by | Fri, May. 18th, 2012

it’s that time again…

We love saying “Congratulations!!”, but we HATE saying goodbye.

 

This past weekend, we had to say goodbye to some sweet friends after they graduated from TMC.  We loved having them around while God blessed us with their presence, and can only pray for the best for them!

 

The weekend did include a lot of fun though :)

 

Zach, Micah and I went to what was a wonderful concert (my first actual concert in LA) by Lakes, along with Kiven and Lovedrug.  We couldn’t stay for Lovedrug, but we forsook it for a wonderful gathering at Diddy Riese, even if it was a little late…

 

 

The boys enjoying themselves, as they were each imitating each other’s height, and realizing how they are content with where they are in the atmosphere!

 

 

 

 

My darling and I at the Bootleg Theater, waiting for one of our favorites!!

 

 

 

 

I miss this girl so much already!  Christa walked, and probably had her degree in that nice little envelope!

 

 

 

 

Little favorite baby Christa!

 

 

 

 

Quite possibly the best picture ever.  We have had some contenders, but we haven’t both looked so into a situation as me and Amanda do here!!  I knocked her mortarboard off of her head while trying to hug her!

 

 

 

 

 

 

My little Amanda has graduated, and also gone back home to go to Wheaton!  I could cry right now thinking about how much I already miss her!

 

 

 

 

 

Our men…are…just…good at being…themselves…Patrick & Micah pose, pose, posing.

 

 

 

 

 

Our little girl’s has gradjiated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best of buddies!  This is too true…Jamen being hilarious, and Micah just enjoying it!

 

 

 

 

 

Woooohoooo Jamen!!!  Glad he’s sticking around to go to The Master’s Seminary!

 

 

 

 

Some great friends!  Ryan, Zach, Roger and Micah being friendlies.  Proud of Roger too!!!

 

 

 

 

I was SO surprised to see my little Diana Donckels that night!!  I miss her so much!

 

 

 

 

My favorite freshman back for a visit!  Kim is a sweetheart, and I miss being silly with her so much!

 

 

 

 

Morgie and me!  I’m so glad that she’s back in the area!  Now if only I can slice a little time out of her schedule for me….:)

 

 

The rest of the weekend was spent with our family, and attending Justin’s graduation from seminary with his M.Div!  We didn’t take much pictures, but I HAD to get a picture of the beautiful flowers that Mama brought from NorCal!

 

 

 

Straight from her garden!  Single peonies!

 

 

 

Daffodils!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t believe the geometric patterns in these flowers!  Proof of design!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a snippet.  Looks like we may have more pictures soon, as our little nephew should be born soon, and the family will be around again!

 

 

with all my heart.

Pin It
Email

Leave a Comment

Filed under Art, family, friends, photography

Tagged as , , ,

by | Thu, May. 17th, 2012

this week…

This week, our baby is the size of…

 

 

a banana!

We’re 20 weeks along!  Half way to our little bundle being here!!

Oh, and the banana shade for the nails was completely unintentional, but who doesn’t love a good accidental matching??

 

How far along?  19 weeks!  The baby is about 6.5 inches, 10.6 oz and is about the size (head to toe) of a banana!
Total weight gain:  I think I can see that I did better this week than last week based on the pictures!  I’ve gained an average amount based on our doctor visit though.
Maternity clothes?  Yep.  On the look out for cheap maternity clothes.  They are NOT cheap.
Sleep:  Stupid weird dreams, and sleep has been easier and better this week!
Best moment this week:  Getting some helping kicks throughout helping Jenna arrange some stuff from their old to new apartment, and Micah being so attentive to our baby time in the mornings!  Baby Brown also got a new crochet hat and blanket from Mrs. Karen Coe at church!! What a blessing!
Miss Anything?  Nope! I love pregnancy!
Movement:  Movement has become about twice as much as before!  I can feel him flipping around and getting into some weird positions!
Food cravings:  Not really anything. Just real food.
Anything making you queasy or sick:  Nope!
Gender:  Only the Lord knows, and if it goes our way, we won’t know ’til they come out!!! We love surprises!
Labor Signs:  Nope!
Symptoms:  Nosebleeds have made their debut again.
Belly Button in or out?  Still in!
Wedding rings on or off?  Still on!
Can you see your feet?  Yes, but not for much longer!
Happy or Moody most of the time:  Been moody, as the time for our first little baby to have been born is right around the corner.  It’s a sensitive subject. I’ll try and get all my thoughts out in a post later.
Looking forward to:  The news that our first little nephew has been born!  Justin & Rebecca have been at the hospital for almost 24 hours now, waiting on little What’s-His-Name, so we’re expecting to see our family again this weekend.

 

Pictures from graduation are coming.  We miss some dear friends of ours, namely Amanda, and also the ones that we know will come back if the Lord wills, Zach, Ryan, Katie, and Patrick.  Praying for a fun and productive summer!

 

In other news, we’re getting an iPod jack in our little Scion finally!  It’ll be great to follow the whims of our musical tastes on road trips without having to surf through sleeves of CD’s!!

