Getting Together

Today's theme in the Valentine's Day Extravaganza is Romantic Screwups.

Now, I gotta say that when I first saw this theme I just couldn't think of anything & neither could Russ.  (I guess that means that we are romantically in tune...or we both have really poor memories!)  But then it occurred to me that our 'How he asked me out story' could be categorized as romantically screwed up so, as I alluded to in post on Tuesday, I am going to tell you the story of how Russ & I started dating.

We met in September 2002 and became friends.  He would often come over and hang out with me and my friends (who also happened to be my housemates.)  About a month after we met I came to the conclusion that he was wonderful and that I would love to date him.  I couldn't tell, however, if the reason he came over so much was because he liked me, because he wanted some friends, or worse (for me) because he liked my friend, K.  Logically it seemed as if I was the person he was interested in because I was the one who he talked to until well after bedtime; I was the one who he escorted to the Olde Main to listen to the Jazz Birds; I was the one he brought rootbeer from Colorado for.   But I wasn't sure because Russ was so polite, attentive & charming as a general rule...not just to me.  And some of that could be simply because I was the one who didn't want to go to bed & I was the one who wanted to go to the Main.  (Insecurity makes people miss the obvious.)  

Anywhoo....on October 29th, 2002, the phone rang while I was getting ready.  It was Russ but he was calling to talk to K.  I was all sorts of confused.  Maybe he really did like her instead.  I left for class shortly after that.  A couple hours later, as I was walking to my art class, I ran into K.  She was all sorts of smiles as she told me that Russ had called to ask her if she thought I would say yes if he asked me out.  We couldn't talk long because we didn't want to be late for class.  I had the worst time concentrating for that next class!  I was all aflutter inside.  At lunch, my grandparent's showed up and wanted to take us out so K & I didn't get a chance to talk then either and as soon as we got back I had to rush off to the bookstore for work.  When I got there, it was really slow so before digging into work I checked my email.  I had one from Russ in which he asked me out.  He asked me out in an email.

I was so excited I told my coworker and she was excited for me to.  I didn't write Russ back right away because 1) I was at work and 2) I didn't know how to accept him via email.  As soon as I got off work I went home and called him.  I was expecting him to bring up the email so I could give him my answer.  But he didn't say a word about it and I was too embarrassed to bring it up soo...nothing was said.  He came over later that night and we hung out and I waited for him to say something about the email & he waited for me to say something about the email....we waited until 2 o clock in the morning but neither one of us said anything about the email and so Russ didn't get his answer.  At that point I started second guessing which made me feel even more awkward about bring it up.  However I felt a little more free about how he felt about me so during the Halloween party a few days later I took the liberty of leaning against him & touching his arm & whatnot.  He was confused & I was embarrassed.  We called each other a lot...he came over a lot, we began to act like we were dating in a lot of ways but it was left unspoken and thus unestablished. 

FINALLY after a couple weeks of this nonsense I finally asked him (I can't remember now if it was in person or via email)  what the status of our relationship was and we worked through all the awkwardness and 'officially' became a couple. 

We still jokingly argue over who screwed up more in us trying to get together...I still say asking a girl out in email and not taking the initiative to bring it up in person later was pretty lame.  But I will concede that it was probably bad form to leave him hanging after he put himself out there like that.  

At least it all worked out in the end.  :)

Wedding Day Memories

Day Four of Mama M's Valentine's Day Extravaganza is here!  Today we are to share our favorite memory of our wedding day.

Just eleven months after meeting Russ, I was dressing in white and committing a lifetime to him.  We got married on August 16, 2003.  It was a great day.  I was sooo happy.  Some brides get really nervous; some get teary eyes; I got giggly!  I barely got any sleep the night before because of nerves & excitement.  When I couldn't sleep, I stuck in a Simpson's video and watched the "in the future" episode where Lisa was planning a wedding to 'Hugh'.  I was suppose to be at the park for pictures at noon but was running late because it took longer than expected to do my hair (mostly because I didn't end up liking how it looked and the girl spent some time trying to find a 'fix' for it.) We had pictures at the park; then at the church before the 2 o'clock ceremony.  It was a very Christ centered ceremony & I was very pleased with how it went.  After the ceremony we had a buffet meal in a building across town.  Around 6ish, Russ & I left to spend our first night together at a town an hour away.

