Easter Post Addendum...

I forgot to include this year's best Easter egg hiding spot (drumroll, please)...

Sadly your eyes are not deceiving you.  That, my friends, is part of our Christmas tree.  And that, my friends, shows that we "might be a redneck."

Overexposure

A couple of weeks before Jake's arrival in 2010, my husband and I had a conversation about how we would handle posting pictures and information about our upcoming arrival on the Internet.  I was a bit nervous, having heard horror stories about the dangers of posting things on the Internet and then of course blowing them out of proportion in my brain.  We never really settled on anything and when Jake made his debut, he was everywhere.  And still is... we just couldn't help ourselves or bear to keep his precious face to ourselves.  And then Lilly came along and without a second thought we did it all over again, posting endless amounts of pictures and videos.  It just seemed like the right thing to do.

As I look back on that first (and only) discussion, I realize that as a mother my fears were certainly justified.  Bad things happen to good people, and as a mom, it's our job to worry about our kids.  It's natural.  But I also now understand that with just as much bad that can come from sharing your life with others, there is ten times more good.  When you have a baby, people come out of the woodwork to congratulate you and share the joy.  So many friends wish my children happy birthday or comment about how much they've grown, even if they've never actually met them.  And even though we've moved away from Small Town, Illinois, I love that we still have "family" there that know our sweet Lilly even though they've never actually seen her in person.  As much as I love peeking in on the lives of total strangers (particularly other moms in this season of life) and seeing their cute kiddos, I hope that my kids bring joy to the faces of total strangers, too.

So what about the danger?  Well, while I will always be mildly concerned, I do not let that stop me from sharing.  Particularly because I know that if something terrible were to happen to my family, whether that be to me, my husband, my kids, etc., that we would have more support and love poured out than we would know what to do with it.  Granted, I don't want to have to experience that, but I know that it's true.  By putting myself out there, I think we get so much more in return.  Plus, I have seen it with my own eyes.

Remember how I posted last fall about my friend Meg needing prayers?  Well, she and her husband put themselves way out there and rather than updating their blog, they created a Facebook page to keep people informed about their baby's fight with heart problems.  Today this tiny little guy has over 3,000 fans.  Little Tyson has flatlined on more than one occasion, but since my last post he has undergone his second surgery, was home just in time for Christmas, and has been home ever since aside from a couple of nights for different procedures.  But by putting themselves out there, "exposing" themselves if you will, they have been covered up with love, flooded with prayer, and complete and total strangers have supported them to the point that they have yet to pay a single hospital bill!  Can you believe that?  Not to mention that tough little Tyson has stolen the hearts of many, including mine.  Prayer works... and I think Meg's beautiful family can attest to that.  His journey is far from over and they have a rough road ahead, so if you've followed their story at all, please continue to send love and prayer their way.

I don't really know where this post is coming from today, but it's been on my heart as of late.  I feel like every time we we turn on the news we are inundated with the bad.  It seems like that's all that ever gets reported and is probably why I hardly ever watch it.  But if we look elsewhere we are reminded that people in this world are oh-so-good and oh-so-loving.  I think deep down we all want to see others have it all, find love, success, and happiness.  In my case I want to take the blessings that God has given me and pour them out to others in whatever way that we can.  Three years ago my blog started out as just a way to keep our friends and family up-to-date on our lives since we moved far away from everyone.  Over the years it has evolved a bit, included snippets of our journey as church planters, and recently started getting a bit deeper into faith-based issues.  I think it's my way of trying to contribute to the good.  I think it's my way of trying to show love and happiness to those who read this, whether they know me or not.  Because the world can use as much good as we can find, and to me, good is from God.  If I can introduce Him to someone who reads this, even if it's just one person, than that is the biggest way to show love that I can think of.  At one point I wanted followers for the sake of seeing that number jump up.  But now?  I want more than that.  I just want to encourage, lift up, and spread a little sunshine to anyone who stops by.  I hope that's what I've done for you today.  I hope that's what I can continue to do for those of you who allow me to "expose" my life and share it here.  I think that's why I love blogging... bloggers are really some of the nicest people I've never met.  Isn't that so true?

Besides, how could I ever keep these two adorable faces to myself?  That just wouldn't be fair.