 

with all my heart.

Pin It
Email

1 Comment

Filed under family, pregnancy

Tagged as , ,

by | Thu, May. 10th, 2012

this week…

This week, our baby is the size of…

 

 

a mango!

We’re 19 weeks along!

 

How far along?  19 weeks!  The baby is about 6.0 inches, 8.5 oz and is about the size of a mango!
Total weight gain:  Eh.  I don’t feel like weighing myself. I’m at a normal weight gain echelon though!
Maternity clothes?  Yep.  Stuff’s gettin’ tight! I used to wear tanks or regular cotton t-shirts during the day, and they’re starting to get a little tight!
Sleep:  Stupid weird dreams, and sleep has been easier and better this week!
Best moment this week:  Getting to see our little one kick and squirm around on Tuesday morning, and also Micah distinctly feeling the baby move last night before we fell asleep!!  Also, when I was talking to the baby a few days ago, I happened to say, “I love you, baby!” and he started kicking around!!  It almost made me cry. I already love being a mom!!
Miss Anything?  Nope! I love pregnancy!
Movement:  Gracious, yes.  This one moves around like crazy!!
Food cravings:  Unfortunately, sugar. And chips.
Anything making you queasy or sick:  Nope!
Gender:  Only the Lord knows, and if it goes our way, we won’t know ’til they come out!!! We love surprises!
Labor Signs:  Nope!
Symptoms:  I don’t like the eczema-like patches that are showing up around my body.  It’s annoying. And hurts.
Belly Button in or out?  Still in!
Wedding rings on or off?  Still on!
Happy or Moody most of the time:  Doing fine this week!
Looking forward to:  The next doctor’s visit, and half of our family coming this weekend to stay!!

 

A funny incident happened today too.  My poor husband has been victim to my fruitless search for coffee filters that has traversed 4 stores and 3 days.  I guess he got desperate, and so he put his ingenuity to work, and came up with this solution:

 

 

 

That’s right.  It’s the bottom filter of our french press and cheesecloth in lieu of a paper coffee filter!

 

 

 

 

We were both pleased with his inventiveness, even though the coffee came out a little weak!

 

He has been my hero recently! He fixed our oven handle last night, the consistent rattle in our car last week, and the blinds shades this morning!  I love having Mr. Fix-It around!!

 

Lakes concert tonight, and then graduation and family gatherings this weekend!!

 

with all my heart.

Pin It
Email

3 Comments

Filed under pregnancy

Tagged as , , ,

by | Tue, May. 8th, 2012

ultrasound magic!

Currently listening to: Kimbra – Cameo Lover (video down at the bottom)
 

 

Today was that long awaited for mid-trimester ultrasound!

We headed to Burbank, and pit stopped at Porto’s Bakery for some delicious breakfast paninis on french bread.  Oh wow, this place was not what we expected in a good way!  The Cuban bakery was large, and similar to Panera, but a crazy better deal for the unbelievable quality! I had fresh squeezed orange juice too.  It was soooo good.  I guess the orange juice got the baby going though because the whole time we were waiting to be called in, Shrimpie was squiggling around and kicking me!
 

 

Shrimpie didn’t disappoint though!  Our ultrasound technician’s name was Laura, and she was fantastic!  Really funny and kinda snarky too :)  She said that our baby was suuper active and we saw that his hands kept coming in front of his face!  Made for hard work getting glamour shots!!
 

 

Everything checked out, with no signs of abnormalities or growth deficiency!  Strong heart, good kidneys and everything!  We managed to keep the gender a secret, even though 29-year experienced Laura scoffed at us asking her if she’d found out.  Hahaha.
 

 


Our due date is still October 4th, and baby is the size of…well, check out tomorrow or Thursday!

 

 

 

 

A little profile shot!  I think there’s an arm in there somewhere, and a nice looking rack of ribs!

 

 

 

 

The rest are mug shots!  Shrimpie was almost flipping us off, so Laura made them all PG!

 

 

 

 

Just lookadat little face!!

 

 

 

 

It was all we could do to keep Shrimpie’s hand out of his face.  Cute ears and a nose!

 

 

 

 

Micah said it was his paparazzi pose.  ”No more pictures, puleeze!!”

 

 

 

 

The 3D scans showed amazing detail on his little digits!  See the fingers?

 

 

 

 

Probably the best mug shot out of all of them.  Can’t wait to kiss that little face!!  Seeing our baby makes me not want to wait for 21 more weeks!!

 

 

In other news, yesterday, I had some crafting time to myself, where I made a few graduation cards, and got to repaint my poor boring nails.  I did this ombre nail stain tutorial!  It turned out really well as you can see!

 

 

 

 

 

Goes very well with my Royal Diadem pink sapphire ring that I adore.  Just wish I had my fancy wedding rings to go with it too :(

 
 

In further news, I started listening to Kimbra again.

 
 

 
 

This next one though, this absolutely blows my mind. Love her.

 
 

 
 
Looking forward to seeing our friends graduate, our brother graduate, our family visit and Lakes perform this weekend! Good grief, it’ll be busy!! Chapel Media view party is tonight though, so I’ve gotta go whip up some brownies!

