The Beauty of Springtime & My Patient Husband

Nate and I both love spring. Let's be honest for a second, who doesn't? After a long and cold winter, nothing is more refreshing than being able to peel off all of those layers from winter (yes, the ones that may have been hiding all those extra lattes and cups of hot chocolate you may have consumed during the cold) and to take a walk and see a canvas come to life as God begins to paint a beautiful work of art for all of us to enjoy. Spring is always a time that we reflect on change and how things seem to suddenly "become new". Everything starts to feel alive again- the warmer gentle breezes start to blow, people begin hanging out on their porches, the smell of dinner on the grill begins to emerge, and spring rains usher in the budding trees and flowers.  Even if you don't love flowers and trees, you can't help but notice how bright and green the landscape starts to become around you and that has to make you feel happy.  

A few days back, Nate & I took advantage of the beautiful weather one evening and took an opportunity to stroll through some of the older neighborhoods in the city. To help give you a visual, we chose to walk in an area where a large number of million dollar+ homes abound complete with their timeless architecture, gorgeous manicured lawns, and the beauty of flower gardens and budding trees surrounding them. It really was a gorgeous area to walk in this time of year. 

Sometimes in life, it's nice to just take a little while to get away from the crazy, breathe some fresh air, smell the newly cut grass, watch the buds start to peek through and turn into flowering trees, and as they say- literally "stop to smell the roses"....or in our case, other flowers. I truly can appreciate the beauty of flowers and trees, but a green thumb the Lord did NOT give me. Seriously. He may have given me many abilities to which I am oh so thankful for, but He missed the green thumb one somewhere, which is too bad seeing how much I do enjoy flowers. Since I can't keep many flowers alive (at least not ones in my home it seems), I figured I could at least take photos of them while we walked. (this is the part where I thank Nate for being the patient husband that he is for all my "little stops" all along our walk...he has learned how to be patient whenever a camera happens to be in my hands...he has learned it can be a dangerous thing....oh the stories he could tell!)

So with that thought in mind, we decided to share just a little unedited glimpse into our reflective spring stroll.....

"For lo, the winter is past
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth:
the time of singing has come..."
Song of Solomon 2:11-12a

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; 
blessed is the man who trusts in Him!"
Psalm 34:7-9

"...be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, 
an offering and a sacrifice to God 
for a sweet-smelling aroma."

Ephesians 5:1-2

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, 

My soul will be joyful in my God;

For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation...

For as the earth brings forth its bud,

as the garden causes the things that are 

sown in it to spring forth, So the Lord God will 
cause righteousness and praise to spring forth 

before all the nations."

Isaiah 61:10a-11

"Though the fig tree may not blossom, and no fruit be on the vines; 
though the labor 
of the olive may fail

and the fields yield no food; 

though the flock may be cut off from the fold,

and there be no herd in the stalls-

I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

"And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food."

Genesis 2:9a

"Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad;

let the sea roar and all its fulness;

let the field be joyful and all that is in it.

Then all of the trees of the woods 

will rejoice before the Lord."

Psalm 96:11-12

"Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; And let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”

I Chronicles 16:31

"Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let such as love Your salvation say continually, 

“The Lord be magnified!”

Psalm 40:16

"The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.”

Isaiah 40:8

We hope you are as excited about springtime as we are....and if you get the urge to take a little walk and enjoy the spring flowers, we highly recommend it. 

A Nursery in the Making

Before you judge me harshly today, assuming that our post would be very serious and written entirely  about Good Friday or Easter, let me take a moment to start off on that subject, but I'm going to segway into something entirely different.  While Good Friday is an amazing day of reflection for believers and today we do pause to reflect on God's sacrifice of His one and only son Jesus, it's what followed on Sunday that we most celebrate- a risen Savior. For Nate and I, Good Friday will always be a day that we will also remember because it marks when our dossier (a.k.a. our entire life history in a binder that practically killed a forest in the making of it) went to China to get logged in. 

