions toward guests we invite in our home?
The possessions I buy for our home?
The way I spend my time in our home?
The emphasis I place on strengthening my relationship with the Lord?
My thoughts?
The effort I put in making our home a refuge and a welcoming place?

I have found myself asking that question several times a day especially before I say something to Matt. I want to be building him up and encouraging him rather than tearing him down through complaints and nagging. It has been a good reminder to me to be more intentional in my thoughts, words and actions and to remember that in everything I do I am either building up my home or tearing it down. That can be pretty convicting at times.

Workin' for the Weekend

Matt and I seem to always find ourselves counting the days until Friday. We're so thankful to both have good jobs, but no matter how great our jobs during the week are, our weekends are always better. We enjoy spending time together as a couple, doing fun things with friends, and getting projects done around the house. This past weekend I was reminded of how much I enjoy our weekends together. Here's a breakdown of what we did.

On Friday night after dinner, we headed to Lowe's to get some supplies for our weekend project which included painting our master bathroom (Pics to come when everything is back in order). After we got back from Lowe's, we spent a couple of hours taping and prepping everything for Saturday. Then we crashed. Matt is so tired on Friday nights. It's like the week catches up with him then, and he runs out of energy. Thankfully, he is always back to normal when Saturday morning rolls around.

Saturday morning, I slept in a little and then got busy. I headed out and ran a few errands, while Matt helped a man from our church with some power point stuff. After we finished those tasks, we got busy on our bathroom. Let me tell you that room was a pain to paint. There is so much cutting in that we had to do, and tiny spaces to paint around. Unfortunately, it was the one room in the house in most need of painting and we decided we couldn't put it off any longer. We finished painting by about 3:30 and then rested for a little while. That evening we invited our friends Jason and Andrea over for dinner and I made cheese fondue. Andrea said that was her first time to have fondue, and I was glad to help her experience it :). After dinner, we spontaneously decided to play putt putt. I had been mentioning to Matt for awhile that I wanted to go, but we didn't want to just go alone, because it wouldn't be as much fun, and it seems with putt putt, you need a certain size group (not too big and not too small) to get the most enjoyment out of it. Turns out 4 is the perfect group. We had such a fun night. Andrea and I kept saying how we wished we had our cameras to capture the memories. The putt putt place was crazy busy, but it didn't matter. We enjoyed visiting while we waited and all had a good time (even though Matt lost his first game ever since I have known him). I think he was a little sad. We're hoping to find some other courses to try in the Tulsa area

Sunday after church, we ate lunch and then I settled in for a nap while Matt mowed the yard. I told him as we were leaving church that I thought I would be okay without a nap and we could finish touching up the bathroom, but after lunch I got really tired, so I laid down for awhile. Sunday afternoon naps are one of my favorite things about weekends. I feel so relaxed and refreshed afterward. After my nap Rhapsody and I went for a walk/jog. The weather was gorgeous! That evening after dinner, we headed over to Jason and Andrea's to play some games. They only live about a mile away from us and it's nice to be so close. Matt and Erica brought a sno cone machine so we sat around and ate sno cones and visited. Afterward we played a few rounds of Catchphrase and then broke out Settlers. There were eight of us, so we did a tournament style and played two games. Matt and I both ended up at the winners table during the second game, so it was a good night for the Baughers :).

As we came home that night and prepared for the week ahead, I found myself already looking forward to the next weekend. This coming weekend we're going camping, and I'm really excited! It can't get here soon enough.

mmm... Meat

A couple of weeks ago, the doorbell rang and Matt answered it. A few minutes later, he came into the kitchen and told me that there was a local butcher who had some extra steaks and asked if we wanted to buy some. He seemed excited, so I said sure. I'd been wanting to grill more often so I thought having a few steaks around would be a good idea. He went out to the truck to get the steaks and I continued working in the kitchen. He had been gone for awhile when he came back into the house with the salesperson and a huge box full of meat and asked if we could buy it. I had thought he was going to buy 4 maybe 6 steaks and here he was asking me to buy $200 worth of beef. The box had like 6 different cuts of steaks and 8-1o steaks in each box. The salesperson assured us he could fit all the meat in our freezer. The smile and pleading look on Matt's face was so pitiful and I just couldn't refuse. Needless to say, our freezer is full to the max and I can't find anything in there, but boy do we have plenty of meat!
We ate our first of the steaks last week. Of course the first steak he picked was the filet mignon. He did a great job grilling. It was so tender and just melted in my mouth. So far we haven't been disappointed.

