whatcha want?

at church last week we talked about something so simple that seemed kind of like a "duh" moment.

i can't stop thinking about it, and realizing how complex I was making it all. 

"if you want God to bless something, you must give it to him."

well, okay there Sherlock, great realization. 

but really. 


you want to be blessed in your relationship with your husband? give that relationship to him.

your job? give that too. 

while the concept of Heaven is mighty fabulous, sometimes I must admit it frustrates me. Yes, it will be easy to pray and not worry and have un-nerving faith when we don't have bills to pay, jobs to go to that we may not LOVE, or just plain sucky things that happen in our lives. 

we can't keep seperating our "godly things" from our "worldly things"

my "I HAVE TO DEAL WITH" list?

~my finances
~my graduate school application
~my issues with eating
~when will we have babies? ("it can't be after I'm 32, but not before I finish grad school blah blah."etc. etc. 
blah, blah, blah

i can't continue to pray "Dear God, PLLLEEASSEEEEEEEEE let me be accepted into the WWU masters of school counseling program. PLLEEEASSEEEEE," but then continue to stay awake all night tossing and turning about how I haven't studied enough vocab words to get a good score on the GRE.

took this on my run today (after a guy told me that Seattle should have drafted Tim Tebow instead of our quarterback. I was wearing a seahawks shirt after a sad loss :( )

just a great reminder that God's grace and blessings can be around us ALL the time, we don't have to wait until Heaven. :) We just have to give Him the chance.  

“God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.” 

                                            ― C.S. Lewis

CF

the most exhausting hour of your life

 + 

the most crazy sense of accomplishment

=

crossfit. 

we had friday off because of the holiday.

here's to going back after a FOUR day vacation from squats and burpees :) eeeek. 

proud momma bear :)

i'm so proud of some people in my life right now doing just amazing things.

~little jessica paige who ran her FIRST half marathon today in Seattle!

photo courtesy of JPJ's momma and cheerleader. 

~my momma and her BFF katy who have started training for a 5k. 

if ya know my mom even in the LEAST bit, i betcha know she absolutely DETESTS running. yep, that lady can burn 12,344 calories vacuuming and cleaning the house, but she does not like forced aerobic activity. 

that being SAID, they run/walk three days a week and are working up to do the Jingle Bell run, I believe. 

I think my mom is onto one of the reasons I like to run. cute work out clothes/shoes and a dad/husband who is much more likely to purchase these if we actually use them. ;)

~my sweet friend who is 39 weeks pregnant and preparing for her c-section next week!

not only does she have her adorbs toddler to chase around all day, but she is going in for her second c-section next week. she is nervous, scared and it sure doesn't sound fun, but she is such a strong woman and I am praying for the healthy delivery of baby boy J and the healing of momma :) 

(looking good lady! :)

~my sunday morning Weight Watcher's meeting ladies.

We have been having our Sunday morning meeting for about 2 1/2 months now. Today the 15ish of them who regularly attend hit their 250th pound lost since our little meeting began. for those of you who have never struggled with food, eating issues etc. this might sound silly. but it can be just as all-consuming as drug and alcohol addictions.

not only have they combined to lose almost a quarter of a TON of body fat, one of my fav ladies ;) hit a big milestone in her weight loss. I got the honor of weighing her, seeing her HUGE smile and then hearing her tell me about how she can now shop at "regular stores" and just not the stores for fat people.

Could you imagine how life changing that would be?! silly and minute for some people, but really. imagine getting that control over your life back. and being able to get some cute work-out pants at Target :)

~and I mean really. who i am kidding? i would be lying if i said i didn't feel proud of my accomplishment from this weekend.

say hello to the newest Starbucks Gold Card Member. that means I have spent an absurd amount of money and calories on an absurd amount of shots of espresso.

