Telling Our IVF Story

For those of you who are interested, I started an offshoot blog called The Invention of Tiny Toes to tell our adventure with IVF from start to finish. It will be in excessive detail because I know there are some of you out there who want to know all that detail. For those of you who don't who follow this blog, I did not want to force you to hear about it. :) So be warned if you head over there. There will be lots of detail about every step. Both personal and the business side.

So here it is…

The Invention of Tiny Toes

These beautiful little toes belong to little Luke, my friend Kristen's little guy.

Truth for This Week

The Person of Jesus is the world’s only real organizing principle. Ann Voskamp

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from You. Psalm 62:5

When my life is organized around Jesus, who is Beautiful, my messy life is organized beautifully. Ann Voskamp

Trust your tongue only when your heart is tender. Ann Voskamp

Do Hard Things — most often means doing small, obscure, everyday things.  Just Do Whatever He Tells You. Ann Voskamp

Righteous: One who trusts God with their life and their future. - The Actual Pastor

No parent, no matter how dedicated, expert, present and loving can produce a perfectly healthy and happy adult. Such a feat is simply not within our power.

At the same time, every parent is divinely used to affect the journey of every child – toward this and away from that, even if with opposite from intended results.And I didn’t know then what I do know now: that every child of every parent is God’s instrument in the life of his or her parent.

My children have been His chief tool for the shaping of me, shaving off the certainty, molding a softer version, raising up a gumption necessary to face another day. - Elisa Morgan

The newest thing hanging in my work cube.

Source - Remodeling This Life

I’m not living like just Jesus is enough for me. - Ann Voskamp

The best lesson in belonging is learned in leaving and returning. - Enjoying The Small Things

Spontaneous Creativity

As much as I love my craft business, I have found that I don’t get to really use my creativity or my pinterest addiction as much as I would like to. So with 3 wedding gifts and 2 mother’s day gifts to be made I was able to find some serious creativity!!!

My cameo silhouette is amazing. Seriously amazing.

I kinda wanted to keep this one. :) With a different date of course.

To the new Edington Couple.

To the new Spoelstra Couple.

The mother's day towels. My new favorite… Fabric paint. Life changing.

I have been having fun with wrapping too! Even the tag was from my Silhouette.

And our latest wedding down in Oregon from my last post.

And that is it my friends. Not much more to say. Creativity thanks to pinterest.

Seaside Weekend Getaway

Since I just did a Oregon post about Laura's wedding reception, here are a few more photos from a weekend we had down in Oregon with friends a few months ago.

One of the top places to vacation here at the beach is not a Washington beach, but an Oregon beach. Tons of people from our church head on down to Cannon Beach whenever they want a little vacation.

Some sweet friends of ours have decided to allow the Air Force to move them away from us and before they left, we all wanted to have a little weekend away exploring.

We actually ended up in Seaside which is just a few miles north of Canon Beach, but we were still only a half a mile away from the beach. It actually worked out because we were able to explore both of the little downtown's in Seaside and Cannon Beach.

Kristen found us this adorable little cottage through AirBnB. This is the same site we found the places we stayed in London and Paris. Definitely a new favorite traveling site.

And with staying in a house,  it worked well to bring food for dinners and breakfasts, but to go out for lunches. Love little ways to save money!

 

The sweet little house where we stayed.

Already made it our home.

We were all going to head down together, but with an ER visit and a few other key things happening, Thomas and I headed out on Thursday and sweet little night away. We slept in and after a leisurely morning, Kristen and John joined us with their two kiddos Sydney and Luke.

Friday - Seaside Beach

So we set the crockpot on low and walked to Seaside beach the first night.

I feel as though I should permanently do my hair this way. Thoughts?

Yay sweet little family!!!

And our little family. But seriously? What is wrong with my hair?

Saturday - Cannon Beach

This is the rock! That one called Haystack famous from the Goonies? Anyone?

Yes it was cold! At least my hair looks a wee bit better.

This wee one was EVERY WHERE! She just has a blast running around like crazy.

We all forgot our kites, but John bought another one and, he and Thomas had a fun time keeping it in the air.

Sunday - Cannon Beach Hiking

Sunday we went back to Cannon beach and tried to find the Clatsop Loop trail head. Turns out we were at the wrong parking lot and found the Indian Trailhead instead. It was a beautiful hike that actually dumped us out at the beach and at the parking lot we were supposed to be at to hike the Clatsop trail!

Sorry Thomas. Cut off your head.

And naturally it was a beautifully calm sunny day. And we had to head back early. Oh well. It was an awesome weekend spent making memories with friends who are moving to the beaches on the opposite coast.

We just might have to make a FL trip to visit you Kristen and John!

Laura and Ed's Oregon Reception

!

Thomas and I were able to drive down to Oregon for a sweet friend's reception. She was my RA my first year (Jr year) at Point Loma. She was also the very first person Thomas met and became friends with when he first went to Point Loma 3 years earlier then my arrival. She is the one who informed me that Thomas was not going to get hints, I just had to tell him things straight. And she told Thomas and I was clearly dropping hints. She is just one of those people that makes our story special.

So we had to be there to celebrate her special story too.

3 hours down, 3 hours to celebrate, 4 hours back.

She had Polaroids there for each of us to capture a picture of us and place it in a scrapbook next to a little note to them. I loved this picture so much her Aunt let me take another one so I could keep this one. Thank you Laura's Aunt!

Definitely my new favorite picture of us.

She is truly amazing. She did the flower arrangements all her self including these ones.

Taking a picture of the two of us and there she is behind us.

Details. Just love them.

They were married 2 days earlier at the coast with a few close family and friends. A sweet friend Mod made a beautiful video of the day for all of us who were not there. And this is Laura and Ed watching it for the first time.

All the Point Loma Peeps: Thomas, Me, Laura, Audra, Stephanie, and Mod (Chris).

This sweet lady. Just love her. And her beautiful dress that her mom made. Just an amazingly crafty family.

The camp where she works and the reception was held.

Thank you for letting us join in the festivities sweet friend! We are so thankful for you in our lives. Looking forward to more time now with you AND Ed. :)

A Little Bit of Texas, A Little Bit of New Orleans

Y'all, I thought I had caught up on all my old posts that I wanted to post. Clearly not.

And in honor of my sisters visiting my mom in TX and them driving to New Orleans this last week, here is my adventure last year.

Last year Thomas had a boys weekend so I headed on down to Texas to visit my mom.

So I looked up all the fun and quirky things about Houston and New Orleans and this is what we found.

Houston

The house made of tin cans

  

Waterfall in the City

 

 

Tree lined streets of Baylor

Project Row Houses

 

Crazy metal sculptures on the side of the freeway

 

 Vidor

This is what my mom sees out her windows

New Orleans: Downtown

I got to sleep up the stairs in the loft

 

 

 

 

 

Best beignets ever

 

St Louis Cathedral

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New Orleans: The Garden District

The last thing we did before we drove back was to walk the Garden District where we stayed.

  

 

 

 This is a different angle from the same house above. I love it.

Always have to find a little buddy for Thomas, even if he wasn't there.

  I am not a huge celebrity person, but I did find Sandra Bullock's house. I don't know why, but I love so many actresses that are in their 40's. Sandra Bullock, Julie Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Meg Ryan Jennifer Gardner etc. I would love to be their best friends.

The famous Lafayette Cemetery

 

It was an awesome trip. Loved how much we walked and how much we saw. And lets not even get into the food. Definitely a trip for the memory books indeed.

 Thanks Mom!