John Tibbs

Ok guys, I have to tell you about this guy, John Tibbs. He is a worship leader at Madison Park Church of God (for the young people service) and Daniel just recorded his album. Can I just talk to you for a minute about how talented my husband is?? This record is INCREDIBLE. I mean, so good that it was on the TOP 40 CCM list on iTunes the first day it came out!!!! Daniel did almost everything on this record--tracks, vocals, tuning, mixing. The only thing he didn't do was master it. Which, I know, to most of you means nothing...but it is soooo good!

Ok, so anyway, more about John :) He is an incredible guy. He just turned 20 (I think) and recently got engaged. Him and his band travel around to summer camps and serve as the worship team--which is totally awesome :) Here is his website, go check him out and listen to his music. Oh yea, and one more thing that makes him totally awesome--he writes his own music :)

http://www.johntibbsmusic.com/

Here are a few pictures of his CD release party he had earlier this month.

I hope you guys enjoy these pictures!!  I worked really hard on these :)

Make sure you check out his website--I am totally serious, he is not only a really cool guy, he has an awesome voice!

Love,
Courtney :)

Kitchen Blessing!

So the Kitchen disaster is finally OVER!  The floors are finished and looking beautiful :)

After almost 2 months of dealing with this we finally have our kitchen back.  Plus, there was damage in the bathroom & utility room, so we got new floors in all 3 rooms!  Here are some pictures of our new floor.  We love it so far and the company that installed them did a wonderful job!

I also wanted to show off the wonderful cuhions on our kitchen chairs. My mom found this fabric and recovered them for us before we got married :)

And the Bathroom! Now, you are saying to yourself--what beautiful tile! Well, you are wrong, that is Vinyl you are looking at :)

Last but not least, the utility room--nothing exciting here, just nice new laminate floors :)

So it's all over and we have a nicer house to boot.  yay :)

I hope you all are having a great week!

P.S. Daniel and I's 1 year anniversary is next Sunday--can you believe it has already been 1 year???  WOW! :)

Love,

Courtney

Baking Adventures

When it comes to cooking,I love trying new things, and most every time I try something new it is a success. But when it comes to baking--I unfortunately don't have the same skills! I am not sure the difference between the two, but I wish I was a better baker! But seeming that we have a while until we have little Howell children running around, I have time to perfect my skills! :) Because as a mom, I want my kids to say that their mom makes the best cookies on the block :)

So, we are having dinner with some friends tonight, and I had seen this recipe online for these cute cupcakes. I thought, wow, those look yummy....but can I successfully make them without messing them up?? Answer: Yes I can! :) I will share some pictures of my wonderful berry cupcakes!

I didn't take pictures of all of the steps, but I did do a before and after shots of the ingredients. I got this idea from a friends blog I read all the time, Kara (Life Thus Far...). She is always making such wonderful looking food!

Anyway, here are the pictures of my cupcakes!






I can't wait to taste them tonight!

How about you guys, do you prefer cooking or baking? both?

Love,
Courtney

July 4th!

We had such a great time July 4th weekend with Daniel's brother & his family!! :) We haven't seen them in 6 months and the kids have grown up so much since Christmas! We were there for 3 days and that definitely was not long enough.

We arrived on Saturday morning around...2:00am or so I think. I had bought Braves tickets for Daniel & Jason, so Saturday they went out for a little "man" time while Tara and I hung out with the kids. Sunday was so much fun. We went to church then came home and made some snacks and deserts to go over to their good friends' house, Melanie & Jamie. And let me just tell you--they have to CUTEST little boys ever! I got some great shots of their youngest son who was such a ham for the camera :)

Then Monday was absolutely fun/overwhelming/awesome! Tara and I went on an adventure to IKEA. Now, neither of us have been to IKEA before so this was totally crazy for us. I thought about a friend of mine, Annie(she is an excellent blogger!) who blogged about taking a friend their for the 1st time. She talked about how she loves IKEA but it is always a good idea to take someone with you who has been there before--now I understand why she said that!!! But overall, it was a really fun trip!! I love IKEA now and wish there was one closer to us.

Now I am going to warn you, this will be a looong photo post. I took so many pictures and I can't decide on which ones to post. I am just trying to show you all the exciting things we did!

This is Elaina, Jason & Tara's daughter, she just turned 1! :)




This is Ethan (their son) who is 3 years old. Ethan loves to play outside with his dad and play in the woods behind their house.


Daniel & Ethan playing the Wii baseball game. Ethan was a really good pitcher for 3 years old! :)


Here the howell boys watching videos on YouTube--can you tell they are all from Howell blood??


Elaina & mommy blowing bubbles :)






Ethan helping daddy make homemade ice cream. And it was the best homemade ice cream I have ever had!


This is just precious--Elaina fell asleep in the car after church. I couldn't resist taking a quick picture :)




Tara & Ethan :)




Now we start in on the actual 4th of July--unfortunetly I have no idea how to take pictures at night, so no pictures of fireworks, but I got some good ones of the kids playing in the pool at Tara & Jason's friends' house! :)














Here are all 4 kids! They had so much fun that day :)


I love this picture :)


And last but not least, a photo of Daniel & Ethan watching the fireworks. This is such a sweet picture that I know Daniel will cherish. He loves Ethan (Elaina too!) with all his heart. He is such a good Uncle :)


I hope you enjoyed me rambling about how cute my neice & nephew are! :) We had such a good time, and can't wait to see them again in September. it seems too far away!

Hope you all had a good 4th! Just curious, did anyone have any interesting events happen this 4th of July? What did you guys do to celebrate? I want to hear from you!

Love,
Courtney

Come as You Are.

This morning as I was driving to work. I had an awesome time just worshiping the Lord. I heard this song by Pocket Full of Rocks called "Come As You Are" and guys--it reminded me of how caring & loving our Heavenly Father is!

You know, so many people look at the Christian life in such a negative light. Which I don't blame them, because Christians these days don't always display the most inviting lifetyle--some of us choose to act in ways that are not very Christ-Like. We aren't perfect and all Christians make bad decisions sometimes. But that is the BEAUTIFUL thing about our Lord! We AREN'T perfect, not at all, and we don't have to be as long as we serve Him! You know why? Because our God sent His Son to die, to cover those inperfections with His blood!! He washed away those sins & inperfections when He died on the cross!! Can you believe that the God who is the Creator of ALL things did that for you? for me?

See, we don't have to be perfect to belong to Christ because He is perfect for us. We just have to receive the Gift of Salvation that Jesus gives us & Jesus' blood covers our sins.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.Romans 3:23-26 (ESV)

We can come to him just as we are. Broken. Confused. Ashamed. Humiliated. He wants us to come to Him with everything we have. He is standing there with His arms open, ready for you to run to Him. He doesn't care what we have done, He just wants a relationship with us! This song is such a message to the world of how God wants to see us, how he wants us to come to Him. Just as we are! I Found this video with the lyrics on it, I hope you listen to it (See Below).

I hope that if you don't know Christ today, that you would see the love He has for you and that He wants a true relationship with you, His child.

Love,
Courtney