too good for the internet

this past weekend was just too good for the internet. no instagram. no Facebook. just quality time with family and friends. it was so refreshing!

blake and i are people-people. like majorly. we love having people over, talking, playing games. i'm not the best cook but i love to feed people. one thing i worried about the most when we moved in over here was that that wouldn't happen much because this isn't our home. but it honestly hasn't changed much at all! our friends matt and lacey, and their littles finley and beau recently moved from atlanta to nashville. matt and blake used to live together back in the day and have stayed close since. i always say we don't have friends, just a really big family. and they are for sure family. anyways, they came to atlanta for the weekend and stopped by to hang out for a bit on saturday. since they didn't have any reason to be back home the rest of the weekend, we convinced them to shack with us! emma was so excited and kept saying "my best friend is home!" so dang precious.

it isn't too often i get a meal cooked by blake. unless it's on a grill. so i ever-so-slyly suggested we grill out since it was so beautiful. he obliged and made the most delicious steaks and salmon. i handled the potatoes ;) we just let the kids play outside all day and ended up eating dinner on the back porch. it was heavenly. some times you just gotta let your kids crawl around and eat acorns (he didn't really eat them) while you sit and porch-it-up with a jar of tea. saturday was one of my faces for sure.

to top off the excellent weekend, we went to the zoo sunday with my parents and nephew. if i haven't shared before, my sister and brother in law are in the marines, stationed in north carolina. haley is currently deployed in japan and her husband just recently had to travel to california for a couple of weeks. so my parents and his parents have been splitting the time with rhett. and blake and i have been eating up any chance to be aunt/uncle. rhett is hilarious and animated. so full of joy. and his first time at the zoo blew his mind. sorry we stole your thunder, haley. can i pull the aunt card on this one? ;)

i just really love getting to see my parents as grandparents. they're so good at it. they're fun, loving, and such an active part in my babies' lives. what a blessing they are.

all those bottles weren't just his, promise!

always singing, this one :)

matt and lacey are the photogs behind something beautiful photography. if you're in the nashville area, check them out! great work, great people!

what i learned from my two year old

lately i think jesus has been teaching me about forgiveness through my 2 year old. some days i'm just plain ugly yet i try to teach her what it means to treat people nicely. but....monkey see, monkey do. and although i have the authority to discipline her bad behavior, i can't blame her actions when mine are not so different. it is a strange accountability, and i am really grateful for it.

i think jesus has been trying to urge me to just love more. to judge less and just love people. we all think we have all the answers. and it is so off-putting. what's even worse is we use the bible as a blanket to cover up our personal opinions. i'm so bad about forming an opinion and calling it "biblical". but we can't hide our actions. you can't say you love people but then make fun of them for what they do or how they live. guilty.

last week i had a day where i just snapped about everything. nothing moved fast enough, nothing made me happy. it was disgusting. as i got emma into bed i prayed for a better day and His response to me? apologize to her. um do you know how humbling it is to apologize to a toddler for your bad attitude? and what's even more humbling is when she forgives you. i mean what a perfect picture of christ. for your child to hold your face and say "it's otay mommy. it's accident. lub you mommy" just shows what a precious spirit she has, and it's everything i want to be. i want to love everyone unconditionally like that. to just put my feelings aside and forgive them because i love them.

i'm so grateful for this season where i get to be home with my babes every day. we stress a lot about finances, and we don't get to do as much as we'd like.. but the reward of time and influence with our kids as they grow so quickly is more than i could ever ask for.

so i'm putting into practice what i so graciously learned from my toddler. just say, "it's ok" and give someone a second chance. maybe they don't deserve it, but i didn't either. my God is in the business of second chances, and i want to be an ambassador of that.

hope your tuesday was as beautiful as ours!

whoops! an update!

our internet here is pretty inconsistent. and for whatever reason it hasn't worked at all lately. my data plan is not happy with me. so the posts i've had planned keep getting pushed back. but i have some cool things in the works that i'm pretty excited about!