When Nate and I first began the adoption process, like many couples we began to occasionally talk about some of the little things that we "would get around to" eventually once all of the paperwork was behind us.  We all know that one of those topics was the nursery and the other was baby names.  Being the overly practical gal that I can sometimes be, I began to think that we would go with the whole "neutral nursery" idea so that we wouldn't have to change it again should we have future children join the family in the years to come. (ok, yes, I didn't want to do all of that hard work again, so thought neutral might be extremely smart)  What surprised me was Nate's reaction when we talked about it. He looked at me when I asked about colors and styles and at this point the reaction on his face was probably reflective of what was inside his head at the moment which was probably something like, "Seriously? Do I look like I work for HGTV?  Do you really expect me to have an opinion on this?"  Well, that's what I thought his face might indicate was going on in that genius mind of his, but what came out of his mouth was quite different.  In that moment he clearly defined that since we were adopting a girl it needed to be a "girly" room.  To say that I was shocked was an understatement. I really expected him to go for the "neutral, yet touches of girly" nursery look. I was wrong. (and trust me, it's not the first time since we've been married)

So with that little conversation behind us, I went about looking at color schemes and trying to determine a direction for the nursery. Now, anyone that knows me knows that if I could pick from one of a few other jobs aside from what I'm currently doing, one of them would be design. I just absolutely love it and find it extremely fun to get creative and think through colors, patterns, textures, fixtures, etc. the list could go on and on. For some it's sheer torture, but for me- it's life-giving and creatively satisfying.  

I will say that one of the first places I go when I have a lot of varying color thoughts in my head is a wonderful website called Design Seeds. If you click this link you'll understand why. It is such a practical website with beautiful and natural use of colors in nature and in objects and includes photography (yes, another of my favorites) in ways that can get your creative color juices flowing. (if there really is such a thing-- it just sounded good at the moment) It will give you a lot of great ideas and uses of color. So with that, I began looking at both colors and then various fabrics for the nursery to try to narrow down which direction we would go. I think for many of you that know me, our final result might be a bit surprising to you, it actually was to me too!

Here were some of the color palattes that we started out considering (please note that not all colors represented were going to be included):

Grey/White/Yellows

Photo credit-Design Seeds

Greys/Melon Tones

Photo credit- Design Seeds

Greys/Plums

Photo credit- Design Seeds

Spring Pastels

Photo credit- Design Seeds

Flower Hues-Pink/Moss Green/Coral

Photo credit- Design Seeds

Ocean Tones-Blues/Greys

Photo credit- Design Seeds

Summer Bolds-Pink/Purple/Green

Photo credit- Design Seeds

Of course, pink ninja wallpaper was given a very short moment of consideration just for Nate...

Wallpaper design from Spoonflower.com

OR

MAYBE 

NOT.

Keeping with the idea that we will most likely be bringing home a child that falls between the ages of 12-24 months, a few things determined our decision and were non-negotiables:

• We wanted it to be fun and have some elements of "girly" in it (which is actually a little outside of my comfort zone- I don't normally go for "girly" or pink for that matter)

• We wanted it to be light and whimsical 

• We wanted it to be flexible for either an older baby or toddler

• We wanted it to be something we didn't have to change every year or so as our child grows (obviously this was the personal choice we made because we just wanted it to be easier to "grow with" her as she got older and also allow us to be able to work other items/elements into the room as she ages. We didn't want her to outgrow it too quickly.

• We wanted it to be modern yet playful

• We wanted it to have different forms of texture and elements that would be evoke a stimulating environment as she gets older

• We realized Pinterest and Etsy could get us into trouble (ok, who am I kidding, get me into trouble, as I'm pretty sure it wouldn't affect Nate) and wasn't always financially savvy, so we decided that we wanted to do as much of the nursery through DIY projects as we possibly could and save some money that could easily be tempting to spend on nursery items or art on these sites.

We decided on the base wall color for the nursery, which as you've seen from previous posts, were painted in grey. 

We chose to use white furniture to ground the room and make it light and bright.

