ANNIVERSARY!!!

Today is the day! Our 5 year anniversary! I cannot believe it's been 5 years!

I know people always say this, but it's really true...I love Ethan now more than I did 5 years ago and more than I thought possible. I cannot imagine what it's going to be like when we hit our 50th and even further!

As promised, this is my favorite picture from our wedding:

I love it for so many reasons. We both look so happy to be with each other. You can see my dress and you can see my flowers (which I LOVED, by the way!). This is us walking out of the reception to begin our life together. So sweet. It still hangs in our apartment today!

Sweet side note about our photographer, once again...when we came back from our honeymoon, this was waiting for us...blown up....and framed. How sweet is that?!

So thankful I married my best friend 5 years ago today. Looking forward to what God has for us this year!

Anniversary Week part 4

This is one of my favorite pictures from the wedding:

Why? Because my grandmother passed away less than a year after my wedding. It was really the last time the family got to be around her in her truest sense of herself, if that makes sense. She was just tickled the whole day that her great-granddaughter was getting married! And she loved Ethan to death so it was a really special day. I told her that I liked her dress that she bought for the wedding...her response: Well, when you get back, you can borrow it! It would look good on ya! She's hilarious!

I wasn't really keen on having pictures of just me taken on the day of the wedding. I preferred the ones with Ethan in them too, but for some reason, I really like this one:

I was about to enter the chapel where I was going to get married. I was going to take a few pictures and then see Ethan. I was nervous and super excited all at the same time. I think Matt captured that on my face here.

Have I mentioned that we just love our photographer? Let me tell you...it was one of the best things to have a great friend taking your photos. Matt caught some of the sweetest moments during the day. Besides the fact that he is a talented photographer, he is our friend and he knew the kinds of pictures we'd like and he knew what our emotions would be. He did a fantastic job! Matt's wife, Elissa, is one of my oldest and dearest friends and she has a really fun blog! You should read it! I swear she's going to write a book one day! (Right, Liss? Will you thank me in the acknowledgement section?!? Pretty please?!)

Anyway, I'm saving my most favorite picture for Friday...

Anniversary Week part 3

We were finishing up taking all our pictures and I was tired. However, in a wedding dress you can't just plop down in a chair, so I decided to go ahead and just rest where I was. I love that you can see how attentive Ethan is! He is seriously the best.

Again, another sweet moment captured by our great photographer, Matt. So glad you were there to catch all these!

Anniversary Week Part 2

I never get tired of talking Ethan. Hope you don't mind!

This is one of my favorite pictures from our wedding day. We saw each other before the wedding and I was already in the chapel so Ethan just came in to see me! I was one big ball of tears! I love that our sweet photographer captured the actual first moment we saw each other. I think that's why I love it so much...I can still remember everything about that moment:

Love that guy.

Anniversary Week

This week, Ethan and I will celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary! I cannot believe it!

Our pastor in Mississippi and his wife take a picture every year on their anniversary holding up the number of fingers for the number of years they have been married. We always thought this was adorable, so we decided to follow suit.

Since we are coming up on our 5th one, I thought a look back at the previous 4 would be fun...

They have been the best 5 years of my life! Ethan is everything I ever prayed for in a husband and more than I could have ever known I wanted. I am truly blessed to be his wife!

Totally Worth It

Hello, again. It's been a while.

So, I am one of those.

I definitely got up in time to watch the Royal Wedding live, not for all the pre-wedding coverage, just the wedding itself. I was up in time to see this:

Cate looked absolutely perfect. And so did Pippa, I think.

I love this shot:

I mean, I do not know these people, but they seem to really love each other and I like that.

Adorable:

I read that Cate took lessons from a make up artist in London and did her OWN makeup for the wedding. I did some of mine, but I'm glad I had my sweet bf, Kimmie, to help with makeup and hair! I cannot imagine doing my own before, oh, about 2 billion people watch me get married. Good for you, Cate!

So I may or may not have been made fun of a little bit for waking up for it, but I am so happy I did. My grandmother is British and I have always been fascinated by the royals. It was a great wedding and processional. I hope they are happy together! And honestly, we should pray for them because their ceremony was remarkably Christian. Maybe one day they will really believe it in their hearts. What a change that would be for England!

Not So Good At This

So, I'm not so good at this whole blogging thing when I don't really haven't anything going on and school is CRAZY!

However, I have a few minutes that I should actually be writing a paper, but instead, I will blog. I

mean, I owe it to you, right?

Last weekend, Ethan and I went to Passion with our college students. My goodness. What a weekend!

I never went when I was in college and I'm sad I didn't. However, I am very thankful that I got to

go now. We heard Louie Giglio, Francis Chan and John Piper speak. We were led in worship by Chris

Tomlin, Christy Nockels, Kristian Stanfill, Charlie Hall, and David Crowder. LeCrae even showed up.

It was an amazing weekend. I learned so much and it was just the rejuvenation that I needed!