Perfect weekend... and mostly pictures

What a weekend!  In the history of all weekends, this one was truly perfect.  I took Friday off, and is it just me, or does one extra day in a weekend make it feel so much longer?  This should be the standard.

Being Easter weekend, I already knew it would be packed with special activities and it was truly the first Easter that Jake could somewhat participate in the traditions.  So what did we do?  Well... we dyed eggs of course, but Jake mostly dyed himself.  We took a trip to Toys 'R Us and bought Jake a new train table, which was a belated birthday-slash-Easter gift.  Let me tell you, it has already been worth every penny.  Josh and I had a date-night-in and watched "We Bought a Zoo," which is a great flick if you haven't seen it.  Plus, it did such a great job of paralleling all of the feelings and emotions we went through during the church-planting process.  We attended a good friend's baby's naming ceremony, which is a Jewish custom, and felt privileged to be a part of that special day.  I had a hair appointment and went dark again, and although I've been wondering if it's too dark ever since, a couple hours alone in a chair with a magazine was heavenly.  And then yesterday we had a tremendously joyful Easter service at TurningPoint (He is risen!) and saw lots of new faces.  I cannot explain what it feels like to see your husband's dream in a tangible, real way and I cannot put into words how proud I am of all that he's done to see this thing come alive.  We had about thirty people turn their lives over to God yesterday, so I know there was some celebrating going on in heaven!  Later that afternoon we had lots of family and friends over for an egg hunt and really good eats.   Plus, the kiddos looked so cute dressed in their Easter outfits, although Jake ran around most of the day shirtless due to the copious amounts of watermelon he dripped down the front of himself consumed.  Aside from Easter, it really did not entail much out of the ordinary, but the kids were easy, Josh and I had some quality time together as a couple, we hung out with family, and celebrated what it means to be a Christian.  Sometimes is really is that simple.

And for those of you Pinterest addicts, check out the fabulous treats that one of our moms made for our kids' ministry... I had seen resurrection cookies and rolls before, but never the tomb!  Just awesome:

I wish I had a better picture, but I'm sure you get the idea.  Which brings me to this...

The tomb is empty.  Victory is ours.  God sent His one and only son to be beaten until He was unrecognizable, killed in the worst form of corporal punishment this world has ever seen, and mocked by many.  Why?  For me.  For you.  For all of us undeserving, average, everyday folks.  He took the punishment for our sinful ways so that we'll never have to.  I have my own son and can guarantee that there is no way I'd be willing to make the same sacrifice if given the choice... which makes me even more in awe and grateful to God.  Now I choose to live for Him, hoping that His son can be seen through my words and actions.

I hope that you found the peace and joy that Easter brings.  I hope that you know the story, and if you don't that you'll ask someone to share it with you.  But most of all, I hope that you know that you are loved by Him, no matter where you've been, what you've done, or what struggles you have in your life right now.  He loves you right where you're at... and that alone is worth celebrating.

Happy belated-Easter, everyone!  I hope this turns out to be a terrific week!

Reflections - Fearless

I am a woman.  I was wired, as all women are, to worry.  I worry about our finances, no matter what our financial situation looks like at the time.  I worry about our kids, that something bad might happen to them and I won't be able to protect them from it.  I worry about the kids who will someday make fun of my kids, and dread the day that someone says something mean to them.  Today I even worried about what would happen when the world runs out of clean water.  What???  Yes, it's ridiculous, which is why this topic is so appealing to me.

What if, for once, we could shed this worry and go after something that scares the daylights out of us?  I have a magnet on my fridge that says"what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"... what if we truly approached things that way?  We read and read and read that we should put our trust in God and depend fully on Him, and yet, we fall back on this worry that He won't be there for us when we need Him.

