two great men

I am so thankful for the love you show to me. For the laughter you brought me as a child with your silly voices. For the countless hours you spent teaching and coaching my softball teams. The support you gave me throughout my musicals. The encouragement you gave me when I was too scared to try out for Purduettes. The beaming sense of pride you had for me, when I made it! For the christian upbringing you gave me.

Thank you for the talks as you drove me back to the dorms every sunday night. Thanks for the time you put into typing up (a lot) of my college papers! Thank you for always standing behind me, even if what you think I did was wrong. Thanks for listening. Thanks for not judging. Thanks for giving advice, even when it may be hard for me to hear. Thanks for the time you spend with my kids. Thanks for the laughter that you bring to them.

For the time you are willing to spend with them(even when you may have to change a diaper!).

I am so grateful to have you as a father. You are a wonderful man of God and I am so proud to see the fruits of your patient waiting come to happen. You deserve it! I love you dad.

And to this man. I am so glad to have you in my life. I am thankful for all you do for me. For the countless hours spent listening to my stories. For your paitence, when I give you too much detail. For your encouragement when I am going through tough times. Thank you for listening. Thank you for not judging. Thanks for giving me advice , even when its hard for me to hear. Thanks for helping me figure things out. Thanks for always loving me. For going along with me to things that make you uncomfortable, just because you want to see me happy. Thank you for you willingness to help around the house. For cooking. For doing dishes. For cleaning toilets. Thanks for the humor that you bring into our household. Thanks for your drive to make our family succeed, even when times get tough. Thank you for being such an awesome father. For spending so much time with the kids. For countless hours you spend teaching. For playing. For changing diapers(for a whole 9 months straight LOL). Thanks for putting up with my indesisiveness. For lifting me up. For your constant compliments, even when I don't want to hear it.For your hard work(always working 2 jobs) in providing for our family. For not being selfish.

I am so grateful to God for bringing you to me. You are the perfect compliment for me. I am so excited to see your desire to grow in Christ and lead your family with Jesus in the center.

I am so proud of you. I love you!

been playing with my camera....

my kids are tired of me chasing them around!! LOL

the adorable little guy here(other than Brig) is my friend Patti's son, Cameron. would you look at those eyes!!

I have actually taken a few other friends' children so I'll post them soon. Been scrapping a lot lately, and one day soon, I'll end up flooding the gallerys at a few of my favorite scrappy spots!! LOL

its just such a pain to scan and stich each 12/12 page. this is when I wish that I scrapped 8.5x11 pages!! LOL

I even kept up with challenges at scrapfriendzy and simply obsessed. they were a blast to do, and I was so bummed that I didn't get them posted!

we went back to OH last weekend to visit. A friend of ours had a baby shower, and we drove around our old stomping grounds and showed Brigham where we used to live! He kept asking where did he live. and where did Tatum live. by the end of the day, he had decided that he and Tatum had lived at the Mcdonald's by the big tree and the fountain..but just when they were babies!! LOL

I'll post some pics of our trip later! Well gotta go get dinner before lifegroup tonight. we are discussing such an awesome stretch of scripture right now... James 2.....

hope you're all keeping cool. its awful out there!!

hope to post more pics later.... my new camera bag just got shipped... I am sooo excited !!!


I can't wait to get til it arrives on my doorstep!

I would be a monkey

yep. tonight at lifegroup we had to describe our week based on what kind of animal we would be.



and I would be a monkey. swinging from tree to tree to tree to tree , every so often stopping to clean another's hiney. and yet not really accomplishing anything!







been overloaded with laundry and trying to sort thru the kids winter clothes and figuring out where to put the masses of summer clothes. geesh, having a girl is just torture on the resist-to-buy-adorable-tiny-people-clothes.!! seriously!!







and then I always feel guilty for buying Tatum stuff, so I have to turn around and find stuff for brig. which is a tad more difficult. boy stuff is so boring!!







luckily its we've been in a monsoon lately.so we've not been missing out on outdoor play. my stomach has pretty much been in my throat every night as the dumb tornado sirens go off. nothing freaks me out more than bad weather like that.



we had like 12 actually touch down in IN over the last few days. so scary, but I don't think there were any ppl hurt, just tons of property damage.



that will be the first Question I ask the big guy when I get to heaven. "what exactly is the purpose for tornadoes?". I understand the wind to move seeds, and the rain to make them grow. but hail? and cyclones? and 140 mile/hour winds? no thanks.







I've also been trying to learn more about my camera.. And so I've been addicted to msg boards as I soak in all the info from photo gurus. I bet I have taken close to 800 pics this week!! ahhhhh. my hard drive !! EEEK!



