My Family 2010

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you want to call it, it's my family. 

 Back row: Rachel(11) and Sarah(7)...Middle row: Amanda(15), John(3), Mom, Dad, Whitney(18) and Joshua(8mo)...Front row: Me(Ashley)(17) and Beka(13).

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. 

Erma Bomdeck 

~Ashley Marie~

Easter

~Easter~

Most people think of these things when they hear the word Easter:

The Easter Bunny...

 is not a modern invention. The symbol originated with the pagan festival of Eastre. The goddess, Eastre, was worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons through her earthly symbol, the rabbit

Easter Eggs...

As with the Easter Bunny and the holiday itself, the Easter Egg predates the Christian holiday of Easter. The exchange of eggs in the springtime is a custom that was centuries old when Easter was first celebrated by Christians.

from the earliest times, the egg was a symbol of birth in most cultures. Eggs were often wrapped in gold leaf or, if you were a peasant, colored brightly by boiling them with the leaves or petals of certain flowers.

today, children hunt colored eggs and place them in Easter baskets along with the modern version of real Easter eggs -- those made of plastic or chocolate candy. 

and Candy Filled Baskets...

All of these are wonderful things, but they have nothing to do with the real meaning of Easter.  

A brief story of what Easter really means...

On what we call Good Friday, Jesus Christ was executed by crucifixion. His body was taken down from the cross, and buried in a cave.

The tomb was guarded and an enormous stone was put over the entrance, so that no-one could steal the body.

On the following Sunday, some women visited the grave and found that the stone had been moved, and that the tomb was empty.

Jesus himself was seen that day, and for days afterwards by many people. His followers realized that God had raised Jesus from the dead just as he had told His disciples in John 2:19 ( ¹⁹Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.) The temple that He is talking about, is His body. 

You can find the full account of the Easter story in:

John 19:38 - 20:21

Matthew 27:55 - 28:10
Mark 15:40 - 16:14
Luke 23:47 - 24:35

Think about it...

we should all take into consideration what Christ did for us on the cross that day when he payed the debt for our sins. But that's not when it really started. It started when an angel appeared to Mary and Joseph and then she had Jesus in a manger(barn) in Bethlehem. As a child, He got hurt and skinned his knees just like any other child. But, He was sinless, He didn't disobey his mom and dad, or get in a fight with another kid. He was/is perfect! 

As He started His ministry, He gathered 12 men to be His disciples. They dropped their work and followed Jesus. Christ's ministry lasted until that wonderful but heart wrenching day on Calvary. It breaks my heart to know that Christ died on the cross for my sins. But you know, He didn't die only for me, He also died for you.  He loves each and everyone of us so much that He died for us on the cross. All we have to do is take the FREE gift of Salvation that He offers us.  

Simple Steps to Salvation

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

*Realize that you are a sinner

Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

*Understand that you deserve death for your sins.

*Accept the free gift of eternal life that Christ is offering you. 

Romans 10:13 "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!"

*Call out on God in the name of Jesus. 

Romans 10:9,10 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him up from the dead, Thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 

 *If you know that God is knocking on the door of your heart, PLEASE invite Him in to be with you forever! 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! Please be thinking about this as we head into Easter Sunday. 

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave comments.  :)

Ashley <3

(Just so we're clear...I'm not bashing any of these things that I mentioned early on in the post, my family has always done Easter egg hunts, and gift baskets and things like that. I'm all for having a wonderful time as long as we remember the real reason Easter is a holiday.)

HE IS RISEN!!!

Long time no see!

Hey Ya'll! 

So sorry for not posting in like FOREVER!!! I've got a new website that I use for most of my photography. But I decided that I would post just random stuff here and use my site for just work. Here's a brief update of my life.  =)

<--This is part of my basketball team. From left to right starting at the top. Coach Rick, Hannah, Amanda, Chloe, Me, Kelsey, and Kailey. Not pictured are-Coach Luke, Dallas, and Jenna. The three of them had to go home the day before since we weren't playing on Saturday. Amanda and Hannah received the All-Tournament award and made it onto the All-State-All-Stars along with Chloe. 

