chalk mountain

2011-09-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

bath time

mason, ellie, me and oliver!

going to our square one moms group at church!

looking at mommy!

chillin'

granny got oliver this cute gap hat!

daddy flipped the bill up

family!

after shots at his 2 month apt! he was a champ!

precious BOY!

looking all grown up in his shorts and tshirt!

daddy put flip flops on oliver!

my baby!

sitting up! so big!

at the san jose in austin! first time in a hotel!

getting coffee with mom!

oh my word look at that grin! happy baby!

with a gift from the seligs!

my baby!

what a big boy in his jeans and polo!

really looking at those animals!

2011-08-09T14:30:00.001-07:00

from this blog i love to check in on...

2011-08-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

2011-08-08T13:23:00.001-07:00

polaroids matts taken

me pregnant, whoa!

cute diaper my mom wrote on at a baby shower.

front yard venture! a while back before it got too hot outside!

brother and sister

Howard the duck! double fisting it!

matt's uncle Bob and johnnie jo came to visit

along with the rest of their family!

walk time! oliver and i go on a walk almost every morning. about 30 mins and he does his tummy time! he sleeps the whole way!

daddy came out having dressed oliver and roller his long sleeves up cause it's too hot and had these sock monkey slippers on just for fun!

giggles and grins

love this so so much

daddy can sure make oliver smile!

too cute!

love him so much, i went to the dr this am and matt babysat and i actually missed my little boy for the couple hours i was away. it's finally getting to that point where it's becoming a little less difficult and more enjoyable being mommy! just required a little patience and time!

more OLIVER ...

2011-07-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

oliver wilks hawthorne... my baby!

2011-07-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

well, almost 3 weeks later, im finally getting pics up on the blog. the little one is letting me...i should probably be napping, but he is about to want to be fed, so i'll just write a quick bit and get back to tending to his needs! i made a smoothie today! that was surprisingly difficult to accomplish when the baby wants to be held all the time. but my patiences are growing as i remind myself, though this is a very hard, exhausting and trying time, he will only be this small and cuddly once and i have to enjoy as much of it as i possibly can! i love you so much oliver! thank you for coming into our lives!

in labor at the mall, trying to stay distracted and walk around some!

dr. shimer!

proud daddy!

dr shimer coming to check in on us!

skin to skin!

mason and ellie. oliver was born ON Ellie's first bday, so the cousins will share the same bday. june 23rd.

party time. even oliver wore a hat! thanks mason and kelly for bringing the party!

adoration! granny time! thanks mom for ALL you did to help out around the house! oliver loves you.

i love him too! i love kissing him!

perfect feet!

fussy little man

when grandad got to meet you for the first time!

we're trying to give parker the attention she needs too, but it's hard, getting easier as time passes!

look at that face!

i love it!

right before our first official outing! greek food for lunch! a couple days after he was born!

look at this!

our doula, julie, coming for a post partum visit! she was great!

flashback

2011-06-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

37 weeks along

2011-06-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

i can't believe i only have about 3 weeks left! the last nine months have flown by! i am so grateful for my husband for taking all these pictures of me. gotta document that baby growing!

national doughnut day!

2011-06-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

i got mine! love that it was FREE!

...blueberry glazed cake! yum!

fort worth Baby shower!

2011-05-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks to sister-in-laws, Kelly and Keli, Matt and I were thrown a wonderful last baby shower in fort worth last weekend. My mom was able to fly up to the special day! it was fast, but great!

we got so many nice baby gift, we couldn't be more grateful and the highlight was that precious baby foot cake! i loved it!!!

the cutest cake ever!

love me some of that punch!

ellie, wanting to get down.

with sweet carol!

sweet kisses

the anderson family!

granny!

keli and kelly, the hostess'

get it ellie!

granny with ellie!

airplane

mason and kelly bought one of my old paintings from college! thanks guys!

35 wks...

2011-05-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

well, i'm 36 1/2 wks now. i guess i've been busy and hadn't posted these pics on time...but, matt was so patient with me, in his studio last weekend ( i am not the easiest subject, yikes! ) it's hard feeling confident, esp feeling as big as i feel. anyways, he knew i wanted to get some good pregnancy pictures and after some trial and error with me, he delivered. thank you my matty. i love you and am SO excited to have this baby with YOU by my side!

weird dreams...

2011-05-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

had a dream last night that i had my baby. he came out in only 3 pushes, i don't remember anything afterwards (for instance, no skin-to-skin!) and then i had to go fine him. some distant family member was holding him, actually it was a her, in the back of a dim room. i couldn't check out easily and the staff was really rude and then matt was never there, he was at a baseball game and didn't even tell me he was going and when i talked to him on the phone, it sounded like he 'wanted' to be there! yikes!

rest assured, when i told him about my dream this am, he said not to worry, he will NOT be at a baseball game the day after our little one is born!

oh, dreams...

fun pic matty took of me...

2011-05-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

somebody's finally getting rest

2011-05-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

poor thing, over the past few weeks, i think she's felt so bad, she's literally been sleep deprived...at least she is able to rest soundly now...stitches out last week and she is back to her old self, only skinnier. she is eating, drinking and using the bathroom now. not throwing up or twitching...we are so thankful. i am not convinced she's completely over whatever it is she had, b/c for the past 4 months, she's had episodes, nothing like this past few week, but, throwing up a lot, none the less...so we'll just wait and see when/if she does it again. i just don't know what i'll do if it comes back, by chance, right when our baby is born :/

thanks for thinking about her. we love her so much and can't believe we had to say goodbye almost two weeks ago, thinking we were going to never see her again, if they'd found the cancer.

so sad. she wants to meet the baby!

34 week sono pics!

2011-05-18T09:16:00.000-07:00

well, i deleted the previous post "baby measuring LARGE" for 2 reason, i'd had enough time to realize that the pic i posted of my huge looking belly was TMI, and if you missed it, good and secondly, b/c i just talked to the nurse and she said everything was perfectly normal. the baby weighed 5 lbs. 14 oz i think and the cm measurement was just larger than expected probably b/c baby was in a different position at that moment and threw it off.

glad i scheduled the sonogram when i did, so as not to have unnecessary worry.

anyways here are the pics we got to take home yesterday!

we still do not have a name for this little guy, btw... and i also can't believe i only have 5 weeks left!!! time is flying by. parker being sick has only made it that much faster cause i've had to attend to her so much of the time.

i still need to get several things done, to where i can feel "ready" if the baby decides to come early for some reason! i can't wait!

face...she said baby's not really in that great a position for pictures, but he is in a great position for birthing. i said, " man, i'm not worried about getting a great pic at this point. i'm just glad he's in a good birthing position!"

but this is his face. at the top of the screen, his eye is the dark spot and his cheek is just to the left and i believe his nose is the start of that white things right below his eye.

it's a cross section.

looking up at his nose and lips. the nose is in the middle of that black blob of space. you can make out his nostrils and his lips are below the nose. they are pointing at about 2 o'clock.

foot

the bone going up to the heel is right in line with the "oo" on the word foot. and then the foot is pointing right toward about 4 o'clock.

BOY PARTS! our little man!

Watermark Baptism!

2011-05-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

with friends from the apt that we used to line at: Kathy and Sarah!

well, it was a perfect day for the annual baptism at our church, Watermark! several hundred people decided to step up and make their dedication to following Christ, public and it was very encouraging and inspiring! so glad i was able to be there. matt was out of town, but i went early cause it was our week to serve. as i was walking in, I ran into an old high school friend who informed me she was getting baptised that day! so exciting! so i was able to hear her testimony and see her baptism, as well as snap a few pictures of her and her husband, Trey out in the water. i ran into so many friends that day, too, which was wonderful! we're usually all spread out throughout 3 Sunday service times, so you usually don't see as many. plus, i was greeting, so i was able to come in contact with a lot of folks walking in! what fun! we love our church and our church family. click on the video below to hear a snippit of the praise and worship before testimonies and baptism!

baptism pond

prayer after testimony

caroline getting baptised!

yay!

bad shave job...poor thing

2011-05-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

i mean why'd they have to go up that high? they didn't on the other side... poor thing.

racked...

she has been doing better. no vomiting since yesterday at noon...BUT no food either in about 9 days. not good. shes loosing a lot of weight. i just want her to be able to eat and not vomit. but she is on anti nausea meds till 4 today...so also hoping she doesn't get back into her routine when they run out...

thanks for thinking of our little trooper Parker!

parker update

2011-05-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

well, our cat parker came home with me yesterday afternoon. she started out pretty good and just napped, but she has thrown up 3 times since being home in the last 15 hours...

i was really hoping she wouldn't since she only did once at the vets for 48 hours:( this has really been draining my emotionally, not knowing what is wrong with her and not being able to help her become comfortable and not knowing when it is going to end. i was really wanting matt to be with me last night, but he'll be back tomorrow.

please be thinking about our little cat as she is hopefully recovering. she's got to get her stitches out, from her stomach next week, that's not going to be fun for her. AND she's not eaten anything for over a full week now.

oh man...when is it going to end?

go big mama...

