Almost one year ago, Hadley wore this as her Easter dress…
Now she can wear it as a top!
I love getting lots of use out of her clothes, but I have to admit this makes me a little sad!
I’ve given a brief summary of how Matt proposed when I wrote this post, but in honor of the anniversary of his proposal, I wanted to share the details. Five years (and 2 days) ago I was about to embark on one of the greatest journeys in life!
For those who don’t know, Matt and I were long distance until we were married. He was living in San Francisco while I was in Austin at the time he proposed. That particular weekend, he was supposed to be coming into town, but told me earlier in the week that he was going to have to work on a huge project and wouldn’t be able to make it. I was disappointed, as our weekends together were really all we had at that point, but my week turned around a bit when a huge bouquet of roses showed up at work with a card saying he had booked a massage for me that Saturday to make up for his not being there.
Saturday morning, I woke up and headed to get my massage (not having talked to Matt yet because of the time difference). Afterwards, I went by the front desk to make sure I didn’t owe anything and the girl suddenly seemed a little excited and said “oh, are you Brittany?!” I replied that, yes, I was, and she disappeared for a second, then came back with a flower and an envelope. She told me everything was taken care of and I was good to go!
I opened the envelope to find this…
{I should note that at this point, I still had no idea he was actually in town, I just thought he felt really bad about not being able to make it and went over the top to make it up to me!}
I proceeded to collect the following clues from all of our favorite places in Austin… from outdoor spots with great views, to the apartment of the friend who introduced us, even a stop at Sonic to get me my favorite Diet Coke (seriously, I pressed the button and the carhop came out with a large Diet Coke, a flower and my next envelope!) Talk about knowing the key to my heart… :)
The next clues took me to Hula Hut (my favorite restaurant), GSD&M (my old work), and the deck at the house where I was living at the time.
{As I read the final clue, I finally realized that he was probably in town, seeing as how he said we had a nice evening ahead of us, but it still didn’t register that he would be proposing.}
(Also, please note that he had to underline HOUR when telling me how long I had to get ready. Apparently he didn’t want to be waiting in a suit outside for me… )
My last clue took me to Mount Bonnell, which is the highest point in Austin, and it wasn’t until I was on my way there and called a girlfriend to tell her about my fun game, who instantly said “ohmygosh! he’s going to propose!” that it finally clicked. I drove right past my exit because that was seriously the first time that thought had gone through my mind!
When I finally arrived, I “hiked” up the hill to find Matt, in a suit, with a bouquet of roses and another envelope! He handed me the following letter…
I looked up to him with tears in my eyes when I finished the letter and he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand! We had an audience by this point and after I said yes we got a huge round of applause! It was far more romantic than I could have ever imagined my proposal to be!
Matt had one last surprise for me after he proposed – he took me to a nice steakhouse for dinner afterwards where my parents were waiting to surprise me! (His parents would have been there, but they were living in London at the time!)
It’s so hard to believe it’s been five years since then! A job change (x2), name change, a new city, new house and a baby later and we’re still going strong. :)
Just wanted to share some randomness with y’all from our week! And if you haven’t already, head over to Karen’s blog and link up your home (or room) tours now that her guest-posting tours are over!
If you follow me on twitter or instagram, you may have already seen a couple of these, but for those of you who don’t…
Hope y’all have a wonderful weekend! We’re waiting for my sister & brother in-law to get here for a fun weekend with family! Happy Friday!
Since we had a doctor visit at 15 months for Hadley, I wanted to write another update with her stats and share what she’s been up to since so much has happened since her last monthly post!
Her official stats from the doctor are:
Since her last update was around 13 months, there’s a lot to catch up on! Hadley started taking steps back at the end of February (just shy of 14 months) and took about a month to really get comfortable on her feet. Towards the end of March she just started taking off and really hasn’t looked back since, so we officially have a walker (and sometimes a runner) now.
She loves to push her baby around in her baby stroller, put things in her little shopping cart and climb in and out of her chair over and over! She also loves to dig around in the kitchen cabinets and take all of the tupperware out!
She can tell you what a doggy, monkey, cow, duck, and sheep say. She can say mama, dada (“nah-nah”), up (“puh”), bye bye, night night (“ni-ni”), ball, yes (which sounds like she’s smacking her tongue), and every now and then will attempt to say bird and baby – both just come out as “buh.” She also still signs “all done,” “more,” and “milk.” She can also point to her: hair, head, eyes, mouth, teeth, tongue, neck, belly, hand, fingers, knees and toes (we’re still working on nose – it’s a tricky one!).