I'll let you guess whose plate was whose :)

We're planning on having lots of grilling parties this summer!

Easter 2010

For the last 3 years, Matt and I have had the tradition of hosting the Easter holiday in our home. Each year we invite our families (and this year, friends) to join us. I always look forward to this holiday being "my" holiday, not my mom's or my grandma's holiday. I get to be in charge and make new traditions and continue them each year. I know the way we celebrate will change as the years pass, but hopefully we'll always continue the tradition of hosting this specific holiday.

Here's a recap of our weekend. A few years ago, my mom bought me some great Easter cookie cutters, and if you know me well, then you know I'm always looking for a good excuse to bake and decorate cookies. I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies on Thursday night, since they are Matt's favorite, and he has a way of subtly letting me know that he doesn't appreciate all the crazy cookie recipes I try and prefers I stick to his favorite. I also wanted to bake some sugar cookies with my Easter cookie cutters. Last year, I set out to create them all on my own. That left some bad memories in my mind of a frazzled Angela frantically throwing icing on miniature cookies fretting that company might arrive before the mess was cleaned up and the floor mopped. Because I didn't feel like repeating that experience, I called in reinforcements this year. My friends Erica and Andrea came over Friday morning to help me decorate them. It's so much more fun to decorate them with friends. Plus they took some home, so we didn't have leftover cookies for weeks after Easter. The time went by so much faster, and I enjoyed getting to spend time with friends while we decorated.

Ready to get started!

The finished products

The carrots were my favorite. I didn't think they would turn out well, so I only cut out 3 of them, but Andrea and Erica did a fantastic job decorating them. I take no credit for them. Next year, I'll definitely make more carrots.

My parents arrived at our house Friday afternoon. Matt only had to work a half day on Friday, so he was home too. We visited for a little while and then broke out Settlers. How come it seems that all we do anymore with company is play that game? After one game and a half, we headed to dinner at Olive Garden. Afterward, my mom and I and Erica had tickets to Rain, the Beatles Tribute at the PAC. It was part of our season ticket package. And well, let's just say that after the show we decided not to get season tickets for next year, but just buy tickets for the shows we want to see. Maybe that will let you know what we thought of it.

Saturday morning, my mom and I both had appointments to get our hair cut. We had a fun girls' outing, and Andrea did a great job on our hair. It was fun to see her new salon too. Meanwhile Matt and Barry spent some time at Lowe's and they installed a mount for a flag pole by our garage. We can finally display our OSU flag when football season comes around. When my mom and I got back, Matt's parents had arrived. That afternoon, I had some things in the kitchen to do to get ready for Sunday. My mom helped me and we made potato salad, deviled eggs, a lemon poppy seed cake for breakfast on Sunday, and a cake that was part of our dessert for Sunday. Afterward we finished our Settler's game and then went to dinner at Los Cabos. After dinner we came back and you guessed it, played more Settlers.

Sunday morning we headed to church and it was a beautiful Easter service. It never gets old to hear about the sacrifice Jesus made for us and hearing how he conquered death so that we can live. Each night leading up to Easter, I read the Easter story out of each of the gospels, and I could read it again and again. Our Lord is so good!

We took a few pictures before we headed to church on Sunday.
Rhapsody was so funny. She was in the other room playing with Missy, but once she figured out we were taking pictures, she ran over to us and stood at our feet. It was like she was saying. "Hey don't forget about me. I want to be in the picture" So we had to take another one with her in it.

After church, we finished a few preparations for Easter lunch. Barry cooked his famous ham, that was soooo good. We also had potato salad, deviled eggs, fruit salad, baked beans, green beans and bread. It was delicious. Our friends Jason and Andrea came to join us for lunch and it was nice to have a full table to celebrate with us.

Ready to Eat!

I made a strawberry trifle for dessert.

After lunch, we introduced our families to the game, catch phrase. We had bought it a couple of weeks ago to play when we had couples over to our house for our Dinner 6 group, because we thought it was a good ice breaker game, but we ended up not playing it then. It's an intense fast-paced fun game, and I think everyone enjoyed it. Afterward, Matt's parents headed home, and my parents and Jason and Andrea and Matt and I played another game of Settlers. Then my parents left, and Jason and Andrea stayed and played another game with us. We really like that game if you can't tell, and Jason and Andrea are officially converted since they now own their very own game :). They left around 5:30. We cleaned up a little, ran an errand and then came home and took Rhapsody for a walk since the weather was so beautiful.
I had such a great Easter weekend and made some precious memories. I can't wait for next year!