2011-05-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

i'm posting a link to my friend, big mama's blog cause she was at my baby shower on sat in SA and wrote about it! she cracks me up!

here is the insert:

our poor parker

2011-05-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

oh my goodness it has been a very stressful, emotional last several days. our cat Parker, threw up on thurs night and since then she's thrown up over 30 times. she got very dehydrated, ate and drank nothing all that time, had to go to the ER vet twice and today had an emergency exploratory surgery. she will spend the next 2 nights at the vet's, hooked up to an IV for fluids. we have been on an emotional roller coaster. we had her blood drawn -normal, had X-rays taken - normal, were about to have an ultrasound procedure done but skipped to the exploratory b/c it seemed it'd give us more answers. when the vet called at 12:30, he said, "good news" we didn't find anything. they were looking for something lodged in her path, causing the vomiting. but saw nothing, they also don't think it's lymphoma (cancer in her intestines). they believe it's Inflamed bowel disease, which the steroid injection she received yesterday am, is supposed to help. she threw up 12 times though since she got it and the vet said she should also only throw up 2-3 times. before this she was on average throwing up 5-6 times per day. she also was given Ceriena (anti nausea) twice. the first time it held off her vomiting for nearly 24 hrs. the second time, it did nothing. she threw up twice as much as she had the previous days. it was just heartbreaking tending to her being SO miserable and so sick. Matt and i felt so bad for her. she did not know what was going on and was so uncomfortable. i am glad she is getting re hydrated, but sad cause she's there at the vet's all by herself the next two overnights. i hope she doesn't throw up cause she'll have no one to tend to her. and there has been really bad weather and thunder, so i hope she's not getting stressed by that. it'll be good to have her home on Friday. i will be tending to her by myself since Matt is away, but all i can pray for is that she stops throwing up. from there we'll have to do trial diets to discover what she is allergic to/what's inflaming her bowel. poor Parker, we love her so much and are so glad we didn't have to loose her as part of our family today. we were preparing for that decision, as hard as it was, b/c if the vet called and said it was lymphoma, nearly 100% of the time, owners decide not to wake back up, the pet, b/c the disease only tends to allow them to live 4-5 more months and they are miserable the whole time. we didn't want Parker to live uncomfortably. and we still don't so our prayer is for answers and solutions and for the vomiting to STOP! i can't wait to see her in the morning at the vets.

curled up asleep

lounging in between being sick

beauty

lover

daddy saying goodbye

on the car ride to get the procedure done

5 hrs post op

hooked up to her IV for fluids. she had a big incision on her belly. poor thing...

we hope you are okay Parker and that you get better SOON!

baby shower / Mother's Day weekend in SA!

2011-05-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

my sweet high school friend, Julia, and her precious mother, threw me the nicest baby shower saturday morning! i loved it so much! it was great seeing my mom's friends as well as mine and we received wonderful gifts!

hostess gifts!

i love it. the Groos' have one of my pieces hanging above their mantel! and the little beast box is mine too!

check out the CUTE display of baby clothes! the best was the little GUAYABERA shirt! so San Antonio! Baby H is going to look so cute in it!!!

Julia and her mom with me, kelly and Ellie.

the spread! it was at 10:30, so brunch was served! delicious fruit, biscuits with strawberry butter, breakfast tacos mimosas, coffee and COOKIES of course! they were delicious!

check them out! they were so soft and yummy!

my girls! these two were my brides maids! jana and julia!

opening presents!

what a cute lion hooded towel

the Groos' have the coolest stuff displayed in their home. i should have taken more pictures of the folk art but these eggs really drew me in...

what a collection!

next, are some photos at home from the weekend...

grandad showing Ellie all the art work in the house! she was intrigued.

grandad and ellie channel surfing.

ellie playing picnic with Lucy and Cami

Prit with her NEW IPAD! go PRITTY! steppin' it up! now we just got to get you a newer iphone!

LUCY! my parents new dog

ellie playing in the wrapping paper

the girls! lounging on ellie's blankets!

daddy and ellie

granny and ellie (and Betty White)

Mother's Day Breakfast! dad made his famous pancakes with fresh fruit and eggs and bacon! yum!

My matty was very sweet and got me my very first Mother's Day card! i loved it and love thinking about being a MOTHER!

all the boys were very sweet in treating the girls this mother's day!

33 weeks and counting...

2011-05-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

oh my goodness...i can't believe it's already been 33 weeks. we're almost there! can't wait to meet our baby BOY!

I defiantly feel like I grow in spurts...all of the sudden you're bigger and then you kinda hover there for a minute then you grow some more...very interesting, you just sit back and watch your body morph as a child miraculously grows inside of you. thanks be to God, for creating such miracles!

Matt took some pictures of me in the courtyard at my parents while we were in San Antonio this past weekend, for a baby shower! what fun.

happy friday....

2011-05-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

Osama bin Laden - captured and killed

2011-05-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

Quite interesting and contrasting responses (via facebook status posts) about this monumental event that took place in the last few days of April 2011. These friend's comments were all big eye openers to me...showing me that it is a big accomplishment for our government and safety, but it's also sad, very sad for what it means for that soul.

we are ALL sinners, no sin is greater than another in the eyes of God. Prayer is needed for the lost (all that are lost) to have their hearts and eyes opened to the Holy Spirit, that is there to guide them to repentance. this is just one more reminder.

we are not made for this world.

Romans 12:2 - "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good pleasing and perfect will."

"While Bin Laden's death is a great relief to Americans, does anyone else feel like the thousands taking to the streets celebrating his death make us no different than him celebrating the thousands who died on 9/11?"

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

"Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live...'"

As believers in Jesus, we don't rejoice in the death of others. No sin is too great for Jesus to forgive.

he is facing his final judgement, just as we ALL will, one day. are you ready for that? am i ready for that? i am aware of it and constantly working to be in the best place possible, constantly being reminded to set my sights higher and to strive to be all that my God intends for me to be.

Not what He wants for me to be, but for what he intended and made me to be. Above all, I believe my sins have been forgiven and that i no longer live for THEM but for Christ, who died to cover those very sins. Thank you Jesus!

our baby's room...

2011-04-30T16:49:00.000-07:00

so excited to finally have it coming together!!!

we love it and Parker (our cat) does too...

she'll just lay on the rug in there for hours!

she can't wait to meet the baby!

the royal wedding!

2011-04-29T15:54:00.001-07:00

some of my favorite photos of the wedding this am. i hadn't planned to get up and watch it live...but i naturally woke up at 4:48 pm (pregnancy) and decided i'd just get up and watch it! it was fun! loved how Harry was turning around to see Kate and eventually William did too to catch a quick glance of his bride-to-be. i thought she looked so pretty! also like how he told her she was beautiful at the alter and joked to her and her dad that they'd planned it to be a small affair... Also loved the Bishop's sermon and how he said every wedding is a royal wedding in a sense, because we are all subjects of the King of Creation.

another thing i thought was so cool, was that we'd just been back to London last november and got to go to an Evensong service at Westminister Abbey and got to sit just above the choral seats, close to the front. we got to walk down the center aisle and also got to stand at the door where they stood upon departure...

then at the Buckingham Palace, we got to see the changing of the guards and stand at the Queen Victoria Memorial and walk down the Mall...

pretty cool!

way to go William and Kate!

oh, the greatness of Jesus

2011-04-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

just reflecting on how i've been encouraged by Jesus' name being brought up!

first just Easter. i think it's encouraged me and matt to step out of our comfort zones a little. we've each invited couples to church (they couldn't come but maybe at later dates)

we've tried to engage others out in the community and tell them about church (it's a start!)

we've intentionally focused on the intensity of Christ's physical suffering on the cross, me particularly more this year than in years past. i am not sure if it's due to the fact that currently i am intensely focusing my mind on the subject of pain, b/c i'm preparing for natural childbirth?

i'm not sure but the not-even-graphic graphics, at church on Easter just stood out to me, the way Jesus HUNG there... His hands were nailed but nothing else kept his body up, so his head and shoulders slumped and to breath, matt reminded me of how He'd have to lift himself up b/c his lungs were collapsing. oh my gosh, I just marvel at the strength He found in His Father and am reminded of how i can do ALL THINGS through that same strength! Phillippians 4:13

the next thing that stuck out to me was when watching Survivor this season, matt and i are so encouraged by this one contestant Matt. He's proclaimed his faith in the Lord since day one and we thought that was cool. Matt's had to play the game harder than anyone else so far getting voted off the very first, but having to stay in the game, due to a new twist called Redemption Island. there he spent 3 weeks by himself and competed in duels, to stay in the game successfully, over 7 times. not easy. but the whole time, he'd verbalize how he was relying on the Lord, his Savior for strength and how God was carrying him! amazing. then it got tough. mentally he was fading and called out to God, crying for answers of why he was still in the game. last wed it almost seemed like he was giving up when he came to the duel. he said he'd prayed and felt and overwhelming peace about if he was to stay and keep competing or to go... he won the duel and said he guessed God wanted him to stay, that God wasn't done with him there yet. Julie pictured here...

was kicked off and said as she left that she was so encouraged by matt that she was going to go home and find a church to get involved with. earlier she'd commented that she believed in Karma!!! wow! that's awesome! matt might not know that cause he was never in the game with his, since he was on redemption, but he wondered why God still had him there. well, if for nothing else, for Julie. to minister to her. and this is NATIONAL tv. so you know the Holy Spirit is using him to get a message across to so many people! i think that is just AWESOME and all it took was a FAITHFUL SERVENT LIKE MATT to verbalize what he believes!!!!!!!!

then jeff the host, even commented on how God wasn't done with him here yet...and then asked him how long jesus fasted and matt said 40 days and jeff said funny that our game is 39 days long... i believe jeff used to be a minister of some kind.

ok so the next thing i loved was how the Gospel was so truthfully portrayed in the sermon of the Royal Wedding!!! and HOW many people watched that???? so many! awesome!

things i loved were that the bishop commented about the reliance we are to place on Christ and how as we unite as one in marriage, we are to aim to make the other a better person for Christ.

