Far too long

Hello friends.... It's been quite a while since the last time we've posted here. Life has brought a lot of changes...all good.

 We're back in Oakley and absolutely loving it. This town has held our hearts for a few years now, and we're so excited to be back in the area we've loved for so long.

 I (Matt), am working at Epipheo and have to pinch myself everyday. It's such an amazing, creative place and I feel so blessed to be able to do the kind of work I get to do now.

 With that, I'm also playing occasionally playing music with Joe Dunlap. You need to get his album....I promise you will not be disappointed!

 Lanna is still nannying for the same family and it's amazing. So thankful to have amazing kids she can invest in. What she does is amazing and I'm truly proud to call her my wife!

 Together, we've been trying to be more active in our church community, Red Door. Lanna's been heading up a lot of the Kid's ministry stuff and I've been playing drums a little bit and volunteering my graphic/design skills. We couldn't ask for a more amazing family to be apart of!

 That's really all that's gone on (in a very, very, very broad nutshell). I thought I'd leave with you some pictures to check out! We'd love to hear from you! SO please let us know what you've been up to for the past year ;)

Playing with Joe Dunlap for his CD release show

caught in the rain....

right after I accepted an offer from Epipheo

Arian Armstrong made this for us! Check out her blog http://arianarmstrong.com

hats

New home in Oakley

Inside view of our new home

Lanna's kids...

Harlem and our newest addition, Ellie

Lanna's blog. http://floorsareflowers.blogspot.com

http://iamreddoor.org

BTW....if your on instagram.....please follow us! @lannahoffman & @dramaofseasons

reasons.

There's a reason I haven't been blogging on here. I've decided to relaunch lotties heart with a new focus and a new attitude. I've spent the past few weeks praying like crazy about what God wants me to do with this and I'm REALLY excited and inspired about the form it's starting to take. Right now we're in the process of moving, and once the craziness of that dies down I'm going to jump into some art work and will be reopening my etsy store, and starting fresh with my lotties heart blog. I have LOTS of ideas and am pretty much bursting at the seam to get the ball rolling, but for now I get all my ducks in a row. Matt will most likely absorb all the prints from our shop into his solo shop, and beardedlady will close. We're both excited about the possibilities!

That's all : )

xoxo

1 spring goal achieved, and some other cool stuff.

A friend of ours, who's a youth leader in Kentucky, posted on facebook tonight that he was looking for some new art for his youth groups worship space. I thought I would donate a couple paintings I did. I did part of this a while back but when I pulled it out tonight I suddenly got inspired to add to it. So I whipped something up real quick and I'm really happy w/ how it turned out. I'm not an actual artist or anything, but I still really like it and hope it speaks to whoever see's it hanging in the youths worship space. It's inspired by 1 Corinthians 13:7.

I think I'm going to make another in different colors to hang over our bed, because this verse gives me hope in the truth that love really does win when Jesus is at the center of it. I just had Matt type the words out for me in photoshop because I'm lame and can't do it myself, and then I cut them out, ran the edge of the scissors along the edges of the paper to rough them up, and then I melted golf wax and used it to adhere the paper to the canvas. Then I dripped some wax all over to add some extra texture to the overall piece. Super easy. ANYONE could do it. While admiring it I realized that this totally counts as my spring goal to make at least 1 crafty thing. Hopefully it wont be my only crafty thing, but things are awfully busy right now and you never know. I did a fist pump and said an overdramatic "YESSSSSSS." When I realized this. I'm weird.

Also, this weekend I went vintaging at Atomic Number Ten with two cool girls. Abi, who is pretty much the only person who ever comments on my blog (and lets be honest, probably the only person who reads it besides myself.) and Kristen. It was fun. I got a skirt with snails on it. And the snails are kissing. It is way too cool for school. Too legit to quit, even. You'll get a picture when I wear it. It was our first time at A.N.T. and it was good. I'll definitely be going back to hit up that vintage dish section once we finally get a place.

I wanted to get more pictures but I was too busy filling my arms with vintage goodies to try on and trying to figure out a way to get the beard to let me blow our whole budget on cool stuff.

Other than that the past several days have been filled with this:

how are you this week?

dear self,

" you are one of the miracles of creation. Address yourself with respect and wonder." (source unknown, but if you know it, let me know!)

dear self,

I'm sorry for often times making mean comments about you and telling you that you need to lose 10 pounds, or that you look like road kill when you get up in the morning. You were knit together perfectly, and you deserve for me to treat you with respect and wonder. I promise to start being nicer to you from now on.

