What we've been up to.

So thankful to have a "day off" from pressing calligraphy project deadlines. I'm loving the business--and the work--but I can't say it doesn't make me feel super stretched to the limit. When I actually sit down at my drafting table and work, I really love it. But usually I wake up and in the torrent of hormones that is the state of my pregnant body, I want to pull the covers back over my head and forget about responsibility. And just that feeling makes me feel like a failure.

When we moved to Memphis, one of the extremely sweet and providential things God did for us was place us at a church where vulnerability in relationships is championed. Our pastor has a long history in counseling, and he is sincerely interested in his staff and their spouses and how they're getting on with life. Since life and I  haven't been the best of friends recently, so I went to talk with him last week. There were no "Five Steps to Happiness" given, or quick and simple answers to my hormonal vacuum, but to share my frustrations and fears with someone other than Tony (who feels what I feel and isn't completely objective (as he shouldn't be!)) was so relieving. And since that simple talk with Joe--and the big burger, large fry, and chocolate shake he made me go buy afterward to enjoy in silence--I have felt a big difference. I think the key is sharing our struggles. When I try to muscle through without God's help (because I should be able to do this by myself, dang it!) or the help of the people that care about me (because I should be able to do this by myself, dang it!), I fail. Every time.

All that to say: be honest with yourself, with God, and with others about your struggles, and I think you'll find, like I did, that you're not alone. What a beautiful truth. 

On to kid pictures!

Our big, bottle-holding baby. We've never had a bottle-fed baby before, and I must say, it is nice to occasionally plop the kid down on some pillows with a bottle and do what you need to do.

 Handsome, handsome little man:

We found out Baby Four is a boy! Name still TBD.

 I caught this look of Judah's after nap one day, and it is just the perfect representation of what that time of day is like:

 We played outside. One day. Several weeks ago.

 This girl is an artist, hands down. It is innate in her little person, and I love it. Today we went to Target and Judah picked a foam sword. Elizabeth picked a pack of mini gel pens. So her.

 An example of what she draws: a keep-out sign for her bedroom door. Hmmm....

 She also likes to put Judah in drag. I laugh, Tony gets irritated.

 We found out my sister's baby is a GIRL! Hooray for pink things and little girl clothes!

Last Saturday we braved Chuck E. Cheese for the first time ever. It was surprisingly not the Apocalypse! Also, while we were there, two ladies from my church (including my pastor's wife) were at our house cleaning. How blissfully wonderful. That might have contributed to my extremely relaxed approach to the Chuck E. Cheese madness.

 And this is what we call all played out. 

That's what we've been up to! Off to read up on how to make fondant for Judah's Buzz Lightyear birthday cake. He turns three on Friday! Maybe if I keep this up there might be a post about it. Here's hoping!

The BE MINE Project.

Hello there! I have pictures today! And a new, streamlined blog-look. I needed to simplify.

My friend Charlotte, whom you may remember from a recent post, orchestrated a Valentine's Day crafty project she called "BE MINE." The idea was to get a name and address from Char, make a Valentine, and send it to them. There were no rules or restrictions or guidelines or suggestions as to what the Valentine could be, which kind of stressed me out at first, then forced me to get creative. I lay in bed the night before I made it with my mind whirling with ideas, most of which centered around breaking out the sewing machine I didn't know how to use. Thankfully, my mother-in-law was already planning to come over that next morning so I figured she could show me how to thread a dang bobbin. And she did! This is what evolved after that:

A little set of four notecards with the initials of my "Valentine" in gold, with some gold embellished corners and a gold swirl on the back of the envelope. Also a tiny pink zig-zag of thread to make it special. I left my sewing machine out for a good week thinking that now that I knew how to do some basic stuff, I would tackle all the sewing projects I had in my infinite list of Things I Want to Do Eventually.

The machine definitely sat there and collected dust for days and days.

Anyway, just wanted to share since I amazingly already uploaded the pics from my camera. Kid pics coming next, I promise.

P.S. How fun are wire words? Learned that neat trick from Emily.

Some updating.

