I was like "WOW"

Man life has been pretty great but oh so busy.

One of my very best friends got engaged!! Miss Erica and I met in 4th grade at Sunday school. We have seen it all together, break ups with crappy boy friends, graduations, learning to drive, big moves and now WEDDINGS!!! It is so fun. I truly couldn't be more excited for her, especially since she is marrying one of my good friends. I love that they were friends first and have such a strong foundation in Christ and in their friendship. Plus his twin brother and parents are pretty great :)

I also become an aunt for the first time!!! (Well biological aunt for the first time)

Randall Lee Owens III or Trey as we call him, was born on January 10th in the early morning hours. We are all so in love. He also seems to take after his "Grumpa Rando" and name sake quite a bit.

I moved ages again at work, I am now working in the Early Childhood department (birth-31 months).
Early childhood has been lots of fun on the weekends, most of the time I am literally holding babies! I have worked in the toddler rooms as well which is so much fun, I love their little personalities and voices. They are still little enough they want to be held but can talk and tell you all kinds of interesting and funny stories. But there is nothing like rocking a four week old baby for an hour. During the week I do a TON of laundry from the rooms, fill bubble machines and clean rooms to prepare for the weekend. At times I feel like I am doing more busy work with the age (which I am) than I was with preschool. I loved working in the preschool rooms, and miss teaching now. When we started this internship I had a feeling I would enjoy preschool the most and so far that is proving to be correct, not that I don't enjoy early childhood because I do. I just prefer to teach and the ages of preschool. I love seeing how these little ones get to hear about Jesus at such a young age, its so fun to hear them repeat back the bible stories. I have to remind myself often in the midst of the chaos of the weekend services that not only are we getting the honor of planting seeds of who Jesus is we also get to serve these parents. It is so humbling to know I am such a small part of Gods plan. Brings me to my knees.

Stefan started working again at the church and is loving it. So am I, our schedules are more in sync and we actually get to spend time together. In April the college team will be taking 50 students to LA to do some work with one of the organizations Flatirons Church partners with to fight sex trafficking. Stefan is so excited to see how God moves while they are there and how He moves in the students lives. He has a pretty cool job if you ask me.

In June we will finally be taking our Honeymoon which most people know was gifted to us by our friends and family. We are more than excited to finally get some much needed R'n'R! And to get away for a few days. We are also going to be there for a good friends wedding, which will be tons of fun, we feel so honored to be able to be there for their big day.

As the internship is flying by I have to stop and remind my self to slow down and enjoy this time. And to take advantage of every opportunity I get here. This year is about learning, growing and doing. I am loving this job and learning so much but I just need to slow down sometimes and seek God in everything.

I am such a slacker....wow!

Well its been over a year since I have last updated my blog and A LOT has changed. Stefan and I are now married, I quit my job at the assisted living, worked at Starbucks over the summer, applied was accepted and started my Internship at Flatirons in the kids ministry!

In April of 2013 after a few months of working under a new administrator at the assisted living myself and three other co-workers were forced to quit...its a long story but I struggled with my decision for a long time after but now have such peace with now and have seen how it was God's plan for me to move on.

About a month before the wedding I applied for the internship and interviewed for a job at Starbucks for the summer. I landed the job at Starbucks, got married and found out I was accepted into the program all within a week of each other. It was a bit of a whirlwind for those 3 weeks but man it felt good knowing God was in control and His plan for us was slowly being reveled.

Our wedding day was just perfect! I truly couldn't have asked for better day. The weather was perfect, everything went pretty much as planned and at the end of the we were married!! I am still so thankful for all of our friends and family for supporting us and helping us make our day so wonderful. My bridesmaids threw me the most perfect bridal shower, as did my moms friends. My bridesmaids were also so support and helpful when things got crazy with the plans and when drama arose. They even all stayed with me the night before the wedding in a hotel and chatted the night away. The ceremony went off without a hitch so beautifully. As did the reception, the food was amazing, the dancing was great and our cake was perfect. Not to mention our photographer was seriously THE best. She got every shot I wanted and many more. I really can't seem to say thank you enough to everyone!

Stefan finished his internship two weeks before our wedding and started working at a distribution warehouse right before the wedding so a "real" honeymoon was out of the question. So we drove to Las Vegas for a couple of nights. I hadn't ever been as an adult so we had to do Vegas right. We went to a show, ate lots and lots and at all the cool places and stayed in a beautiful room. We made sure to spend as much time possible laying out by the pool too.

Right after our honeymoon I started support raising for the internship (as many of you know!) God's provision for us was so evident through the whole process. It was hard for me to let go of control and fully trust God which is a constant lesson in my life. I am just so thankful for all of the support I was given not only financially (Which was HUGE!!) but also through prayer.