I rented a lens over memorial day weekend and LOVED it! last night Andrew was online researching different ones for me, and then I'd run to the boards, and get feedback.



so by the end of the week I should be ordering a 50mm 1.4 and a 70-300mm.



I took some pics of my friends kids last weekend and they were really pleased. I am taking some of another friends kids tomorrow. hopefully it goes well. I am loving having fresh new faces to practice on!

with miss T on the move, and Brigham just acting ornery.... its a bit trying to say the least!!LOL

I also became susie homeaker and baked a pie! from scratch.. crust and all!! EESH!



we had some rhubarb from our vegi co-op.. and so I made a pie.





we also get eggs from vegi co-op... they are fabulous!!





and here is the pie when it was nice and warm right out of the oven...

and then I got a little zealous, and attempted at achieving martha status.. and made another pie today. a vanilla custard pie.
sorry no pictures. it went to the neighbors.


I've also been scrapping like crazy.. trying to keep up with challenges at simply obsessed and over at scrapfriendzy. THey have really been a ton of fun, and i've been able to bust thru my stack of pictures... bummer is that we just got a new photo scanner/printer, and I can't figure it out right to stich my pages to post!!

I am hoping to get some of these projects completed in the next couple days. I just hate having things hanging over my head...

well, we've got play dates the next two days, so hopefully that will allow for the kids to schedule naps , and then I'll get some time to focus!
Tatum is down to one nap and its not the same time as Brig.. very frustrating.
but they both sleep in past 9:30, so I can't complain!!

hope you're having a great week... we're half way thru, thank goodness!!

summers finally here!

the warm temps and sunny skies finally made there way to Indiana!
We've been out enjoying parks, bike rides, walks, cook outs, gardening, frisbee golf, hanging out with friends and family.

LOVE it.


Last Friday night I went to a friends house to scrap. I loaded all my stuff, set it all up, and we proceeded to talk until 2am! and you guessed it , hardly any scrapping got done!

I actually brought 6-7 pages that I had completed at home, and then typed up the journaling, and added it there. So, it least I came home with some 'finished pages'!! LOL

Saturday, I went with my mom to the nursery to buy flowers. AHHHH. I get all giddy in the greenhouses. I think once my kids are grown, I want to spend my summers working in one! It just smells like heaven.. I don't even mind getting dirty, b/c there's always a good tan along with it!! LOL
I got 3 flats plus a bunch of 4 inch pots, so I was super busy trying to get them in before the forecasted rain!
Sunday, we had an awesome church service. seriously, each week is sooo incredibly moving. I cry almost every week, since we've been at this new place.
came home and made a trifle in red, white and blue, berries, and also a double layer sourcream choc mouse cake that totally flopped right off the cake stand! it was a mess, and I can't believe I actually took it to our Lifegroup picnick.... but it tasted great!
so we went to our friends for a Day-before- memorial -day get together.. and it was a lot of fun.
Cept after we were there about 25 minutes, I got a call from my dad, telling me that my grandpa had died.
So sad. we had kinda been prepared as, he went into the hospital 2 months ago, and had been in a nursing home since.. my dad had gone down Saturday, and came back saying that the drs didn't think he'd have made it thru Friday night... so there was some good improvements.
I think I was wishfully praying and thinking a miracle would extend his life for a little while more.
anway. I got a tad emotional, and ended up leaving the party.. just not into being social.
came home, put T to bed, and then scrapped 3 pages!!
We went to a cookout at my brothers on Monday, Brigham had a blast with all the drunken corn hole players!!
it was quite amusing.
been weeding the heck out of my garden and watering it a bunch b/c we never got the rain.... I feel so bad for those who got hit with all those storms. that is just about my worst fear. I just don't understand why God brings tornadoes to us. such devestation... how can that be for good?
sigh...

today was the funeral for my gpa..(which is really my grandma's second husband).. my real grandpa dies 7 years ago and then my grandma remarried this wonderful man right before her 80th birthday!!
she has been treated like a queen for the past 6 years! I am so glad she had this time with such a caring and devoted man.
She actually married my grandpas cousin. they had both lost their spouses of nearly fifty years.. and so they really had a nice companionship for these last several years.
We were planning on going to the funeral up until late last night, and decided that the 6 hours of drivng(bothways) and gas prices, and the two little ones would not be the best idea.
I was really torn about it.. but feel we did what was best for us now. My grandpa totally understood.. and we're actually going to be down there next weekend... so we'll get some good quality time with her. My dad says she is doing pretty well. Its still sad though.
got me thinking all about death, and eternity and stuff like that. how do you know for sure? I could drive myself(and others around me) insane trying to figure it out.
guess thats why I need to just trust... and have faith.

ok, so my husband is yelling at me... LOST is starting.. season finale... WHOOOOO HOO! its going to be awesome... and then I just know I'll be so pissed trying to figure out what the heck is going on, and then I have to wait til next season!
UGH!
later!!

the consequences of blogging

so yesterday, after our play date, and after loads of laundry(who am I kidding.. I sorted the dirty stuff, and put one load in) the kids went down for naps.