Hadley eats 3 meals a day and usually has 2 snacks. She also still nurses first thing in the morning and right before bed. Both of those sessions are pretty short, so I doubt they’ll be around for much longer, but when we do put her down without nursing her, she almost ALWAYS wakes up in the night, so for whatever reason, I don’t think she’s ready to drop it just yet. She loves to drink her coconut & almond milk from a straw sippy. Her favorite foods right now are: grapes, strawberries, and spaghetti. Those are seriously the only things I can get her to eat on a regular basis. She still eats healthier than Matt and I combined, though. Today she had a blueberry and quinoa puree, sliced strawberries and a whole grain blueberry waffle for breakfast, for lunch she had a cherry, sweet corn and greek yogurt mix (sounds crazy, I know), along with strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, and apples (the girl LOVES her some fruit), and for dinner I hope to have her eat avocado with some chicken and a spinach, peas and pears puree. I know she should probably be eating all table food now, but those little pouch purees are such a good way to get a couple servings of veggies in (she is super picky about the texture of veggies and almost always spits them back out when they are whole.)
She still sleeps 11-12 hours a night and takes 2 naps a day. I keep thinking she’s ready to go down to one nap, and then the next day she’ll take two solid 2 hour naps, so I don’t think we’re quite there yet! (I say this with the footnote being that whenever she is teething, over-tired or stimulated, sick or just not in the mood, her sleep schedule is NOT that wonderful).
She has (at least) 12 teeth, maybe more. It’s tough to get a good look these days! 4 up front on top, 4 up front on bottom and 4 molars so far.
Hadley had her first non-family baby-sitter this month, too! “Aunt” Courtney came over to watch her so I could go get my hair done. Courtney also brought her little dog Lucy and I’m pretty sure Hadley would have been totally fine if I had never come home! Puppy + aunt Courtney = super fun afternoon!
Her personality is still as strong as ever and she truly is the definition of sugar and spice! She has become a lot more “loving” in the past month or so and will actually come up to me and give me hugs & kisses without my asking for them! Love it!! She loves to climb in my lap to read a story and wrestle with daddy when he gets home from work. She also has no problem expressing herself when she realizes it’s bath or bedtime and she’s not ready. Pretty sure the whole neighborhood hears about it. We have definitely entered the tantrum stage already (and I’m sure this is just a taste of what’s to come). She is a girl who knows what she wants!
Hadley Ann, we love you SO much! What a blessing these past 15 months have been!
Today, I’m guest posting over at Karen At Home! She just had a little baby boy, and to keep her blog alive while she’s in the newborn survival mode, she’s got a great series going on with lots of different bloggers sharing their homes! I always love to snoop in other people’s homes to check out their decorating ideas – y’all should go check it out and leave her (and me) some love!
I wanted to share a couple pictures and a quick recap of our weekend, but decided I would add them in a new post rather than cluttering up the previous post from It’s Almost Naptime!!
We went down to Austin on Saturday to stay with my family; poor Hadley only had an hour nap in the car and that was it for the whole day. This trip was a little different from trips past because my parents are fostering some kids right now, which meant extra playmates/stimulation for Hadley and less bedrooms to choose from!
We had one of the hardest nights we have ever had with Hadley on Saturday night. So much so that I actually resorted to driving her around at 2:45 in the morning for almost an hour. I finally made it to bed after getting her down around 4:15am only to wake up a little before 8 for church. I really feel like when things like that happen that it’s satan trying to keep us from going to church and worshipping. He wasn’t going to win this time, so we all showered, got dressed, loaded up on coffee and headed to celebrate our risen Lord! {If you are ever in Austin and want to be a part of a great group of believers you should check out Austin Stone!}
Despite having to be pried off of me when we dropped Hadley off in the nursery, she had a great time and actually threw a fit when she had to leave (hmmm, think that fit throwing might have something to do with getting hardly any sleep??). We went back to my parent’s house for some delicious food and an egg hunt for the kiddos – we had 18 people there, 8 of whom were kids, so it was a busy afternoon!
Because of our rough night, Matt and I decided to pack up for home and hit the road a day early. We’re sad we didn’t get to spend more time with family, but I was starting to get sick and Hadley was desperately needing some good sleep in her own crib, so we were glad to get home.
Hope y’all had a great Easter!
Tomorrow, I’ll be guest posting at Karen At Home, giving a tour of our house!
Before I recap our Easter weekend, I wanted to share this post that I found on Good Friday from It’s Almost Naptime! I realize it’s after Easter, but I think it’s important to continue to reflect on all that Christ sacrificed for us throughout the year, not just on one day. Here is the post…
Because I am barefoot 99% of the time, and because we aren't the neatest house on the block, the incident of stepping on sharp, pointy objects is an all too common occurrence.