He also started by saying that every wedding is a royal wedding b/c we are all subjects of the King of Creation. amazing! so cool!

i hope this is encouraging. i am encouraged to continue to place my faith in the Holy Spirit to guide me to engage with people more. it is my sole responsibility while i am here on earth...and to be PROUD TO DO IT!

amen!

church notes about transformation, real transformation and the dedication it takes to follow Christ...

2011-04-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

notes from the Sunday before last...powerful message we can all learn from:

-there is an illusion of strength through financial security

-outsiders can think faith is just a 'crutch' for the weak

-you'll find one doesn't tend to make a big deal out of "grace" unless they think they need that grace that is readily available to them.

-do you really want to change? Are you at the end of yourself? or are you just coming to church b/c of pressure from others, out of fear? if that is the case you'll most likely not stick with the transformation. you have to have real repentance. you have to do the things that will help you change, you can't just want to change.

-THE AGE OF GROWING STILL EXISTS BECAUSE THE AGE OF GRACE STILL EXISTS. WE HAVE TO MOVE ON THE TRUTH WHILE WE STILL CAN.

random photo update...

2011-04-27T11:28:00.001-07:00

30 weeks pregnant!

lovebirds!

with our friends the mosburgs!

mason and ellie on Easter

31 weeks on Easter Sunday

with matt's sister Keli

pictures from a shoot matt did at TCU.

Blakely Dadson

2011-04-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

The Creation of Torrit Smoke from Feltheart Filmworks on Vimeo.

"we create problems and then we have to fix them." -Blakely

Blakely was in grad school when i was in undergrad and we became friends. this is a long video but it so worth watching. he is a crazy talented artist and it's cool to hear his explanations and perspectives on stuff.

here is his site: http://likkellordblakely.squarespace.com

Torrit Smoke...this is the painting he progresses through on the video.

our first baby shower!!!

2011-04-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

oh my goodness, we had such a nice first baby shower! so many of our friends joined us to celebrate the arrival of baby boy Hawthorne, and showered us with wonderful gifts!

here are some photos of the decorations i did and of all our friends and opening gifts!

i thought this one was funny. my sister in law suggested i take a photo with ellie so she could have a picture with her 'cousin'! she did this with her niece at one of her baby showers! I thought, oh that'd be a great idea, but ellie had another agenda! i love the look on both our faces!

too cute! hattiebelle and ellah

cute ells

ellah and ellie - checking eachother out

micah with the girls!

aina and i - both pregnant!

with kati

the beginning of opening presents!

cool Happy Birthday Banner the Clemon's had made for us!!! we love it!

awesome Speedster from Susanne

jen had a custom Hawthorne board made for baby H! matt freaked!!!

my parents lovingly gave us our UppaBaby Stroller! we were so thankful and excited about it!

smiths, kati, me and the clemons

the next door neighbors, Van Kirk's and the carruths

our community group friends, jon, cassie, angie and jeremy

kelly, our gracious hostess (and my mom, not pictured)

what a weekend!

2011-04-13T20:16:00.001-07:00

29 weeks and Ellie's Baby Dedication and Lucy (my parents new dog)!

there was also our first baby shower! we had it at our place and my mom and kelly clemons threw it! it was SO great! lots of pictures to come for that!

well hello 3rd trimester...

2011-04-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

time is flying by around here...still lots to do! can't believe i'm already 28 weeks!

i feel like i am getting pretty big...but at the same time, i can't believe how much bigger i am still going to get! YIKES!

parker wanted to be in the photo too!

cool picture from rob's wedding...

2011-04-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

who reads this thing anyways?

2011-04-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

well i know my faithful friend Jenn Mosburg and my loving parents, as well as my sweet husband...but i have no idea if anyone else even sees this blog anyways...

which is fine...

i know i look at a hand full of blogs i have bookmarked and don't even really know the people. so the possibilities are endless, really...

i'm still going to do it...but it's just funny cause yesterday i told matt that i really just kinda do it for myself. it's kinda like a journal or sorts, like a place where i compile all my thoughts. odd that i make it public. i guess some posts i do put out there for others to potentially see. but there are definitely those that i just post due to my compulsiveness to "have it on there" so that that subject does not get left out???

oh well, i will carry on. and i think i might just print my blog. wish there was a really easy way to do that...but i was just thinking what if i loose it somehow, that would be terrible.

pregnancy brain...

2011-04-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

well, it's official, i believe in Pregnancy Brain...i've experienced it several times already: giving my dad the wrong key to get in the house when he was done with his meeting, only changing flight times (which was to the day before) under my reservation number as opposed to mine and matt's to get home from California last week, looking at the shades one minute seeing they were opened and then getting up the next to close them, only to find them already closed? matt says i asked him to close them and he did and i have no memory of that...wierd! i am sure there are more examples, i just can't remember them right now, go figure!

ellie time!

2011-03-31T07:38:00.001-07:00

Miss Ellie is 9 months old now...she is saying some words, making some noises and pushing her stroller SO WELL! we loved being with her all day and watching her sweet little self grow up so quick before our eyes. i can't believe it!

with her hello kitty that granny got her!

she loved it!!! and hardly let it go...

stroller time!

she got all her toys out of her basket...

she loves her sister Cami!

kisses!

story time... i'd just woken up from a nap myself.

daddy and grandad!

we walked to see the improvements on the TCU stadium

matt got to feel the baby kicking/moving inside me...

2011-03-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

he was so excited! finally... he's been trying for a while now and it happened for the first time last night in bed. he said, "this is special." so sweet! he's going to be such a good, loving daddy!

CALIFORNIA...

2011-03-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

well, Matt and i just got back from a week in California! it wasn't so sunny, kinda rainy actually, but was still fun. Matt was part of his friend Rob's wedding to Amy. they live close to my grandparents so it was great to get to see them and all our family for the weekend!

pe-pa with great grandson Robby

Robert, Courtney, Pe-pa, Robby and Me-ma

the whole group!

jen, pe-pa, dave, Robert, Adam, Chelsea, Katie, Me-ma, Courtney, Robby, Me and Matt

here we go for our drive up North.

we didn't plan much for it though. we wanted to see the Sequoia trees (the ones you can drive through) but had NO IDEA it was SNOWING there. we even got stuck on the highway for 1/2 an hour cause the 'grapevine' (a snowy high area, i guess) was closed. we call as we're headed that way to discover you need chains on your wheels to get into the park. OK, scratch that...

then there were torrential rains the night before we left, causing mud slides so our second plan also was scratched to drive up HWY 1...bridges were closed, etc. but it ended up being ok, cause we were able to get to SF by midday and saw the Golden Gate Bridge that afternoon, freeing us up more for our second day there.

on our drive up, we went from this...

to this...

Oakland Bay Bridge, we crossed over to get into SF

Golden Gate Bridge!

matty found us this descrete spot to get a shot together...

first Mary Emma outtake! kinda like it though...??

so close! there was this great lookout point, matt and his friend discovered a decade ago, which is now a specific tourist look out point.

so windy, outtake #2!

the next day. rainy day and alcatraz! this was the morning our Agnes passed on...i didn't find out till that night...but looking back, all i can think was that she'd been gone this whole time.

cells...

the yard...

pier 39, sea lions! they were barking and barking...not these guys, they were just packed in like sardiens sleeping. but 2 others were quite vocal...very territorial

Chinatown

cool crosswalk in Chinatown

Chinatown

loved this breakfast spot, check out my latte

and yummy oatmeal!

lastly Delores Park...from Sweet November!

the bridge she walks under at the end of the movie in Sweet November

26 and 27 weeks and KICKING!

2011-03-30T19:29:00.001-07:00

i am THRILLED to report i can finally say for sure i know the baby is KICKING! i was unsure for some time...the literature says, "anywhere from 16-24 weeks, you could start to feel the movements inside you..." well, here i was almost 27 weeks and STILL unsure...so i scheduled an apt to hear the heart tones and the NIGHT BEFORE i feel him, no questions asked. then again the next morning, then again on the couch at the dr's office...but it ended up being ok cause my mom and dad were in town and so my mom got to come in and hear the heart tones, even though i was not concerned at all at that point!

thanks GOD!

it's quite an interesting experience, feeling my baby moving around inside me...kinda feels funny! but at least i know he's alright if he's moving! keep it up little man!

26 weeks

27 weeks

so happy with my new potted geraniums!

they remind me of my grandmother, euince!!! she always had some on her front porch!!! AND of Europe! they were all over Italy and Greece! i love them! and i think they look great against out white house!

our beloved aggie...

