go green

spring. has. sprung. HALLELUJAH.

In true celebration of this fabulous weather we took the leftovers from our cookout bash last weekend over to the Reule's house last night for a fabulous cookout full of burgers, BBQ, summer salad with strawberries and goat cheese, mac & cheese, AND bananna pudding. My stomach is still rumbling from all of that goodness.


Sweet Mama Reule (JoAnna) was such an effortless hostess with Reese's high chair tray covered in the BBQ she had eaten for dinner, and there she was in her white shirt clean as could be. Someone's going to have to help me with these things when babies come my way.


Here is sweet Reese, scoping out her choices of beverages for the night - she literally picked up each one, looked at it, and put them back down.



Finally, she decided to forego the beers, and stick to all the nice cylinder shaped ice filling the bucket to suck on and nurse her teething gums. Much like the beer bottles, she picked up each cube of ice, sucked it (gave it to me to suck on), put it on the ground, and waited for me to throw it into the bushes before she picked out another one. Just precious. I heart this little girl and her sweet baby cheeks and thighs. Too bad these things aren't cute all through our life!

By the way, being around babies and their mom's who don't work but just stay home and love their babies, nest in their home and go for walks and sip wine while they cook is NOT a good form of birth control for me. Sorry Reule's, we might have to cut back on our hang out time...

The Evil Empire vs Me

Here is an evil empire that I have many choice words about. None of them are PG, none are appropriate for the church going crowd, and all I have learned from John Kessler (sorry to call you out John).

Let's replay this story. Boy and girl move out of loft, boy and girl move into home. Cable company comes over, man tells boy they need a grounding rod so their tv doesn't explode in their faces for that VERY high likelihood that lightning will strike our cable, travel through the cord, to our tv and make it explode. He'll have to come back another time. Boy buys grounding rod from great home improvement store. Cable Man #2 comes over. 20 minutes early. Cable men are never early. Says he only will wait 15 minutes for boy to get to house. Boy speeds, and uses choice words learned by John Kessler. Cable Man #2 leaves normal cable box (read, not HD for which we just bought a new TV), and doesn't set up internet. Girl is mad. Boy trades out cable box at cable company headquarters. Cable box (#3!) works...except it doesn't record - hello, what is the point of digital cable without DVR? Cable company sends box #3 new signal to 'fix' it. Cable box stops working at all. Girl trades out cable box. IT WORKS. For a day and a half. IT STOPS WORKING. one minute before the UNC/Kansas game. Girl calls hated cable company. Lovely receptionist woman tells her girl she will get someone out there "very soon." Wednesday. 5 days away. Lovely receptionist woman also tells girl "they're getting killed." Yes, this is in reference to girls' favorite UNC Tarheels, which the lovely receptionist woman is watching in her cube at hated cable company headquarters while girl is stuck in her cozy home with many friends, trying to entertain, and unable to, because the evil empire is out to get her.

So basically what I'm saying, is Roy, I know how you feel about Kansas and the way your Tarheels played this weekend. But I think you could express yourself better (and maybe your team would have won) without that tie.

Free, Free, I'm Free at Last...

With our one year anniversary around the corner, I've been reflecting on marriage and realized I should have posted this long ago (since this blog thing hasn't been so consistent for me yet!)

Our sweet friends Amy and Ross got married in the Fall, and I had the huge privilege of taking their wedding photos with my lovely assistant and husband.

Amy and Ross ooze love and gentle spirits, service, and pure joy. Such a fun wedding filled with special moments and personal touches. Amy and her girls made all of their boquets while the boys played golf and filled luminary bags; and the rehearsal dinner was decked out with Jones soda bottles (red and blue for their school spirit) with their picture on the labels!

I loved this picture as I took it with the long lines of both of their tall selves against these Fall trees with Amy's gorgeous and simple long veil billowing under her. Even though it is over-exposed and pretty soft, it ended up being one of my favorite pictures of them as it captured how happy they really were on this exciting day!