:)

bring it on week, i got a pretty awesome posse behind me :)

saturday problems

you know it's been a fabulous thanksgiving break and very restful when your husband is going to the store to get stuff to make breakfast for his parents who are visiting and you volunteer to go with. 

you know it's been a fabulous thanksgiving break and very restful when you run into the closet and put on some clothes to go to said grocery store. 

you know it's been a fabulous thanksgiving break and very restful when you grab your purse, fling it over your shoulder and wonder why your husband is looking at you. 

you know it's been a fabulous thanksgiving break and very restful when your husband says, "i don't care if you wear sweats but really? you are wearing a gray sweatshirt AND gray sweatpants. You look like Rocky."

you know it's been a fabulous thanksgiving break and very restful when you look down and have no idea what he is talking about until you realize WAIT. yep. i'm wearing a gray sweatsuit. hehe.

maybe it is just payback for me always critiquing his outfits. 

although must of the time he looks quite dapper, if I do say so myself. ;)

:) 

three months

well. we have officially completed three months of wedded bliss. take that kim kardashian. :)

:)

i remember someone asking my friend Katie how married life was after she got married and she said, "well. i'm not going to lie. it's not like it's all glitter rainbows and unicorns but it's good!"

that stuck in my head and i just wanted to thank her for being so honest. (she probably doesn't even remember saying this :)

planning our wedding was so fun and then you kind of just expect everything to be perfect. you get to play "house" and are officially grownup. rainbows and unicorns, right? :)

Katie's confession still helps me. When I start to panic about the fact that there are some things we just. don't. agree.on. or just things that still make me feel like we are the worst couple in the world, I remember it's not all rainbows and unicorns, but it still can be good.

some differences I have noticed as of lately:

1.) he is in my life for a reason. 

i made cinnamon rolls for my last day of work on Friday. :( up at 6AM, slaving away... Drew took Friday off so while I was scurrying around he was in bed yelling, "babbeeeee. can i pleassseeee have one?"

they looked so pretty all snug in their pans and I REALLLY did not want to take one out for him. 

I finally did, to make him stop whining and my knife hit a hard spot when I was cutting it. 

UMM?!?!!>? had it not been for my husband who wanted to taste a cinnamon roll, I would have brought 3 dozen CHARRED cinnamon rolls to work, and had absolutely NO idea. 

after I left them on the counter in a huff, he texted me later to let me know he found one that wasn't burnt on the bottom and it was delicious. haha. thanks :)

2.) He does math in the grocery store.

not like adding up how much we have spent or anything like that, but more like he likes to figure out how much per ounce or per beer bottle and get the best deal. My hubby is a Costco boy at heart. He loovvessss bulk. 

In the beer aisle, I usually just start looking at all the new Skinny Girl Margarita flavors instead of trying to help him decide which beer to get. 

It REALLLYY irks him that a six pack would be on sale, but not the case of 12. He will figure out how much one bottle costs in each instance, and go from there. 

i suppose it is a good thing. it just takes us 3 times as long to get out of the store. and by then, my pumpkin icecream is melting. and i am not a happy camper. :) 

3.) we do NOT have the same taste in color/decorating combinations.  (aka i don't think there is anything in the world that he cares less about then decorating. :( )

like really. all i needed was a text confirmation about which one he wanted for his "man cave". 

"I can't tell the difference"

and

"I don't care"

are not helpful answers and get my blood a'boiling for some silly reason :) 

but really?! "can't tell the difference?" commmeee onnn :)

i think he has started just ignoring me when it comes to questions about color shades. but really. this is VERY important, right?! dandelion and sunshine are SIGNIFICANTLY different :) 

i won't even go there with all the things that Drew has learned about me. 

all the condiments have to go on the same shelf in the fridge or else. 

i realllyyy don't like cleaning food out of the kitchen sink

and for some reason I leave water glasses alllll over the house. 

these little things? had someone told me on my wedding day that in three months I would get sooo irritated when it took 15 minutes to go down the chip aisle, I would love laughed and said "no way."

rainbows and unicorns everyday. 

photo by the lovely holly aprecio

three months in?

i love this man more than ever, color-blindness and all. :) 

there are moments when I want to leave him in the grocery store and get a taxi home. I am sure there are points when he wants to scream at my lack of taking out the garbage. it's not always pretty, but as Katie warned us, it still is good :)

perhaps even great ;)

"we have been blessed to be a blessing"

then we went to "dinner"

so then mandy and tyson came up to our house, we had a toast with some bubbly and then told Mandy we were all going to meet for dinner.

they left, and we left right behind them.

Tyson said that he wanted to change clothes, so they were going to swing by his parents house before they hit the restaurant.

welllll...

all of these people (plus 12,322 more I didn't get a picture of (since I took out my memory card AFTER the proposal to upload the pictures and forgot to put it back in...) were waiting to congratulate.

the look on her face was absolutely priceless. (or so I heard, drew and i got a little lost driving to T's house as we tried to go a back way so they wouldn't see us. We pulled in right as Mandy was walking in the door.)

literally though. I was in tears just seeing ALL the friends and family that came. Tons of Mandy and T's  friends from Seattle made the trek up and it was just so fun.

there was tons of food, drinks and we all got to watch the video T had made.

so happy for this bride to be and her soon-to-hubby. :) they really are such the perfect couple :)

crossfit update :)

what else did we celebrate this weekend?

teaser? :) 

i need to work on getting a few more pictures but i thought i should update you all and let you know that I didn't fall down in Crossfit today. 

nope. 