2011-03-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

well, it was a week ago this morning that we lost our beloved dog, agnes. i say 'our' dog, but really she was my parents dog. they got her when i was a senior in high school, but we all loved her SO much! she was atypical. very submissive and tender. always loving and ready to snuggle. she always wanted to have a paw on you, to touch you. she licked your hands, my mom's mostly to tell her she loved her and went on many walks with us all and lots with my parents on their land out in galisteo, NM. she got to where she knew her way home and would take off ahead of them and be waiting on the porch when they got home. we did photo shoots with her in matt's studio, we held her tons and mostly we just LOVED her company SO SO MUCH. she was a sweet, sweet dog and will be greatly missed.

i still remember the day my mom walked in the front door with her. she held agnes (who is named after the artist Agnes Martin, by the way) and i came down from the stairs, looking at her thinking gross, bc she was very dirty and greasy and looked like a goose with her neck stretched out. but that was a day of saving grace for aggie. she has heartworms and my parents got her on medicine to get rid of them. for the next 13 or so years, my parents loved on her like no body could. i loved her so much and always wanted to make sure to say a special goodbye to her when she left in my parents car, when they 'd come up to visit...as she got older, you just never knew when would be her last day and i didn't want to have regrets.

anyways, it was a peaceful passing for agnes. she was surrounded with loving arms and words form my parents for the last two hours of her life as she passed on, after suffering a stroke. i still cannot believe she is gone, forever, from us. she will be missed so much but we are just eternally greatful for getting to have her as part of our lives and to see the sweet spirit that was Agnes for that many years. there will never be another pet like her. thank you Lord for our pets.

from Join the Journey (Isaiah)

2011-03-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

enjoyed Isaiah 61 in Join the Journey this morning...

Exaltation of the Afflicted

¹The ^(A)Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To ^(B)bring good news to the ^(C)afflicted;
He has sent me to ^(D)bind up the brokenhearted,
To ^(E)proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
²To ^(F)proclaim the favorable year of the LORD
And the ^(G)day of vengeance of our God;
To ^(H)comfort all who mourn,

and

¹⁰I will ^(W)rejoice greatly in the LORD,
My soul will exult in ^(X)my God;
For He has ^(Y)clothed me with garments of salvation,
He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
And ^(Z)as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
¹¹For as the ^(AA)earth brings forth its sprouts,
And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up,
So the Lord GOD will ^(AB)cause ^(AC)righteousness and praise
To spring up before all the nations.

"We hold the key that can unlock the door and release the prisoners of darkness and restore, rebuild, and save lives. The greatest thing we can do with that key is be intentional in unlocking all the doors we can by sharing God's truth with the world. The Lord is just, and the day of His vengeance will come. But we proclaim life everlasting as oaks of righteousness by the grace that He freely gives us through faith in Christ Jesus." Ashley Remmert

deer...

2011-03-27T09:14:00.001-07:00

interesting article about successful gallery owner retiring after 33 years...

2011-03-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

my parents sent me this article. they have a home outside santa fe, and Linda Durham opened galleries in SF. i've met her several times and found this interesting about how art has changed over the past few years. maybe i can look back on my personal experience with putting a hold on art making for the time being, in years to come and be able to make better sense of it all. i'm not worried about it, or where i am, as an artist. i am excited about what i've done and more excited about what my future holds! thank you Lord for this life and the steps ahead.

one cool thing is i remember when i was young, my dad, who is an art collector, took me to meet Agnes Martin, in galisteo. that is where Agnes lived and where my parents home is in New Mexico. i was young, can't remember how old, maybe 12. i knew her work it is very minimal. anyways, she was quiet and old and sat on the portal and i asked her how she drew her lines so straight. she said, "with a ruler." alright, good enough for me. i'm greatful for my dad for taking me there to meet her. he knew that was an opportunity for me and something i'd remember for ever. that Galisteo community is tight. lots of stories have come out of it. For one, my dad's favorite artist is Fritz Scholder, and Agnes was one Fritz's ex wife's portal, there in Galisteo. Also, my parents good friend, artist Partick Mehaffy, was working as a young artist out in Galisteo and was assisting Agnes for a while. she'd call on him to help clear out her studio from time to time and he's make trash runs of things she wanted out of her studio. He noticed, on one run, there were tablets of drawings. he saved them and i think gave them back to her and said she should keep them, that she might want them someday. also he set aside some of her old paint brushes...he'd kept them all these years, and one day, while we were visiting Patrick and Erica's home, he very subtly handed me one of those brushes. i cried. it was such a kind, thoughtful, and heartfelt gesture that you'd have to know Patrick, to know how much it was appreciated, coming from him. i also just thought, this is so special, but there's no need to make a big deal out of it. it's what it is. it's a material thing. but it is special and for whatever reason i feel like sharing it now.

Agnes Martin at Tate Modern in London

03.02.2011
Santa Fe Reporter
A Creative Life
Santa Fe loses Linda Durham Contemporary Art–but not Linda Durham
By Zane Fischer and Rani Molla

Stumbling into an exhibition at Linda Durham’s former gallery space on Canyon Road sealed my love of Santa Fe. Artist Erika Wanenmacher had painstakingly created a kind of entomologist’s fantasy—hand-carved giant insects were pinned to the wall with equally oversized pins. Amid these sci-fi specimens, an elegant, confident woman—Linda Durham—was calmly fielding the confused reactions of tourists who wandered in expecting to find landscapes and blankets. It was my first step through the door to a different Santa Fe, a community beneath the veneer and a diverse assortment of serious artists.
Durham and her gallery have been a force in Santa Fe’s creative community since she first happened on her career and developed a habit of representing New Mexico and its artists locally and internationally. Now, after 33 years in business, Durham will close her gallery on March 11.That Durham’s enterprise has survived for so long, but is coming to an end now, is a testament both to her talent and commitment, as well as the reach of the nation’s shifting economic sands. “I never made a great deal of money, but I made enough to keep the gallery going and growing,” Durham says. “I invested all the profits into advertising, art fairs, PR, design—because the gallery was my passion.”
Durham suggests, in a comparison to the food movement Slow Food, that she is interested in Slow Art. But that’s not where the art trends are moving at the moment. “I have no interest in changing just to capture a temporarily fickle art economy,” Durham says. The exhibitions she has arranged over the past year or two are a source of pride to Durham, even if they failed to be a source of income. And that’s not something she wishes were different. “I would do them all over again. I would make the same careful mistakes—with pride.”—Zane Fischer

Artist Erika Wanenmacher pinned her specimens to the wall of Linda Durham’s Canyon Road Gallery in 1993.
SFR: We’re here to talk about you closing your landmark gallery and moving on to other endeavors. It’s a big moment but, before we talk about that, how did you get here? Talk about arriving in Santa Fe.
LD: I moved to Santa Fe in 1966. I was, at that time, married to my second husband, and I left a glamorous New York life to move to New Mexico. We were the first wave of the hippie movement and we bought land near Cerrillos on Highway 14, but back when it was called Highway 10. We built our own house; we lived completely off the grid before the term was popular. I went from glamour to chopping wood and carrying water. I wasn’t really involved in the visual arts at that time—my background was more theatrical.
Is that what you were doing in New York?
I was doing theater, but I’m well-known in this little community for having been one of the original New York Playboy bunnies.
So you were a Playboy bunny? In the mansion in LA?
No, there was no mansion in LA. I’m talking 1962. There was a mansion in Chicago, but I was in New York and I only saw Hugh Hefner twice.
How did you get the gig?
I moved to New York when I was 19 and I was naive, believe it or not—I still am—and I wanted a job in theater. It was during the newspaper strike, so there were no want ads. I went to an employment agency and said, ‘Yes, I’d like to get a job as an actor.’ They said, ‘Well, we don’t have any of those jobs but what about a bunny?’ I said, ‘What’s a bunny?’ You had to show up for the interview in a bathing suit or a leotard. Not too long before that I was in the Miss Camden County Pageant, so I had a black leotard and it had three white buttons on the front and I got that job. I also worked as a cigarette girl and a hat-check girl in some seedy and not-so-seedy nightclubs.

In 1966, Durham swapped a life as a Playboy bunny in New York for living off the grid in New Mexico.
How did you end up opening a gallery in Santa Fe?
I didn’t open the gallery until the late ’70s. By then, we were living in Santa Fe and I would drive on the Paseo and pass the Fenn Gallery and think, ‘How did that go so quickly from this little trinket shop to this big business?’ I decided the only way to really know would be to work there. I conspired to get a job at the gallery and I became Forrest Fenn’s director of research. I met a lot of people and I saw a lot of art. I had always dreamed of traveling, and I decided that I would like to mount traveling art shows. I spoke to Forrest and…he didn’t like the idea. This was 1977 and there were no art fairs yet. But one of the people I met during my time at Forrest’s had a big gallery in New York and we had become friends, and he said, ‘Why don’t you start your own gallery?’ I thought, ‘How would I do that? I don’t have any money and I don’t have any art.’
But I knew a lot of people who made art, just my friends, and I thought maybe I’d put together a traveling show. I decided it would be in Toronto, which made it exciting for me because it would be international and I was all about, in my mind, maybe being international. So I bought a ticket to Toronto. I assembled a notebook of snapshots of work by my friends. I had a contact with one person who was a designer there. I said, ‘I’m going to be producing an exhibition in Toronto and I’m looking for a venue…’ And, see, this is beginner’s luck, because that person introduced me to William Louis-Dreyfus, a big collector, an international man of money who was later famous for being the father of Julia Louis-Dreyfus. But back then, he was building a big, upscale shopping center in a primo area of Toronto, and he told me I could have this 5,000-square-foot unfinished space for my show. I flew back to New Mexico and began assembling art. I went to the bank and borrowed $25,000.

