Bullet Points

It's that time again... bullet point update

• Had to go to the Dr. yesterday. Long story short, everything is okay. I thought I might be leaking amniotic fluid, but Dr. thinks it's probably normal.
• I stayed home from work today so that I could be in the same town as the Dr. and take it easy a bit.
• Has anyone else watched 16 and Pregnant? The young couple who gave their baby up for adoption is such an inspiration.
• I'm 25 weeks tomorrow. For some reason that seems like a milestone.
• Because I'm pretty sure they don't read my blog, I'll divulge. I'm making some custom burp cloths for Nathan's cousin that is due to have a baby right when I am. I have made three. I think they are so cute!
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• It's finals week for me. Two tests and I'm done with school for a month. It can't happen soon enough. This summer semester has truly been the hardest semester of my education so far, and hopefully ever! I'd appreciate your prayers that I will achieve the 3.0 my program requires. 
• Speaking of prayer, sweet Stellan needs his prayer warriors now more than ever. Can you imagine what that family is going through?
• If you have a twitter, you should definitely add me! I am LOVING it more everyday! 
• I'm reading Julie and Julia right now. If the movie is half as good as the book, it is a must see. 
• Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Our Wedding

This week Kelly is once again hosting Show Us Your Life. This week's topic is wedding dresses. Nathan and I celebrated our four year wedding anniversary on July 9th, so this trip down memory lane was very fun for me. Some days it seems like we have always been married, and some days I feel like I blinked and four years passed. One thing I do know is that the day we got married I thought I could never love him more, and I was wrong. I am grateful everyday for the privilege of being Nathan's wife, and I truly believe we fall more in love every day. He doesn't even read my blog, so I'm not saying this to score points! :)

We were married on a gorgeous day in July in our hometown at the church I grew up attending. Our wedding photos were taken by, what was at the time, the only real photographer in town. Now, there are about ten! I grew up with the same man at Bailey Studio taking my picture as far back as I can remember, so it was special that they were there for our wedding day. I love our wedding photos, but if I had it to do over, they would be completely different. Same as my wedding dress! My dress is off the rack at David's Bridal, and I got it for about half price if I remember correctly. I tried on about four dresses and when I put this one on, my mom and I just knew it was perfect. It was flattering and timeless. Simple and elegant. I know that it won't translate well in these photos because they are scanned, but I loved it.  

All of these photos were scanned because we don't have digital copies. Photography credit goes to Bailey Studio in Chillicothe, MO. 

This photo was a copy cat of another photo I'd seen, and I love it. It has a timeless look.

According to the photographer, the purple carpet at my church is a photographer's nightmare, but I think the sanctuary is gorgeous and wouldn't have had it any other way. I have a really beautiful photo with Nathan and I in front of a beautiful stained glass window, but I might save it for next week! 

This is my favorite of our wedding photos. It was a last minute idea to run outside and take a few pictures because it was so unseasonably gorgeous outside. I know that people do outside photos all of the time now, but at the time I had never really seen it done where I'm from. Four years was a long time ago in my small town! :) Anyway, if I remember correctly, it was Nathan's idea to dip and kiss. He's sweet. 

This photo shows our excitement! We were both SO happy to be married and we couldn't wait to get away from everyone and spend some time alone as a married couple. As you can see, I didn't even bother putting my shoes on! We didn't have a big dinner and dance, just a cake and punch reception at church. I was only 19, so it didn't make a lot of sense to ask my parents to spend all of the money for that on top of the wedding. It worked out well because we could not wait to leave. We love our family and friends, but we were so ready to be alone once we were married! 

Thanks for looking! Don't forget to check out all of the other wedding posts at Kelly's Korner! 

Baby's Room

All I ever post about anymore is this baby, and I'm 100% okay with that. :)

I have purchased and received a few new fabrics this week and I really like where this baby room is going. These are all of the fabrics I have so far. I knew today when I put them all together I needed something else to tie them in. 

Then, after searching on etsy, of course, I found this fabric. I LOVE it. Capital L-O-V-E. I didn't want the baby's room to have a "theme" per say, but I just think this will all look so so cute together. Yes, this is a picture of my computer screen. 

 

Aren't these little owls the CUTEST?! And since I have two dot fabrics, two "royal cathedral pattern" fabrics, and one striped fabric, I found another striped fabric to add into the mix. 

I love it too! And, in case you're wondering where any of these are from, I am including a shopping list. :)

1) Brown fabric with several different colored stripes-Heidi Grace Daydream Believer ONLY available at JoAnn's Fabrics

2) Orange with big white polka dots- Stock fabric at JoAnn's Fabrics

3) Green with small blue dots- Anna Maria Horner Garden Party Polka

4) Dark blue with yellow pattern- Anna Maria Horner Good Folks Cathedral, Royal

5) Light blue with dark blue pattern- Anna Maria Horner Good Folks Cathedral, Dusk

6) Owls- Amy Schimler Starry Night Owl, Spring

7) Orange broad stripes- Joel Dewberry Aviary Broad Stripe, Orange

Most of these were ordered through etsy, which has the best deals from what I have found. Also, here is a better link for my inspiration quilt. I can't wait to get started making this quilt. Nathan's grandma is going to help me, but I hope to mostly do it myself! :)

Thanks for looking. 

