Love will hold us together.

One month ago today.

I married my best friend.

We are so happy and in love. 

Life with him is simply the best.

I love waking up beside him every day.

. . . 

Some people say it is just the butterflies and "oh...young love" but its not.

We work at it. 

We choose to love each other everyday. 

We pray every night before we go to bed.

We ask for forgiveness from God & each other when we're wrong .

We make each other smile & laugh.

We tell each other everything.

We hold each other.

We LOVE each other.

And at the end of the day, if everything goes wrong...

We look to each other, smile and say its okay

because we have each other!

.....

It don't have a job. Don't pay your bills. Won't buy you a home in Beverly Hills. Won't fix your life in five easy steps. Ain't the law of the land or the government.

But it's all you need.

Love

will hold us together, make us a shelter to weather the storm. And I'll be my brother's keeper so the whole world will know that we're not alone!

.....

This is the quote from a song by Matt Maher! 

Have you heard of him? 

He's a Catholic Christian singer/songwriter. and I love his music.

But this particular song... is my favorite.

It's so true. 

Life is not always easy. But if God is on your side, who can be against?

Because God is Love.

That's all I got. Reflections of the day. I'm feeling pretty blessed.

Thanks for stoppin by:

xoxo Jen.

Glazed Baby Carrots

"Hey Sweet baby! What's for dinner?" my sweet husband asks as he walks through the door.

my response, "chicken, mashed taters, and carrots!"

"How much longer 'til it's ready? I'm starvin'" 

"Umm... 20 minutes?"

This is our usual pre-dinner conversation. 

Tonight, I found some carrots in the fridge and decided to make my own version of glazed baby carrots!

I knew I was making chicken and potatoes so I quickly googled glazed baby carrots and found this great recipe. Here is the source. 

& here is the recipe:

Gather your ingredients:

16 ounces of baby carrots

2 tablespoons of butter

1/3 cup of brown sugar, packed

1 cup of water

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan. Stir to blend.

Bring to boil over high heat.

Reduce heat to medium and continue boiling.

It says uncovered but I like my carrots more tender so I covered mine for about 10 mins.

Continue to boil for 20-25 minutes, carrots are tender and liquid is evaporated!

Sooo good

And serve them with your dinner! Yum!

I love carrots.

Go make these and let me know what you think!

Thanks for stoppin' by

xoxo Jen.

Linking Up:

My Junk Drawer
DIY Home Sweet Home
For Love of Cupcakes
Polish the Stars
The Southern Institute
Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Getting ready for the Wedding!

Hey Everyone! I have so many pictures from my wedding to share but I wanted to share some of pre-wedding while we were getting ready...Here goes!

my dress... 

jewelry! I felt so royal!

Getting my hair done! loveeee it down!

the shoes! oh gosh! I can't wait to wear them again even if they hurt my feet!

my bouquet!

here I am. cold and nervous. Praying everything will go just the way I planned it all! :)

Noley before the wedding. not completely ready yet.

And here we are praying. We didn't see each other until I walked down the aisle but we prayed! He's just the best! 

Gosh! I love being married to the sweetest boy! He just makes me smile so much! 

Thanks everyone for loving all of our pictures! It so sweet!

Thanks for stoppin' by:

xoxo Jen.

Pinterest is the BEST!

As you all know.. I love Pinterest! It is the best!

Here's some arts & crafts that I've been pinning lately

crayon art.. love this

source

I'm thinking of doing something like this with love or another word.. and also using buttons. great idea!

source

cute rosette necklace and how to make...

source

hangers with people's names. these are really not that difficult to make!

source

this is a bit blurry but i want to make something like this

source

i like this too. a beautiful & cheap chandelier. so cool!

source

cross made from magazine pages. i'm itching to make this when I have time!

source

toilet paper roll art. can you believe that was made from tp?

source

If you have never checked out pinterest, I highly recommend!

You can check out my pinterest boards here

so many ideas!

That's all for today!

Thanks for stoppin by

xoxo Jen.

Life is so precious

so I don't know if it is public knowledge but every year around this time, thousands of people head to Washington DC to march for LIFE. 

no media covers it.

no one talks about it.

but it HAPPENS. never fail. EVERY YEAR.

Thousands of pro-life Americans head to Washington DC to march one day on or around the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade, which allowed abortion to become legal in the United States.

at least 250,000 people attend every year. It was estimated that 400,000 people would attend this year.

Before the March for Life, two Catholic masses are offered. One at the  Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and one at the Verizon Center. I've never been the the mass at the Shrine but several years, I have been in attendance at the Verizon Center. It is packed with over 20,000 people and many who try to attend can not  come in due to the fact that the center fills it's capacity to the maximum.

I'm feeling so sentimental lately. Today was the March for Life in Washington DC and this has been the third year I have been unable to attend. I believe that life is precious and we should do everything possible to promote life in all aspects of life. ...even to the point of taking the time to appreciate the many blessings in your own life.  
I am currently in grad school for social work and long to be an advocate like Mother Teresa for those who have no one to tell them that everything is going to be okay. Our God is a God of wonders and his plans are always the best for us. 