Durham began her gallery career by riding a Luis Jiménez sculpture all the way to Canada.
What work did you show?
In that show was Larry Bell, Luis Jiménez, Carol Mothner, Paul Pletka, Paul Sarkisian, Allan Graham, John Fincher, Forrest Moses, Ken Price—lots of people. I also had a couple of O’Keeffes to try and sell. We put all the work in a truck, I rented an apartment near the venue, and I got a mailing list from a few different people and I designed an invitation. I said I was the Linda Durham Gallery, but I didn’t have a gallery. We addressed about 2,000 invitations to unknown people in Toronto, and the day I put them in the mail was the day of the great Canadian postal strike. So these invitations languished and weren’t sent in time. We installed the show and, of course, no one came. Nobody knew about it. I was in that big space alone with all the art.
I managed to sell a couple pieces to Dreyfus but I lost $15,000. But I had some instant credibility. A little later, Larry Bell introduced me to some real collectors from the Bay Area, and they wanted to come to Santa Fe with a group and look at work. Iarranged a gallery in my living room and gave a very nice cocktail party. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was charming. One of the women asked if I would consider doing a show in the Bay Area. So I did my second show, called New Mexico in the Bay Area. Right after that, some people from the Scottish Arts Council came through town and they thought it’d be great to have some art at the Edinburgh Festival. And so we put together a show in Scotland and, by then, I was kind of the expert of the contemporary art scene here, after coming from what was almost complete ignorance about art.
And that led, finally, to having a gallery?
I bought a building on Canyon Road and called it Linda Durham Gallery and started showing things. Suddenly, there were artists and people interested in looking at art and talking about art and showing art to one another. The first gallery really was in my house, and then Canyon Road and then two locations in Galisteo and then New York and then on Paseo de Peralta and finally on Second Street.

A stately brick building at the head of Canyon Road was Durham’s flagship gallery.
Now that you’re closing the gallery, is there heartbreak?
Well, I have done this for 33 years and I have loved it. My father worked for one company for 35 years and retired, and they gave him a watch. So 33 years is almost as long, although no one is giving me a watch. Do I want to do it forever? If I had a whole lot of money and could have a giant staff and I could travel and be gone a lot of the time, I’d do it forever but, absent the fortune and the staff and the ability to also do other things that are interesting to me, I know it’s time.
Are you worried about your artists?
I’m worried about the world. Not just the artists or myself or our community, I’m worried about what’s going on in the world. I don’t represent that many artists on a full-time basis, and the ones I do have a few things in common: They’re brilliant, they’re resourceful and, of course, they’re really good artists, I think. So good things will happen for them. But I think the art world has changed a lot in the last few years, so it’s not what it used to be. The gallery used to be a vehicle for communication, and I love what I’ve learned from artists, what I’ve learned about art, what I’ve learned from people who love art and artists, and the conversation about the importance of art in culture and in life has been central to the gallery. But that’s changed a little bit.

In between art fairs and exhibitions, Durham relaxed by, for example, climbing the highest free-standing mountain in the world.
Describe the change you see in the art world.
I feel that art is a really, really important component of a good life and important to society. I think real artists are at the vanguard of society and that we learn about ourselves as a culture through art. How do we know cultures of the past? From the architecture and the sculpture and the music and poetry and paintings that remain. What is art teaching us now, and what will the future know about us and our culture and our time from the art that we’re producing? What I’ve noticed is that it’s gotten to be really chic to be involved in the arts. It’s attracting a wider and wider array of people, some whose passion for what they do is deep and profound, and some for whom it’s a whim and a game. And that goes for the art that’s being made, the people who are displaying or showing the art, and the people who are collecting it. It’s different than it was even 20 years ago. It used to be that one became an artist because one had passion for it. And people opened galleries out of love and respect for the work. And people collected for the same reasons.
We’ve lost, as a general group, lost the interest, willingness, ability to slow down and look at something and let it talk. There’s celebrity art, there’s expensive art that makes people salivate—some people—because of its price, because of its fame. Now, anyone can become an artist and anyone can open a gallery and anyone can be a collector. When I started, I didn’t know much, but I spent a lot of time asking, learning, looking, making mistakes and honing a point of view. I don’t think you can have a point of view about art without looking at a lot of art. And I don’t think you can look at a lot of art with a few visits to The Met or the Guggenheim or by taking one class in college.
How do you see those changes playing out in Santa Fe?
I think this is a remarkable part of the world, and I believe that northern New Mexico is a magnet for the creative person or creative personality. We have more than our fair share of everything. I think the problem is that it’s hard to differentiate between a great collection and a collection built on money, between a great gallery and a vanity gallery. In Santa Fe, right now, let’s say there are 300 galleries. In my opinion, there might be 20 great galleries among them. In terms of all the galleries in Santa Fe, which gallery do I like the most? Mine. My idea was never, ‘How can I put work that will sell in the gallery?’ but, ‘How can I create a market for what I want to put in the gallery?’ I picked people and showed work that I felt answered my criteria. I limited the gallery to New Mexico-based artists and they had to be really smart in my opinion because I just like really smart, interesting people. Unlike some galleries, I know all my artists really well.

When Durham tired of the scene on Canyon Road, she relocated to Galisteo.
From an outside perspective, it seems like your concern with larger issues and the world outside the gallery may have begun when you ran for mayor of Santa Fe in 1994.
At the particular time when that mayoral race was coming together, there were two candidates and, from my perspective and I think many other people, one person was pretty much in the pocket of the developers and another person was pretty much a west side ‘tourists go home’ kind of person. And people were talking all over town about how somebody should do something. I remember waking up one morning and thinking, ‘Who are the somebodies that everybody says should do something?’ Because it’s a common expression. So I thought, ‘I’m somebody.’ So I went down and put my name in the hat, right at the deadline. There ended up being 13 candidates in the end, and one of them was channeling a dead person. I came in third out of 13, so not bad. People would stop me in grocery stores for years and tell me they had voted for me.

Durham’s criticism of the art world was evident early on. This interview ran in THE magazine around the time of her mayoral campaign.
And did that launch your engagement in politics and your own writing projects, which have ranged quite far afield of the gallery?
That’s on my mind a lot these days. I’ve been writing my entire life, and I have the journals I wrote in 1960 and I have the whole manuscript I wrote about my three years as a Playboy bunny and I have several other rough projects. Travel and culture have always been important to me. Santa Fe is a special place—if we only stay here, we have an unusual idea of how it is for people and what’s going on.
You also have gone to some harrowing parts of the world to engage artists and to engage women. What’s compelled you to go to Gaza and Baghdad and the other places you’ve been?
That it was possible. What I have found is that people everywhere are basically kind, and they need and want more or less the same things. They want to be heard; they want safety and respect and to have access to information and to have the right to celebrate.
People will tell you not to go to a place when there’s a war going on…but when you’re there, the people are living and having birthdays or struggling or making art. When I went to Baghdad, it was right after the Saddam statue had been felled, and there was danger and I saw things that were tough but, in the middle of that, the people were living their lives. One of the things that became of great interest to me was that maybe I have an ability to go somewhere, to be received warmly, to have experiences and to come back and be able to talk about it—not in terms of facts and figures…but from the heart because that’s what is most interesting to me: the heart of a situation. To go to Gaza and celebrate with the women on International Women’s Day, to make bread with them, still makes me cry. When I was in sixth grade, we learned about propaganda, and what we learned was that the enemies have propaganda and we have the truth. And you kind of believe that for a while.

Linda Durham and renowned New Mexico minimalist Agnes Martin pose in one of the Galisteo galleries.
What are you going to do now?
I already have some opportunities to consider curating some exhibitions at other galleries. I can do some private consulting. I’m creating a workshop for women with a good friend of mine and I’m writing my second monologue. I teach at [Santa Fe] Community College. And I’m going to have an opportunity to work with artists in a different way. What I won’t have and what I don’t want to have any more is the obligation to be in the gallery every day and mount shows and do press releases and create invitations. But exactly how this is all going to work out…until I actually close the gallery, it’s hard to see the other side because I’m still coming in every day and I’m still dealing with closing down 33 years. I want to do it honorably and elegantly and artistically. SFR

my niece saying DA DA!

2011-03-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

couldn't be more proud!!!! GO ELLIE!!!! we love you so much!!!!

further insight into the cedar waxwing ordeal...

2011-03-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

thanks Katy for examining this situation closer! amazingly sad... i bolded all the parts that applied to my experience.

Cedar Waxwings are red berry eaters
They sometimes get drunk eating fermented fruit while visiting the South

By Jay V. Hunter
Journal Correspondent

I grew up in southern Baton Rouge on the fringe of the piney woods in southeastern Louisiana. We had two huge pyracantha bushes in the front yard, one with yellow berries and the other with red berries. With all the thorns, both were major problems for my brothers, father and me to prune. But, in late February or early March, we would watch as flocks of fist-sized brown birds would descend on the bushes and devour all of the berries in the course of a morning attack. That was my early introduction to Cedar Waxwings.