 

with all my heart.

Pin It
Email

5 Comments

Filed under blogging, family, pregnancy

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | Sat, May. 5th, 2012

diy decorative magnets & coasters

Nights like this one usually begin with the occasional wifely frustration about little nicky-nack things sitting around doing nothing…

 
  Followed by a grand desire to reuse/repurpose things…

 
  And finally a HUGE attack of the creative/crafty bug!

 
  Thought this would be an interesting contribution to the creative interwebs. Got the actual instructions from Martha Stewart, but the idea was mine initially :)
 
 

 
 
We made magnets and coasters out of metal bottle caps and unused candle lids!  Micah is placing the magic beans with Gorilla Super Glue.
 
 

 
 
We used Micah’s original black and white photos cut out to fit inside!
 
 

 
 
This was an issue…the magnets kept sticking to the bottle caps at the wrong times and wrong positions…
 
 

 
 
Our first venture with epoxy resin casting!  It was easy, but we’ll be better prepared next time!
 
 

 
 
One of my favorite ones that I made!
 
 

 
 
Sorry for the nasty tummy….it was the thought behind it that we were going for.  We already love our little one!
 
 

 
 
Look at that beautiful sister!! She deserved the prettiest magnets :)
 
 

 
 
This was one that I finished earlier in the day without any epoxy.  My skeleton keys from Emily were just sitting around doing nothing, so I figured they’d be better as magnets!!
 
 

 
 
Again, the cool magnet :)
 
 

 
 
Inspecting before solidifying anything!
 
 

 
 
We make such a mess.  Gaaah.
 
 

 
 
Here they are almost all full with epoxy.
 
 

 
 
We’ll get better pictures of these later, but this is what it kind of looks like.  The beans make a cool dimension!
 
 
We LOVE our new coasters!
 
 
If you want a personalized coaster/magnet, just let me know!  We want to be able to do it again!!
 
 

with all my heart.

Pin It
Email

3 Comments

Filed under Art, diy, husband, photography

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | Fri, May. 4th, 2012

the happiest day off!

After working a long stretch again, Ces was sweet to give Micah the day off last Wednesday.  We got to go to Bible department chapel because they were giving out honors and scholarship awards, and some of our friends were candidates!  Our buddy Jamen got a wonderful scholarship to The Master’s Seminary, so we get to keep him around!!  We’re so glad for him, and glad that he’s sticking around!

After that, we came back home and tried to decide what we were going to do. It didn’t take long for Micah to suggest that we go to Disneyland, since he has a pass and he wanted to get me an early Mother’s Day present!  His crazy idea worked, and we headed down to Anaheim.  It was a great ride down, as he was desperate to hear Jimmy Eat World from the beginning of the car ride, but we couldn’t find a CD to play with any of their songs on it, so we had a little music nostalgia.  It was fantastic, and we danced over half of the way down!

It was a beeeaauuuutiful day for the majority of the afternoon, and once the evening came along, there was a very foreboding sky rolling in.  It did drizzle a little bit, but we were prepared!  We packed our snack and lunch so that we wouldn’t have to spend any more money and it worked!

Here are some of the pictures from my camera, which we’ve re-inaugurated for quick trips!

 

On our way in on the tram!  Gotta take a picture on the tram.

My very own hat!!  It’s our engagement date, so I wasn’t quite Mrs. Brown yet, but close enough!

Yay!  We brought our baby!

There were not very many people there, and the weather was purrrfect!

Jungle Cruise was first! We had a really sarcastic tour guide.

Cute little elephant :)

Haunted Mansion was tons of fun! We love just going with two people!

The ferry!  Micah hadn’t been on it before!

We like our flip screen :)

Working this Mark Twain joint!  I’M ON A BOAT!

I love the flags.

Love this ferry.

It was a sweet ride!

Just mulling over what to do next.  I look…SO strange.

Thunder Mountain, which we didn’t get to do, but we were content!

Weren’t the clouds wonderful?!?!

The Matterhorn, which was another forbidden one because of the baby, but we found other fun things to do!

Excited for Micah’s first teacup ride!

Yaaaay for kisses :)

I really fail at taking pictures of us together.

A little better, but I still look horrible and taller than him!

I miss these crazy shots!  We’re wackos.

My first time in It’s A Small World!  It was SO LONG!! But fun :)

Andrea! You’re immortalized in a shrubbery!

Didn’t get to see it on the hour…but ah well.

The most disappointing ride ever…The Nemo ride…SO BORING.

He was so hungry and tired by now, but was still enjoying my obnoxious company!

California Adventure was fun, and we got to see World of Color! I got a little woozy around the end of it, and it was drizzling a bit, so we were reaaady to go!

What a fun day :) Both of us have passes now, and I actually enjoy going to D-Land now that we can control where we go! Disney Day always makes things stressful while still fun!  It was fantastic!!

with all my heart.

Pin It
Email

2 Comments

Filed under Everyday Life, married life

Tagged as , , , ,