Ready, Set, Go!

Not in an attempt to be like everyone else in the world who has their list of resolutions, but rather in an attempt to better myself through self-discipline, setting attainable goals, and challenging myself in areas of struggle, I have made a list for 2012. This list is not based on what others can attain, for if I did that I would be setting myself up for deep failure. This list is of things that I can do in the next 365 days of my life (Lord willing). So here we go!

1. Read three books. (For all of you twilight-ers, harry potter fanatics, and whatever the heck hunger games is... yes I set my goal at three books for the next year.)

2. Work out weekly. (To say a specific amount of time I should work out weekly would indeed set myself up for failure do to a very busy schedule... leaving the goal at weekly is best.)

3. Run my first 5K. (This should be the result of #2, I am sure the amount of time I work out will increase as the 5K nears.)

4. Start college. (I plan of starting Richland College this semester... excited? Yeah!)

5. Learn healthy recipes/cooking techniques. (Being a wife, it is part of my responsibilities to make tasty and healthy meals for our family.)

6. Read 3/5 in the Word. (For all you CFNI-er's out there you know what I am talking about. Basically, its 3 chapters a day and 5 on Sundays... you can read through the Word in a year by doing this, and it helps you build self-discipline in reading the Word, period.)

7. Clean out all stress and anxiety in my life. (This is easier said than done for someone like me, but learning how to deal with the spiritual matters of stress and anxiety, and knowing that the Lord never intended on me having that is very freeing.)

8. Do something with my "sock" idea. (This one is and will remain a secret until further notice.)

9. Visit Buckner for the first time and explore how to get involved. (For those of you who aren't familiar with Buckner, it is an adoption agency here in Dallas which is also involved in missions all over the world. Working for Buckner would be my dream job.)

10. Pray specifically. (I thought it would be a cool idea if we prayed for specific things throughout 2012 that we wanted to see come to pass, whether that means seeing salvations, relationships built, or even global concerns.)

Well that's it... that's my list. I am excited to get started in the new year, aka: tomorrow. I pray all that the Lord has for you in 2012 comes to pass and that you find all the joy and peace that is rightfully yours.

Brandi

Our Merry Little Christmas

Now that the holiday festivities have slowed down, I get the chance to post a little about our first Christmas as a married couple. We got to first spend the 23rd with my family in Fort Worth. We spent time playing with games, looking at Christmas lights, and exchanging gifts with my cousins and relatives.

My sister Brittany and me

We then spent Christmas Eve with my parents and went to our Christmas Eve service together at our church in Rowlett. Brett played piano for the service. It was nice to spend our first Christmas Eve away from our hometown with my parents there. After dinner, we said goodbye to my parents and went home (our home) to spend our first Christmas together, just the two of us. We kept up family traditions by watching "It's a Wonderful Life", made chocolate covered pretzels, and camped out in the living room watching "A Christmas Story" all night. Come 7 AM, we were wide awake ready for Christmas morning to begin. I made biscuits and gravy (and hope to make that a tradition every Christmas morning), and Brett and I exchanged our gifts with each other. AND of course we had to take our Christmas PJ picture in front of our tree. 

After exchanging gifts, we made the trip back to East Texas to see Brett's family. We were utterly blessed by everyone we encountered, and I feel so blessed to of had such a wonderful first Christmas. I hope you, too, had a blessed holiday season. Merry Christmas! 

Recent Recipes

Through Pinterest, friends, and family traditions, I have gotten to try recipe after recipe and wanted to share some of my latest recipe successes! I hope you enjoy!