While preparing our nursery, I lost my grandmother last summer to Alzheimer's and that also became a factor in some of our color choices. Grandma loved cheerful colors and her favorite was any shade of purple/plum, so because of that, we decided to incorporate pops of plum into the room in her memory knowing that if she would have lived to have met "Little Miss" she would certainly have loved her nursery and I'm pretty sure that something purple would have showed up. 

Anyone that knows me well knows that I actually don't normally decorate with bold colors and generally tend to prefer muted/modern tones and patterns, but apparently I was bitten by the "girly" bug when we began working on this project and before I knew it, I started liking a number of brighter tones and decided to integrate a number of fun colors into the room. These were also colors that were very easy to find and mix and match for the future.

From the above sample color swatches, we finally ended up choosing the following color palette:

DARK & LIGHT GREY

PLUM

MOSS GREEN

TIFFANY BLUE 

"FLOWER HUES" PINK (ok, it's not really a name, but I wasn't sure how to describe the pink we have in some parts of the room and called it from the name I gave it above)

As we begin to show you all how this is starting to come together, you'll see that we integrated these colors throughout the room in various ways, from the fabrics we used, to the curtains, bedskirt, and art that I made throughout the room. We've been busy with many months of projects and our labor of love is now slowly coming together.  For those of you who have asked, we are excited to start to show you all of the various nursery decisions we have made along the way. 

More to come............(and for the guys that read this, we promise everything we post in the weeks to come won't just be about the nursery)

Have a restful and reflective Good Friday everyone!

What Today Would Have Been

Waking up this morning is a little bit different than what I originally thought it would be. Today was  scheduled to be my sister's baby shower and the last two months had been full of fun preparation for this exciting event!  My sister lives in Texas

and we generally see her twice a year maybe and we had looked forward to this weekend for quite some time. I know she couldn't wait to be back here and see some of her close friends from out of town, many that she has known for the past 20+ years.

Last night it was funny that not only my mom and sister were thinking it, but we all were apparently in different places in the U.S. with the thought, "She was supposed to be arriving at the airport right now for the weekend". However, today was not meant to be.

Earlier this week my sister started having complications with her pregnancy and though she isn't due until June 7th, the doctor started to have great concerns over a few things and began testing her and watching her elevated blood pressure levels very carefully. It was then that they discovered that she had developed preeclampsia, which can be both a serious danger to the mother and baby. Earlier this week I know was very difficult and frightening for her, as this is her first little one and her world suddenly, in just a few moments, slightly turned upside down as various conversations started to ensue. I can only imagine all that my sister thought in that 24 hour span as doctors talked and she began wondering if she would carry him to full term? Would they take him early? Will he be born in April or May and not June? Thankfully her liver tests came back good this week and they will continue to monitor her closely these next two months. As we talked the following day, we all agreed there was absolutely no reason she should take any risks and despite what doctors may decide was ok, we did not want her traveling. She did find out that they would not allow her to fly without her husband; however, in light of even that we didn't feel it was a good idea to take any risks at this time.  So with that, we called off today's big event.

I know this was very hard for her to be far away from part of her family as she had looked forward to this day so much. We all know that there's nothing worse for a woman than having certain things mapped out just a certain way in your head only to have them completely change at a moment's notice on you. Thankfully, she still wants to come out and have her shower after her little one is born, which of course is fine by us! (who wouldn't want the star of the show to come out and meet all of us). As in all things, God has a greater plan and we will trust Him in that.  We do ask that you continue to keep her and their baby (& daddy too) in your prayers these next two months.  I know that they would appreciate that greatly.

Though today would have been a beautiful day her baby shower, we sit her grateful that both mom and baby (and dad) are doing ok at this time and we continue to pray for a healthy process for both of them. Yes, we would have loved to have had her in this weekend to celebrate Baby Greyson's arrival, (because who doesn't want to find a good reason to throw a party with all your friends?) but there will be time later for a shower and of course a perfect excuse to show off a new baby. Until then, we will put away all of our fun baby shower stuff and reschedule after we welcome this new little man into our family.