In this internship program we not only get to spend four months in each age group ( Early childhood which is birth-2 1/2 years old, preschool just under 3-5 years old and Elementary.) But we also spend 10 hours each month in a different ministry. In October all seven interns helped out in Kids ministry because of Fall fest, in November we spent our 10 hours in missions which of course was a huge deal to me and this month we are in student ministry. I have spent the last 3 months in preschool, mainly working in the 32-36 month room. The 32-36 month room is the first of the preschool rooms, the last room they don't have to be potty trained in and the only room in preschool where they do story time a little differently than the rest of the preschool rooms. I have taught in the 5 year old room and run circle time in the 4 year old room. Circle time is the preschool rooms time for small groups, they sit on a circle with a leader with up to 12 kids. The leader will ask them questions about the lesson they just heard and play a game or do a small craft that goes along with the story. In the 32-36 month room we only do one story for 6-8 weeks, where as the other preschool rooms will do a series for 3-6 weeks and don't have circle time. All of the preschool rooms do worship before the lesson, two songs with hand motions on a DVD. I love this part of kids ministry, we allow them to play, learn about Jesus and learn what worship is. And they love it!

 I am at the point in my internship where I am given more responsibility, so as of late I have been running the room by myself. I make sure we have enough volunteer leaders in the room to open, I make sure the volunteer leaders know whats new, the rules and what is going on and pray before we open the room. I am also the go to person if something goes awry, we have lots of safety rules and regulations so often things happen that are fairly minor but staff are needed. My first weekend on was a little nerve racking  but it was a pretty uneventful weekend. Of course I don't just work on the weekends so throughout the week while in the offices I have LOTS to do. Between emailing volunteers, planning upcoming events and series, meetings, setting up stages, making sure the circle bins are ready for the weekend and making sure the coloring pages are done I am busy. In January I will switch over to Early childhood, I am very excited for it but sad to leave my preschoolers.

Through this internship I have learned so much already. I worked here at Flatirons for almost two years before this internship so I knew how it all works and the environment but I have learned so much about our kids ministry and myself. I am loving this process and internship. I really am. At times it can get a little overwhelming with all the books we need to read, projects outside of our main ministry and all that we have to learn and be able to do but I wouldn't want to be doing any other job. I am so grateful for all the support and encouragement I have been given from our friends and family and I am so excited to see what is in store for us.

Here's to another year....

Seeing as yesterday was my 24th Birthday I thought I would write about all the things I learned this past year.

Twenty three things 23 taught me.

1). Waiting on the Lord and sitting idle are two VERY different things.

2). I am indeed attached to my hair

3). being so indecisive makes decisions with lots of options hard, real hard.

4). Pinterest made me believe I could be crafty.

5). Pinterest lied. Well not completely but it definitely gave me false hopes as to how crafty I am.

6). Stress and Chaos means shingles.

7). Being stung by a bee sucks more then I remembered, but then again before this last sting it was just an allergic reaction not both a reaction and an infection.

8). Taking chances with the cute new intern can lead to much more ;) 

9). My driving has gotten worse.

10). Dying my hair red is fun!

11). Taking on too much does make everyone around me suffer.

12). FH's name is not Frank Henry but Stefan. :)

13). In order to receive you must have open hands and an open mind.

14). I am not in control, what so ever.

15). Being oblivious sometimes ends well, although my spacey tendencies hardly ever work out in my favor.

16). Letting go of my expectations is the incredibly freeing. 

17). I am an old soul

18). I put God in a box more often then I like to admit

19). The routines I start now help in the future.

20). I am worse at remembering names than I remember...

21). I get hangery more then I thought (Hanger: hungry and angry at the same time)

22). I should have taken better care of my car.

23). Gods plan is SO much better than mine! (I learn that lesson ALL  the time!)

What a year this past year has been. It has had its ups and downs, but without a doubt a stinking good year. I met my FH, I learned some really hard lessons (like every other year), celebrated lots of fun stuff and worked hard. God allowed some really beautiful things to happen with me and infront of me despite my unwillingness to let go of my selfishness, but it only brought me closer to Him. To say that God is good just doesn't begin to express how good He is. Here's to another year full of His goodness, lessons, new adventures and growth.

What a weekend.

                              Well it finally happened. I am engaged!!


