so this is love

"he knew that i love you also means i love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, i love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, i love you in a way that i love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else."

-jonathon safron foer, everything is illuminated

notice how i'm like, excusemewhatareyoudoing? and he is all kungfupanda. 

no one can make me laugh like this. and make me more proud and happy and in love all at the same time. 

[untitled]

yesterday we took my mama to the airport at FOUR THIRTY am for her flight to ethiopia. it's here. she's [almost] there and i'm [still] here. and i came into the airport carrying a million bags and someone said to me, "YOU'RE COMING!!!?"

sad.


and then this guy who basically lives in tanzania was like, "how are you doing with this?" then proceeded to tell me the best news i needed to hear at that moment except not for the fact that it made me want to cry.

i cried twice. when we got back home and went back to bed and then at church last night. [but we're pretending that was because of baptism. i always cry when people get baptized. also evan thinks that was my pregnant hormones so we can blame that, too. even though it was not that.]

also this: when i got home from the airport i could not stop singing this worship song that we proceeded to sing at church. so this God listens to my heart. i know that means nothing to anyone else, except for the fact i know my prayer and i know that God was listening.

i just want to be there. i was not sad about not having to get on the plane for the only reason that i hate planes more than anything in this world. but i'd get on a plane every day for a year if that meant i could go right now.


when this baby gets bigger i think i just want to move there. and by bigger i mean like 6 months. and my mom is telling them that larissa and evan are having a ferengi [white, not ethiopian] baby and she had better video tape their reactions because oh man.

12 weeks

welp. i had my first food aversion this week.

eggs.

gross. i cannot even think about them without my stomach churning. i haven't had any problems with any sort of food or smells until evan's disgusting breakfast egg making party he had in my kitchen that made my entire house smell like a rotten egg. i'm super picky about eggs normally and it's already disgusting how the smell of cooked eggs just permeates every surface and pore of your entire house for like 8 hours. just gross. but apparently my body extra super hates it today. THEN. evan brought me a salad with hard boiled egg. BARF. i couldn't even eat 2 bites of the thing. the soggy lettuce and slimy egg was just too much for me. just thinking about salads and eggs (together or separate) is the worst. this baby? hates eggs.

in other news, i thought i was dying last week. okay, okay that's an exaggeration. but i had an upper respiratory infection that landed me in bed almost all of the week. evan got it first and that's the trouble with living with someone. they breathe all.over.you. and you get their sick. and they get yours and you probably pass sick back and forth for your entire life. awhhh, love.  i spent the week sleeping my life away and watching desperate housewives reruns because i'm on a watch-all-the-shows-you've-already-seen kick. including grey's BECAUSE IT COMES BACK IN ONE POINT FIVE WEEKSSSS.

aside from the egg debacle and my earlier sickness that had nothing to do with the baby and everything to do with evan, i'm great! tired, and my clothes are starting to get a liiiiitle tight, but great. i have tried that rubber band around the button trick and i've broken about 90 rubber bands. also my zipper doesn't stay up so i think people lie about that trick. i'm also exhausted. bedtime is pretty much 8 oclock. i can't even help it. my body just shuts down and says that.is.enough. which is fine by me.

i read on one of my trusty baby sites that if i press on my stomach the baby can feel it and has started to kick back. so basically i spent a good chunk of my day after reading that, pressing on my stomach. just sayin hiiiiiii.

and this morning we had our doctor's appointment to do some first trimester measuring stuff and the baby 1. would not roll over (stomach to back) so i had to do jumping jacks and walk around this little closet of a room for 10 minutes. and 2. was waving its arms and legs around, doing little happy dances. ultrasounds are so much fun! i want to have one every single day. except the tech i've had both times presses so hard on my stomach. i'm all, the baby isn't in my spine, lady. she's sure happy at 7:30. but obviously it's not her first baby so. i'm trying to soak in all of this and enjoy every time we get to see that little heart beat and those little arms grow and see its features. because you only get this first baby one time. i just love this little (plum) baby!

little lemon

it's official. baby is coming, ready or not!
i'm eleven weeks + one day. and every single morning i wake up and pinch myself that this is real life! life is CRAZY, you guys! crazy!