I can't say that I have any favorite memories of that wonderful, life-changing day but there are a few things that I think of that stand out in my mind.

1)  After pictures at the park, Russ & his good friend (who was an usher at our very small wedding) spent several minutes hacky sacking at the park before we left to get photos at the church.  It was something they did a lot of together.  When I went with the two of them to Arizona in March of that year, they had insisted on hacky sacking at the Grand Canyon just so they could say they had.  Same principle applied for our wedding, I guess.  :)

2) I have especially fond memories of the music from our wedding.  My good friend, Melissa, sang the three songs I chose.  For the first song, she sang 'How Great Thou Art' and accompanied herself.  That meant a lot to me because up to that point she was very reluctant about playing the piano in public.  Her rendition of that song was very simple & simply gorgeous!  I wish I had an audio recording of it!  For the candle lighting ceremony, she sang the Keith Green song 'Make my life a prayer to you." which she had never heard before but sang beautifully!  Finally she sang, "I will be Here."  I was always so pleased that I had someone so talented & special sing all my wedding songs!

3) When we were leaving the church for the drive to the reception we had bird seed for the guests to throw at us as we left.  Big mistake!  I ended up getting a piece of bird seed thrown directly into my right ear and I couldn't get it out!  I spent my entire wedding night being annoyed by it.  We ended up pouring water in my ear the next day to get it to float out.  We should have gone with bubbles instead!

4) At one point during the reception I started wondering what happened to my new husband because Russ had disappeared.  It turned out that he had been "kidnapped" by his sister, my sister & my sister-in-law.  They took him to Walmart and put him (tux & all!) into a shopping cart and drove him around!  (Luckily they did bring him back.)

5) Once we got to the motel, we spent a half hour taking my hair out.  I think we counted 119 bobby pins!

My Engagement Story

So it is Day 3 of Mama M's Valentine's Day Extravaganza and the topic is Engagement Stories. 

As I mentioned in my post Sunday,  Russ & I met in September 2002 and started spending a lot of time together.  We started dating in November (more on that topic on Thursday!) and by the time the new year rolled around we were pretty smitten.  (As Russ quoted at the time from the movie 'So I Married and Axe Murderer' "I am smitten, I am in deep smit.")  I don't remember the exact timing on this but I figure it was probably sometime Marchish--I asked Russ if he saw this relationship going anywhere because I didn't want to waste my time if he & I weren't on the same page.  It was due to that conversation we began discussing the possibility of marriage.  Looking back now I am shocked at how quickly we got to that point (especially considering how cautious I am as a person and had been about relationships in the past) but things with Russ just clicked so naturally and felt so comfortable & right that I had none of my typical reservations.  He was surprisingly open & excited about the idea of marriage and we just sort of started working under the assumption that we would be getting married soon.

We weren't officially engaged so I was worried about what people would think when we had our picture taken together for our church's pictorial directory but we planned to use those photos as our engagement pictures and I knew that by the time the directory came out that we would be engaged so I tried to overcome my self-consciousness about it.

In April Russ & I took a trip to Rapid City to attend an Easter Passion Play that my former church was putting on at the civic center there.  While there we were going to look at rings.  It wasn't a very pleasant day--our communication was off all day and we went home empty-handed.  Easter Sunday, April 20th, 2003, we were spending the day at my parent's house.  Just before lunch, Russ asked me to come with him to the basement for a minute.  While down there he asked me to marry him and gave me his grandmother's diamond wedding ring and told me that I could wear that until we picked out a setting of our own choosing to put his grandma's diamond in.  (A couple weeks later we chose the setting online from Shane Co that became my ring.)