I DID wear my yoga pants inside out though. :/

and I did cry when we had to do "knees to bows"

aka hang on a bar, and bring your knees to your elbows. it just sounds so simple.....

lemme tell ya. 

i can't even bring my knees to my chest.  if there was a camera in that classroom I would die. i literally think watching me try to pull my legs to my chest would be one of the funniest things you have ever seen. especially in inside out yoga pants. yikes. 

so yes. i am surviving and learning a humbling lesson. :)

andddd am getting a new brother-in-law. 

hehe. :) more on this fabulous proposal to come. :) 

weekend celebrations continued. :)

first things first: when you are sleepy and there is NOTHING to do, and you want to take a nap and people say, "yeah, you should take a nap! that sounds great." like when numerous people say that, TAKE A NAP!

Sunday would have been so much easier if Mandy would have just freaking taken the nap she was talking about all day.

anyways...

:)

Tyson let me know about 3:30 that was was starting to get ready for the big proposal.

I felt bad for T setting up everything all by himself in the rain, so I walked down the hill to see what was going on. 

hmm....

well. it wasn't just T. it was his whole crew and his production company :)

i was speechless. 

there was not a single woman in sight. these boys were AMAZING.

as in five boys turned these roses into rose petals. :)
i was seriously just walking around with my jaw dropped.

then they started setting up. 

this was just the entry way though. woah boy. 

then it started pouring down rain even harder. my pictures can't even begin to describe how pretty this way. the whole dock was lit with candles and it was like a scene from a movie. 

then the pictures started to go downhill fast. my lens was dripping water. :)

sorry sissy. i tried really hard to capture your special day :) hahahha oh my gosh this makes me cringe just looking at it. i must have skipped my photography class when we covered taking pictures in the dark/rain. whoops :/

there's more. 

tyson's helpers got in our paddle boat and went out in the lake with fireworks. 

so then we called my mom and set the plan into motion. 

my dad dropped mandy off at the lake and Tyson did his thang. 

they have been dating for 7 or 8 years and Tyson had made a slideshow of pictures from back in the day to current. they watched it on the projector screen, and then he popped the question.

then the fireworks went off from the lake and then our parents walked down the street where they had been watching from the hill. :)

after this, we walked up the hill to our house to dry off, change and go meet up with our families for dinner. :) 

or at least that's what the bride to be thought we were doing... :)

p.s. i have the phone numbers of T's set-up crew if you wanna hire them for your wedding :) 

celebrate good times

it was a weekend full of celebration.

we celebrated a second birthday for our sweet flower girl. :)

monkey themed of course.

monkeys for the birthday girl and her friends, yummy soup/bread and spiced wine for the adults.
birthday girl's momma also happens to be 8 months preggo with her baby brother. supermom, i tell ya :)

note to self: give every single two year old girl a tea set for her birthday. she wouldn't put those babies down. proof? that was what was in her hot little hand while we were all singing to her. :)

on the other end of the spectrum, we celebrated Jer-Bear's 49th birthday!

mrs. james sure knows how to throw a party. the birthday boy even matched his birthday decorations and it was a SURPRISE party. only a seasoned party-planner can pull off that ;)

i think it's just SO crazy how in barely anytime in the grand scheme of things (47 little years) you can go from running around with a plastic teacup and frosting on your face yelling, "come party" to your two year old friends at your second birthday, to celebrating being almost 50 years old with your friends, your kids and even your grandbabies. (Mowry's, you were missed!!!!)

just another reminder of how quick and fragile our years really are, and in the blink of an eye baby E will be turning 49 and we will all be playing Bingo for Jerry's 96th birthday. (heck, we will be at the lake having a bonfire if Jer has anything to say about it.)

i wish i hand't wished away so many seasons/years/days of my life, wishing for something else to hurry up and come. in my wise old age of 26, i'm realizing just how special each birthday in between is, and each day for that matter. :)

but the celebrations didn't end on saturday... no maam... ;)