Brigham is in to negotiating his actual sleeping time, and tends to be up for any number of reasons, and also manage to pull every book off his shelf and surround himself with them, in hopes that reading will detract from his sleeping.

Tatum, my gem, went right to sleep.

I took full advantage of my quiet time, and caught up on blogs... some time had gone by.. Tatum had awakened, but was just entertaining herself in her crib.... and Brigham was in and out of the office 548 times as I continued to reassure him that it was in fact OK to go watch clifford.(and not sleep).

So as I was deeply engrosed in LISA's banterings, I could hear , but tried to tune out , Tatum's jabbering as it turned into whining.

Suddenly I hear this:

"Mommy, Tatum's hands are all messy"

Yep. you guessed it. I walked in to my sweet lil girls nursery and about fell over from the fumes.

and saw her face:

its kinda faint, and just in the corners of her mouth. but its there just the same.

and since I knew the toxic amounts that she had probly ingested still had some nutritional value.. I didn't think it could get any worse.. and so like any scrapbooker would.

I left her in the stinch that child services would have had a hay day with.. and ran for my camera.

The sheets were off, due to some excess leakage from the nose the day before.

thankfully, this made for easier clean up today.

UGH.

poor dolly.. had to have a bath along with my sweet baby girl.

and all the while... they both never stopped smiling!!

hope your day was less of a stinker than mine.

Idol.... whoa.... which Dave will it be? My votes sill for DC. He just melts me.

been scrapping a lot lately too, and if I figure out my new scanner/printer, I'll post some pages..as I need to get them up for some other sites too.

fun was bloomin all around us

the favor pots, which I filled with seed packets, snail and butterfly magnets, bug stickers, candy

one of the uber cute cookies!

grandma and the birthday girl

two out of three cakes. the lady bug was little missy's. I had an adorable pink and yellow flower too, but somehow it missed the picture natzi. =(

I had the entire fence around our back yard adorned in these paper flowers!

butterfly bowling... so hard to get a good picture, but they were soooo cute!

(colored water in bottles, with tissue paper wings and pipe cleaner antennae)

Brigham pinning the lady bug on the flower

our dragon fly, that just didn't want to die... until one of the dads took a bat to it!

the madness of diving for candy begun!!
and her ladybug cake... what do i do?




she figured it out!!

some garden decor....

the m &ms in the vase were such a tease !!

peanutbutter and jelly for the kids

bee,butterfly,and caterpillar grams w/ yummy dip

caterpillers, of course!

ants on a log

our garden spread. chicken salad sandwiches. macaroni salad in the pot,

pinwheel sandwiches that became snails with an olive head

the birthday girl on her actual day. went to lunch with grandma, and uncle monkey. the hat stayed on for about 1.32 seconds!!LOL

she got lots of 'girly' things from grandma... all of pink, of course!! LOL















she got cleaned up and opened so many cute, cute things. we are so blessed to have family and friends who love and support our little T !!!

and even a birthday girl can cry if she wants to......

look who's ONE !!!

so i tried to post this cute lil photo timeline of the last year... but after nearly an hour... and blogger STILLL wouldn't cooperate..... I decided to just do this sweet and simple one.

HAppy BIrthday my sweet baby girl Tatum. What an amazing blessing you have been in our lives this last year. We are so grateful that God chose you to be in our family.!!

a visitor, a doctor,and a garden party

as I was half awake, but reluctantly getting out from under my warm covers, because I had a very unexpected visit by my long lost aunt flo, and it was NOT an invitation sent, kind of visit.

didn't start the morning off well.. but I could hear the cartoons on in the living room. my adorable son, who quietly gets up around 8:30 each morning, and helps himself to a granola bar and juice that (daddy has set on the kitchen table, prior to leaving for work) was quite content.

I would say that this was an abnormality.. but alas.. it is not.

Yep, my kid wakes up before me everyday. and quietly entertains himself for about and hour before my alarm clock(his sister) starts to mutter her entrance into the morning.