Red yaupon berries brighten our winter piney woods and decorate untended fences along our rural roads. Their conspicuous presence heralds the appearance of beautiful cinnamon brown Cedar Waxings in December in our region. These winter visitors typically arrive in flocks ranging in size from a dozen or so to as many as 200 or more. They are about three-quarters the size of mockingbirds at 7.5 inches in length. They fly in unison in compact flocks that remind a fisherman of schools of shad zigging and zagging in clear water when chased by schooling bass. At one time waxwings are all together moving in a ball and almost instantly they break into smaller groups. They will fly toward a tree or bush at break neck speed and just as it appears they will crash into the branches, they come to abrupt stops and take perches. Their silhouettes are striking with distinct crests on their heads and conical beaks. Close examination with binoculars reveal bright yellow or orange tips on their tails. The color depends on the color of berries they eat in their northern nesting grounds before heading south in the fall.

Take a close look at the waxwings and you'll see bright red tips on their secondary wing feathers. These tips resemble drops of red sealing wax and account for the bird's common name.

Cedar Waxwings eat copious quantities of fruits and berries when visiting us in the piney woods areas of the Deep South. A large flock will descend on a yaupon bush along a fence row or a decorative pyracantha in a backyard and not leave until all berries are consumed. Smaller flocks will return for several days until the berries are gone. Northern Mockingbirds eat large quantities of berries every winter and take charge of the berry bushes in their territories driving off all comers with an exception. Once Cedar Waxwings find a such a bush, their sheer numbers overwhelm the fussing and fighting resident mocker.

Several authorities state that waxwings may actually assist each other to reach berries at the end of a limb. They insist that the bird closest to the berries will pick it and pass it to the next bird who will pass it back so that the last bird on the branch is fed. I have never observed this behavior so cannot attest to whether or not it actually occurs.

As trees and shrubs begin to blossom in late winter and early spring in our piney woods, Cedar Waxwings begin to eat flower petals. They will also "hawk" insects attracted to the flowering plants. That is, they will perch on an exposed branch and dart out to catch flying bugs. Later when nesting, they catch many insects to feed their nestlings who need the animal protein and lipids that cannot be provided by fruits and berries.

Ever heard about waxwings getting drunk by eating fermented fruit? Well, it is true that folks sometimes find waxwings passed out under a berry bush. Some authorities believe that the alcohol in the berries cause this problem. However, other authorities insist that the birds gobble up so many berries that their stuffed stomachs make it impossible for them to breathe causing them to faint.

Cedar Waxwings are a delight to see. They remain with us into May before leaving for their nesting grounds. However, strawberry farmers in Louisiana's Ponchatoula area aren't so happy to see them. The birds can do a great deal of damage to strawberries, pecking at the exterior seeds and ruining those berries. This has created some past public controversy when some farmers failed to secure the assistance of the US Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services to address the problem. Let's just say that they now know the birds are protected by federal and state statutes. Birders are watching to make sure they address damage issues through the proper authorities.

Jay V. Huner, Louisiana Ecrevisse, 428 Hickory Hill Drive
Boyce, Louisiana 71409; 318 793-5529 / piku@classicnet.net

25 weeks...

2011-03-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

it's really moving along...and the best part is i think the next couple months are going to be busy with baby showers and last minute things before the baby arrives, so i am hopeful these last 3 months will go by quickly as well!

one frustration would be that i still can't distinguish if i am 'feeling' the baby move inside me yet or not...

wish i could be clearer on what i am feeling...

remembering and recognizing our identity in found in CHRIST

2011-03-13T18:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.watermarkradio.com/ (click on watch video)

wow, so glad we got up from our nap and went to the 5:30 service this evening! It was SO good and such a good reminder...

we had our last lamaze class all day till 4 pm, so we went to the later service. listen to JP's message if you can. it is all about recognizing our identity is in Christ and remembering what He did for us, how he removed all our obligation to sin and death and covers us completely, gives us security in all we are here on earth and reminds us of our obligations to Him for saving us! go and make Himself K N O W N !!! He is our security blanket and loves us SO MUCH!

oh He loves us !

we sang this song as we left and i cried, just so good...so true!

here's the link to dave crowder singing it...kinda rockin out...

David Crowder Band - How He Loves (2009 Video & Lyrics)

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us oh
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us oh,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.
And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don't have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

That He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

whirlpool in japan

2011-03-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

similarities...

2011-03-11T09:00:00.001-08:00

this picture was taken about 6 years ago of me, making me around 23.

look how much my mom and i look alike...i think she was probably in her late 20's.

red bud blooms

2011-03-10T08:06:00.001-08:00

out walking and decided to snap this!

love these, this time of year!

i figured i needed to lighten the mood a little today...

2011-03-09T16:32:00.001-08:00

i just copied and pasted this entire post onto my blog...please just copy and paste my face onto the body of the little girl, Elnora below, and you will have ME a happy girl with nothing more than a DONUT cake making her grin from ear to ear!!! i don't think anything could make me happier either! i love DONUTS! any kind of them, seriously... right now i am going nuts thinking where can i get some, krispy kreme, the donut shop up the street, a package of donetts from the store...any kind i am craving them so bad...i am sure the pregnancy has a little to do with it, but i know myself too well, only a little to do with it.

How to Make a Donut Cake (and keep a birthday girl happy)

By Jennifer

The funny thing about being a parent? You never know what the next challenge will be. One day you’re baking cookies for a school bake sale, the next day you’re telling your preschooler to stop chasing the dog with the shopping cart. A week later, you might find yourself removing stickers from the INSIDE of your sock and wondering how the heck that’s even possible.

This week? Well, this week I was faced with a 5 year old who decided she did NOT want the princess cake I’d been planning and instead would rather have donuts.

“I don’t like cake, can I please, please, PLEASE have donuts for my birthday?”

Yes, I could have just stuck a candle in the top of a glazed donut, but where’s the fun in that? So I sat myself down at the computer and started hunting ideas for a cake made of donuts. Unfortunately, the only thing I really found was the donut equivalent of a “cupcake cake” with tiers of donuts stacked together and some decorations added.

No thanks.

Behold…the Delight of the Donut Cake!

So I made it up on my own and while it wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned, it was still pretty darn cool.

Elnora and her donut cake

Everyone else seemed to like it as well. It took about 20 minutes of thinking to figure out a strategy and then about 15 minutes to actually assemble it. All in all, way less work than the tiered princess dress cake I’d planned on making.

That said, donuts aren’t cheap around here, so the darn thing still cost me $14. The princess cake would have been a fraction of that.

Interested in how I made it? It’s super simple.

How Many Donuts Does it Take to Make A Donut Cake?

Answer: More than they have at Giant Eagle.

My kids love donuts from Giant Eagle, one of our local supermarkets, so when I picked them up from preschool we headed that way to pick out donuts for the cake. Unfortunately I walked up to the bakery counter a half step behind a woman who literally cleaned out their inventory.

Nice.

So we piled back into the car and headed to Mary Anne donuts, maker of some of the best (and most expensive) donuts I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. I stood in front of their glass cases trying to calculate dimensions in my head on how I’d assemble this pastry puzzle.

A few minutes and a $5 coupon later, I walked out the door with half a dozen cream sticks, half a dozen large glazed donuts and a dozen assorted small cake donuts.

6 Cream Sticks, 6 Glazed and 12 Cake donuts

In looking at my donuts, I knew the glazed were my most logical choice for a central stacking point and I’d already decided I wanted to build outward to create a bit of a visual pattern. So I stood up a cream stick to measure height and found that three glazed donuts was just right for creating the center.

Use your largest width donut to create your central base.

Initially I was just stacking the cream sticks up against the donuts, but it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to cut it. They kept falling over. Nothing a few toothpicks wouldn’t solve…so I ran some toothpicks through the cream sticks and into the glazed donuts to hold them upright.

Use toothpicks to secure the outer donuts to your central base.

For the size glazed donuts I was using, it took six cream sticks. I could have fit seven, but I wanted to leave some space between them so I could work some of the other donuts into the design. That said, the cream sticks and the glazed donuts really looked nice on their own. I think if I was doing a larger donut cake, I might have used this as the top tier. (Keep in mind, you could also use vanilla or maple frosted cream sticks…or even ones with colored drizzle. I think I could have fun with a multi-tiered donut cake done with different flavors of frosting.)

The intial base for the donut cake.

This is when things got kind of challening… I stood at the counter for a good ten minutes just staring at the cake donuts…

Different color and flavor cake donuts so I could have some color variety.

My initial thought was to cut them all in half. Just seemed like I could get a better type of design going on that way. I wanted to add some additional “color” to the cake, so I pulled out the toothpicks again and stood them up between the cream sticks the whole way around.

Use toothpicks to secure half cake donuts to the central stacked donuts.

I was thinking variety, so I alternated three different types of donuts as I went around the cake. Once I was done, I wished I hadn’t. If I was building one again, I’d stick with a single color/flavor choice to build a more consistent look.

Next I added another ring of cake donuts along the outside, because everything was just looking far too vertical.

Adding a ring of cake donuts around the donut cake

Next I took the powdered sugar donuts and inserted them between the cream sticks at an angle onto the top of the donut cake. I had to use toothpicks again here to hold them in place, but honestly, once they were all tucked in with the cream sticks, they kind of all worked together to keep things in place anyway.