Dear Baby Greyson,

Though I'm excited to be your aunt and of course can't wait to meet you, I do ask that you behave and not give your momma any trouble these last few weeks.  Of course I would love to see your cute little face earlier, but I'm not so sure your mommy and daddy are quite ready for that as they still have a few more important things to get done over the next few weeks. As your coolest and favorite (you just don't know it yet) aunt, I'm giving you a little advice here to cooperate with your momma and wait a few more weeks before you decide to introduce yourself.  Hopefully you can take that advice, give it some thought and let your mommy and daddy finish getting your room together; otherwise, you might have to sleep in a drawer for a few days. Our family can't wait to meet you so until then, we hope you behave and we will hopefully meet you in June if not before.

Love,

Aunt Leah

I'm a Survivor

After this last month, this seemed like the perfect title for this post, even if I do get a few lyrics stuck in my head just hearing those two words. Over the last month Nate and I have been doing a cleanse (a.k.a. crazy diet) and let me tell you, the words "I'm a survivor" are not a joke when you are talking about two people who are "foodies" and who enjoy their meat, dairy, eggs, bread/grains, caffeine, sugar, and all other things sweet or yummy. Not having those items or any forms of processed foods for the last month has been good, but also interesting. 

More on this wild ride in a moment.

A lot of you have asked what have we been up to the last several months and to be honest, several things have been occupying a lot our time (well maybe a little more mine than Nate's) so I felt it was about time to give everyone a quick update. Since late January, we've felt an overwhelming urge to start getting things in order and somewhat finalized for our adoption. (and by finalized I mean, thinking ahead, prepping, researching things for a registry, and of course -working on the nursery) Alongside that, my sister is having her first baby and I've been working on getting things together to host a shower for her and have been doing about a million DIY projects with my mom or in my "spare" time. I absolutely love that sort of thing, so it's been fun, but as anyone knows, very time consuming. (but of course a very-well-worth-it kind of time consuming)

To bring us up to the present, a few months ago Nate and I decided that we would do a healthy cleanse/diet to clean out our systems, replace any bad with good healthy food, and kickstart even better eating habits, (not that we eat bad, but we can all learn a thing or two about food and do better with it) This diet is also to help identify any issues either of us may have with certain foods. 

As one can imagine, we were NOT eager to start this at any given time because we knew it would be about a month of a completely different diet that would be a bit tricky to work around in certain situations. Needless to say we put it off so many times because there was always "something" on the calendar where food would be involved and who wants to go to social events and not eat? (not us!) So, after putting it off for several months we finally bit the bullet, pulled out our calendars, and mapped out when we would start this and when it would end. (Yes, we were strategically mapping out when this needed to end-lol) 

To say this was an "experience" would be putting it lightly....yes, it did get better, but I will not lie when I say that there were a few times in which I didn't think we would make it. [i.e. days 1-5 and especially on day 3 when a friend of mine gave me a gift bag with Lindt and Ghirardelli chocolates :) --evil, pure evil(jk), but little did she know- and yes, we are still friends] 

We were barely a few days in when I sent a text to a friend of mine and asked her how in the world do we get through this thing-- to which she said the magic ingredient was to keep eating sweet potatoes-haha.  This was a very strict and systematic program developed by a physician and let me just say I had NO idea what we were really getting into when I agreed to do this. (and neither did Nate-haha!) Let me give you just a little taste of our experiences since March-- and for those of you who have strict diets and allergies to everything, my heart goes out to each of you in a whole new way.

