Funny Monday

My friend Derek  showed me this rad silly little video this past weekend. It's the funniest.
If I were a shell, I would be this one, Marcel.

It's a little something to make you smile on a Monday, enjoy!
Tomorrow will be a little more on the serious side.
Good serious though.

Better late than never

Oopsie daisy!

 I forgot yesterday was Friday sort of.

So "Fill in the Blank Saturday" is it.

ENJOY :)

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1. If my house was on fire and I could only grab 3 things I would grab my cat, my wedding rings and our pictures (which is really like 500 things)


2. A smell I really like is bonfires and fireplaces. Adore! .


3. Something you might not know about me is I love to color. Like in Barbie coloring books with crayons. I love it very much. It's very relaxing and takes me back to a simpler, cheaper form of self expression and artisticness.


4. Some of my favorite websites to putter about on are I don't have any major favorites. I don't spend a lot of time putzing on the internet these days. I'm pretty to the point with my time on the compy .


5. This weekend I will be picking up an island for my kitchen I bought at an antique store earlier this week, probably reorganizing something in my house since that's my new favorite activity, and maybe buying maternity pants. My waistline is officially non-existent.


6. Nothing makes me happier than enjoying the sunshine with loved ones.


7. A bad habit I have is seeing a piece of something on the floor that doesn't belong i.e.: trash, cathair dustbunnie etc. and walking by it about 50 times before I pick it up. I always hope John will notice it and do it. It's silly really. I don't know why I do that. I just realized I have done this for basically my whole life. It's kind of a major life contradiction since I love to have a clean, neat, gross-free environment.

Have a happy weekend!

Spend the afternoon.  You can't take it with you.

  ~Annie Dillard

Every good and perfect gift..

It's Sanctity of Human Life week!

The National Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is held on the Sunday in January that falls closest to the day on which the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions were handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22, 1973.

I used to work at a pregnancy clinic. And I saw lots of pregnant and confused teens, single moms and parents who just weren't ready for a baby. They would walk in  the doors with lots of sadness and confusion often upset and in distress. Most would walk out encouraged and hopeful that God had them in the palm of his hand and that things would be alright. So this subject is precious to me. 

When an abortion minded girl comes in, sees that little beating heart through an ultrasound, and is brought to tears because she had no idea that the pregnancy was really a real living person, it's an amazing pivotal moment, usually a life-giving moment.

Life is a gift.

 Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights with whom there is not changing or shifting shadow. James 1:17

Take a few minutes to watch this video that I found from Valley View Baptist Church.

It's simply amazing to watch!

Ps- tell your parents 'thank you' too!

Expansion

We live in a lovely house that is older (I prefer older to newer even though it's not asthetically as pleasing, it has more character I think!)  Amongst it's beautiful features like hard wood floors and original fomica countertops, it also has the smallest closets in the history of the earth. John and I dominate every closet we have and we don't even have that many clothes, shoes etc. to store. I already change out our clothes for the seasons and keep any extras out in the garage in totes. So with this new little bundle of sweetness coming in a little over 6 months, WE NEED MORE SPACE! I guess of course we could make stacks of things. But I am weird about stacks. Unless it's like a stack of fuzzy kittens sleeping in a basket, then I'm all for stacks.

Anyway this weekend my lovely husband and baby daddy, John, purchased, assembled and hung some  fabulous (and inexpensive!) cabinets in our laundry room. I LOVE ORGANIZATION!

So this may be a boring post to you. To me, this is what life is all about..well, it makes me happy to say the least. If I could get paid to be a professional organizer I would be just fine with that. But not for hoarders. That gives me indigestion just thinking about it.  So I was very excited to reorganize this morning and consolidate, purge and arrange in my new cabinets.

After I took this he said "This is going to be what the rest of my life is like, right? Putting things together all of the time? Cribs, toys....I'm cool with that though."

Yep.

Before.

After!

Thank you, John Culpepper. You are sweet and also very handy.

I'm good with the ideas.

In other news. We are also expanding in other places:

Someone said, "you can't have a belly yet, you aren't far enough along"

Well, my once flat tummy begs to differ, friend.

And yes, that is a cat on my shirt. Score.

FRRRRRRIDAY!

1.   My favorite quote is      oh man. I sure do love quotes. Other people are really good at saying things.  I have a hundred quotes I really like but I think this one is my all-time favorite: Beginnings are scary. Endings are usually sad, but it's what's in the middle that counts. So, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will. -Birdee Pruitt (Sandra Bullock) Hope Floats   .

2.  A bad habit I have is    biting my nail polish off and spitting it across the room if it starts chipping off. GROSS!!!   Also, tapping my teeth to the beat of a song. I'm pretty sure that's not awesome for my teeth.  .

3.  The first time I felt like a "grown up" was       When I went out to California by myself to welcome John home from Iraq right before we got married. I flew out to LA (eek!) alone, got shuttled to the rent a car place drove 3 hours into the desert in the wee hours of the morn' and found my hotel... ALONE.  This was pre-GPS, mind you. Add then I ventured onto a USMC base at 4:00 AM and had to answer all these anti terrorist questions from a Sergeant at the gate. Scary and VERY fun!  .

4.  Weekends are   the bomb diggity fresh. I love them. Even though I am a "stay at home wife/mom" and get to stay at home all week I totally look forward to spending time with John and seeing friends. Weekends are meant for fun. The end.    .

5.  When I was a child I wished my name was     Tiffany. I REALLY liked Tiffany the singer and wanted red hair. Now I am quite settled into Missy and my Brunette/Auburnishness  .