During spring break, when Ethan was gone, my friend, DeAnna, and I made wreaths. One of the blogs

I follow (Hi, Linley) posted a DIY on this a while back and I have been wanting to make it since I saw

it. I talked DeAnna into doing it with me. They turned out SO good! Here's mine:

DeAnna did her roses all taupe colored and it looked amazing. Mine was too heavy to hang on my door outside on the existing nail, so i propped it up on my desk and I think I love it there:

Although it took longer than I thought it would, it was really really easy and cheap! Here's the direct link to the rose wreath DIY: here!

Check out all her DIYs here. I want to make the coasters, moss covered letters, and her latest clutch.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. I need to go write that paper.

Life Lately

Recently, Ethan and I have talked about getting our eyes checked out. We figured that we read so much and sit a computer so much that it would be good to figure out how our little eyes are doing. So we did some research, found a good opthamologist, and made appointments. Then we found a better opthamologist, made appointments with her and canceled our other ones. Saturday we show up for out appointments and the doctor was so sweet. She let me ask all my questions and made me feel like I was a smart patient for asking so many questions and wanting to know the details. I always think I'm annoying when I do that, and maybe I am, but she made me feel good about it. The diagnosis? My right eye is far sighted and my left eye is near sighted, but both are just barely that way. So apparently, my eyes only work together for about 3 hours a day and then they start to compete against each other. This has caused all sorts of little issues, like feeling dizzy, slow to focus on things, headaches. And I know what you're thinking...how did you not know you had a vision problem? Well, friend, I've never had one before and all my symptoms were so slight that I never put them all together. So there. Now I have glasses. And now that I'm not feeling cross-eyed as much, I'm really getting used to them. Here they are:

Ethan needs glasses too, but his aren't ready yet. Actually, his glasses are only for reading and studying. His eyes aren't really that bad, but the doctor wants him to prevent any damage from straining them so much.

All that to say, we're glasses wearers now. And we also really like our opthamologist. And I now have a new (rather expensive) accessory to put with my outfits. Although I only have one pair right now. That's ok...I really like the pair I got.

Hiatus

I took an unintentional hiatus from the blog. I just didn't have anything to say once I quit doing 30 for 30. My life is really not all that interesting, although I greatly enjoy it, so I figure nobody really wants to know what all is going on. But then I read other people's blogs about random stuff and I enjoy that, so I'm back!

Spring break was last week. I didn't go anywhere fun, but I had a good time anyway. Ethan went skiing in Colorado so I had people over every night and it was awesome! Look at Ethan, a natural at all things athletic:

He's cute!

Anyway, I thought I would share with you some pictures that are kind of old, some from early on in our marriage and some from early in our move to Texas. I think they are fun.

This is at our rehearsal dinner at Fat Tuesdays in Jackson, MS. Great food, great people. We look like babies:


This is my great grandma. She passed away a few years ago and I am so thankful she was able to be at my wedding in good health. She was hilarious. This will always be one of my favorite pictures:

When Ethan and I were first married, we helped run a tutoring center in a lower income apartment complex. We LOVED the kids there so much. We had a group come and play soccer with our kids one summer and this little guy didn't want to run around much, thus he became my attachment for the day. I'm glad they snapped this picture:

Ethan and I got to go to LA for a conference. This is us at Dodger stadium looking out over the city. I love it:

My sister...even though I have the scary eyes in this pic, I really like this one. I can SORT OF see how people think we look alike here:

I love Puerto Rico. So much. The country. The people. The food. The frappes. This is us on a mission trip there a few years ago in front of the best frappe stand:

We are SO good at Rock Band:

That is all for today. Thanks for looking/reading!

Blazer Day

We remembered! So this, again, is Diane. She's my friend and we work in the same office. She's the only one who was brave enough to do the 30 for 30 Remix Challenge with me. For that, I am so grateful. She's a big encouragement, too. So here ya go, day 8:

(my outfit: dress: target - blazer: wish (in new orleans) - scarf: compass trading company - tights: target - shoes: target - earrings: forever 21 - lip gloss: origins once upon a shine in sheer ruby)

Also, there is a site called Everybody EveryWear that asks people to wear something on a particular day and upload a picture for it so you can see how everyone wore that particular item. Confused? Well, today was Blazer day. I didn't know that until after lunch, but I just happened to wear my blazer today. So here ya go, my submission:

On a much more serious note, have you ever had friends around you hurting so badly that all you want to do is just sit and cry with them? Well, I'm there. I have some friends going through some really tough times adn I just can't seem to find the right words. One of my best friends wrote a blog about what to say and I thought I'd share a link to you about what she recommends. Click here for that post. She has been through the same struggles and was willing to share with me what was most helpful to her during that time. Apparently, sometimes just an "I love you" is enough. Anyway, check her out. She is the best writer! I hope she writes a book one day. I would read it over and over again.

We are preparing for more snow and ice tomorrow. I will say this, we are not used to this winter weather here in Texas! My friends up north, how do you handle this everyday?!?

We'll see if I'll be wearing outfit #9 or pajamas tomorrow....

The Babies

So over Christmas break, I had lunch with my friends. As mentioned earlier, we've been friends since we were 10, so this was the 17 year anniversary of our friendship! And they brought the babies. They were ADORABLE!

just me and the babies.

the girls with the babies.

standing up this time.