And that's when we became "officially" engaged and began telling all our friends!

'We Heart Kisses'

This week's theme at I Heart Faces (in honor of the much talked about upcoming V-Day) is 'We Heart Kisses'.


This photo is of my parents & sister at my parent's 30th anniversary party. Her face speaks volumes! Makes me laugh every time!

To see more fabulous entries: click here.

How We Met

In honor of Valentine's Day MamaM is doing a week long blog hop.  Today we are writing about how we met our true love. :)    Link is here to read other bloggers' 'How we met' stories.  For today's I am going to use an excerpt from a thing I wrote for our wedding scrapbook about how we met.

"September 19, 2002 was a fairly ordinary Thursday evening. I was 22, a college senior, working at the college bookstore.  I had got off work, went home, ate a bite and was quickly preparing kool-aid and cookies for the people I knew we'd be having over later that evening. I wanted to be a good hostess and at least have some snacks ready for them so that they would have something to occupy themselves while they got settled in. Seven o'clock rolled around and my roommates and I made our way over to the room in which we meet for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship every Thursday at seven. Same few people were milling around with the exception of one new guy who was chatting with R., our staff worker. I was so excited to see a new face. It had been a tough year already for IV and we were only a month into the semester. We were struggling for people and so I was thrilled to have someone new in our midst. I thought of going over and introducing myself right away but he and R. seemed to be in a good discussion and I didn't want to interrupt. (I found out later that R. had tried to call me over to introduce me but I hadn't even noticed.) So the evening proceeded as normal, after IV everyone was invited over to the Faith House (my residence) to hang out and have cookies and kool-aid. As I was the hostess and felt in charge of the night I was just bubbling over with energy.

I am not a very social person by nature but I was feeling exceptionally social and chatty that particular evening. I had just recently finished my annual college collage and so I was showing it off to everyone. I was making my rounds in conversation trying to spend a little time chatting with each person. I still hadn't met the new guy who I was pleased to see had come over after IV and hadn't just left as I often expect new people who come all by themselves to do. He was talking to ***** and so I made way over. When there was a break in the conversations I was having and he was having I walked right up and introduced myself saying something along the lines of “Hi, I haven't met you yet. I'm Gina.” I found out his name was Russ and that he was from Chadron, was not a student, and was working construction in town. What followed our introduction could never be recreated because it was a barrage of sporadically rich conversation all having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything. I just remember talking. I covered so much including Shakespeare, my opinion of the Education program, my Honors classes, God, evolution and who knows what else.

One of the more cool moments in it all (I believe for both of us) was when he asked me if I had ever heard of Kent Hovind. Of course I had, and told him that I even had several of his seminars on tape in that very room. He told me that he had recently been to one of his seminars in Rapid City and I couldn't believe it because I had been to that same event! I had been a resident of Rapid City at the time and had went to the evening portion to see Kent Hovind speak. What turned out to be so amazing about this to me later was that I remember sitting in that church in Rapid City during one of Hovind's breaks looking around at all the people (particularly the young men in the room) and thinking to myself how one of these guys could be my future husband—how someone in this room could be the man I marry. The fact that that statement turned out to be prophetic will always amaze me. Perhaps he was even one of the individuals that I noticed when I thought that! Only God knows. At any rate that night after Intervarsity I didn't know that—and that was really one of the furthest things from my mind. I was just excited about meeting someone new.

It surprised me a little when he stayed till the last of the evening when only R. and my roommates were left. The new person being the last to leave was really something that I'd never seen before. It led to more conversation through R.'s mediation. I was very much thrown for a loop when he asked me if I would ever want to play ping pong with him. I had set up the ping pong table in the garage and up to that point no one had bothered to use it. Russ had noticed it, asked about it and then offered to play with me sometime if I didn't mind his coming over. I was enthusiastic about the idea because I wanted to see the ping pong table put to good use and I thought it might be fun to play—however his asking me that made me kinda nervous. Why does this strange guy want to come over and play ping pong with me? What if he starts to like me and I can't get him to leave me alone? A lot of stuff ran through my mind as I cheerily said, “Yeah-that would be great! Do call me sometime and we'll play. I've really been wanting someone to play ping pong with me.”

