Happy Birthday, Jay!

My wonderful brother celebrated his 27th birthday over the weekend and I wanted to let him know how very special he is to me! I am SO blessed to have grown up with two awesome brothers who have been better to me than I deserve. Jason, is the oldest of the two, and I am so proud of the man he is. He is an incredible brother, son, husband, & father and works hard at whatever he does. He has one of the most tender & giving hearts of anyone I have ever met, and although he is not as talkative or social as myself or Bradley, he has a quiet strength that we all admire so much. I love you Jay--out of all the gifts that the Lord has given me, YOU are one of the ones I treasure most. I love & appreciate you so much and I know the Lord has incredible things in store for you...keep trusting Him & putting Him 1st in your life and that alone will bring all the happiness & contentment that you deserve. Happy B-day little bro!!!

Lynchburg Visitors!

Yesterday, Mandy & I had some very special friends from Lynchburg meet us for lunch at the Olive Garden on their way through town. Theresa, Carrie, & Lyndsey....thanks so much for stopping by to see us! We had a lot of fun catching up with you girls & we hope to see you again soon!

A Very Jolly Martin Christmas!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all the people we love! Joshua & I had an awesome Christmas--we stayed busy--but thats what makes it fun. I love the hustle & bustle of the season. :) Christmas Eve was Joshua's Memaw & Pepaw's anniversary, so his entire family met for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants here in Knoxville, Connors (this is also where Joshua & I had our very 1st date!!). After lunch we finished up our last minute shopping & headed to Joshua's other grandmother's house that night for Christmas Eve dinner. We got home around 9 PM and we attempted to watch "Its a Wonderful Life". For those of you who know me, you know that I can never make it through a movie without falling asleep, so Joshua woke me up and made me go to bed because he said that Santa had some work to do while I was asleep. :)

Christmas morning was a blast! Joshua & I got up EARLY so that we could do our Christmas together and then make it over to his parents house by 9 AM to do Christmas with Sally, Pappy, Mandy, Phillip, & the triplets. Joshua really went all out and made it very special for me, which meant so much. I came downstairs to find a BEAUTIFUL jewelry armoire awaiting me--it even had a big red bow! Santa did a great job huh? :) For some reason (maybe I'm a bad liar?????!!) Joshua always finds out one way or another what he's getting--but I think I surprised him with a few items this year so I was excited about that. We finished our Christmas and headed over to my inlaw's house for breakfast & more presents with Joshua's family. I loved watching the boys faces as they were opening their gifts--kids make Christmas SO MUCH FUN! We had the afternoon to ourselves and finished the day @ Joshua's Memaw & Pepaw's house for Christmas dinner & even more presents! One of the best Christmas presents for the family this year is that there is going to be a new baby girl in May! Phillip & Mandy are pregnant again (yes, thats right!!!) and we are so excited to have a little girl join our family!!

If I would have been able to see my family, it would have been the perfect Christmas! My mom & Bradley spent their Christmas in California and were able to spend time with Uncle George, Aunt Cindy, Court, & Clay, so I was happy that they were with "family" as you could say. My dad & Pam were in Ohio with my grandparents & Jay, Michelle, & Maddie spent their holiday with Michelle's family in SanFrancisco. So, my side of the family was spread ALL OVER the country pretty much, but we have decided that next Christmas we will be together somehow, someway!!! Now its on to a NEW YEAR! I pray God's blessings for you & your family in 2008.

Tender Tennessee Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Martins!

We love you all and pray you have a wonderful holiday with your friends & family. Joshua & I will be spending our Christmas here in Knoxville, and although I will miss being with my family tremendously, I will love spending the holiday with my man & his family! I'm praying for snow!! ;)

Thanks to be to God for His unspeakable gift!!

Celebrating Christmas Pink Style!

Monday night was our Mary Kay Christmas party & we had such a great time! We ate, laughed a lot, and finished the night off with an ornament exchange. Funtimes! I've really enjoyed getting to know these girls over the last year!!

The whole gang!

Me & my friend Heather

One of the directors I meet with & also my dear friend, Amy!

A Christmas Tea!

Having a Christmas tea is a wonderful way to get you in the holiday spirit! There is the sweetest lady here at Sevier Heights that has all the ladies on staff over for a Christmas Tea every year. It's amazing all the hard work she puts into this event and we are so appreciative of her hospitality. We had a blast playing tea & exchanging presents with each other, and although having tea with your girlfriends is always a fun experience, we have learned that sometimes finger food just doesn't cut it! ha Chick-fil-A here we come!!! :)

It's Time for a Christmas Party!