our little peanut is the size of a lemon (or a lime depending on which internet site you check. because obviously right after you take a million pictures with a lemon you would learn that it actually might be a lime. whatever. it was a small lemon.) and last week it was a prune and the week before it was a green olive. life is speedy before it even gets to take it's first breath. we got to see the ultrasound at 8 weeks and watch the little heart beat away at 151 beats per minute. and the little arms and legs! THIS IS A LIFE. it's so amazing.

evan is the most supportive and kind and helpful. i saw this quote on danielle's blog a while ago and it made my heart swell. "don't marry a man unless you would be proud to have a son exactly like him." boy or girl, evan is going to be the best dad. and i cannot wait to watch our little family grow.

so far i've been wonderful. sometimes i think it's a joke because i haven't had any morning sickness or nausea or normal pregnancy problems that everyone else has had. i feel great, just tired. i may have gone to bed before 9 once or twice in the past few weeks. and i cannot get enough lemons. i ate an entire lemon at the wedding last weekend and evan has had to go to the store for fresh lemons just about every other day. can'tstopwon'tstop. i normally like sour things so this isn't that new for me, just the fact that i'm putting them in my water and then inhaling them. i don't even know.

evan's favorite story so far is how i hate lunch meat and i hate jimmy john's (their meat is bloody. i don't do bloody cold cuts. just please.) and i might have had a melt down about not being able to have jimmy john's. I DON'T EVEN LIKE JIMMY JOHN'S! just please. did you know that babies form their taste buds at 8 weeks? when i told evan that he said, "why is it doing that now?" and i replied, "i know. that seems like a detail it could work on later on in it's life." but this baby loves lemons and seriously wants some jimmy john's. that's how we know that it's taste buds are functioning okay.

and this is our life now. this little lemon baby that will be here next spring. we can't wait to meet you, baby!

little family

baby cook, we already love you and can't wait to meet you. april 1, come quick!

summer love from danielle

my lovely friend danielle and i are blog swapping today and sharing just a little bit about our favorite parts about [the best] season [don't lie, danielle, it is your favorite]. side note: how is it september already? there was a COLD wind blowing earlier this week and it finally feels like fall may just appear on time, now that temperatures have dropped below 95! enjoy our little lists and be sure to check out danielle's blog. it is one of my favorites!

Hello, la la lovely readers! My name is Danielle and I blog over at Porcelain Heart, Ivory Tooth. I am a twenty-something tattooed wife and college student living on the east coast. Stop by and say, hello. I'd love to meet you! Also, thank you so much to Larissa, for letting me share my summer favourites with all of you, and be sure to stop by mine to check out Larissa's Lovely Summer Favourites.

Now onto the summer love... Summer may not by my favourite season, but that doesn’t stop me from loving a few things that come along with it. And since Summer is almost over I figured I'd share some of the things that I will miss most about Summer...

Custard & Italian Ice.
I’m not a big ice cream fan, so custard is perfection to me. I have always loved Italian ice and naturally this combination is a dream come true on a hot summer day. Especially, when it's mango Italian ice with vanilla custard. Summer in a paper cup...

Cloud-filled skies.
Looking up and seeing those fluffy white clouds filling the blue, blue sky always make my day a little brighter. Besides, they can be anything you want them to be. ;)


Brightly coloured nail polish.
I’m a sucker for dark colours and jewel toned anything, but when it comes to summer I am consistently rocking brighter shades like hot pink, corals, bright mint and bright blue.

Summer flowers.
If flowers aren't reason enough to love a season, then I don't know what is, even if they are merely a continuation from the season before!

and of course, my favourite thing about summer... rainstorms!
It hardly rains during spring here in Florida, and once June hits the rainstorms start and it is seriously incredible. I just love the way the air smells before a storm is about to happen.