I'm having some horrible back pain, and my family doctor is fairly certain it's my gall bladder. I should know more after a sonogram, which probably won't happen until Thursday or Friday. Can you say a quick prayer for me? I know there are so many other, much bigger, things that people have going on, but it's making it really hard for me to be comfortable and do my best at work, sleep at night etc. Thank you!!!

Dilemma...

I have been working on my nursery plans. Nathan's grandmother is making the nursery bedding...a bedskirt and a quilt. No bumpers. The crib we have ordered can be seen here. Nathan's grandma has begun working on the bed skirt. It is mainly the striped fabric with about a two or three inch border around the bottom of the orange with white dot fabric. 

The stripes will actually go up and down, not sideways. Anyway, I had planned for the crib's quilt to have the stripes as a two or three inch border with the orange dot fabric in the middle. Today I found this blog, which is the CUTEST most perfect nursery I have ever seen, and I am reconsidering. I would like to change the quilt to a) have more colors/patches b) incorporate more colors into the room and c) have several fabrics that "go" but aren't "matchy matchy". See the inspiration quilt here. 

So, I dug around in the fabrics I have, and I think this one goes. 

I don't want more dots necessarily, but I like this look. What I need your help is with some fabric suggestions to incorporate that are fun patterns and more colors. I REALLY want to add some yellow and maybe some more blue. The striped fabric does have yellow in it if you can't tell and the green fabric has pale blue dots. So, suggest away!!! Thank you in advance for your help!

Facebook is FAH-REAKING me out

Blogging is a weird thing. Lately I have been seeing on several blogs people explaining why they started blogging, or posting video blogs to be even more real etc. I think this is wonderful, but to be honest, I have no idea why I started blogging, nor do I remember how I stumbled upon all of the blogs I visit EVERY SINGLE DAY now. I think I had intentions of using it as a journal of sorts, but most likely it was because I like to talk and sometimes people don't want to listen, and you all CHOOSE to listen! 

Anyway, 

For non-facebook users, the rest of this blog will probably mean nothing. 

Soldiering on...

A few months (sixish?) ago, facebook added a new feature called "Suggestions". I have found many a friend based on the suggestions of facebook. Until recently, I assumed it was like "Hey, you have these 67 friends in common, you probably know each other" type of suggestion. The other day this illusion was shattered. I logged into facebook and up pops a very familiar face, but one I've never seen in person. Sarah's pearly whites were staring back at me. So I click on her profile. No friends in common. Hmm...maybe facebook has a geographical sorting for suggestions since I live in Missouri and Sarah has said she lives in Iowa. Then I begin this internal debate. Do I friend her? I am certainly okay with her seeing all of my personal information because I feel I know her, but is it going to freak her out that I would see hers? I know I'm "normal", but does she? After a couple of days I request her friendship with a little note that said something that was admittedly very kindergarten like "If you don't wanna be friends that's totally okay, but I wish we could be". Sarah was kind enough to add me. And I felt special. Why? Because Sarah is one of those "anonymous" bloggers. She has said she lives in Iowa, but never the name of the town she lives in, or her last name etc. I, on the other hand, have not striven to be anonymous because I figure if someone wants to find me bad enough, they will, and my e-mail address which is posted on my blog is my first and last name, so there is really no way of hiding it now. I don't know which approach is better, but none the less, it thrilled me that I have been "normal" enough for someone like Sarah to open her "real" info to me. 

Fast forward a few days, when ANOTHER familiar face, Jackie,  of a blog I frequent pops up on facebook. What the HECK?! Our only friend in common, SARAH! So, what I guess I'm getting at is that the internet is freaky-deaky and don't do anything online you don't want the people you share your computer with to see. 

*If anyone knows how this works, please feel free to explain it in the comment section. I vaguely remember covering this in a marketing class that if a person looks online at Disney's website, for example, "they" are able to track it and make Disney ads pop up when they visit other pages.* 

Also, if you made it this far, please leave a comment, even just saying HI. I have started to wonder if anyone even reads this blog anymore and if people I know in "real life" are reading it, I would like to know who! So just leave your name if you don't have a blog. Please and thank you!!!

Happy 4th of July!!!

I got to spend the WHOLE day yesterday with my hubby and with NO school work. It was awesome. That's something that doesn't happen too often, but I worked hard this week to get everything done so my 4th could be a day off. We had our best friends' kids spend the night Friday night. We did some shopping for baby stuff Friday at Target and TJ Maxx and had dinner at Cheddar's. We love spending time with their kids SO much and enjoy getting to bring them to "your town" as they call it. Saturday we slept in and watched cartoons...let me re-phrase that, Nathan and the kids watched cartoons while I slept in! Ha! We had lunch at Chili's and then headed to our hometown, which the kids call "our town" or "my town". If you follow me on twitter you saw some great pics of the kids at lunch. They are the cutest things! After hanging at their house for a bit on Saturday afternoon, we headed to Nathan's grandma's for some good ol' American fireworks! I am so lucky to have married into such a great family and I love spending time with them! Here are some pictures!!!

Nathan's fearless cousin Lexi lit the majority of the fireworks on Saturday

Freedom is beautiful

Not my best picture, but hubby looks handsome! Notice my belly is growing!!!

Manning's closest cousin's on this side- Cambria and Zander

Left to Right: Nathan's Aunt Connie, Nathan's Aunt Lisa and Nathan's mom Lori 

Lori and Lisa are twins, but don't Lori and Connie look more alike?! :)

In all it was a GREAT 4th of July and I can't wait for next year. I just know Manning will have a ball with this family!