Blessed Mother Teresa. She was a sister and devoted her whole life to the Lord, which is so inspiring. The woman loved with not just her whole heart but with her whole body, her whole being...that is the way we are all called to love. To give of ourselves until it hurts.

Mother Teresa once said, "But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."

You may think that is hash and so sorry to get all preachy on you today but this is something I am very passionate about. I just love babies. Did you know that 1 in every 3 people is missing due to abortion? Imagine how many more friends you would have... The Lord has taken those aborted children with him to heaven and they are all watching over us.. but it is so sad that they never got the chance to try life out. Life is such a gift. Let's make sure to treat it as such. I just wanted to share with you today my prayer. My prayer for today: 

Lord God, I thank you today for the gift of my life, 
And for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. 
I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, 
Yet I rejoice that you have conquered death 
by the Resurrection of Your Son. 
I am ready to do my part in ending abortion. 
Today I commit myself 
Never to be silent, 
Never to be passive, 
Never to be forgetful of the unborn. 
I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, 
And never to stop defending life 
Until all my brothers and sisters are protected, 
And our nation once again becomes 
A nation with liberty and justice 
Not just for some, but for all, 
Through Christ our Lord. Amen!

Here is from when I attended the March for Life in 2008 with the Florida State Catholic Student Union.

Where the March was covered in media:
Here is an article I was mentioned in back in 2008: Florida Catholic

Paris had it's own March for Life today... you can read about it here

John Boehner speaks at the March for life read about it here

If you are not pro-life, no worries. I don't judge. I am just passionately pro-life. Please don't be offended. I am by no means trying to push my views on anyone. I am just sharing what is on my heart today on my blog. And if you are upset/offended, you can feel free to email me here.
Praying for the Pro-life movement tonight.
Back to regular blogging on Wed,

xoxo Jen.

the Wedding

Ok so here are some more wedding pictures! Thank you for all the sweet comments! My last wedding post will be later this week and it is just getting ready for the wedding!

Here  I am with a few bridesmaids walking to the church.. so nervous about everyone looking at me. haha but excited about seeing Noland

The church where we got married. It was all decorated for Christmas with trees, wreathes, candles in the window, poinsettias... so beautiful

before the wedding.. showing off the shoes and red bouquets that i made.

my brother walking me down the aisle! 

my sweet hubs kissin' me on the forehead.

bridesmaids.. black dresses and red shoes. love it.

I made these bouquets! They were inspired by something I found on etsy. If you want a tutorial, let me know and I will hook u up.

Noley & I praying by Mary

We did it. We are married! Walking out!

me and the bridesmaids.. my besties! love them all!

and I just wanted to end this post with the cutest picture of my hubs! isn't he handsome?

Stay tuned for "wedding prep" post later this week. And I should be back on a daily basis this week. Sorry things have been crazy!

Thanks for stoppin' by,

xoxo Jen.

The Reception

Hey everyone! I've decided to share the wedding pictures! I'm going to go backwards.. so we'll start with Reception! We got married on New Years eve at 11am in Tallahassee, Florida and had our reception at the Civic Center Ball room! They catered. So here we go...Are you ready?!

this is me leaving the church... getting in the car. I don't know why but I like this picture. I look like such a diva.

Here we are.. the happy couple walking to the Civic center ballroom.. running late as most receptions go.. :)

the chef especially prepared this watermelon for our wedding. so cute.

also, all of the food prepared for No & I was served to us by our special waiter-man. hah. Everything was in hearts. This was my salad. I didn't eat much though because I was so nervous being the center of attention the whole day and No was sick from the rehearsal dinner food the night before.. oops.

the bouquet toss.

taking off the garter.. my little nephew was waiting to catch it.. isn't he just the cutest all adult like with his hands in his pocket!

No didn't know how to toss it.. haha. I just love this picture.

Here we are being silly and dancing with Rachel who caught the bouquet and Stephen who caught the garter..I was making funny dance faces...

still dancing.

my babah and I cutting the cake!

we were not messy while feeding each other. I'm a firm believer in the feeding each other being a symbol that you will take care of each other! I wish I had some cake right now ;)

this is me and all my high school girls... oh and my little nephew/ring bearer... he wanted to be in the picture.

When he first saw me he said, "Aunt Jenna looks like a princess" and he kept staring at me.. it almost made me cry cause it was so sweet..

Here he is again looking like a deer in the headlights but still so cute.

i couldn't decide which one.. the one with my victory face ^^^ or just smiles!

and here was my hubs ride all decked out thanks to the M.O.H.

Well that's the end of my favorite reception pictures that I've seen so far.. Tune in next time for the ceremony, formals, wedding details, DIY wedding projects that I used for my wedding and so much more!

Thanks for stoppin by:

xoxo Jen.

Spicy Link Ups:

Somewhat Simple

52 mantels

Seven Alive

A Glimpse Inside

Happy Hour Projects