 This past Sunday (November 4th) after a wonderful weekend at my teammates wedding in Mississippi Stefan picked me up from the airport, took me home to nap and woke me up to take me to the movies. Little did I know Stefan had about 100 of our friends and families and co-workers meet at the movie theaters at 3pm. We arrived right about 3:30pm to a dark and very full theater. I being very oblivious and still a little tired paid no attention to the fact that a 3:45 showing of what seemed like a mediocre movie was rather full. We sat down in the front row of the upper section, as we sat down I noticed a group of young men sitting behind us. So I looked back, instantly they looked down or away from me so I just though they were some awkward teenagers. We watched one preview and then a home movie started....a video of Stefan and my dad! The first question was what was your first impression of Mollie? I lost it, I instantly became a blubbering mess. The video went on to talk about how we become an item, our first date, when he knew I was the one and all that. Then my dad starting talking, I couldn't even try and gather myself. At the end of the video some of the lights came on and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Through the tears I muttered out "yes!"  and the crowd went wild! I turn around to see that the very full theater was full of people I knew and love. It all suddenly made sense. I thought it was a little odd that Stefan's heart was beating so hard and fast that I could feel it in his right arm and we showed up so early for a movie and it was already full. After the shock of being proposed to started to fade I looked at those awkward teenagers to realize it was a bunch of men in their late 20's whom I've met.....lots! Then finally I took a good look at the ROCK on my finger! Now obviously I am going to be biased but this ring is stunning, the center diamond was a gift from Stefan's father to his mother when they found out they were going to be adopting him, his dad died when he was three so she saved the ring for all these years for Stefan to give to his future wife. So  not only is it beautiful and large but it has this awesome story behind it! I am still so impressed that Stefan planned this so well, it was truly perfect! To have my friends and family get to witness such an awesome step in our relationship was incredible as well. Stefan is pretty impressive, guess that is why I want to marry him :)

I am just over the moon. My heart is so full of joy and love right now, I can't wait to marry this man! So let the wedding planning begin. With my life already quite hectic and with the holidays rounding the corner I am going to be even more busy planning this wedding. But I can't even try and express how excited and happy I am right now. I am going to try and enjoy every step of the way for the next seven months. God is so good.

Halloween

Its official fall is here and winter is upon us! its has snowed the last two nights here, not much snow but enough to make anyone excited for the coming months and holidays!


Tonight is the Church's big Fall Fest, we are expecting anywhere from 10,000-20,000 kids to show up tonight. CRAZY!! I will be bringing Mikhail and Khalil with me, pray for me....last year we had a few melt downs. Melt downs aside this is such an awesome FREE event we put on every year. The kids can do so much and get candy. Hundreds of cars will be lined up in the parking lot with their trunks filled with candy to hand out, there will be carnival games and rides, blow up jumpy castles and mazes, train rides, face painting and SO much more. I am so excited for so many kids to get to experience this for FREE! Plus I get to bring the boys and let them go crazy for a little while. Just another reason I love where I work.

Last night at my small group we started making our costumes and carved pumpkins, so much fun! Lately I have been having a hard time with the transition I am in with my role in ministry and well my life in general but last night was a great reminder that God has me right where I need to be. Man He is good. Us girls are making our costumes completely, a first for many of us. We are literally doing this from scratch. We went to Hobby Lobby and bought fabric last night, we got home and started cutting...we immediately felt overwhelmed...how do these crazy crafty moms do this every year for multiple kids?! They are crazy people. I already knew I didn't want to be that mom and now it has been confirmed I am to sane to do this ever again, granted this costume will probably be the cheapest I have bought but way more work then I ever wanted. ha! The reason us girls are working so hard is because at the church every year the college age ministry puts on a party and contest for a Passion trip scholarship. The last two years I have come SO close to winning, two years ago I got second place for dressing up as an old lady (a stinking good one might I add.)

 and last year my friend Brandon and I dressed up as Dog the bounty hunter and his wife (soooo good.) and once again didn't win (the first picture is the real Beth and me, the second is of Brandon and I)

. I don't even want the prize that much (although to have that paid for would be awesome) I just want to win!! The crazy competitive side of me comes out at stuff like this.  So this Sunday night three of my Friends and I will be dressed as Toddlers and Tiaras with our friend Dax as our Pageant dad. We probably wont win but it will be fun.  

So here's to a fun weekend filled with goofy costumes and good friends :) AND CANDY!!

the last three months or so...

Whoa whoa whoa it's already September? And would you look at that, the last time I blogged was in June....Oops!

What a summer it was. Full of lots of new and oh so exciting things like getting stung by a bee and not only having an allergic reaction but having it turn into an infection that would spread to my elbow and would require several trips to Urgent care and multiple antibiotics. I also had Viral Bronchitis in July, I thought I was going to die. Okay maybe that's a little dramatic, but seriously sucks in the summer. Well either one of those suck any time but summer time is the only time you can be out all day and still want to do something until the wee morning hours, so the fact that most of my summer nights consisted of meds that made me real sleepy didn't help. However this summer was amazing regardless of my health. I spend many nights meeting new people, laughing and growing.