I wish I could blame it on the kids, but I've never had the neatest house on the block. My floor has always been a bit of a landmine. The soles of my feet are riddled with the scars of my domestic ineptitude.
Recently for some odd reason I was blessed to be wearing shoes when I stepped up the stairs and directly on top of a wayward nail which pierced straight through the sole of my shoe and into my poor foot. As I screamed dramatically, the thought ran through my mind which, for almost seven years, has been repeated every time I have been assaulted by my own home: Glad I got to that first. Better me than one of the kids.
That pretty much sums up the change in our hearts (and pain tolerance) caused by motherhood, doesn't it? A tack in the foot no longer yields screaming and curses, but gratitude. The same tack could have harmed the sweet soft skin of my precious child. It hurts, but it would have hurt my baby worse. Better me than him.
Soon after Shepherd's birth, I realized my love was so strong for this child that, not only would I take a bullet for him, but I'd take a bullet for him gladly. With zero hesitation. Now the chances of me being asked to take a bullet for one of my children are thankfully very small. But thumbtacks? Slivers of glass? Runaway carpet nails? A Lego with a vendetta? It's a repetitive - sometimes daily - sacrifice.
Today I was cleaning the girls' room. As I slid my hand under Maggie's bed, my right thumb made direct contact with a pointy piece of glass. A rather large piece of glass, which could have done substantial damage to a small foot. My blood oozed from my body, while, as usual, I expressed gratitude for the opportunity to get to it first. Better me than her.
I stared at the blood stained glass when suddenly, I stifled a sob, and doubled over.
For the image of my bloody Savior hanging on a cross had appeared in my mind.
And He said, Better Me than you.
The Lord, in His wondrous mercy, beat me to the piercing, and the pain, and the blood. It was a sacrifice. Because He loves me even more than I love my own children.
When they tied his arms to a post with his back exposed, and He braced Himself for what was to come, He said, Better Me than you.
When they raised the whip, it's tendrils tied with pointy pieces of glass and metal and bone, He said, Better Me than you.
When they brought the whip down on His back, with full force, over and over and over and over and over, He said, Better Me than you.
When the skin had been shredded and the arteries and veins in the muscles in His back began to hemorrhage, He said, Better Me than you.
When they dug the crown of thorns into his head, He said, Better Me than you.
When they grabbed His beard in their hands and pulled as hard as they could to rip the hair from His face, He said, Better Me than you.
When they cursed Him and called Him the foulest names they could think of, He said, Better Me than you.
When they slapped and punched His bleeding cheeks, and mocked Him, and spit on Him, and beat Him with a staff until His bloody tortured body was unrecognizable as human, He said, Better Me than you.
When they forced him to lift the seventy five pound crossbeam, lay it across his scourged and lacerated shoulders, and ordered his failing body to walk, He said, Better Me than you.
When the loss of blood and the pain from the tortures caused him to stumble and drop the cross, He said, Better Me than you.
When they stripped off all His clothes and threw His naked, mutilated body down on the cross, hammered thick, heavy, wrought-iron nails into His wrists, then lifted Him into place, He said, Better Me than you.
When they crossed his ankles and hammered similar nails into the arches of his feet, He said, Better Me than you.
When He struggled to breathe, causing Himself excruciating pain no matter how He moved, He said, Better Me than you.
When He looked into the face of a mother, His mother, watching the murder of her precious child, her baby boy, He said, Better Me than you.
When His Father turned His back on Him, when He felt most forsaken, when He cried out in agony and heartache and despair, He said, Better Me than you.
When His chest filled with fluid and He felt His own heart drown within Him, He said, Better Me than you.
When He cried out before He finally suffocated to death, He said, Better Me than you.
When He took on the wrath of God and paid the penalty for your sins, and my sins, and our beloved children's sins, He said, Better Me than you.This is love:
not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:10
I pray that you all had a wonderful Easter and know and feel the love that the Lord has for YOU!
I was going to post a wedding-recap with some pictures of our little flower girl, but I know there are some grandparents waiting for bluebonnet pictures, so I’ll get those up today instead. :) This is one of, if not the most beautiful year of bluebonnets I’ve ever seen. In true Texas form, we had to take advantage!
Enjoy! Sorry for the complete photo overload. If you’re not related, you may just want to skip this post today.
This next one is in the middle of her doing the sign for “more” because she wanted a snack. Giving me some attitude, for sure.
Signing “more” again – ready for another snack!
This is what she does when you say “Where’s Hadley??”
And “where’s momma??”