I must say that my impression of him those first couple nights was not really a good representation of who he really was. But you know how impressions are—they are nothing but associations. I saw a guy with a full-on beard & mustache, who was twenty-five years old and not a student (never was a student), who worked construction (working with his hands), and had recently got back from a “high-tech” sounding job where he traveled a lot and worked out of Colorado (the place of “high-tech” jobs.) None of this is untrue but my impression of what this meant was completely off and looking back on it, completely ridiculous. But what did I know? I was a college student who had been a college student for all of my adult life and therefore knew and hung out with people who were hometown college students...... At any rate it didn't take long for these impressions to melt away as I got to really spend time with him and learn about him. He worked fast. The next evening he called me and asked if I wanted to play ping pong. I said “Okay.” So he came over.

He walked in that Friday and I didn't even give him the chance to say hello. I didn't say hi to him. The very first thing I said to him was , “Hey you're a guy! Would you do me a favor and change a light bulb?” I put him to work the second he walked in the door. I kind of thought that was rude of me when I thought about it later but that's only because I really didn't know him. If it had been another of my male friends I wouldn't have given it a second thought but it seemed like kind of a rude greeting for someone I just met. But he was a good sport and changed the light bulbs before we headed out to the garage for a match of ping pong. The nice thing about our nights of ping pong was that it gave us something to do to take away any potential awkwardness but it also allowed us the opportunity to talk and find out more about each other. One of the “ping pong conversations” that I remember most clearly was the one where I asked about his family. I remember him telling me about his parents and his grandma and his sister. The exchange about his sister is the most clear in my mind of any of it. One statement in particular stood out in my mind. He was telling me that she was married and had three children and I remember him saying something about how they “always thought that we'd be raising children together but it looks like I have some catching up to do.”

It wasn't long before Russ was no longer bound to play ping pong when he came over. One evening he came over to play and my friends and I were sitting around the table in conversation. I was nibbling on my sunflower seeds and was in no hurry to disrupt the mood of the group so when Russ arrived he just joined the conversation and ping pong was laid aside that evening. He, ***** and I ended up going to the basement to watch a Veggietales video. This sort of evening became the norm. One late night Russ took us out for pizza. Another day we'd just all sit around and laugh. Russ became one of our regular visitors. He made us dinner several times. He brought his DVD player in one night and a group of us watch Lord of the Rings. He was our friend."

 

(A photo of Russ before we started dating: Oct 2002)

Another Photo Edit

Another Before/After Photo Edit hop from Pixel Perfect!  This time I'll show off one I just completed a couple days ago.  I use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9.

Before:

After:

Reflecting on my Thirty Years

Today was my 30th birthday.

I have been breathing this terrestrial air since 6:06 am, Sunday, February 3rd, 1980 when I was evicted into the realities of life in this fallen world and began the daunting task of defining who I am and why I am here.

I was greeted first by the masked face of a Dr. Chung who announced,  "It's a girl."  I was then handed over to my loving, beaming parents, who both instantly knew that I was the the most beautiful & smart baby that ever was born.  I was a daughter.

I spent over two years as the center of their existence only to be joined by a brother who loved to ham it up. My role changed:  I was a sister.

As I got a little older, I went to Sunday school & story hour with a girl named Maria. We were practically inseperable from that time on.  We loved each other.  I was a friend.

I began to love books & my parents taught me to recognize letters & string them together.  I was a reader.

At Vacation Bible School  I realized I was a sinner in need of God's grace.  I was a Christian.

At the age of five I started school.  I went to a rural school where there were only 3 other kids in my grade.  I was a student.

I excelled in my educational pursuits.  I loved to read; I liked to write; I did well with numbers; I got good grades; my teachers like me.  I was smart.

