Belly Laughing

After driving school bus this morning

this text popped up on my phone

Thx baby! I luv u too

Thanks?

For what?!

Scroll to outbox. . . 

where I find this message I did not send

I luv u adam. U r the sexiest thing ever!!!

Then it was speed dial 2.

Husband answered with a bit of laughter in his hello.

Which was followed by a solid 60 seconds of hard belly laughing from both of us.

Gosh. I love this boy.

The way he makes me laugh from his own two-sided text conversations.

The way he kisses my face all over when I'm mad other people for silly stuff.

The way he has taken my life and turned it all upside down and wonderful.

The way he fights for us.

The way he loves.

Psst.  

What are you loving about your boy today?!

Make sure you give 'im a big kiss and let him know.

xo

Little Bits

I am too quick to judge the value of life according to how many awesome things we do

how many trips we take

how many adventures we embark on

how many crazy stories we have to tell.

Today I'm focusing on the happy little bits that make life just perfect. . . 

- - - 

 green spring cupcakes

a brand new layout for our front room

{i think i'm obsessed with moving furniture around. it's like a free redo. whoop!}

cards from little sister

blueberries that are too sour for eating

{time to make something from here?}

kitchen colors finally chosen

a new little soap dish I made

{inspiration from here}

fabric for new curtains

- - - 

what little things are you celebrating today?!

xo

I learned a lot of stuff this weekend

1. Tai food is delish. . . as is tai iced tea

2. Sometimes I have to tell Husband what I want. He can't read my mind

3. Forever21 already sold out of my favorite pink skirt before I could buy one. 

My summer wardrobe is officially ruined

4. My friend Maria makes the best dang bread. With three ingredients 

5.  Back massages are a sixth love language for Husband. It's like my magic wand 

6. I need to start a blog series to record date night. Not because it will be a real hit with the folks, 

but rather so that we can always remember 

7. By putting time into learning to resolve conflict in these early days of marrige,

we are laying a precious foundation for a long satisfying relationship

8. I am officially ready for spring

9. Choose to use intimacy in marriage as the incredibly valuable asset it is 

instead of a tool for manipulation

{true story}

and oh yeah.

10. Sometimes you should curb your impulsive desire to remove the 

ugly paneling on your bedroom walls

or else you mind find something like this underneath: 

Happy Monday Lovelies!

xo

Weekend Love V.8

{1} I love all the happiness in these vacations pictures.
And I'm adoring the bright colors of all her arm bracelets. . . just saying.

{2} Grab your kleenex and watch this touching adoption story

{3} I randomly found this beautiful girl's blog. . . and it's all
about finding happiness in the everyday.  Mhmm.

{4} Who woulda thought a home so full of white could be so beautiful?!
I adore Katie's blog so much I am sharing two little beauties from it.

{5} This is actually a pretty sweet list of random acts of kindness.  

How rockin' cool could we be?!

{6} How cute are these tiny vintage flower pins?!

{7} How adorable is Promise wearing her Hubby's clothes?!

{8} Do you remember one of my favorite bloggers, Jess?!

Can you believe she now has a perfectly lovely foodsie blog?!

Get yo bum over there and droooool.

{9} I'm kinda craving some house redo's.

How cool is this basement wall mural?!

{10} And just because any post is not complete without some baby love.

Be.still.my.soul.

What's your favorite web find this week?!
Spread the love, yo!
xo

Shop My Closet

So here's the scoop, yo.

Yesterday I walked into Forever 21 

and literally fell.in.love

with their spring collections.

Duuuude.  So much perfect loveliness I melted into a puddle on the floor.

Soo o o o  --

I went through my closet today and took out some stuff I rarely/never wear.

Which means you have a lucky chance to score some 

awesome pieces for supersduperscheaps.

Check it out here.

Yes. You are welcome.

xoxo

Road Trip To Arizona - - Juuust kiddding.

Sometimes life requests crazy things of us.

Then sometimes it just asked that we be flexible.

You could almost call this weekend 

'Crazy-turned-lazy'

The day before we were to leave on our long 25 hour drive to Arizona

Husband found out that instead of the three days of vacation time

he thought was available, there were only three hours.

It quickly turned from

'wow-this-is-gonna-make-money-a-bit-tight'

to

'now-this-is-just-plain-financial-suicide'

The lesson I learned from this.

Sometimes we have to have the humility to admit that we can't do everything.