Sevier Heights had the most wonderful Christmas party this week for our staff and it just reminded me of how much I love my job and the people I work with!

Me & my dear friend, Leslie...we're so goofy!

Me & Leslie in downtown Knoxville

The wonderful girls I work with!

Christmas lunch @ Calhouns on the River...yummy!

Knoxville on a BEAUTIFUL day!

Megan & John (our worship pastor) EXCITED about the pretty Christmas tree! ha

Celebrating Our First Year!

Joshua & I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary yesterday. Honestly, I can not get over how quickly this year has gone. Its amazing! But I am so thankful for my awesome husband and for the life the Lord has given us here in Knoxville. God has blessed us so much. Joshua really went out of his way to make sure that our 1st anniversary was a very special one--and it was!

I got up early and headed downstairs to find my favorite flowers waiting for me. He wanted to make sure I had them as soon as I got up, so after I went to bed, he got up and arranged these for me in a crystal vase we got for our wedding....talk about getting your day started out on the right foot! :)

We decided to skip church (I know...BAD!!) and we headed up to Gatlinburg to spend the day together. It was a perfect day to be in the mountains. Not TOO cold, but just cold enough for it to feel like Christmas. We walked around and looked at all the shops and I got really excited over all the Christmas decorations! ha Boys just don't understand.... :) Then Joshua took me to one of the BEST restaurants in Gatlinburg, The Peddler. We had an awesome dinner & really enjoyed our time together. Here are a couple of pics!

The day was too good to be true UNTIL....

We decided to stop by the Pigeon Forge outlets to do a little shopping. (That is REALLY sweet of Joshua because he would rather shoot himself than go shopping--haha). After just about 10 minutes there, we learned that our car wouldn't start....this had to be a joke right????? Nope!!! And then to top that off, it was Sunday and Sunday is the ONLY day that the outlets close @ 7 & not 9 PM. So, we called his family and spent the next hour & a half sitting in his car talking about everything under the sun waiting for our help to arrive. Maybe it was a bonding experience...not sure...but we made the most out of the situation and didn't let it ruin our day. It's a good thing Joshua's family is in the car business because Uncle Mark came to our rescue and towed us for FREE! :) Thank you Uncle Mark & Mandy!! Our 1st anniversary was certainly one we will never forget...especially the fact that we drove to Gatlinburg in a Corvette and headed home in a tow truck!

I love you baby--thanks for making our anniversary so special!!

Anne Graham Lotz

Over the last several months, I've had the awesome opportunity to serve on a planning committee for an Anne Graham Lotz event that was held here in Knoxville last week. It was an AMAZING 3 days of training and what a terrific teacher she is! I feel so blessed to have been able to serve on this team. Here are a couple of pics from the events--now we are anxiously awaiting Franklin's Festival in April 2008! Anyone want to come???? :)

Playin' a Little Catch Up!

Alot of you have mentioned that I've been MIA lately, so today, I thought I would play a little "catch up". Here's a recap on whats been going on in the life of the Martin Family over the last two & a half weeks!

My 1st Black Friday Annual Shopping Trip with the Girls!!

(And yes, we shopped ALL DAY--5 AM-7:30 PM)

Dinner with Bill, Rhonda, Emily, & Blake Poppen--some very special friends from Charlotte!
(I called this the "fat face after Thanksgiving" picture) haha

Christmas Decorations..just a few of them!!!

Our very 1st Christmas tree. We got a smaller tree this year, since our place really can't fit a HUGE one right now, but we love it!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This was a special year seeing that it was mine & Joshua's 1st Thanksgiving together as a married couple....and we had a wonderful day....however, we ate WAY too much! :) We started the day off by having Thanksgiving lunch at Joshua's Memaw & Pepaw's house. Memaw is such a great hostess and she always pays close attention to EVERY little detail and has everything decorated to the "T". I'm always amazed at how she cooks for so many people (almost 40!!!) and acts like its no big deal. I would have to plan for months! haha Anyways, the rest of our day was spent @ Joshua's other g-ma's house and a good time was had by all. We ended our night just the two of us @ home--doing our favorite thing--watching a movie together. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was great. We have so many things to be thankful for...don't we?????!!!

