Dear birfday boy,

Thanks for being manly and hunky and studly. Thanks for reaching things when I can't reach them, which is most of the time. thanks for giving me cuddles any time I want. thanks for being so funny and making me laugh on a very regular basis. thanks for being so passionate about being creative and following your dreams. thanks for loving garden gnomes as much as I do, thanks for letting me decorate things in a girly manner even though I know you'd rather have a little more man and a little less bird pattern. thanks for not telling me to shut up when I constantly ask you whether or not I should get my nose pierced because I can't make up my mind. Thanks for telling me I'm super fly every time I start to get down on myself. Thanks for letting me bring stray dogs home. Thanks for letting me bring stray cats home! Thanks for giving me hugs when I cry in parking lots over giving said stray cats away. Thanks for playing with my hair to put me to sleep at night. Thanks for being protective over me and giving hardcore looks to teenagers when they check me out. Thanks for being a totally legit super awesome drummer. Thanks for laughing at my awesomely stupid jokes and not telling me what a crazy person I am when I start making random noises and/or dancing for no apparent reason. Thanks for going on picnics with me and letting me buy out-of-our-budget anthropologie stuff. Thanks for thinking I'm cool and indy when really I just don't match. Thanks for putting up with me when I go all hormonally psycho on you. Thanks for being there for me all the time and giving me wise, godly advice when I need it, and thanks for being an awesome leader. And thanks for not calling me a fatty when I ate cookies and milk before bed last night and then again when I got up this morning. I love you so much!!! Happy Birthday to the best hubby everrrrr!!!

30 days of Thankfulness: day 6

Today I've been thinking a lot about community. The past couple of years have been very up and down for me in terms of loneliness and longing for community. I think one of the hardest lessons for me to learn as a new wife was that Matt is the most important and constant community I'll ever have. Over the past 2 years, I've learned to be content in the fact that I have God and I have Matt, no matter where we live. No matter how far away from my closest girl friends we are. It seems like as soon as I learned that, The Lord lead us right back to where I had always wanted to go in the first place! Now I am SO content in knowing that I have Matt with me as my most faithful friend and companion, and the fact that we are living so close to woman who I adore is the icing on the cake! At the moment, we are living in the bottom level of our friends Josh and Tyana's bi level house. Community living is such a blessing when the people you live with are intentional about being in community with you. I guess that's the key, though, right?! Josh and Ty have been a great blessing to us. They've been married a lot longer than us, and they've been through already what we're dealing with now. It feels good to have them around all the time. They hold us accountable, but in a very healthy and loving way. I've already learned a lot about what a "family discussion" looks like from them. Before we moved in, every time we were going to talk to them about the next 6 months and what it would look like, I would seriously get knots the size of New York in my stomach. And before we had our first "family meeting", I had the same thing. Not because of them, but because I've always just had kind of a negative experience with family discussions, and since that's how I saw it, I was expecting them to make me feel like I'm a failure at life. But really they just love us. And that's the most important thing in community. That you LOVE each other. I'm reading the book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. *side note* Shauna is one of my very favorite writers. When I read her work, I feel like I could go to her house and hang out with her and she wouldn't think I was awkward or weird or psychotic for showing up at her house. I feel like we're friends. That's why I'm smitten with her work.*end side note : )* she talks about community in the book, and everything she says just hits home with me. Community is so important. And community with the RIGHT PEOPLE is even more important. I'm so beyond words thankful to be here right now, in the community that I love, with people who build into us and let us build into them. I am so happy I could burst. I could go on and on and on about how thankful I am for this, but I think you get the picture : )

P.S. If you'd like to check out Shauna Niequist's book, Bittersweet, you should also check out her other one, Cold Tangerines. They are both at the top of my list. So, SO good.

embrace the camera

These are our friends Seth and Kelly. It feels like we've been friends forever, but we've actually known them for less than 2 years. We lived RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from each other for a while, but never actually met until we were both in a "Love and Respect" community group through crossroads. Matt and I couple crushed on them from afar for a couple weeks, and then by God's glorious hand we were walking by their house one night when they pulled up and got out of their car. I, not being able to contain my secret love for them any longer, shouted at them. And from there it's all history. They have been great friends to us. They moved to Madison, Wisconsin last year and we miss them terribly. This picture is from when they came to visit us at Christmas time. We had a breakfast and church date. Then we discovered that someone *ahemmattahem* locked our keys in the car, so they stood out in the bitter cold with us until we could someone to drive out and break in our car for us. While doing so, we took this picture. Since I'm thinking of them and missing them today, I thought it appropriate to make it our first "embrace the camera".

p.s. Matt has a job interview today, please be in prayer for him!

30 days of Thankfulness: day 4

this is our niece, Caraline. She is so scrumptious. I could kiss those cheeks for hours! She is about 6 months old, and she is such a blessing to our family. She makes all of our days brighter just by being alive.Love Love LOVE her. She's so squeezable! I'm so thankful for Caraline today.

30 Days of Thankfulness: Day 3

Today I am thankful for one simple thing. The music of Kate Nash. This girl is fly. I was totally obsessed with her about 3 or 4 years ago, then somehow sort of forgot about her for a while, and today I randomly thought of her again. Her music is so fun and upbeat. I can't listen to it without dancing and getting in a good mood. I totally bopped around to Kiss That Grrrrrl whilst putting away laundry today. She is awesome. You should love her if you don't already. There's nothing like good music to put one in a great mood. I'm thankful for that.