When I was eight, I got a sister.  I fell in love with her.  This new little helpless part of my family became my own little baby doll.  I cared for her; I trained her; I loved her.  I was a protector; I was a teacher.

In fourth grade, I started getting too much homework.  I spent too much of my in-class time looking out the window and watching the visions of my mind.  I was a daydreamer.

At eleven, I got my first bra.  I had to go through all my shirts and mark the ones I couldn't wear or the 'boys' would know I had one & mock me.  When I was almost thirteen, my mom had to start buying me 'pads'.  I was a woman.

When I was fourteen, I started high school and discovered that when people talked to me, instead of answering back, I would panic, freeze up and just stand there with a stupid look on my face.  If I did say something I would spend the next several days kicking myself for sounding so idiotic and wishing I could just be 'normal' like everybody else.  I was shy.

My sophomore year, I tried out for the all-school play and fell in love with the theatre.  I had roles in 2 One-Act plays, 2 spring productions, & 1 musical. Later, I became part of the speech team.  In college I took several theatre classes and participated in 2 major college production & several small ones.  I was an actress.

In '98 I left high school behind to pursue higher educational goals.  I went to Chadron State College on scholarships & pell grants to get a degree in secondary education.  I wanted to teach the language arts.  I lived in the honors dorm.  I made new friends.  I went to classes on my own schedule.  I stayed up late.  I made my own decisions.  I was an adult.

By the time I was twenty-one, I had changed my major to the more vague choice of 'English.'  I was full-time student, working two jobs, going in debt, in an emotionally taxing relationship, etc.  So I took a break.  I got an internship, moved to a new city, lost my boyfriend & spent my 22nd birthday alone in a dark apartment watching the Superbowl wondering where my life was gonna go from here.  I was confused.

But God wasn't confused for a second.  He knew exactly what He was doing and within the next year and half--I met Russ, got engaged, graduated from college and had a new vision for my life!  I was renewed.

On August 16th, 2003,  I stood on the platform at the Chadron Berean Church and made a covenant with Russ (& my Heavenly Father) to love, honor & cherish him until death.  The smile on my face was unconstrained.  I was practically giddy!  I was a wife.

My life was now forever connected to another person's life.  My choices & his were all tied up together.  We traveled for his contracted jobs until he received a more steady position in Colorado.  Once we were settled down we knew it was time for another role to emerge as we decided to add to our family.

When I was twenty-five, my first daughter was born.  We named her 'Eden' which means 'delight' because we knew that we would always delight in her life.  I was a mother.

When I was twenty-six, we moved back to Ne and became homeowners.
When I was twenty-seven, we welcomed Jasmine into our family.
When I was twenty-nine, God gave us Acacia.

Now I'm thirty and I am looking back on all the ways I have defined myself.  Some roles have been permanent; others have only been for a season.  I reflect and I wonder.  My thirty years---have they defined me?  Will I let myself be limited by the roles I've played so far...or will I be inspired to continue to grow, change, & redefine myself for the future?

Thirty is not old. Thirty is a juncture.  Thirty is young enough to begin exploring new adventures; but it is old enough to allow stagnation to set in if a person allows it.

Thirty is a threshold for me.  It is a beginning.  I am able to see the possibilities for my life without being blinded by urgency. So much has happened in my thirty years in this world and if the Lord sees fit to give them to me...I hope to use my next thirty years enjoying the moments between birthdays--worshiping my Savior, hugging my children, thanking my husband, listening to my parents, advising my siblings, serving my Lord, volunteering my time, being generous with my resources, honing my gifts, indulging my interests, trusting my Counselor, feeling my emotions and just plain living my life. 

Psalm 119:171-175 (NKJV)

"My lips shall utter praise,
         For You teach me Your statutes.
My tongue shall speak of Your word,
         For all Your commandments are righteousness.
Let Your hand become my help,
         For I have chosen Your precepts.
I long for Your salvation, O LORD,
         And Your law is my delight.
Let my soul live, and it shall praise You;
         And let Your judgments help me."