Back in May I started a new relationship...ahh I wish I could better express my excitement for this. In June God revealed a lot to us, which was a little overwhelming for me at first but the overwhelming feeling quickly  turned into excitement and joy! God has been SO good. I couldn't have asked for someone more wonderful. We work together at the church so we have a lot of rules that were already in place and that they bent for us, but because of those rules we have to have a lot of check ins and have get permission to do things. So as of right now we are dating publicly and headed towards engagement, in other words we are courting. My family loves him, as do my friends. I often tell my friends I love easy it is to see that God has prepared us for each other, I love how he pushes me towards Christ, challenges me, pushes me to grow as a person and in my faith. Its really beautiful. Although things have moved rather fast we spent months getting to know each other as friends first...well funny story about that all. From February on he would spend Thursday and Friday mornings at the church doing some fund raising stuff for his internship, while he was here he would come and sit with me when he was done and just talk. For months we would sit and talk for hours and hours about everything and anything, all along I just thought he wanted to get to know me since he was going to be working here and in the ministry I volunteer in, turns out he was asking me certain questions to get to know my heart and see where I was in my walk. He tells the story much better than me. He would read Christian dating books before he would come in and ask me the questions they suggest asking. After a few months of this he FINALLY asked me out, once again I had no idea his intentions or what was going on. I was sooo nervous waiting for him to pick me up that night, I remember pacing back and forth anxiously praying for God to make things clear! For him that was it, actually it was a few times before that but this just solidified what he was feeling.  We waited a few weeks before we went out again, this time we went down town with some friends. That was it for me, I knew how I felt and didn't want to waste anymore time, I had to have him as my boyfriend. There is WAY too much to write today but just be ready for some exciting stuff in the future.

Just like last summer I spent almost every Saturday with two of my very most favorite little men! Mikhail and Khalil changed a ton this summer, Khalil started talking (his speech is delayed so its hard to understand but he sure is talking up a storm) Mikhail started Kindergarten so this summer was all about him being a big 5 year old. We went to the mile high flea market a few times, I bought a bed frame and refinished it, decorated Erica's room. we hung a fruit bowl and put some fabric hanging on it, redid her closet, got new couches, Alaina got a dog and had to move out, our new roommate moves in a few weeks. I went down to New Mexico for a few days to meet Stefan's family, did a ton with the church with staff and college students. Met all 18 million of Stefan's friends, (he has a really cool huge group of friends, most of them he has known since kindergarten).

I am so excited for this fall though, there is so much going on. I leave for a family trip to Disney world next week, best part is my Bestie Nicole will be joining us! She and I will be getting in some much needed girl time, and we will be in Disney world with the fam! Our college fall retreat is coming up in two weeks, just another awesome event I get to be apart of, Lindley (one of my Africa teammates) is getting married and I'm planning a trip to Mississippi to celebrate this new step in her life with her and some other teammates! My 22nd birthday is coming up ( yes I know I look SO good for 22 ;)  )  and SO much more! Fall and summer are my very most favorite times of year, Colorado is so beautiful this time of year and well there is always so much to look forward to!

I say it all the time but trusting in Gods timing is always such a struggle for me, I know He timing and plans are always so much better so why can't I just let go of my own? I really am so excited for what all He has in store for the next couple of months and like always I'm focusing on trusting Him and letting go of my expectations and plans for my life. So here's to a fall full of seeking out Gods plan for me and following Him, let the adventure begin :) 

repeat offender.

Maybe I should change the name of my blog to the lessons of Mollie oh.

This weeks lesson…letting go. Yesterday I had a few conversations with some good friends that all revolved around my need to control things. I am overwhelmed by some relationships right now because I’m not in control of them. I didn’t plan them nor do I know how they would pan out. I can be pretty go with the flow when it comes to adventures but definitely not when it comes to my personal life and relationships. I want to see them coming and plan how they will fall into place.

The thing is I can’t plan things because I am not in control, yes I can still choose how I react to certain situations but God is one placing people in my life and taking them out. It is all about His timing. Gosh I feel like I’ve said something along those lines before.  

As I sit here writing all this it hits me that this is all a part of the beautiful mystery of life. I don’t know what God has all planned for me. I don’t know how He is going to use me down the road but I get to be surprised constantly and instead of trying to make it all my way I need to let go and enjoy this ride and adventure. So today I am going to enjoy this beautiful adventure I am on with Jesus. It definitely will not be easy and I’m sure I will have to remind myself to let go and enjoy this ride.