Josh told me that he wanted to plant a church long before we ever did.  It was about 5 months before our wedding the first time he shared his dream and his vision.  I totally didn't get it.  I literally thought it sounded like starting a cult, which is funny now since cult rumors often get started when a church is planted.  Needless to say, I shut down the idea.  Then we had our opportunity to move to Small Town, Illinois and plant a satellite campus of a larger church.  Now this I could get in line with.  We often refer to that time as "church planting with training wheels" because even though we did the work to build a launch team, cast vision, and grow and implement leaders and teams, we had the larger church to fall back on in case of failure.  When the church planting conversation came up during this time, I would tell Josh that we were not going to even think about it until we had set our current church up to a sustainable place.  If we were to ever leave on our own, I wanted to be sure that everything we worked so hard to help build would continue to grow and flourish.  It was unfair to them to think about the next step.  And the next time it came up, I told him that we should just pray about the timing, which we did.  I don't think Josh ever expected the day to come that I would say "go" but it did.  It was about a year and a half into our life there and he mentioned that maybe in a year or so we should finally do it.  The desire was burning strong and I could tell.  He lit up like a Christmas tree any time we would even tiptoe around the idea.  About a day later I told him that a year was too long... it was time to get started.  There are a million things that happened between that conversation and the launch of our church last February, but that moment was honestly like setting loose a caged lion.  I just had to hang on tight and hope I could keep up, and I did, surprising even myself.  And now that the launch is behind us, I want to just slow down for awhile...

But God always has different plans, doesn't He?  I came up with this topic this week to hear how you would be fearless in your life.  The funny thing is, even after thinking about it for a week, I am not sure what it means for me.  What I do know is that God keeps putting this word in my path.  Every passage I read in the Bible is about putting your fear aside and putting your trust in God.  And while everything in me wants to just be a bump on a log for a season, I find myself instead saying, "ok God, now what?"  I am still waiting to hear from Him.  Now that I have seen the fruit of the work we're doing through our church plant, I know that He can do great works through little ol' me, and that humbles me to my core.  But it also makes me realize that I'm not done.  He still has work for me to do... and He has a plan that is slowly unraveling.  For me, being fearless is not about starting something new or making a big change in my life.  At this point in my journey, being fearless simply means listening for the next call, because I know it's coming.  And then being open to whatever that may be, even if it scares me.  Being open to what He is calling you to do can be terrifying, and there were moments over this past year that I really thought we had lost our minds.  But now looking back, there was never a moment that I felt like God abandoned us.  He was in it the whole time, so He won't abandon me for whatever comes next.  So God, if you're reading this, I'm ready when you are... just let me know!

If you participated this week, we'd love for you to link up below and you can read Brittany's post here.   Then read on for next week's topic.

Brittany picked a good one this week, and it's a perfect "get to know you" post, too.  She writes:

"With Easter approaching, I thought it would be very special to reflect back on our own journey with Jesus... and share a "blurb"- maybe it's your testimony or it could also be what God is doing in your life right now... there is true power in reflecting back on where we were WITHOUT Jesus and what He has done in each of our lives since then!  We can't wait to hear back from you!"

Until next Thursday...

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Happy hump day!  I have never actually participated in "What I'm Loving Wednesday" but life is good right now so I thought, why not?  So here goes...

1. I'm loving that we're having people over tonight and I am trying out a new jambalaya recipe.  My mom does this, too... apparently we have a lot of optimism about how it will turn out if we're willing to serve it to company before testing it ourselves.  It smells delicious.   I'm also quite proud of the beignets that I've made!  Mmmmm....

2.  I have a sitter who has been coming and watching the kids here at the house while I work.  Can I just go ahead and say on here that she is amazing?  Today she even vacuumed my living room... my house is clean, my kids are happy, and I'm getting my work done.  Love it.

3.  Kroger Marketplace.  If you have one near you, don't walk, RUN to it.  Oh my goodness, it has everything, including Starbucks (at least ours does) so I was able to start my morning pretty early today with a latte and some grocery shopping.

4.  Easter is this weekend and I can't help but be excited about all that it represents.  As a Christian, I do feel like it's a bigger deal than Christmas because celebrating the resurrection and the ultimate sacrifice for our sins is why we believe what we believe.  We're hoping to see a lot of new faces at TurningPoint Church this weekend, so if you know of anyone in the Lexington area looking for a place to spend the holiday, send them our way!

5.  The UK Wildcats winning the National Championship!  Okay, you all know I'm a Tennessee Volunteer through and through, by I am in a family of UK alum, so there's a little bit of love there.  And since my Vols were not even in the running, I figured I might as well cheer for the home team now that we call Lexington home.  Besides, as least it wasn't Alabama... again.  I'm definitely over my husband's team being on top.  He's had his turn and it's time for a change.

