In need of prayer

Today, immediately after church, I was informed that my best friend up through Jr High School was killed in a car accident. Mallori Whisenhunt Harper was thrown from her car after it flipped on hwy 174 between pell city and odenville. Her 2 young children (bailey-2yrs and harris-3yrs) were in the car with her. Bailey came away with minor cuts after escaping from her seat and crawling into a nearby yard. Harris is currently in the ICU with multiple injuries. Among his injuries are bruised and swollen eyes, a punctured lung, and shattered leg bones.
Mallori was the oldest of 4 kids. Her siblings are Blaine, Andrew, and Abby. She was living at home with them her mom, kim, and her stepdad, kevin, and her two kids. Mallori just turned 22 years old last week.
Praise the Lord that her 2 babies are ok but the whole situation is a mess. There are so many things for which I would covet your prayers.
1. Mallori was in the middle of a divorce and custody battle. For this you could pray that Mallori's mother would receive custody of the children since the children's father's job requires him to be gone weeks at a time.
2. Pray that the custody battle would not get ugly.
3. Pray for rest for the family as they grieve. Grieving is so exhausting but it is so hard to turn your mind off and actually rest.
4. Pray that the family would find strength in God and know that they can make it through this trying time. It definitely will not be of their own strength. Words cannot describe how it feels to look back on the hardest experience of your life and realize that God was and is powerful enough to bring you through it.
5. Pray for peace for the family--that they won't blame themselves for anything and that they will be able to slowly move forward without dwelling on the accident and what they could have done differently.
6. This last request is a little selfish, but pray for me. Pray that God would use me to be a comfort to this family. Also pray that God would grant me peace as this situation brings back a lot of memories from the loss of Rachael and as I mourn the loss of my friend Mallori.
Thank you for your prayers!

Family

The family is still crazy as always. Here's our christmas update:

1. Jordan is senior and is considering attending a local community college, Jefferson state, for 2 years while living at home then transferring to another school after he finishes his core classes.

2. Corey is 13 and taller than me. He is playing soccer and football at Moody Junior High and enjoying attending public school.

3. Katrina is also enjoying attending public school and is struggling to figure out who she is and what she stands for. She will turn 16 in about a week but is grounded for the rest of her high school life, so she may never drive a car until she goes to college.

4. Sarah is 11. She has a heart for children (excluding her siblings of course) and enjoys babysitting. She is taking piano lessons and her teacher recently found her a beginner's piano book of the Jonas Brother's sheet music--which she loves.

5. Annika is 9 years old and very difficult to describe. She definitely dances to the beat of her own drum--literally. The boys her age love her because she is basically one of them. When someone called her a "tomboy" she responded by saying, "I'm not a tomboy! I'm a tomgirl--half boy and half girl."
6. Mom is continuing to work on designing her children's heirloom clothing patterns. She recently had a photo shoot for some of her patterns to be displayed in next year's christmas edition of Sew Beautiful.

7. Dad is keeping busy with work and his large list of things to do at home. We recently added an addition onto the house for a new den. We started this addition before the turn in the economy and were planning on paying for it by cashing stocks. Dad is stressed over finances both with paying for this addition and thinking about all the kids going to college, thus he is thankful that jordan is considering living at home and going to a community college for a few years.

Picture Updates are a lot easier

Me and my buddy, Cathy, with Santa at the Best Buddies Christmas party at the Farmhouse frat house after my last day of class. :)
Sunday through thursday, I was at Lagniappe helping with the RUF blitz build. We built a 4 bedroom house in a matter of days despite the rain, mud, and fog. The dots on the picture above is all the moisture in the air--not rain, just fog.

Thursday I left Lagniappe and returned to Birmingham to attend a couple of wedding showers for my friend Ruth Ann. Here she is at her lingerie shower looking at her underwear mobile.

I also attended a bridesmaid's tea for another one of my friends whose wedding I am in in May but I don't have any pictures yet from that.

Time Saving Tips

I had a long, tiring day yesterday while writing a paper for finals and trying to get things done for Best Buddies and Friends For Life. I also spend a good chunk of time every day listening to messages and returning phone calls. The one thing that made my day yesterday was...are you ready for this?...discovering how to text in the shower!
I'm a genius! Granted, this probably won't save that much time but it is pretty fantastic. I wonder if I could use the same method to return phone calls while in the shower. Ok--that's kinda weird, but I could listen to messages.
All I did was slid my opened flip phone into a plastic baggie, sealed it closed, and viola! You are now ready to text or listen to messages in the shower!

Mmmm

After cleaning out my fridge to leave for Thanksgiving break, the mere contents of my fridge now consist of 2 beers, a bottle of wine, and a bag of carrots. Ahh...the college life. :)

Update in pictures

When your paperwork gets higher than your morning coffee, it is time to quit and carve a pumpkin!

Do you think we look alike?

I had to dress like the 80s for school on Thursday So I continued the theme through my other halloween festivities. Above is me with some Buddies and the Best Buddies halloween party and below I am with my roomies at our party. And yes, those are leopard print tights that I found in the regular section of Target--not the halloween section. Now that's scary!

Police on halloween

Well, it just wouldn't be halloween if something eventful didn't happen. I just finished giving my statement to Auburn Police for our lovely neighbor banging on our door at 3:30 in the morning for about 30 minutes.

At About 3:30, I woke up to someone banging on our door and decided to ignore it since all the roommates were home and I figured someone was probably just too trashed to remember where they lived. A few minutes later someone starts to pound again then walk off. By now, I am just pissed. One of my roommates is up and looks through the peep hole to check to see if anyone is out there but doesn't see anyone. And another one of my roommates is awake because her dog is barking at the little felon.

After a few more times of him pounding on our door and my bedroom wall, a roommate and I decide to call the police. It just doesn't sound like your typical lost drunk. He has been pounding on other people's doors too and he doesn't stick around at all after knocking, just moves on to the next one.

By now, 2 of my 3 roommates are sitting in the kitchen with me waiting for the police to arrive. The police arrived a few minutes before 4 am and apprehended the dude. They spend some time doing drunk tests which are kinda pointless because he is beyond wasted. Then they ask one of my roommates to identify him--she saw him out of our peep hole as he stumbled up to pound on our door the last time. Eventually, they charged him with something (attempted something or other).

The police officer said that people have been knocking on others' doors and if no one answers after a while, they assume that no one is there and kick the door in to rob the place. They think this is what he was doing but said that he had another excuse. Do you want to know what our friendly neighbor's excuse for scaring us half to death was?!... "He wanted to ask one of us out!" Hah! You are guaranteed success with that method mister. I'm shocked you're still single.

And after all of this, my roommate Ann is still out like a rock! She hasn't budged through the pounding on the door, the dog barking, police coming in to take my statement, or the 3 of us sitting in our living room talking. It must be nice to be a heavy sleeper.
Now that it is 5:30 am, I'm going to sleep--praising the Lord that we are all still alive and that tomorrow is Saturday. :)