these past couple of weeks have been rough for me. i've spent so much time in the word, and praying over what i want Him to show and change in me. being pregnant this time around has changed me more than i expected. it's been HARD, y'all. by the end of the day i am straight worn slap out. and blake often jokes with the kids that mommy clocks out around 9. ha! it's sadly true.. i'm no good after 9. i don't say all of this for pity, but to make a point instead.

i am exhausted, i am weak. yet, i keep putting my hope and faith in my own abilities, in my own doing. i know what He tells me, yet i keep choosing me. it is a battle for sure. and it is a battle that Christ did not die for me to fight. i'm crucifying him all over again by living in do it myself mode. if i'm not putting my faith in him, what am i putting my faith in?

i've been re-reading through "glimpses of grace" again and this passage really stuck out to me:
"we should frequently ask ourselves (and ask our friends to ask us as well), is your role or identity as a homemaker the object of your affections? do you lose your cool when that identity is threatened? do you serve your image of a good mother? "

my identity is in christ, not the things he's given me or the influence i feel he's growing in me. when i put my identity or faith, in anything other than him, my days won't look right. my attitude is going to suffer, my patience will dwindle.

we've had so much good family time lately. blake and i spend a lot of time with other people, and we love it! but it's so nice to just get time with the 4 of us. and seeing blake as a dad makes me fall even more in love with him. and seeing his patience and forgiveness when pregnancy hormones attack and i'm a blubbering mess, makes me see christ in him even brighter. here are some pictures from our day at my parent's house and valentine's day!

we strapped wyatt to the seat in the kayak and blake rode him around the driveway! he loved it!

see that cuh-yoot t shirt wyatt is wearing? it's from honey bee tees and we have a growing collection! i'm obsessed.

emma learning how to ride a bike!

beachin it

in the three years that blake and i have been married, we have never been on a real trip by ourselves. i say a real trip meaning one that doesn't involve work. our first year we went to DC for a trade show for the company blake worked for at the time, and we extended it a bit by adding a day in baltimore. but blake was so busy with work stuff that the trip was really more of me walking around DC in the blazing heat while he shmoozed people ;)

so this year we decided to not do anniversary gifts and take off for the weekend to one of our favorite spots, seaside! technically we stayed a little outside of seaside (we're folks on a budget!) but we spent most of our time there. 

i absolutely love the small town, beach feel of 30a. it's so relaxed and the people are always so friendly. we go every summer, so it was a fun change of pace to go in the off season. we walked around the bookstore, where i added some classics that blake had never read to our collection, and drank glass bottled cokes while we taste-tested at the farmer's market. it was so so so nice to be alone together. i would encourage any of you to take a small trip alone with your husband if you can! it was such a blessing to me!

blake is my biggest encourager. and we love to dream together. a lot of that gets lost in the day to day chasing after littles and cooking, and cleaning. i think we needed that time to just feel like our sappy little lover selves sans babes. but oh my gosh were we missing them! this was the first time i have ever left our kids for more than a day! talk about stressing a mama out... but i did ok, they did ok, and blake was patient with me ;) when we got home, we surprised the kids with their gifts we picked out for them: mermaid stickers and a twilight sparkle for emma, and a tractor and barn set for wyatt, and wyatt surprised us with HIS FIRST STEPS!

y'all i teared up. my baby man is not a baby. he is becoming a toddler. how sweet and sad all at the same time! but he sure was cute stumbling to me from his daddy's arms. he smothered us in grins and kisses. as i lay here next to emma she reaches up to give me a big hug and kiss, and whispers "i so glad you're back mommy" me too, baby girl. together is my favorite place to be.

hope everyone had a great weekend!

i mean, this guy. i'm kinda obsessed with him ;)

thank you self timer!

23 weeks!

the bikes are my favorite!

those pops of red against white...so gorgeous!