STARRING THE ONE & ONLY, BRAD DAMAS!!

My brother, Bradley, had his 1st really big concert @ Liberty the other night and I thought I would share a few of his songs with my blogger friends. :)

We are so proud of Brad and excited to see the platform the Lord has given him to use his talents. But more important than that, we are so proud of his sweet & humble heart and his love for the Lord. I truly believe he has an amazing future/ministry ahead of him!!

For more info on Brad's music check out his myspace page @ www.myspace.com/braddamas.

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BRAD DAMAS!

He Reaches For Us - The Intercession

I had a message in my inbox this morning on Facebook to check out Calling Levi's new video of them singing @ FB Woodstock. It was such a blessing, I thought I would post it for everyone else to see and be blessed by.

1Cr 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Go Big Orange!

I've never been a huge football fan...I mean, I like to watch it, but only when I'm able to socialize or eat at the same time. haha :) Just kidding. Anyways, I knew way before I married into Joshua's family that they are huge college football fans, and I figured one way or another, I would eventually become a fan as well.

This past Saturday, Joshua took me to my very 1st UT football game here in Knoxville and I LOVED the entire experience! We went with Benjamin & Heather and since I was the only who had never attended UT at some point, they were all so sweet to make sure that my 1st experience @ a game was a special one...and it really was. The weather was perfect, the game was a blast, & the company was the best! I'm sure there will be many more UT football games in my future. :)

Trick or Treat!

Since we don't live in a big neighborhood, we only had 2 visitors for Halloween last night--however, we were so excited they came! Heather & Benjamin (Joshau's cousin & his wife) brought their kids by our place to do some trick or treatin'. Both Olivia and Owen were pirates and they looked absolutely ADORABLE! I would have taken more pics, but my camera battery died right after this pic. Don't you hate it when that happens? Anyways, we finished off the evening @ Joshua's parents house for their family's traditional chilli dinner on Halloween night. It was alot of fun! I wanted to get a pic of the triplets in their monkey costumes, but by the time we all met up, it was getting late, they were hot, and they wanted to get those things off! Soooooo, we'll just have to wait until next year I guess. :) Hope everybody had a fun and safe Halloween!

The Most Important Man In My Life

Over the weekend we celebrated the birthday of the MOST important man in my life, my wonderful husband, Joshua! We had an incredible weekend together and it reminded me of how much I love this man God has placed in my life to be my life-long partner & best friend. I feel so lucky & blessed to have him as my husband. Here's a recap of our fun weekend!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday night we enjoyed a yummy dinner @ Joshua's favorite restaurant in downtown Knoxville, the Butcher Shop. Joshua is a "steak & potatoes" kind of man, so to him, this was the PERFECT b-day dinner. I wasn't able to get a lot of pictures of the guys because they were bonding while cooking our steaks on the grill. In the meantime, us girls, kept ourselves entertained with the triplets & my camera. :) We finished the night @ our house with dessert (since Joshua doesn't like cake, we went with cheesecake instead) and presents with the entire family. We had a wonderful night....and as you can see from the pics, the triplets enjoyed the birthday celebration just as much as Joshua!

Mammy & Mason

Mammy & Malachi

Maverick LOVES his hat!

I told Malachi to give me a mean football player face, and this is what I got! :)

Phillip & Mandy

P r e s e n t s ! ! !
Joshua opening up the Bible I got him.

Excited about his new UT watch...and totally surprised!

This putter was from Phillip & Mandy and it was his FAVORITE gift--thanks guys! He plans to go golfing this week and try it out .

Playin some putt-putt in the house....

Opening more presents.....

Maverick testing out Uncle Joshie's chair

All the madness....can you just imagine how Christmas will be???????? I love it!

Happy 27th B-day...cheesecake time!!

There's 4 of them blowing out the candles!

Time for a little wrestling with Uncle Joshie!

A special "Happy B-day" sung by the triplets.
Oh, yeah, and here is Mason sporting some left over chocolate on his tooth...yum! :)

Sunday was Joshua's actual b-day and it was a great day! After church, we enjoyed lunch @ his Memaw & Pepaw's house and then we topped off the day with some good quality time at home together. He told me it was the best b-day he's ever had, which made me so happy and made the weekend just that much better. I love you baby...Happy B-day!!

Dezerre, Michael, & Uncle Mike @ Memaw & Pepaw's house

A special "Happy B-day" encore!

Me & the B-day Boy!