Adding the powdered sugar donuts. The consistent color of the white made me wish I'd only used the chocolate on the bottom and the cinnamon to ring the cake.

I added one final glazed donut to the top so you couldn’t see all the toothpicks, but if I was doing it again, I’d probably have used a chocolate frosted glazed donut with sprinkles, just to give it more color and personality. Either way, the glazed donut worked well because I could stick a votive candle right down in it.

Blowing out the candle on the donut cake

We had five adults and two kids at this party and to be honest…we decimated the cake. Sure, it was a bit piggy of us, but seriously folks, it was a donut cake! What do you expect?

The Destruction of the Donut Cake

And there you have it folks. The making of a donut cake.

Elnora went nuts over it, so it accomplished it’s purpose…but it was alot a lot of fun to make and generated a lot of conversation at the dinner table. If you’ve got a donut lover in your family, surprise them for their next birthday!

no question about what to post today...

2011-03-09T09:45:00.001-08:00

this is a weird bird story, just so you are warned...

(beautiful Internet image of a Cedar Waxwing's eye)

oh man, what an end to my walk this morning...for whatever reason, (well now i know it was for THIS reason), i walked to the back of the house to go inside, vs the front door...

right as i rounded the corner a squirrel ran away. ordinarily this would have been no big deal, but his path consisted of passing a bird, within inches, sitting on the porch. the bird did not fly away which peaked my attention...so i went over to it, sat down with a little distance and took a few pictures...it was sitting upright, and breathing hard. i thought oh no this poor bird is going to die. i looked at the windows thinking, did he run into the window and is he stunned, but then noticed a little berry and black dribble and thought, well, maybe he ate these berries from the tree and got sick.

his sweet little mohawk was just blowing in the wind

so i went inside, got the other camera to take a better picture of him and went back out, sat down and instantly heard a thud. a bird hit the window and i got up and watched it just flounder in the driveway until it eventually fell limp...

i freaked out. oh no... i was out in the driveway out from under the holly trees at this point, and instantly another one, hit, boom and feel lifeless...

so i called my mom, i didn't know what to do. while on the phone with her, two more hit the windows and fell to the ground...

when i looked up, there were TONS of these Cedar Waxwings in the trees in our back yards.

like 100! TONS. they must have been migrating or something and liked the berries for a snack, off our trees. (later while googling what kind of a bird it was i found tons of pictures of them eating red berries) who would have thought those pretty berries could cause so much death, destruction and drama!

(Internet image)

anyways, my mom said i needed to scare, all the birds up in the tree, off. hopefully by doing that i would save more from hitting the windows. i also needed to lower the shades and hope that attracted less to fly into the windows. i lowered the shades and Parker wanted to see out real bad, so i had to put her in a bedroom. but as i was closing them, another one hit...

if you look closely there are 5 in this picture... 3 on the grass and 2 on the porch.

so after closing the blinds, i had to make myself go back out and shoo them off. i walked out the front, and back down the driveway and the one that was lying in the drive way was now standing and as i approached, he flew away! yay! he lived and before looked SO lifeless...

so that was encouraging. i was successful in shooing off the ones in the trees...but the 5 sitting in the grass and on the porch under the windows, i was not able to get to fly away. 4 are sitting up, just STILL and one is laying lifeless, but still breathing...

so i went back inside.

just peaked out 15 min later, and those 5 are STILL there... darn it... who knows what they'll do.

here are some more Internet pictures of the Cedar Waxwing. i hope they move on from my back yard. that was NOT fun, quite traumatic for me, seeing that i hate to see a pretty animal like that DIE. at least they weren't huge black birds or something. i think i'll be exiting through the front door for the remainder of the day until matt gets home to help clean up back there. But more importantly i hope that as they continue to migrate, they don't keep killing themselves like that...its horrible.

i guess this is the 'wax wing'

FOLLOW UP. 30 mins later... 2 of the 5 have left...

these 2 are just sitting in the grass...

and this one has rolled over from its side... i think he's thrown up those berries cause they weren't there originally??? that one is just stuck to his feathers, originally i thought it was IN his mouth about to come out...

and then right at the end he fluttered up to this position. his eye is opened. so maybe he'll eventually fly off...?

side view after he fluttered up...

parker freaking out cause she really wants to see the birds...

she's been moaning/crying this whole time about the situation...

ANOTHER UPDATE: another 30 mins later...

so one of the two, sitting in the grass flew off.

then my mom called to check in on the situation and right when i went out to look, i think i saw the little bird struggling on the back porch, take his last breath and become still...poor thing...but to only have 1 out of the initial 6 die, is not that bad. it could have been a lot worse. and i think that one was throwing up the red berries... they kept appearing around him.

there is still one sitting on the grass, up and alert, looking around. it's interesting to know what he's doing. is he still getting ready to fly off, still stunned, or was he patiently waiting on the sick bird? we'll never know, but hopefully he eventually leaves too!

oh, what a day!

LAST UPDATE, POSSIBLE...

well, i walked out the front door, around the side of the house, to the garage and when i rounded the corner THIS time, 4 birds flew off, from that little side yard by the house...

SO they all left, except the one, who lye dead:

same picture as before, no need to take a new one, as the only difference was that now 2 red berries lay around him and one is IN his beak...i guess he was throwing them up as he drew his last breath...from what i saw, he started like this, floundered a couple times to an upward position and then fell back over and ended like this...

As for those other i thought flew away, one by one. i guess they just went into the bushes, out of my sight from the window. but at least now, i know they've successfully flown away. and this one above, waits until matt gets home to remove of him properly.

what a sad day for him.

my husband is great!

2011-03-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

the post below is from my cousins blog... and it totally made me realize my husband and i, TOO, work better as a team...i know i help him with things, but i really know that he helps ME with things. Big things, Small things, all alike i am reminded that when WE became married, we became ONE, too and that is how we're supposed to work on life...TOGETHER AS ONE!

just last night i was O V E R W H E L M E D with a to do list. matt said, "let's look at it and maybe rearrange it so that it seems more approachable and doable!" that is what we did and it has allowed for such a better day today! being out on a walk, in the fresh, blowing air is so nice and really helps clear the mind and have time to pray and reflect!

THANK YOU MY MATTY, for taking the time, when your mind is full too, to help me get things straight! i love you!

House Hunting Brings Lessons in Marriage

Posted on 3.8.11 by Courtney @ hisandhershomesteading| Leave a comment

As you know we are moving out of state and we are trying to set up living arrangements in the new area we will be living in. This all to common task has been made rather difficult by the fact that we are several states away from our final destination. Driving across town to check out a house for rent is not an option. We have to do lots of planning to pull this off. But that’s okay with us because Robert and I are planners by nature. We find that all spontaneous things that we try end in some sort of mishap. So Robert was busy the last few weeks checking craigslist, following up on leads and scheduling appointments for his trip to visit the area. The trip was this past weekend.

Well the day before he left he came into the living room and said he had 15 houses he wanted to look at this weekend and they have all been rented in the last few days. When we planned his trip we didn’t take into consideration that we were coming just after the first of the month, which is typically when places are rented. Oops.

Up until this point Robert had been doing the hunt by himself. We thought it would be easier for one person to keep track of all the details, but we decided to change strategy in the 11 hour. I quickly started searching in surrounding towns and we increased our price limit. We scrambled to find houses that he could look at, so that our trip would not be in vain.

We had to scramble but we did find several more homes and talked with several more unhelpful and crabby people. We hope real estate agents are not a sign of the friendliness of the locals. But in the end we pulled together 5 or so houses that he could view and all were really nice and would be great homes for our family.

At the end of all of it we looked at each other and said, “As always we work better as a team than we do on our own.” We were reminded that when we said “I do” we became one. Somehow we forgot this over the last few weeks and we tried to do things separately. Of course we realize that each of us has separate roles but God showed us that this particular issue was meant to be tackled together. And believe me, there is no one I would rather be working with than my husband. I am thankful we received that reminder, we are better for it.

i installed a shrine on my side of our garage...

2011-03-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

the little things i had around our apartment that didn't get a chance to go up in the minimalized house, NOW have a proper place so i can see them whenever i get in or out of my car!

YAY!

23.5 weeks...

2011-03-07T12:04:00.001-08:00

pets are getting better...

2011-03-07T07:16:00.001-08:00

my mom and dad said agnes was getting better and not as off balance like before and parker is also not sneezing nearly as much and is otherwise acting like her normal self! YAY!

love this baby room...

2011-03-03T14:56:00.001-08:00

...not sure if i already posted about it.

both our animals are sick...

2011-03-03T14:05:00.000-08:00

my parents dog, agnes, has an inner ear problem and she is making my parents worry cause she is out of it. she's getting medicine, so hopefully she'll get better soon...

and our cat parker has a cold, she had a fever the other day and the poor thing is literally sneezing all the time and coughing...making us nervous... she got antibiotics, so hopefully all we have to do is wait it out...

i just get so nervous when something goes wrong with our pets b/c we can't communicate with them to know what's really going on...

well, all be...