Love, me

music monday: brooke fraser

Tonight has been a longish night for me. Matt and I have to move soon, and we've found the house we really, really, REALLY want. We walked in the door and I just felt at home. I can just picture us living life there for a long time. I can picture us starting a family there and me having a little garden and playing in the yard and making yummy meals for friends and family. But it turns out we're not the only ones who feel that way and we have some competition with another couple who saw it this morning. We find out tomorrow if we get it or not, and I have been freaking out all night. I want it so bad and I might be heartbroken if he doesn't pick us. But I've been praying through it and remembering that 1. it's just a house, it's a material thing and it will pass away. If we don't get it, we will move on and God will still provide us with shelter. and 2. God really does give us the desires of our hearts if we find our joy in Him. I've been praying really contradictory prayers. One minute I'm asking God to help me just let it go and be ok with whatever happens and the next I'm literally BEGGING for this house. I took a little break from my praying/freaking to read some blogs and I stumbled onto 2 really encouraging ones that I've never heard of before, In His Grace and Life Made Lovely. I think just reading things that woman who have put their trust in Jesus, even if they're not writing about exactly what I'm going through makes me feel encouraged and at peace. Another thing that makes me feel encouraged and at peace is this song by Brooke Fraser. It always lifts me up and reminds me of what's important. I don't even watch the video because it just distracts me from the words. I love the words, and I believe them, so I'm singing this song tonight and trusting that no matter what I find out tomorrow, I'm heard and I'm safe and taken care of. And there are bigger things in life than whether or not I get exactly what I want.



hope you're having a wonderful Monday.

~Lanna

hey there

it's been a busy couple of weeks!! We've been dog/house sitting for some friends and I am in full on dog baby itch. I want to get Harlem a little brother SO bad! Ollie is a little black pug who snorts when he breaths and snorts even louder when he gets excited. He barks at the t.v. when he see's dogs on it and snuggles like it's his job. He is so precious. I'll be so sad to leave him today! I want to bring him home with us.

I meant to post some pics of Easter last week but alas I was too lazy busy to blog. It was a great Easter Sunday. Matt and I went to breakfast at Bluebird Restaurant in Norwood. Best biscuits and gravy. BEST. They have a glorious amount of pepper in them. They also have those little mini jukeboxes at each table and we fed it quarters and listened to awesome songs like "Purple People Eater" and the like. Don't try to tell me you don't find that song awesome. Then we went to church and enjoyed some worship. I love some good worship. Straight from church we drove to my mom's in Oxford and had dinner with the fam and a little egg hunt for the babes. I got some pics. Naturally they are pretty much only pictures of Caraline. My other niece Madi was with her mom so she couldn't come to our families dinner/egg hunt. I missed her.

Here are a couple pics from Bluebird. Do yourself a fave and go. It's on Montgomery Road in Norwood.

and pics of dinnerwiththefamily Caraline.

How freaking cute is she trying to eat that Easter egg?!?! I can't even take it. She's the cutest baby in the world right now. Rivaled only by my future baby. And that's my mama holding her. Isn't she pretty? She's pretty.

These are the flowers that are consuming my sisters front yard. Jealous.

Ok. Can we just talk for a minute about my new must have product? This toner is the shiz. I usually don't use toners because they dry me out big time and screw up my face. But I had a couple tiny little jerks hanging around on my face last week and decided I'd give it a try. It was mostly because I love rose water anything and I've heard about it's awesomeness as a skin care product. I dabbed it on the little jerks on my head and the next morning they were GONE. GOOOONE. And my skin was far from dried out. Since then I've used it if I feel like my nose is getting a little oily or if I just don't feel like washing my face at night. It is amazing. I HIGHLY recommend it. No matter what kind of skin you have!

Plus, look at that pretty bottle. Which is unbreakable, might I add. And trust me. I've tested it's breakability about 133957385 times in the past week. I got it at target but amazon has it too.

Last night we went out with new good friends and had so much fun that I only remembered to take one picture. We were going to go eat at the senate but it had an hour and 40 minute wait at 8:30 at night and we were already starving so we went to Shanghai Mama's. OMG. SO GOOD. Cincinnati has some amazing places to eat. I love this city. Best Chinese food ever. And the waitress was seriously the most amazing waitress ever. She was HILARIOUS. Abi and I may need to go there for lunch when we go on our upcoming date : )

Also, we're having a sale in our shop until May 4th. Just enter "beard" at checkout and you get 20% off your order!
Hope you have a beautiful weekend : )

music monday: iron and wine

I'm quite a big iron and wine fan. This is an old song of his, but it's always been my favorite. I don't really like the video so much, I mean the dancings pretty but I get kind of bored with it. But I love the song.