Hello there, sweet friends who actually still read this. We are--all six of us--still alive over here. Blogging has taken an extreme backseat to living, which seems completely to fill up my time on its own (imagine that!). Things are very slowly settling down though. Here are updates on us:

• We moved into our very first home the day before Christmas Eve. It was a crazy, crazy time, as I'm sure you can imagine. The kids' first night here was Christmas Eve. It will most certainly be a holiday we will never forget! God is so good to me, even in the little things. He knows how I work. If I get too excited too early, it wears off and then I'm left with blah. I kept wondering why I wasn't jumping out of my seat every time I thought about moving into our house. I just was not that excited. Ready, but not excited. Overwhelmed, but not excited. Looking forward to what I hoped it would mean for our family, but not excited. You get the picture. But since we've moved in, I've seen the kindness of the Lord at work in this small thing in my heart. Because instead of being prematurely ecstatic, I have slowly and sweetly been realizing specific things I love about our house. I know that my coming about it this way will make my thankfulness grow permanent in my heart. I am so grateful to the Lord for working in me this way about something that is so near and dear to me as a wife and mother: my home.

• I am almost 21 weeks pregnant (I always want to round up the weeks when I'm pregnant, ha.) We have yet to find out whether this sweet one is our second baby girl or our third baby boy. We've had issues with switching insurance, otherwise we would probably know already! It's funny how stuff changes with consecutive pregnancies...I would have been losing my mind if I had gone this long without knowing with my first one! We had the date planned and I literally could not sleep the night before. With this one, our precious fourth, I am so much less anxious. I still want to know, absolutely, but I'm not flipping out. Don't even really know why! Perhaps I have a few other things to distract me during the day....

• Elizabeth is almost 4 and a half, Judah is almost 3, and Rivers is almost 10 months. They are my discipline and my joy, my tears and my laughter. They are the the low and high of every day, the worst and the very, very best. Hard to explain, but maybe you've been there too?

I really did not intend to do a lengthy, pictureless post, but I was already at the computer and waiting for something to download and there you go. I had lost my good camera's battery charger, so there is a depressing lack of quality pictures from Christmas and the move-in. Found it when we moved though, so there should be some pictures on here the next go round. 

I'll leave you with yet another link to Kingdom Poets. I couldn't help it--T.S. Eliot is the most recent post, and not only that, but the excerpt featured is one of my most favorite of his. Maybe THE most. Feed your soul, and I hope I'll see you back here soon enough.

"The dove descending...."

Guest post, sort of.

{This is a post I hijacked (with permission) from my talented 

graphic designer friend Charlotte from pickle.}

     "I have been so excited to share this project. It has been a work in progress since the summer. Jaclyn Thomas (of Jaclyn Thomas Designs) asked me to design the invitation for her wedding this past Saturday.

Jaclyn has been a mutual best friend for the past couple of years. She and Lauren have been best friends since high school, so we have crossed paths many times. Jaclyn’s new hubby went to WKU so I got to know him through Ryan. All that to say, when Jaclyn came to our wedding in January, I asked her to do my makeup. So I was thrilled to be part of her day too.

We met up in the summer and she shared her wedding idea book. It was all gorgeous. I was thrilled to be a part of something so amazing. Jaclyn had some ideas for her invitation and I knew I couldn’t do it alone. So Rachel Fisher (of the Written Words and my sweet mentor through high school) created the handwritten part of the invite. It was our first collaboration project– something we had been talking about for a long time. I loveeeee the finished product!

After Jaclyn saw the amazing work of Rachel Fisher, she decided she needed some more! We did place cards for all of the guests at the reception. It was a big job, but so beautiful. Then Jaclyn decided to do an extra large seating chart (over 5 feet tall!). Chris built a wooden stand and she attached my chart.

Rachel also did a map for the guests. I had no idea that she could draw so well! Sorry, but these pictures do not show how amazing the maps are. The paper was thick and textured with rounded corners. It doesn’t much better than this:

The program had some of Rachel’s letter too. Jaclyn did such a great job of tying everything together.

And on top of all of the paper goods, the rest of the wedding was amazinggg!! The reception was in a airplane hangar and was beautiful. Plus I got to see sweet friends.

I love this picture!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Journey!!!"