There are so many other great things happening right now, but those are just a few to share for today.  I hope that you are all having a lovely week!  I'll be back tomorrow with my weekly "Reflections" post and cannot wait to see what topic the fabulous Brittany comes up with for the following one!

Holy Hills, Batman!

It's official... I am back in the game when it comes to running!  Yep, yours truly has re-entered the world of road racing, and boy does it feel good!  Aside from the Race for the Cure last October, I have not participated in any sort of race since I was pregnant with Jake in 2009.  I ran occasionally after he was born, and then was pregnant again before I knew it.  After Lilly came along, I took my time getting back into it and then kicked it into high gear over the past ten weeks, ramping up my weekly mileage and starting to feel like me again.  When I heard that the Lexington Half Marathon had a four-person relay team option, I thought it might be the perfect way to get my feet wet again.  

There are very few things that I love more in this life than a good race day.  And knowing that the course was through Keeneland (a horse racing track surrounded by gorgeous horse farms and gardens), I knew it would be a beautiful place to run.  But race days are more than that for me.  Some people dislike having to bob and weave their way around runners of different paces, but I had forgotten how much I love that.  It's like a little game to me, and it gives me something to focus on other than the run.  And oh the energy!  There is such an excitement at any race that it's almost palpable and this one was no different.  Whether it's your first race or your 100th, those butterflies and jitters are still there.  But more than anything, my favorite part of any race day is the comradery between all of the participants and the spectators.  Since I was part of a relay team, I had to wait at a checkpoint for about 35 minutes until my partner finished the first leg and handed off our timing wristband.  But while a group of about 40 of us stood there, we got to watch as the first guy zoomed by, literally sprinting.  We all cheered and clapped, proud of this total stranger.  Then two more came by and we shouted words of encouragement.  Maybe the biggest applause came when about the sixth man ran by- get this- pushing a DOUBLE jogging stroller!  Wow.  You are my hero, dude.  And then of course we got to see the first women come by and that set us all off into a frenzy again.  We continued to clap and cheer as the crowd thickened and then I screamed my brains out when I spotted Josh.  That would be him in the pink sleeves.  Because as you know, real men do wear pink.

 

I spent the next few minutes looking for my relay partner and somehow spotted her before I did.  Yeah, we all wore light blue tee-shirts, which did not stand out in a crowd at all.  Something to remedy next year.  I grabbed the wristband and off I went, filled to the brim with bound up energy.  And even though I knew the course was supposed to be hilly, I think I underestimated what that actually meant.  Holy hills, Batman!  This course is... in a word... insane.  When I would get to the top of one hiull, I could see three more ahead of me, laid out like a roller coaster.  The uphills are slow, steady, and brutal.  The downhills are wonderful and frequent, but quickly followed by another trek upward.  I ran my first two miles much too quickly, averaging a 9:10 pace.  By the third mile, I was walking the uphills and running the downhills and flats.  And when I finally handed off the wristband to my sister, Angie, I was pretty sure I was done.  Josh was at the leg 3 checkpoint waiting on me, having had run legs 1 and 2.  One of his relay partners was there, too, so the three of us chatted about our runs and complained about the hills for a few minutes.  Both of us had wanted to use this run as our long training run for the week (he's training for the Nashville full this month and I'm training for the Flying Pig Half in May) so after about ten minutes, we decided to set out, at least to the next checkpoint.  I had heard that my leg was supposed to have been the hilliest, but leg three was no better.  Up and down we went, and one hill in particular went up for what seemed like forever.  Josh and I haven't run together since before Jake was born and we had a blast being out there again.  He high fived everyone on the course, we blasted music from my iPhone, and at the checkpoint for leg 4, we decided to just go to the entire way.  Why the heck not.

This race was perfect for training in a lot of ways.  I'm sure you all have heard of "hitting the wall" in a long run.  Well, I had forgotten what that was like.  And while I didn't go all the way to that dark place on this run, I did stand on the brink of it.  I had the moments where my brain started going from "you can do anything" to "you're never going to finish this."  I'm not entirely sure how, but I shut it off, zeroed in on the finish, and just kept going.  I'm glad I got a taste of that again, just to be reminded of how quickly that mentality can creep up on you.  But even more so, I'm glad that I could shut it off this time at least and finish strong.