Sometimes we have to be flexible enough for a change of plans.

Sometimes life is just unpredictable and that's ok.

So instead of coffee and toothpicks keeping our eyes open 

for 50 hours of driving in a 5 day span,

we plan to spend our weekend cuddling in bed,

catching up on our favorite shows,

making some yummy eats,

date night,

dinner with some of our favorite people

and teaching Hubs the perfect way to make toast.

Cheers to the continued adventures of life. . . 

no matter where they may take us.

xo

Dear . . .

{circa january 2011} 

Dear Besty Friend.
I wish I was back on the beach with you right now.
Or going out for frozen yogurt.
Or just sitting and chatting about everything and nothing.
I miss you.

Dear Bus Trip.
Thanks for not starting until 7:30 am.
Sleeping IN 'til 6:20 was heaven on earth.
Sad, but true.

Dear Deer.
Please stay far from our car while we drive to Arizona.
It may be the middle of February, but there is no snow.
Go back to the North Pole.

Dear Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles
People are begging for your recipe.
'Cuz, dude.  You are the crème de la crème of midnight snacks.
We should begin a long term relationship.

Dear Husband.

I am proud of us for working through conflict and decisions and stuff like that.

You rock at drawing me out.

I think I'll keep you forever.

PS. You are the kindest, sweetest dish washer ever.

Dear Thrift Store.

I love the vintage maps for 5 cents,

the little metal filing drawer for $1.50

and two little bird statues for 50 cents.

You are my hero these days and I thank you for that.

Dear Bro.

Thanks for taking me to lunch at my favorite pizza place in the world.

I think you are a pretty cool dude.

But not just because you feed me.

Dear Road Trip.

May you be full of caffeine, chocolate and memories.

And may your 24 hours of driving create little tiredness.

Dear Kids in China.

I am going to share your stories with college students in a couple days.

I pray they are inspired to come meet you in person.

Because you are all so strong and beautiful and brave.

And I love you.

Dear Bloggy Friends.

You make my day.

Everyday.

xoxo

A Little Bitta CrAzee

One of my biggest fears in life is settling.

Settling for a 'normal' life. 

Settling for less than the dreams God would have for us.

Settling for only secure life, instead of one of adventures.

Settling less than what life should actually be.

This past week Adam and I have been agonizing over a decision about a long weekend trip to Arizona.

It went something like this.

Hubs really wanted to take a trip to visit his college/college pastor/friends.

I thought we could make it a partial work trip by me doing several speaking events for Bring Me Hope.

Perfect scenario, right?!  Part of the trip being paid for by work.  Makes it cheaper for us.

Ahaa.  We are traveling, vacationing geniuses. 

Until suddenly things fell apart this week.

Funds in the bank accounts were freakishly low.  

Time off work became a bit dicey.

Airline tickets skyrocketed somewhere into the extraterrestrial heavens.

Our renter for the upstairs fell through at the last minute.

After lots of prayer and talking and researching the best option

we finally decided to drive that whole entire way to Arizona together.

Holymolymama.  What are we, cu-rayzee?!

Seriously though, Adam and I love being together.

We love making memories.

Because life can sometimes be cut much shorter than we would hope.

As we have started our family, we have decided

that life is too short to allow money or practicality to manipulate our decisions.  

Of course I am not saying this should be done in a thoughtless, irresponsible ways

{ei. credit cards, neglecting family needs, not being in unity as a couple, etc}

But rather, does money become the driving force in life

or do relationships?!

Sometimes it's fun to look back at the risks and crazy adventures 

we have taken already.  It's so true that once they are past

you always have those memories and I rarely find myself regretting it.

Take for example:

{buying our first house just two months after getting married} 

{moving to California for a month}

 {two week trip to China}

{emergency trip to Mexico to visit seester}

 {one crazy road trip to meet our adorable niece, Juliet}

I am so thankful that Adam and I view life very similarly. . . otherwise this lifestyle would not work.

Also, please know that I am not saying this is the best or only way to live.

It just works for us and I choose to celebrate that.

Because like Mark Twain said:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Happy Wednesday to you, Lovelies!

xoxo

 - - -

AQuestioningPS

What's the craziest adventure you have ever taken? 

How do you and your Hubby make these decisions together?!

DoublePS

don't forget to check out my guest post over here today!

xo

{Tutorial} Eco-Friendly Seed Pots

One of my goals for this month was to start an indoor herb garden

inspired by this and the hope of yummy fresh mint tea or herbs in dinner.