What are some of your favourite things about summer?

weekend roundup

this weekend was......waaaay too many things all at the same time. fun, uncontrollable laughter, stress, tears, anger, sadness...i don't even know. too much too fast. it's been built up since the beginning of summer when we found out that our friends would be getting married on the 2nd and i have been waiting for this weekend ever since then. i had a lot of mixed feelings about it because evan knew nothing about the wedding as the best man and he was the only person out of like 8 people who cared where we were supposed to stay and what we were supposed to eat. i was stressed just thinking about having to entertain myself for 2 days while evan did wedding stuffs. it's awkward when like all of your friends are part of the wedding and then there's you and you're not and so.....

the 8 of us (3 ushers, 3 groomsmen, 2 girls) rented a huge cabin for the 3 days. it was right at the base of the mountains [that you can't see because my sad state is on FIYAH] and surrounded by cows and running water. there was a cabin down the street with like 80 fiberglass animal status and one fake horse tied to a post that we named lightening. we even tried to go climb him and take a picture but then someone swore they saw the old man come out [with a shot gun of course] to chase us off. i didn't get my picture and i almost broke my face on the cattle guard. we BBQ'd on saturday night, ate approximately 3 cows between the 8 of us and played a rousing game of loaded questions where i was called sassy and opinionated. which is why those questions are LOADED.

i have this thing with streams and rivers and creeks. i HAVE to put my feet in them. the day of the wedding, while everyone was running around taking pictures and doing wedding things, i spent the afternoon wading in the creek and trying not to fall on the mossy rocks and trying to drop my precious electronics into the water. it was cold and refreshing and evan even drank out of it because he is a fearless boy who may have slight judgement issues except when it comes to me, because good judgement on that.

evan was thee most handsome best man i ever did see.  the groomsmen and groom all wore super hero shirts underneath their tuxes and took the most hilarious pictures with them. evan was batman because of his great impression of batman and/or bane.

i had too much fun at the reception, without any alcohol because i was being a big girl. while all the guys snuck off to the truck and the cooler full of drinks i was content with my rust flavored water and iced tea. but seriously it tasted like rust. and all those pretty lights make me want to string lights up in my backyard and have parties all the time. it is also really hard for people who are not used to DSLR cameras to take a picture with them. i even put it on auto and we are still blurry. i do not understand this issue.

and this guy, geoff. first his nipples kept popping out of the cut off shirt he was wearing the night before and i happened to be sitting next to him so i continually brought them up. so it was only fitting for him to don his groomsman vest and be as trashy as possible with me. also his new name for me is "la-ree-ree" which i'm not too sure how i feel about but it makes me laugh hysterically because he could possibly be one of the funniest people i know and therefore the only person who will not be slapped for calling me that. he also fished for me while dancing and i embarrassingly fish danced across the dance floor. i need to work on my interpretive fish dancing skillz, yo.

i need another 3 days to recover from my 3 day weekend. i woke up with half my voice missing because of the smoke and also screaming to the high school dance reception and also laughing so much. it's still half missing today but i secretly love losing my voice and i wish it would go all the way missing.

also notable: our cabin came equipped with the creepiest baby dolls ever made in the history of baby doll manufacturing. one baby HAD A LAZY EYE! i mean, equal opportunities for everyone and all, but seriously. CREEP CITY. we wandered around the house checking out all the rooms and when we went into the first bedroom there was a crib behind a wall with the two babies tucked in. everyone jumped and screamed a little because it was slightly terrifying. somehow the babies became prank status and i found them in the freezer holding beer, i snuck them into a suitcase, i found them in our shower, they were hidden in beds and behind doors and in their strollers and used as props with a kitchen knife and a beer. mostly we are 4-years-old but it was a constant good time. this is the stuff of horror movies. "it's lightening outside. do you want to go in the bedroom and look at the babies?"

i'm fairly certain our little cabin escapade will become a yearly thing. with a dance party at the cabin because i'm all about dance parties. i like these people a lot. i laughed harder than i've laughed in a long time and evan told me i'm one of the guys. thanks?

i'm thankful for weekends away that remind you how much you miss the people that live on the other side of the world and the other side of your country [our other friend joe went back to being a missionary over yonder on monday and that was sad for us and geoff lives in nebraska but should move back here asap to have more fun than should be allowed]. and i'm thankful for husbands who make sure that their sad little wives have something to do and someone to talk to and someone to sit with while they are unable to babysit me and hold my hand.