Which reminds me what else I love about race day: crossing the finish line.  There is seriously nothing like it in the world.  Running down a chute of people cheering for you, well, is exhilarating to say the least and it felt good to be a runner instead of a spectator again.  And getting a medal doesn't hurt either.  I am a sucker for good bling.

In the end, I ran about nine and a half miles and Josh ran the full distance, but this was just what I needed to gain my confidence back.  I now know that I will be able to finish the full distance in May, even though it probably won't be in record time, which is fine by me.  Over these next few weeks I just need to work on pacing myself, not starting out too fast, and finding a sustainable speed for myself.

If you are looking for a beautiful half marathon to run, this is probably it.  We passed mansions, vineyards, horse-filled pastures, and barns that probably cost more than any house I will ever live in.  If you want a challenging course with plenty of elevation, this would be perfect.  But if you're just looking for a run run with your friends, I'd steer clear or recommend the relay option.  The course is a true loop with no real way to get to the middle without driving on the course, so there isn't much by way of spectators or entertainment.  The water stops were frequent enough, which I appreciated, but aside from the scenery, it's just you, the other runners, and the open road.  I did appreciate the three little girls that sat out on a fence rail and cheered everyone on around mile 10.  They had made signs for their parents obviously, and then another one that just said, "Go Moms!  Go Dads!"  I had to smile at that one.  Oh yeah, another thing I love about a good race day are the little things like that.  And it feels so good to be a part of it again.

Ultimate Wedding Week - the Details

We've reached the last day of the "Ultimate Wedding Week" Link-Up series and today's topic is hosted by Amy over at Fresh & Fancy.  While some people find the details the most annoying part of planning anything (i.e. my husband), I actually love them!  It's the little things that are incorporated to highlight your personalities, and I loved coming up with the ideas and seeing them executed.  I guess when a pastor marries an event planner, he's going to care most about the ceremony and she's going to care most about the details.  So you see?  We really are a perfect match!

First up... the dress of course!  This beauty is a Justin Alexander:

I wish I had one where the train was not bustled, but as I mentioned in previous posts, there are no picture of just me in my dress.  Such a shame, but something that will be remedied in the near future!  Any excuse to put it back on is okay by me!

As for the shoes, I think I just found them at DSW.  I knew nobody would really see them, so even though they did not match my dress perfectly, I loved them because they reminded me of something you would wear to play dress-up in as a young girl.  And isn't this day somewhat of a fullfillment of that?  And at $39.99 for something that few people would see, I'd call it a win!

As for jewelry, most of it was borrowed.  I wore my sister's earrings that she wore in her wedding three years before and my best friend lent me her grandmother's ring, which was gorgeous (and my something blue!).  The only other thing I added was a bracelet, which I just bought at a department store.  There was nothing real about it, but I loved (and still wear) it.

Josh was very particular about his ring and definitely wanted something more masculine.  We ended up finding one with crosses engraved somewhere online (I can't remember where) and mine is from Jared's.  Yes, "he went to Jared's!"  Haha.

As for my beautiful bridesmaids, this presented more of a challenge as I knew that one of them would be 8 months pregnant on my wedding day.  Being her first pregnancy, we had no idea what kind of pregnant-lady she would be.  Some carry their babies like tiny basketballs and others get pregnant all over the place unfortunately.  While shopping we laughed a lot because she had to try on everything with the little "pregnant belly" pillow, which always looked ridiculous.  Finding this picture of someone else's wedding really helped:

Isn't Google amazing?  I planned before Pinterest existed, so I just searched "Pregnant Bridesmaid" and found all sorts of pictures!  We actually ended up getting this exact dress by Bill Levkoff and my matron of honor got a slightly different one to make her stand out a bit more.  And the best part?  It's hard to figure out who has the bun in the oven!

Dark brown and cream were not my original colors.  Because our wedding was outdoors in Florida in June, I envisioned something a bit brighter and more summery.  Once I found my dress, however, that all changed.  My dress was champagne and cream in color and the summery colors did not look right with it.  Nor did short dresses as my dress was too elegant in style to look right next to them.  Dark brown alone seemed almost too formal for me and so I finally decided to mix in a secondary color and mix it up a bit.  I could get away with putting my bridesmaids in cream because my dress was darker than that, but complimented it well.  Then of course I realized that black tuxes next to all of this brown and cream might not look the best, which is why we went with the tan suits for them, which I loved.  Plus, they would have been far too hot in black!