I've been EXTREMELY busy here lately!!! Basketball season is now over. We got 4th in regionals, and 3rd in state. Our last game at state, we lost by one point against the team that won 1st in regionals. It was a very heartbreaking game for us.  

I work at an embroidery shop as the graphic arts designer, and work is starting to pick back up since Christmas season. School....OH MY!! I''ve got around 2ish months to be totally done with all my school and I've still got so much to do. This Saturday, I'm taking the SAT in Tyler and then going to a friends wedding shower that night. 

My best friend, Erika, is coming home from MS for spring break! I simply can't wait to see her! I miss her soo stinkin much....words can't even explain how much I miss her. We're going to spend pretty much all next week together...well as much as we can seeing as she has to spend time with her family too.  =)

Tonight, my family is going to be going to iHop and then to see The Tooth Fairy. I hear the movie is hysterical. It has "The Rock" in it and I absolutely love him! He's an incredible actor. I'll be praying for our waitress at that we'll have at iHop tonight. She'll need lots of patience seeing as there will be 10 of us. I hope there aren't going to be any cranky old people there that don't like noise because there is going to be plenty of it.  =P 

Well...I have to go for now. I hope everyone has an incredible day!  I'll be adding more pics later. 

Ashley

Messes....

I'm sorry my head and layout don't match right now. I'm in the midst of changing things up.
So sit tight. Don't come back for a couple of days if it distresses you that much. But, Ashley Marie Photography will be making some changes. I have a great photo shoot to blog in the next couple of days. :D
So.
Ta ta dolls.

The most adorablest 3yr. old!

  John is such a little cutie! I love him to death. He loves playing outside and with his big sisters. He finally got a baby brother about 2months ago and so he still doesn't have a little boy to play with all the time. He LOVES dancing to the music on movies or if we have the radio on or something. His new things are painting, drawing pictures for people, and drawing with sidewalk chalk on the concrete. I love my little brother soo much! I'm going to miss him so much when I leave for college next fall.

~Ashley~

              

A Little Glimpse of Daniel and Allison

Daniel Anderson and Allison Lippe

Got engaged on September 12th

Their wedding is set for December 11th

I will be posting more pictures of Daniel and Allison later this week.

Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!!

~Ashley~

Take Me Out to the Ball Game...

Take me out to the ball game
Take me out to the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks
I don't care if I ever get back
And it's root, root, root
for the home team
If they don't win, it's a shame
Cause it's one, two, three strikes
You're out
At the old ball game.

On the way to the Rangers game one of the guys in my youth group got sick and lost his lunch in the van. Bro. John stopped at a car wash so that he could clean up the seat and change clothes. After we got back on the road, we had a pretty good drive up to Arlington. Except for when some retard was almost causing wrecks when he kept stopping in the middle of the interstate! A BIG NO NO!!!! Once we got to the ball park, we had to walk like a mile and a half because Bro. John parked soo far away from the Stadium. After we went through the security gate, we headed over to a field for the MERCY ME concert! It was such an awesome concert and I saw these guys with tattoo's and piercings everywhere just praising God and singing with all the heart. After a few songs the guy said that we were going to sing Amazing Grace, oh my word that had to be the most beautifulest thing ever!! There had to be at least 2,000 people if not more singing it without any music. As we were making our way to our seats, I believe we asked 3 people that worked there where our section was. None of those poor souls new anything at all. FINALLY we found our section....the ALL YOU CAN EAT SECTION!!! It was soo amazing because we got all the food and drinks that we wanted whenever we wanted them during the game.  What was really cool is that we weren't far up from the field so I didn't have to pull out my super duper magnifying glass to see what was happening. ;-) The game was really slow but, the Rangers WON!! YAY!