How I became the Mom I am Today

A couple weeks ago, my blogger friend Tiffany at A Moment Cherished wrote a blog about five experiences that shaped her into the mother she is today.  Her post has caused me to ponder what the major influences in my life have been.  What things were the most pivotal in shaping how I respond to my children & the life impacting choices I have made for my family?  I've been stewing on this ever since I read Tiffany's post and it's hard to pinpoint specific experiences because so much of who we become is because of the cumulative effect of thousands of small seemingly insignificant day to day experiences.   But here I sit still wanting to nail down some specific things that have made me the mom I am today.  So, let me go boldly forth in this endeavor and shed some light on who, what, why & how I became what I am.

1)  One of the most obvious influences on my parenting is my parents & how they parented me.  My dad & mom loved me and I knew I was loved...(not every kid can say that, sadly.)  My dad hugged me a lot; my mom bragged on me a lot.  They took me to church every Sunday; they read aloud to us; we always ate dinner together as a family; birthdays and holidays were celebrated with exuberance.  My family was always really open about things that other families weren't...I always kind of had an understanding of the workings of the female body because my mom just existed openly with us...while my best friend didn't even know what pads & tampons were until sex ed in 4th or 5th grade.  My parents expected us to take our responsibilities seriously but they never forced any responsibilities on us (I don't recall ever having set chores)...most were of our own choosing (like 4-H & extra-curricular activities.) There are so many things that I learned from my parents that I do with my children.  They are so ingrained in me that I cannot separate those behaviors from my identity as a parent.

My parents did so many things right...but they did a lot of things wrong too and the things they did wrong influenced me as much as the things they did right.  I recall as a teen specifically making notes to myself about what I was NOT going to be like as a parent based on what my parents WERE like.  I laugh at that now but the truth was--it did have an enormous impact on my parenting style now.  Sometimes when I run out of patience with my girls and start making unreasonable demands...I remember my notes and I pause...I take a moment to acknowledge the new found understanding & appreciation for my mom and then I try to do things differently because I still can remember how it felt to be the kid.  When I get into a battle of wills with my 2 year old...I remember the battles of wills I had with my mother and I know that if Jasmine is anything like me...I need to change my strategy because when my mom pushed me--it only made me push back harder. (I'm speaking figuratively, of course. *smile*  I don't want you thinking we literally were pushing each other!) Because of these experiences with my mom, I know that her approach didn't work and that I need to find a better way to change my stubborn child's behavior.

2) My salvation is another HUGE factor in my role as a parent.  I grew up in the church.  From the moment I was born, I was sitting in the pews with my family.  I can't tell you the exact date of my acceptance of Jesus as my Savior.  I can't tell you how old I was for sure...BUT I can tell you that I remember it.  I hold the belief that I was around the age of 5 but I could be wrong.  It was during my church's summer VBS program.  I remember going to the alter and praying.  This is important for so many reasons.  One of the obvious reasons is that knowing Jesus changes the way you see the world and a person's worldview is THE thing that most affects how we live our life and thus raise our children.  But coming to the Lord at such a young age gave me confidence to know that a child's salvation prayer does mean something to God.  Even at the age of 4 or 5, a child can understand enough of Christ's sacrifice to make a decision for Him and God honors that.  As a mom, the confidence in this knowledge, affects my view on spiritual training.  It also gives me perspective on what it means to have a child like faith...I remember specific instances when I had such a child-like faith and it was honored by God.  Like the concert I knew I was going to be invited to and the summer I prayed that God would keep the snakes out of the yard.  (Click here for more details on that.) Now as a mom I have access to those memories and hopefully I use them to encourage & strengthen my children's faith and to recapture that faith within myself, as well.