For half of the time, we could only eat organic fruit and veggies and drink half our body weight in water, while also drinking 2-3 smoothies that consisted of green food powder. (a.k.a. all sorts of crazy veggies, roots, and other green foods that you may or may not have ever heard of) 

Add to that 30 green food-fiber capsules a day. (yes, you read it right-30)  We could drink 2-3 smoothies a day and I only wish I had a picture of what our faces looked like after that first round of pills and a "smoothie". We could re-enact that for you and upload a video on here, but I will spare you the pain of that experience. We quickly learned you had to mix a banana because without it, you might as well have been drinking chalk and fruit. (picture my first one with me holding my nose to drink it--  yes, I will admit I reverted back to five year old behaviors and it was at that moment I thought I would never see this to completion) 

Within 2 days, we got the whole smoothie thing down and learned what actually tasted great and before we knew it, we actually started liking them. (shhh-don't tell anyone) My favorite moment during this process was our "smoothie making adventure" particularly when I would add something that Nate couldn't identify. It was quite comical. I guess it's practice for when we have our little one as I suppose you can't always hide "the good stuff" without them realizing it. Nate definitely noticed his fruity smoothies where I hid kale, butternut squash, flax/chia seeds and other miscellaneous items. (and I swear you couldn't taste any of it, but he was convinced you could)

About mid-way through we both wanted carbs so bad, so I made mashed cauliflower which, with all of the fresh herbs, did surprisingly resemble mashed potatoes minus the butter of course. Nate had a priceless reaction to those when he sat down and said "I know these aren't potatoes because we aren't allowed to have them- so what are these?" We'll leave the rest of that story untold. 

Midway through, we were able to introduce certain meats that were organic and I cannot say how great a piece of chicken tasted that first night! Now that we've finished the cleanse (which is TODAY!!!) we then slowly reintroduce different food groups back into our diet slowly and one at a time. (i.e. dairy, nuts, grains, eggs, etc.) This entire process has certainly stretched my mind into new ways of cooking and definitely had me thinking "out of the box" a lot to come up with similar things we liked. We've definitely found some new foods and recipes that we both like and that hopefully will be integrated into the dinner rotation. Are we going to be vegetarians or vegan after this?  

Nate would resound with a big "absolutely not". While we have great respect for those who can actually do that, we just won't be added in that number and this diet confirmed that for us. (not that we had any doubts about that in the first place- I'm married to a carnivore)

So, what did we learn out of this process and what advice can we pass along to you? Here are a few of our thoughts:

According to Nate, quinoa looks like dried up little bugs and that there isn't a recipe he'd like with it in it. [because of its health benefits and thanks to Pinterest, I'm determined to prove him wrong :) ] 

You really can do anything that you set your mind to--even when you don't think you can.

It actually feels good to accomplish something that honestly, neither of us thought on days 1-5 we were going to make it through. Teamwork is a big motivator.

Kale and other veggies can hide inside of smoothies...really.

Drinking a lot of water isn't half bad and there are so many things you can do to make it better. (check out Pinterest recipes)

A little cinnamon can go a long way when you can't have sweets.

Peeling and freezing your ginger is the way to go- it stays fresh and it's so easy to grate. 

Mind over matter-- just push through- you'll appreciate your effort in the end.

You can live without caffeine- trust us- you can. (though it might not be fun & you might have your cranky pants on for the first 5 days post-caffeine, you will survive)

You will learn to eat things you might never have tried before-- and you just might like them; however, in our case these things will likely never be beets, eggplant, or avocados. 

By the end, you will probably have a long running list of all the things you can't wait to eat again and certain restaurants you have missed. If you never craved pizza before, you likely will. 

Even though we all know it, fresh herbs and spices make a huge difference in cooking

& using healthy oils like grape seed, extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil are quite revolutionary. 

Baked sweet potato fries, baked sweet potato fries, baked sweet potato fries (need I say more?)

You will learn how to say no to mac-n-cheese, desserts, and that hamburger on the grill when at cookouts with friends. (but only during the cleanse of course) If everyone is eating a delicious dessert at small group, you will smile, grab an apple or pear and pretend like it's the ultimate dessert. (and maybe, just maybe, you'll grab some of that delicious dessert everyone else was eating and freeze it for later after the cleanse--- that may or may not be a true story)

Will power. Enough said.

Happily, at the end, you'll look back on the process thankful you did it and with a big grin of accomplishment say to yourself, "I'm a survivor-.......now where's a bowl of ice cream for my reward?"