What's your favorite song today?

a restful wednesday

Today I'm off because the family I nanny for is out of town, so I spent the day with myself doing a few fun things. Naturally I started the day off playing with Harlem Jones.



and then I put on my favorite lazy day skirt and went to Coffee Emporium in East Hyde Park. There's also a location downtown and that one has a really cool, urban vibe, but I think the parking cost way too much and I like how quaint and quiet the one in ehp is. When we lived in Oakley I would walk here on my days off and order a cremosa and sit and read or play on the computer. I miss it. Such a cozy little place and the vanilla cremosas are one of my favorite drinks ever. If you live in Cincinnati, GO TO COFFEE EMPORIUM AND ORDER A VANILLA CREMOSA. They are to die for delicious. YUM. After I got my drink I sat at a corner table by a window and read Alice in Wonderland. A favorite story with a favorite drink. So good.




I've been thinking of getting my bangs cut lately. I've been kind of bored with my hair but I know I want to keep growing it. I like my curls and I want them to be long and glorious : ) I figure the best way to keep from getting bored is to play with my fringe so I decided to go to High Five today and let my cool friend Christine chop up my bangs. She rocks! I love that place and I love her.



Good stuff. I'm thankful for days like this!

how's your wednesday?

music monday: walk the moon

Today's music video is from Walk The Moon, a delightful band straight outta the 513. I think they're swell. And it's always nice to see a talented band from Cincinnati make it past Cincinnati. Plus, I'm a sucker for a good hipster dance scene.



What's your favorite music video this week?

another grand week.

Hello blog friends! I hope your week was as delightful as ours was. What a great week! Lots of rainy restful days,and some gorgeous sunny ones, too. Ice cream was involved, lots of walks were involved, naps were involved, a new vintage pretty was involved, and a scrumptious niece was involved. I loved this week. I did a 5k on Saturday benefiting OASIS Cincinnati called the Aruna 5k. We raised $27.000 to help free sex slaves in India and stormed the streets of Clifton like a swarm of bees. It was chilly and rainy but it was so worth it!

Waiting for us at the finish line was a goody bag full of coupons including free chipotle. YES. I also decided that Chipotle is best consumed with a clementine IZZE.

YUM.

I drove to Oxford this week and spent a few hours with little miss Caraline, and also got to visit my grandparents. I took Cara outside while it wasn't raining and walked her around in the grass with bare feet. She loved it. She's going to be walking around on her own so soon! I can't believe it. She just points at everything and babbles and laughs to herself. I wish I could get in on her little jokes. I bet she's awfully funny.





I also tried a new recipe this week, and it turned out really yummy! It was turkey sausage pizza pockets that I got from Giada's show on the food network. I LOVE Giada. Like, head over heels. She is awesome. I watched the show and then tried to make the pizza pockets a few days later from memory, so I forgot to add a couple minor things and I made 4 pockets instead of 8. Needless to say they turned out a little doughier than intended, but they were still good! Next time I'll remember to cut the dough into 8 pieces! The arugula in them added a really nice peppery flavor, and the turkey sausage was really good. The cream/parm cheese blend was the best part. SO good. I had some of the mixture left over after I spooned it into the dough, and ate it as a dip on tortilla chips while dinner was cooking. Also yummy. I will probably make it as a dip again!



While at my mom's, she gave the me the cutest little vintage pyrex bowl. She found it at a church rummage sale for super cheap. It's so precious!! It's the perfect size for serving a small appetizer in. Anyone who knows me well knows I love a good vintage pyrex. So pretty.


Today the beard is working hard, so Harlem Jones and I are doing a lot of this:




Here's the recipe for the pizza pockets. I definitely recommend them!
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces Italian turkey sausage
1 cup tightly-packed arugula (about 1 ounce)
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup grated Parmesan, plus 1/4 cup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (13.5-ounce) package of store-bought pizza crust (recommended: Pillsbury)
All-purpose flour, for rolling out pizza dough
1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
1 1/2 cups marinara sauce, store-bought or homemade
Directions
Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a medium-sized, heavy skillet. Add the sausage and cook until crumbled and golden, about 5 minutes. Add the arugula and cook until wilted. Turn off the heat and let cool about 10 minutes. Add the cream cheese, 1/3 cup Parmesan, salt, and pepper and stir to combine. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out the pizza dough on a lightly floured surface to a thin 20 by 12-inch rectangle. Cut the rectangle in half lengthwise. The cut each half into 8 equal rectangles.

Spoon topping onto 1 side of each of the rectangles. Using a pastry brush, brush the edges of the rectangle with egg wash. Close the rectangle of pizza dough over the topping. Use a fork to seal and crimp the edges. Place the pizza pockets onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Brush the top of each pizza pocket with egg wash. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan. Bake until golden, about 15 to 17 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the marinara sauce over low heat in a medium saucepan. Serve the hot pizza pockets with the marinara sauce alongside for dipping.

We used Newman's Own marinara and private selection organic arugula and it was yumtastic. Let me know how you like it!

xoxo.