I decided I wanted to start the plants from seeds

and dude. . . it's so easy you can too.

{Don't judge me if the seeds never grow and the paper pots turn into a moldy mess}

- - - 

You will need:

: newspaper from your recycle bin

: a tin can to use as a mold

: a basket or crate to hold the pots

: dirt

: seeds

: water

some prayers for actual growth

Begin by cutting the papers into long strips.

Use a tin can as a mold to wrap several layers of paper around.

Crimp the button edge towards the center, creating a natural binding and bottom.

Place as many pots as you can make into your basket or crate.

Fill with potting dirt and plant herb seeds according to package directions.

Water them.  Love them.  Encourage their growth.

Enjoy fresh herbs from the comfort 

of your own kitchen*

*still waiting for this step to happen

The great thing about these is that you are not only saving money by not

purchasing mini seedling pots,

but you are also recycling paper in a great way.

When the seedlings are grown, you can easily transplant directly into your 

garden or larger pots.  The newspaper becomes a natural compost.

Soo o o o, basically you become an eco-friendly rock star.

Without even barely trying.

Booyah.

Heck. Before it's all over, I may just have to plant myself an entire garden with these things.

Then I could potentially become a kitchen rock star too . . .

or something.

- - - 

What plants, flowers or veggies would you start in these pots?!

xoxo

 {original idea and inspiration from this post}

{Why I Blog} Community

Remember my trip to China and how I wrote out a blog series about Why I Blog?!

{you can catch up here, here and here}

I've had more thoughts on some bloggy stuff and thought 

I need to get it off my chest today.

I have done lots of studying into how people grow their blogs.

I have asked successful bloggers.

I have read heaps of articles.

{my favorite is from Casey here}

I have studied those people who seem to be doing something right.

One thing that really seemed to stand out to me was this.

Connect.connect.connect with your readers.

One particularly successful blogger

said she responds to each and every person who comments on her posts.

Seriously?! This is impressive beyond belief as she regularly has well over 50 comments a day.

Her reasons were genuine.

Wanting to show an interest in the lives of her readers.

To build that relationship with them.

So I told myself, I can do that.  Especially if it grows my blog.

And thus began a commenting marathon.

It didn't take long before I had this epiphany.

{with a little help and conviction from this amazing article}

What if I am commenting back to every single person . . .

are they visiting my blog and commenting because they genuinely have something to say as true friends

or because they know I will be hopping right over to say something to them?!

What if my entire blog is built around this ping-pong game,

what happens when life gets crazy and I can no longer keep it up?!

Will this 'community' of friends suddenly disappear?

Worst of all.

What if I get one, two, five years down the road

and look back with regret over all the hours I spent distracted from 

living out my real purpose for blogging:

Journaling about this life Husband and I are creating and celebrating the gift it is.

Sooo o o o. . . 

I came to this humbling decision.

I choose not to operate my blog this way.

I choose to focus on building a genuine community of friends from this blog.

However and in whatever way this happens.

I choose to allow this blog to grow as slowly or as little as it naturally will happen.

I choose to make my Husband and my family my first priority.

I choose to live to the fullest and allow those outpourings to be reflected here.

DISCLAIMER:

I am NOT judging anyone who chooses to operate their blog differently.

I am NOT bashing said successful blogger for her personal choices. I respect and admire those.

I am NOT saying it's wrong to actively focus on growing your blog through various methods.

I am NOT saying I only want to grow a blog with zero relationships.

I am ONLY sharing my own heart and desires for my OWN blog.

INVITATION:

I AM inviting anyone to join this blogging community I am creating here everyday.

I AM inviting you to comment and interact as you will. 

{like this}

I AM saying I will continue reading your comments and responding to questions or comments you make

I AM inviting you to follow me on Twitter so we can stay easily connected that way.

Dude.  It is my new favorite way to have conversations with you lovelies.  

Find me here.  Or don't. :)

I AM encouraging each of you to remember where your first love and time belongs.

Our families and friends real.  More than a web page that will someday be gone.

- - -

Oyohboyohboy.

Thus ends my words.  All 2349063 of them.

Now I'm off to spray paint one of my $2 chairs or finish my little herb garden

or maybe just make myself something yummy to eat and then go for a run.

Or not. . .

Happy Monday to you, Lovelies.

xoxo