With so many neutral colors going on, I really wanted pops of something bright in the flowers.  My bouquet was a ton (literally... that thing must have weighed 20 pounds!) of cream colored roses as to not take away from my dress, and my bridesmaids had lots of magenta and light green in theirs.  Josh and both of our dads had cream roses for their boutonnieres to match my bouquet and the other guys all had some sort of green flower... but I'm not actually sure it was a flower.  I'm actually not sure what it was, but it looked awesome.  I don't know much about flowers, so I told my florist what I wanted and she did an amazing job!  She also brought extra (smaller) roses to pin into our hair if we wanted.  A few of my bridesmaids did and I had three pinned in after I ditched the veil at the reception.  If you're in South Florida and looking for a vendor, I would highly recommend Deerfield Florist.

Since out reception was outdoors, the hotel had cucumber and lemon water for the guests and we put a basket of fans by the entrance:

Thankfully we have a graphic designer in our family.  I have sung my sister's praises many times on this blog, and today she gets even more love.  She is crafty in many ways, but most talented on paper.  Actually, she just started her own crafting blog, so you should check it out here... but I digress.  This lovely talented lady was kind enough to design and print our program.  Weddings are expensive enough as it is, so if you have talented people in your lives, utilize them!  Besides, it adds even more of your own personal touch to the day:

The guest book was at both the wedding and reception site, but unfortunately got overlooked by a lot of people.  We bought an album with photo sleeves and asked our guests to write in the space provided next to the photo sleeves.  We then had a digital camera sitting out for them to take a photo of themselves.  We have some awesome photos of our guests who participated- some are "normal" and some are just plain funny- so the idea in theory was excellent.  If you choose to go this route, however, I would have maybe a younger family member, cousin, etc. man the table for awhile and take the pictures.  Here are a few of my favorites:

I think I hit the rest of the ceremony details in my ceremony post, so I'll move on to the reception.  We ended up having twelve tables (counting ours) and so instead of doing table numbers, we did the months of the year.  On each table was a recap of what happened in our relationship that month.  This worked particularly well for us since we met on July 31st and got married the following June 13th, so we had something happen within every month (just barely).  We listed things such as meeting, getting engaged, running a marathon together, traveling to New York, etc.  It was a fun way to share some more of our story with our guests.  And we, fittingly, sat at the "June" table.

Our delicious cake was a layer of chocolate and a layer of Amaretto vanilla, and it was to die for.  The grooms cake was made by the same crafty sister (seriously... what can't she do?) and was Josh's favorite, red velvet.  I'm guessing the crimson color has something to do with it:

See?  I told you I'm a details person.  I may have gone too into detail giving you the details, so I apologize for getting so lengthy on this!  As for my top 3 pieces of advice to future brides, I'd say:

1 - Figure out what's important to you and budget for those elements.  I wanted a fantastic photographer and videographer, as those were the things that would last forever.  Our videographer is now based in Southern California, so if you're in the area and looking for one, seriously look no further.  I wish I could show our video here... they make a "film" of your day set to music and it's seriously the most beautiful thing.  It's something I will cherish always.

2 - Pass wedding-day tasks off to others.  My sisters and mom were awesome about taking things from me and my friend Julie volunteered to deliver checks to all of the vendors who needed to be paid that day.  I literally worried about NOTHING... and a relaxed and pampered bride is a happy bride!

3 - And most importantly, remember that no matter what goes wrong, even if your wedding is a world-class disaster, at the end of the day you will be married to the person that God picked out for you... and that's really all that matters.  Besides, wedding day disasters probably make for some great stories later!

I'm glad I participated in the link-up party as it's been a nice trip down memory lane, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to blogging about some other things I've had on the back burner over these past two weeks.  Plus, blogging 5 days a week has been challenging with work, church, and the little ones and I've stayed up much too late writing and scheduling posts.  It was worth it though.  Thanks so much for allowing me to share... I hope you enjoyed the Ultimate Wedding Party as much as I did!

Happy Friday, everyone... have a fantastic weekend!  Check back on Monday for a race recap of the Lexington Half Marathon!