3) Meeting Russ & his family is another biggie in so many ways.  He introduced me to a world of "thinking outside the box".  I was brought up very conventionally and was taught to think pretty conventionally.  While I have always been the "rebel thinker" in my family--it wasn't until I met Russ that I started to learn how "normal" it is for some people to be different.  Meeting Russ influenced my thinking on health and changed my views in regard to food.  Meeting Russ & his family challenged my thinking on the government & social obligations.  Meeting Russ expanded my views on education & gave me more conviction in my desire to home school.  My relationship with Russ certainly rearranged & shifted some elements of my worldview and in that way certainly has had a huge impact on the decisions we make in regard to our children.  I certainly wouldn't be the mom I am today if I had never met him and his family.

4) The books & magazines I've read and the programs I've watched have been incredibly influential on my parenting.  While I am not the kind of person who thinks I need to follow any book, philosophy or experience exactly or I'm failing, (I'm pretty go-with-the-flow in my parenting...I figured they'll be fine no matter how many mistakes I make as long as they know I love them at the end of the day.) I am all about learning from other people's experience and trying out good ideas when I can so I have soaked up a lot of information about parenting from outside sources.  I often access my internal files for a way to better handle things with my children.  I utilize ideas I've learned  from Gary Ezzo,  Kevin Lehman, the Nanny & Cookie magazine.  Sometimes they work & sometimes they don't but in combination they have shaped the way I think about parenting and (occasionally) the way I actually parent. ;)

5) The births of my children are what make me a mommy & not just another working woman.  I've always known I wanted to be a mom...when I was in college (and single) and people asked me what I planned to do with my degree if I decided to be truly honest I would tell them that I wanted to get married and be a stay-at-home mom.  I usually wasn't that honest because, unfortunately, being a homemaker isn't highly valued in our acedemian society, and I guess I was ashamed to admit it.  But when Eden was born and they put her on my chest seconds after she left my body, I wept and marveled at her warmth & weight (5 lb 14 oz!) and in that moment (when I officially became "mama") it was like getting a glimpse of the Divine. 

What could be more important than being a mom? God gave me this perfect precious little child and trusted me with leading her from this helpless squirming cone headed state into womanhood.  What an honor!  And now I am Mama to three girls who I must always remember are only mine for a time, by God's grace, and must parent them with that in mind.  I have been entrusted with His daughters and therefore I have to try my best to raise them His way and through His leading and learn to let Him have them back when I want to cling too tightly and trust that He loves them even MORE than I do and thank him for trusting me enough to let me be their mommy!

 

Photo Edit

Pixel Perfect is doing a blog hop today featuring photo edits we've done.  We show our OOC (Out of camera shot) and then the after edit shot.  Instead of showing off a recent edit...I decided that I wanted to reminisce a little with one of my very first successful photo edits. (Now I can't hardly show a photo without editing it a bit first!) 

This photo was taken in 2006 and due to the extreme blur in Russ' face, I normally would have seriously considered deleting it, but since Eden's face was so darn cute I decided to try my hand at editing to see if I could salvage it and this was the result--of which I was super proud. (I also have one like this in color...but I like the black & white one better.)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Don't you just love baby bellies?

This past weekend I got the opportunity to do my first maternity shoot with a wonderful couple who I've known for a very long time. (My first wedding job 2 1/2 years ago was theirs!) It was fun and I just wanted to share a sampling of what they went home with!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Healthy Snack

So I am attempting to eat more healthy this year...Trying to cut back on sugar & processed food and eat a lot more raw fruits & veggies.. It's been challenging because I eat ALL the time! I am a snacker....especially in the evenings. Anyway, I was so proud of myself last week when instead of chips or dessert or my typical carb-ish snack, I had a bowl of carrots wrapped in spinach. And I really liked it!

Happy Birthday, Russ!

Today is my husband's 32nd birthday. I feel so blessed to have him in my life. I am so grateful to my in-laws for raising him to be the wonderful man, husband, & father he is. I love you, Russ.  

1978

1980

1990

 

1995
 

2009

 Aren't I lucky?