6.  I wish     it was spring   .

7.  A secret I have is       going to remain a secret     .

PS- check this sweetheart out! 

So sweet to see that little person moving around and a quickly beating heart.

It measured exactly right and had a heart rate of 160 (John says it was 167). I think we were both too excited and overwhelmed to remember correctly :) Either way, it has a good little heart. I already know it.

{FYI: you are looking at it's spine and the head is to the left and it's sweet little hiney is on the right with a tiny baby arm sticking out on top.}

Happy weekend! Play Fill in the Blank Friday too go HERE and link up!

All the good things

Oh man.

I am behind.

BE-HIND!

To be really honest I haven't felt like blogging at all.

There are lots of ideas for fun posts that I have roaming around in my head but I just haven't felt like it was worth taking time to write about. I am sure other blogs have it covered so lately writing has just been a "whatever" subject for me.

I had computer issues for a while too which didn't help the procrastinating. All of my fun pictures of Christmas crafts and fun are on my other broken and sad computer.

Enough with excuses. Blah.

I will tell you one of my main little excuses is that I found out the week of Christmas that 

I am having a baby!
So needless to say, my thoughts have been elsewhere.
Blessed am I among women! Whoo hoo!!

Sorry for the blurriness here..I think I was super excited and shaky. 
A sweet little plastic replica of my baby @ 12 weeks is cute too.

WHOO HOO!
After 19 months of trying, we finally did it. Well, God did it we just were ready for the blessing, I suppose. With no explanation of why we were unable to conceive when we wanted to, it was quite frustrating at times. Some people wait for years and years and others just blink and are instantly pregnant. I was a little in the middle of those. And to be honest, whether you wait for a week, a year or 15 years it's hard. But when it does come, it's perfect timing in the midst of the season of life when it seems least feasible. Atleast that's the way it seems to us and I've the heard the same from many other couples. But that's the whole point of it! God provides the baby. God provides the means. God does it all. Not for a second was I in control of the situation and after about 12 months of the trying I think I was finally relieved by that. No matter how hard we tried, we really weren't in control.  That resolve came with a lot of kicking and screaming though. A lot. 

 I am quickly finding out the waiting process has just changed names. Instead of waiting for a baby, we wait for other things. Constantly aware that we are never in control. And as frustrating as it is some days for us, it's been a relief because we have seen the goodness and provision of God in seemingly impossible circumstances and are sure He is good all of the time and not just some of the time. Every good and perfect gift is from above..

Perfect. That's a good thing.

I was not perfect in waiting.

In fact, there were difficult days where I wanted to hibernate and not hear another story about some other person's kid's poop habits or sweet stories of birth. I didn't want to hear about what I had to look forward to on my bad days. I didn't feel like hearing that God would do things in his timing. Many days I felt like I was the outsider that sat silent as all my friends shared multiple stories of their babies. As weird as it sounds I think struggling so hard for a while was a tremendous blessing. Hindsight is a good thing.

On my good days, I was researching baby room ideas, imagining what my baby would look like, calculating when my baby would be due if I was pregnant that month. On my good days I would concoct stories of how I would tell people when I found out (all of which went out the window once I actually was pregnant!) I would join in on the baby convo and talk about my "future kids".
{Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. Deuteronomy 7:9}

On other difficult days when I felt so sad and hopeless, God would send a word of encouragement or someone with real comfort and hugs my way. There were few people with whom I felt OK falling apart with on my sad days. But for those few people, I am grateful. They were good things.
{I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. Isaiah 45:3}

Our wait, which now in hindsight seems so small compared to some, was worth it. It took me a good year to resolve that waiting was good but when I finally had the epiphany my outlook changed completely. There were still some very sad days but my perspective was different. I am honored that I was chosen to learn this lesson of waiting on God for such a precious gift. The sovereignty of God blows me away. I am a  person who got to struggle sometimes very openly and painfully  and it was often hard and raw and gross looking. But for others to witness a miracle done in me,  who isn't perfect (by any means), who doubted a lot, who didn't understand, who was sad, mad and confused but came out joyful on the other side is a good thing. An honor really!

There were fun trips, times with friends, amazing conversations, my beloved Bible study , my church family and other blessings along the way that really made me realize that life is good, God is good even if I don't get what I want when I want it.

There is a line of a song that I fell in love with the weekend before I found out I was pregnant.

We went to a little Christmas concert in Nashville, Tennessee and it was amazing, perspective- giving.

I fell in love with the artist, Jill Phillips, who had a hard, hard past of struggle and sadness but was singing praises about the difficult days being good things. When I heard her song, I was blown away and thought "Yes! This struggle has been a good thing. Not a bad thing.  Look at what God is choosing to do in ME!!"  3 days later I found out I was pregnant.

That was a good thing.

All the Good Things

Every once in a while the world stops spinning enough

That I can take a step back and get the picture

I see the twists and the turns, I see the patterns they form

I see how perfect they are and I remember

All the good things

All the good things

All the good things you’ve done for me

Though the feeling is real I know it’s fleeting to feel

One day I’ll forget you are here and start to wonder

In that season of doubt, You’ll still be showering me

With blessings I can’t see, that can’t be numbered

All the good things

All the good things

All the good things You’ve done for me

Forgive me for my shortsighted look at this world

Where you keep proving that you know what you’re doing

If I could see like you do with your perspective view

The fires I’m walking through would look much different

I’d see those difficult days for who they made me become

And I would count them among

All the good things

All the good things

All the good things You’ve done for me