2011-03-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

i got a ring of the doorbell today and it was a lady named Sherry who grew up in our house! she said we were only the 3rd owners and she was thrilled to see what we've done with the place! i gave her a little tour and was able to show her the before and afters... i also took a picture of her in the kitchen and emailed it to her! it was fun hearing things about the house, she said her dad bought it from the builder in 1957 i think and she also said that the alleyway behind us was the border line. beyond it North was Country!!! WOW!

so glad she stopped by and glad she was a woman, so that i felt comfortable opening the door. only wish i'd started drying my hair 30 mins earlier!

oh well!

http://www.watermarkradio.com/

2011-03-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.watermarkradio.com/

this is the link to listen to the last 2 sermons i am referring to in the "oh man" post...

What Worshiping in Spirit and Truth Means for Disciples and the Harvest

Todd Wagner | 02-27-2011 | John 4:20-38

Message 1 of 4

We are all disciples. How you respond to revelation, however, is what ultimately matters. The woman at the well ran to tell others about her encounter with Messiah. When Christ changes hearts, His followers respond in spirit and truth. And they tell others about the One who has shown us where to find life.

and

The Woman at the Well: A Picture of Grace, a Picture of Us

Todd Wagner | 02-20-2011 | John 4:1-24

Message 2 of 4

The woman at the well in John 4 provides a contrast to the story of Jesus' meeting with Nicodemus, an educated, religious, Jewish male. Juxtaposing Jesus' encounter with an uneducated, pagan Gentile woman, John teaches us that no works, however good, can earn God's favor. And no one, no matter how far removed from God, can ever be disqualified as a recipient of His love and grace.

oh man...

2011-03-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to write this since Sunday afternoon. but i had a busy last couple days...

anyways, Sunday's Church sermon was very eye opening...kind of annoying in a way, cause i get kinda tired of leaving services feeling "convicted". i wish i was to the point where i did NOT feel that way, only because I've already put into action how i felt stirred to, from hearing something previously...

alas... that is not the case. i guess i have to give myself SOME credit, i have been able to share and stand strong for what i believe, more than i used to.

I just feel convicted to act, knowing it's my duty here on earth to share the Good News of Jesus with others. if i am not doing that, what's the darn point...

Todd, our minister talked about this and gave examples of how he, personally, shares with people in lunch lines or grocery store checkouts. he stories were so encouraging and i am just frustrated with my lack of faith that the Holy Spirit will speak through me in those instances...

another thing that rang home was how he compared our churches here in the south to others in more liberal areas, like Portland, OR, for example and how we are in this comfort zone here, of going to church, feeling good, leaving and coming back the next Sunday and repeating it all over again. VS. getting filled to share through out our weeks and coming back to get filled again. i don't know... but i do know that since i am home a lot, it is essential to make the most of the moments that i am out, at the grocery store, getting gas, etc.etc.!

dang, where is my faith and WHAT AM I SCARED OF???

23 weeks!

2011-03-02T12:07:00.001-08:00

so i haven't posted pics of me growing in a while...here i am at 23 weeks!

we went to the doctor this morning and the baby's heart beat was great and everything looks good...thank the LORD! i was kinda getting nervous cause i haven't been able to tell if i can feel him inside me yet or not. i have felt things but just not sure, you know...so i don't have to worry anymore. they told me i could try to stimulate movement a little if i wanted, by pushing around a little and see if he responds...but that it is fine to not feel things yet. he is small still, but within this next month, i should start to feel him move! exciting times!

a walk in the rain...

2011-02-24T09:34:00.001-08:00

well, i have really gotten off my walking routine. it all started with the snow week we had the first week in feb. then the next week matt was home from being gone for 6 days straight and it was messy weather again and we had some appointments. then we went out of town for a week. lack of walking in the start of the next week was due to not getting enough rest, so i was trying to catch up with that and then just playing ultimate catch up.

BUT today, i got back at it. it was even raining outside, but i insisted to at least try. i got out in the heavy drizzle with my raincoat on and went for it. it was nice, actually. kinda freeing! it did start to come down harder right in the middle, so i cut it short, but hey...at least got a little in!

killer whales...

2011-02-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

Well, i'm not sure what i think about sea world, or zoos for that matter, now that i've been whale watching out in the 'open sea'. yes it does come with it's risks, thank goodness we didn't encounter any, but when you DO get to see the wildlife, you feel such a sense of, "wow, we are in their territory!" you just trust whose taking you out and be smart and see what you see and it is a great sense of awe as you marvel at God's creation.

i LOVE SEA WORLD! so much! i think about it a lot. we went ALL THE TIME growing up with my mom, living in San Antonio, and i just can't wait to take my kids there. i know i still will, but it just like seeing a horse run free, it's hair blowing in the wind, no saddle on, no reins, just FREE. free to do what it wants to do, not contained.

to think about a tiger in a small cage, or a huge whale in a relatively small tank, i don't know, it just is sad.

i know these things are killer and hunt seals, etc. so i don't know if i think differently about the seals and penguins, having to live in such harsh environments, vs the comfort and security of the zoo? but i just wanted to post these pictures to show just how beautiful they are in their natural environments! check out the last one, not sure i'd be excited (probably a little more freaked out) with a killer whale swimming THAT close to our guide boat!) YIKES! that thing is NOT trained!

water thirst today on GMT, thanks angie!!!

2011-02-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

how cool, so Matt and i are donating a piece of art each to Water Thirst Today event, taking place this sat night. tickets are $65 to get in and people will be bidding on the art from these artists.

anyways, they are targeting the fashion industry, with the hope of raising money for water wells in Africa! we got hooked up with it because Matt knows the lady planning the event through his industry. so if this stirs your heart, come out sat night from 7-10, to support this worthy cause!

above is a segment from Good morning Texas, that Water Thirsty Today was featured in this morning! turned out great and Matt's friend Justin Clemons' piece was talked about on air! awesome! also, you can see a sliver of my piece on right behind some other pieces on easels. our friend from church is a producer at GMT, so she was awesome to get this spotlighted!

cool baby and toddler rooms...

2011-02-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

love this room...

getting this dresser...

love this rug...

Hawaii - Waikiki and Luau - Monday

2011-02-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

So we arrived in Oahu, Hawaii Sunday afternoon, for our Baby Moon!

Monday morning Matt took his first surfing lesson. he did great, but said it was very tiring on his arms! then we got ready, explored a little and went to a Luau! it was fun and we bought each other leis before hand! memories!

view from our 22nd floor hotel room!

matty shot

another matty shot

matty boy- going surfing!

going in...

heading out... it was at this point, when i realized i didn't say goodbye, give my husband a kiss or even pray with him. i was just sure there was going to be a shark sighting while my husband was in that water. thank the Lord there wasn't! and he had a great time!

catching a wave!

one of the statues on Waikiki where tourist lay their leis!

Diamond Head surfing area!

after we got leid!!!

close ups!

beautiful- i felt so special

on the bus, heading to the Paradise Cove Luau!

getting leid by the Polynesian Princess in her Coconut Shell Bra- yikes! later we noticed those things come in all sizes! pretty funny!

woo hoo...we had to buy this picture from Paradise Cove!

on the west side of the island at our Luau

Virgin Lava Flows and Pina Coladas! what fun!

this was the fire dancer!

chalk mountain

more OLIVER ...

oliver wilks hawthorne... my baby!

flashback

37 weeks along

national doughnut day!

fort worth Baby shower!

35 wks...

weird dreams...

fun pic matty took of me...

somebody's finally getting rest

34 week sono pics!

Watermark Baptism!

bad shave job...poor thing

parker update

go big mama...

our poor parker

baby shower / Mother's Day weekend in SA!

33 weeks and counting...

happy friday....

Osama bin Laden - captured and killed

"While Bin Laden's death is a great relief to Americans, does anyone else feel like the thousands taking to the streets celebrating his death make us no different than him celebrating the thousands who died on 9/11?"

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.""Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live...'"

As believers in Jesus, we don't rejoice in the death of others. No sin is too great for Jesus to forgive.

our baby's room...

the royal wedding!

oh, the greatness of Jesus

church notes about transformation, real transformation and the dedication it takes to follow Christ...

random photo update...

Blakely Dadson

our first baby shower!!!

what a weekend!

well hello 3rd trimester...

cool picture from rob's wedding...

who reads this thing anyways?

pregnancy brain...

ellie time!

matt got to feel the baby kicking/moving inside me...

CALIFORNIA...

26 and 27 weeks and KICKING!

our beloved aggie...

from Join the Journey (Isaiah)

deer...

interesting article about successful gallery owner retiring after 33 years...

my niece saying DA DA!

further insight into the cedar waxwing ordeal...

25 weeks...

remembering and recognizing our identity in found in CHRIST

whirlpool in japan

similarities...

red bud blooms

i figured i needed to lighten the mood a little today...

How to Make a Donut Cake (and keep a birthday girl happy)

By Jennifer

no question about what to post today...

my husband is great!

House Hunting Brings Lessons in Marriage

i installed a shrine on my side of our garage...

23.5 weeks...

pets are getting better...

love this baby room...

both our animals are sick...

well, all be...

http://www.watermarkradio.com/

oh man...

23 weeks!

a walk in the rain...

killer whales...

water thirst today on GMT, thanks angie!!!

cool baby and toddler rooms...

Hawaii - Waikiki and Luau - Monday

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

"Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live...'"