Pepperoni Stromboli

1 can of Pillsbury Italian bread dough

1 package of pepperoni 

2 cups of Italian blend cheese

1 egg

1 jar Marinara sauce

**you can add extras like different meats or veggies, we used jalepinos.

1.  roll out bread dough

2. brush dough with beaten egg

3. sprinkle pepperoni

4. sprinkle cheese

5. add extras (we used jalepinos on half of it)

6. roll up dough like jelly roll 

7. Heat oven to 350 degree and bake for 25 minutes

8. Let cool, slice and serve

Buffalo Chicken Bites

Yield: 48 small bites, or 30 medium bites

3 cups shredded cooked chicken (About 1 store-bought rotisserie chicken, skin discarded)

1/4 to 1/2 cup hot sauce (or more to your taste)

3 1/2 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 3/4 cups sharp or medium shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup sliced green onions

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 eggs, lightly beaten

3 – 4 cups Corn Flakes cereal, crushed

Preheat oven to 350˚F.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.  In a large bowl, mix the chicken, cream cheese and hot sauce until combined.  Stir in the cheddar cheese and green onions. Using a small cookie or ice cream scoop, spoon out the chicken mixture and roll into about 1 1/2 inch balls.  Place on a plate or separate baking sheet (not lined) until ready to dip. In three separate bowls, set out the flour, eggs and Corn Flakes.  Dip each chicken ball first into the flour, then the egg and ending with the Corn Flakes.  Place on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.  Serve warm with ranch or blue cheese dressing. (we left out the green onions) White Chocolate Christmas Pretzels 1 bag of pretzels 1 package of white chocolate almond bark holiday sprinkles 1. melt the almond bark carefully in a mixing bowl 2. put a handful of pretzels in bowl of melted chocolate 3. tap excess chocolate off pretzel using fork 4. place on wax paper 5. sprinkle holiday sprinkles on each 6. let cool 7. share and enjoy! Being newly married, I have enjoyed trying out new recipes... my husband Brett has been a great taste tester :) I hope you enjoy some I have shared. What are some our your favorite recipes? Care to share? Email me :) Brandi

Celebrating Britty!!

Yesterday, my one and only big sis, Brittany, graduated from University of Texas at Tyler!!!! She got her bachelors on science in Interdisciplinary Studies to be an elementary school teacher. Brett and I got to go down to Tyler to attend her graduation and celebrate with the family. My sister truly is an example of great discipline and hard work and now has the degree to show for it! Congrats Britt, I am so proud of you.

Blessings not Burdens

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the attitude of the American people and the perspective we have on daily life. We encounter tons of people daily through social networking online and through our weekly schedules. I recognized how often people (myself included) comment negatively on the things we as Americans are blessed with in our lives. Subjects like: work, education, kids/family, and even church obligations show up in our vocabulary when discussing our "stresses" of life. Today as I got ready for work, I woke up with the attitude of "I HAVE to go to work today...", when actually it is very much a gift to: A. be able to work at a place where I enjoy being there, B. am given hours to help pay bills, groceries, etc., C. be given the option and choice of where I would like to work. You get the picture. So often we look at life as if we are victimized into the things we do and are frustrated with our obligations, when the Lord has answered prayers with those very things we "have" to do every day. I know after being unemployed for 7 weeks that I have been "given" my job as a gift from the Lord after continuous prayer. What have you been complaining about that you should be praising Him for? I myself have already had to repent for being so ungrateful for these blessings the enemy has disguised as burdens. 

Thailand, May 2010

Okay... So I had to post this picture from my trip to China and Thailand in May 2010. We got to minster to orphaned refugees from Burma in the mountains of Thailand. On the first day, we arrived with ice cream for the orphaned children. I was amazed how excited they were for ice cream. Some of the children actually started blowing on the ice cream before trying it because they didn't know if it was hot or cold. Wow. How blessed is our nation? 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year :)

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!

Sigh..... I just love Christmas season.... especially this Christmas. This is our first Christmas together as a married couple. I love going through all of these "firsts". Like our first home together, our first Christmas tree hunting, our first family traditions, and our first Christmas card. 

The Decor

I have been blessed to have a husband who loves this season just as much as I do. We hit up Garden Ridge like two weeks before Thanksgiving for our decor and probably had our tree up before anyone even thought about Christmas decorating. I knew this Christmas would be especially special/fun because we would get to pick out our first ornament and stockings. We had a great time teaming together to deck out our two-bedroom apartment for our first Christmas.