God certainly knew what he was doing when I created my kids with extra sleeping capacity.

Back to my bed.. as I was debating whether to get up and take a shower before lil sis wakes up, I was greeted with a smiley face on the side of my bed.

"mama , are you sick?"

no, not reallly.

"mama, do you feel icky?"

well, kinda, yeah.

" I can go get you some yogurt. that will make you feel better"

me laughing

"really, I can go get it all by myself. I can get you a spoon too"

no, you don't have to

" well, do you want some medcin, medcin will make you feel better?"

no, thats ok, brigham

"do you want some water. if you're sick, then water will make you feel better"

(at this point, I am thinkin I should just let the doctor take care of me..lol !!)

ok, you can bring me some water

so, as I lie in my bed I can hear the little dude, put his little stool up to the bathroom sink, and then he proceeds to set a little CARS cup on my bedside table.

HOW CUTE IS THAT?

totally made my day. but yeah, still pretty ticked that I have to deal with an unwelcome house guest today.!! ugh.

I have been busy making chicken enchilladas and fried ice cream for our Lifegroups party tonight.

bet you can't guess what theme I went with for tonight.

let the margharitas start flowing.....mmmmm.

I'll leave you with my invitations for Tatum's party next weekend.

went with a garden theme! so last weekend I planted the heck out of my pots, so they'll all be busting with color, since my yard is not yet(other than tulips right now).

the flower are tucked inside the pots, and then you pull them out to read the party info. I used 'garden-ish' wording, so you'll have to click to make the pictures bigger to read.found those little making memories brads which will definately be used on her party LO.!

I have been collecting for months (yes, I started planning when she was 6 months!!) flowers, and pots, and watering cans, and butterflies, and dragonflies, and bumblebees, and caterpillars, and lady bugs. I just picked up the cutest little toddler gardening back with tools at Target the other day. The colors are all bright, but mostly hot pink, bright green, yellow and orange.

I found fabric that I am going to make into table cloths. and the coolest dragonfly pinata that will be fluttering around outside!

Lucky for me, Hobby Lobby has been putting their garden stuff on 50% off(when do they not, though) and I have collected some decor there too.

and the little girl will be dressed for her party in this, and I have a cute little green dragonfly bow , that my mom got her on our Ga trip.

I've had this in my head for so long, I can not wait to see it all come together.

I can't wait to see my still toothless sweetiepie did into her cake!!

well, I am off to prep for our fiesta tonight. Andrew's graduation is this weekend, so I am baking a cake for him. His parents are coming on Friday afternoon. Brigham is beyond excited. Two visits in just over a month! very fun.

hope you are all having a good week. half way thru.. Whoooo hoooo!!

back to the ol' grind

Seriously. we totally had an awesome time away on our little mini vaca to the south!
almost all the family came in for it. it was an awesome celebration to witness the strenghth , patience and love between my grandparents. SIXTY FIVE YEARS!!! thats a long time!

The kids did fantastic on the drive. they both took their naps with no problem. Brigham was completely occupied with the many, many car games that my mom printed off here

Brigham even went on a bear hunt in the backseat!!( remember that old camp song?)

It brought back memories of all the stuff my brother and I did on long car rides.


I had hoped to meet up with Heather who lives just 45 min away from the gardens. and also my dear friend Jop who moved away to GA 2 years ago. Time just wasn't on my side, and there was lots of family time that needed to happen.
Sorry girls. hopefully this summer , we'll be back down that way!


But now its back to reality. Loads of laundry. getting up early to get to preschool and gymnastics.and I busily tried to get Tatum's party invitations out in the mail.



UGH.



I can't believe in 3 weeks my baby girl will be ONE! I'll post pics of them next time.Not everyone has received them yet.



Luckily, spring followed us home from Georgia! My tulips are blooming. Second wave of daffodils, and my hyacinths have popped to make my yard look fabulous.


This weekend I am planting all my pots. and probably getting a few things in the ground. Indiana weather is a little tricky to garden with.. you never know when that last freeze will hit ya!



I haven't edited the trip pics, yet(they're not even off my camera..lol) but here are some pics that I have been meaning to share..


here is the master bedroom / office now:
















my little cottage retreat ! I love my frames above the bed. they are wedding pics that I bordered with some melissa francis paper.












and here are some pics of the kids from a couple weeks ago:



































Hope you all enjoy your weekend! We've got lots on the to-do list as we prep for Andrew's graduation and Tatum's party!!, but hopefully we'll get a chance to enjoy a nice frothy beverage and relax a bit!