   

Our Old Tradition

Although this is our first Christmas together as a married couple, this is our SEVENTH Christmas together in all. From our very first Christmas in 2005, Brett and I have always had fun creating and sticking to Christmas traditions with each other. The biggest tradition that we have done every year is ice-skating. I know what you are thinking... "big deal". Well, for a 14-year-old girls it was a very big deal when my 16-year-old boyfriend took me on my first out-of-town-date to an outdoor skating rink. Over the years we have gone back to the same outdoor skating rink, eaten at the same restaurant, and enjoyed the same hot cocoa as we did on our first Christmas. Some of my favorite memories of our dating relationship happened on our ice-skating dates.

 

Possible New Traditions

This being our first Christmas as a new family, I have a few ideas for some possible new traditions that we can do together. 

1. I want to get a "special" new Christmas ornament for our tree each year and put it on the tree on Christmas morning together. Hopefully, over the years we can do this with our children one day.

2. A tradition I grew up doing with my family was watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve; I want to adopt this tradition for our new family and keep it going. 

3. The past few years I have told Brett that I have been itching to     do the "Angel Tree" to bless a child for Christmas. Well, this year we did it. Brett just happens to be in charge of the Angel Tree at the YMCA were he works. How convenient, right? I hope that we can keep this up with the Angel Tree or some other ministry every year. 

Our Christmas Date 2011 

Because of our schedules and where we live, we will not be able to go back Marshall, TX for our annual ice-skating date. This will be the first year in seven years that we haven't done it. So.... we decided to try something new! (Isn't that what marriage is all about?) Brett took me to ICE at the Gaylord Texan. We got to go in the 15 degree ice show and slide down the ice slides on inter-tubes! We had so much fun. I think we will try to do something new every year since DFW has so much to offer during this Christmas season. I think next year we want to go to some kind of Christmas production at one of the churches up here. The possibilities are endless.

Merry Christmas!

Love, the Gilpatrick Family :)

Wedding Rehearsal

Brandi+Brett Wedding rehearsal from Youngb Kim on Vimeo.

I decided to relive our wedding and my friend, Breanne's, wedding through our videos today... Our weddings were a week apart and we were each other's bride's maids. It was so fun. I miss you Bree.
Enjoy this video of our rehearsal created by Youngb Kim.

Six Months

This past Monday marked a mile stone of my marriage to Brett... we made it six months. Now coming from a couple who dated over 5 and a half years before tying the knot, six months shouldn't sound to long. The past six months have probably seemed the longest of our entire relationship due to the drastic change marriage has on a relationship. Just learning to live with another person you have known for so long was challenging. Things like sleeping styles, food preferences, and body temperatures bring challenges when you are used to just taking care of yourself. Not to mention learning to share everything. I now view the first six months of marriage as the "figure-each-other-out" stage. Yes, I have known Brett since I was fourteen, but I didn't know his breakfast preferences or that he couldn't sleep without a fan on in the bedroom. This six month stage has had its own set of challenges that no one can figure out before marriage. No matter how many books or marriage counseling courses you take during engagement, I am convinced that marriage is a learn-as-you-go process. I have fully enjoyed the ups and downs over the last six months and am so thankful to have dedicated my life to learning more about my husband and who God made him to be.

This is when we were on our honeymoon in Cancun. I miss it and hope we can go on another getaway soon.

Here are a couple of lessons I have learned about marriage within the past few months. 

1. Strange not Sinful. It is okay if you and your spouse don't agree on everything or match up perfectly... or that would make you both the same person and your marriage would be boring. Just because he or she is different than you does not make what they do sinful. Evaluate each situation by asking: Is what he/she is doing truly sinning or just different than how I would handle this situation? 

2. People who appear to have it all together: A. were not born that compatible without years of working on their marriage, B. usually go through the same struggles that you go through in marriage, C. probably think you look like you have it all together. 

3. Mentors make the difference. 

Got any godly marriage advice? Books or studies for couples? Message me :)