Andrew & Rachel's Wedding

Andrew is Joel's younger brother and last Friday he married the gorgeous Rachel Devine. No really, her last name is Devine! And yes, she's a Rachel.  For those not in the know - Joel and Andrew's sister is also Rachel - so now there are 3 of us: Rachel Esther, Rachel Ann & Rachel Louise.

Anyway, on Friday Rachel joined our family and we couldn't be happier.  She is sweet, funny, loving, good for our little brother - in short, we like her a lot and are thrilled to have a new sister. Not to mention she is totally gorgeous!

Their wedding was beautiful.  There was laughing, tears (not going to out anyone here but most of the crying was on our side of the church...!) the most amazing message (and that's without the bias of being the pastors wife!), stunning music and so, so much love and joy. It was a truly a blessing to be part of such a love filled day.

May God grant you joy, strength and wisdom as you discover the love that only marriage can hold.  Much love to you both. We are so proud of you! xx

It was quite lovely to only have pre-wedding tasks but great to have a front row family seat for getting a few good shots.  A few of my favourites:



Afternoon Program


If it doesn't get done in the morning... it probably won't get done... because my afternoons are filled up.

Baby Belly - the half way mark



That's glamour.  Right there.  Only the make up that is left at the end of a long day of not having worn much anyway.  Leggings.  Shirt bought 2 sizes too big so I can wear it until the bitter end.  Or not.  Hair the day before a hair cut.  Glamour.  And you can't even see that my leggings are rolled up at the bottom.  Why did I think it was a good idea to take a photo on this day?!

Whatever.  Just keeping it real around here.  This is how I look most days in the middle of my pregnancy.  Casual and oh so comfy.

It's all going really well, in case you were wondering.  Sleeping a fair bit but not as much as the first trimester.  Only feel slightly queasy if I'm super hungry.  But that doesn't happen much since I just eat all day.  Had a big growth spurt about 2-3 weeks ago that hurt.  And my digestion sometimes gives me grief but not overly so.  I haven't put on an unreasonable amount of weight.  Possibly because we still walk for 50 minutes most days.  And am loving all the wiggles I can feel.  Anything else you wanted to know?  No cankles.  Yet! Just the slightly puffer face....  (every now and then I check out some photos of me from 2 years ago and think 'holly moly I was a fatty!' then do a quick fast forward to photos of me in the months before getting pregnant and think 'wow! hotness!' Not really (Well, a bit) but I am so proud of how much weight I lost and don't panic that it's all finding me again because if I can lose it once I can lose it again.  And this time the gain is really that - gain!)

This trimester 2 things is pretty good.

I thought pretty hard about doing weekly photos/letters/updates or something but decided in the end that I am not nearly consistent enough to keep that up and then I'd feel bad when I didn't.  Then I thought - if I did it for my first and we are blessed with more would I do it for them too?  Probably not.  So I'm going to stick with my usual plan of attack - when I feel like it.  It will certainly be less contrived for me keeping a record of my pregnancy that way than feeling I had forced myself into something.  Besides.  I don't have enough cute things to wear.  Here endeth the odd sidetrack/rant/get that off my ample chest.  Sorry about that.

{Wow.  Just read through this and my brain is quite addled...!} 

The Jock's on you.

To the Person who swapped a pair of bikini cut briefs for grandma panties in the 5 pack (of larger than normal, thanks for asking) I bought this week at Target,

You thought you'd be funny I suppose.  Tricking me into buying knickers that come half way up my middle.  Joke's on you funny girl (or guy, but I prefer not to think that might've been the case).  These Bridget Jones style underpants are the comfiest thing my every growing belly has worn today.  I might just get another pair.  Or a whole 5 pack.  And then let's see who's laughing?  Won't be you and your knickers that cut in. It'll be me.  I'll be laughing because I'll be relaxing in the biggest, most comfortable pair of hightop jocks of anyone this side of 80.

Yeah.  And my body says thanks too.

From me and my comfy butt.

P.S.  The bikini cut in the larger size are pretty comfy too.  Just so you know - everything in that mystery pack was gold.  There was no losing. Ha.

6 Years

Today My Love and I round out 6 year of marriage.  6 years!  That's longer than I was in high school for.

We did most of our celebrating yesterday because he has to work today.  But I did save one thing for today.

A long, long while ago we made a pie in the sky plan that every 5 years of marriage we would celebrate our anniversary with a big trip.  We started by celebrating our honeymoon (3 years late!) in Bali.  And then last year we went to New Zealand.  A week doesn't go by that we don't talk about how much we loved it.  So to commemorate our 5th anniversary on our 6th anniversary I made Joel a poster of our trip, printed it up and framed it.  We both love it.  And I might make a smaller one from our Bali trip too so we really have the start of collection.

Joel's gift (the digital version of it since taking a photo of it framed is harder than doing the dishes today and I'm certainly not doing that):


Last night we went out for tapas at The Lounge for dinner and dessert.  I think we ate more dessert than all the dinner together! During dinner I pulled out an envelope and some pens.  I had prepared a little anniversary activity for us to work on during dinner.  Each of us had a page titled 'Six Things: for our sixth anniversary' and under that were 4 (not 6!) sentences to be completed 6 times:

Six things I love about you... 
Six of my favourite memories of our relationship so far...
Six things I hope and pray for us...
Six things you do that make me smile...

We secretly filled out our own pages over dinner then during dessert read them to each other, laughed at how many were similar or straight out the same and grinned a lot at how loved and blessed we both felt.  When we were done with that and almost done with dessert Joel pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.  I wasn't expecting anything from him because we'd been ring shopping early in the week for my gift (!!  oh, and his other gift too!).  

But out comes this piece of paper with my name on it.  "What is this is??" I asked him.  "Just a reflection on Song of Songs 4:10-5:1 that I wrote for you" he says.

The first tears came with the first line and continued all the way to the end.  It is entirely beautiful, heartfelt, romantic and wonderful.  A girl could not feel any more loved.  I will treasure that poem for ever.  I gave him my gift of art and he gave me his gift of words.  

Joel, I know I've said it a thousand times and I promise to say it a million more but just for today I want the world to know too - I love you.  The words are little but the emotion, the feeling and the promise are the biggest.  The very, very biggest.  I love you.

6 years.  We can do everything through him who gives us strength. xxx

Baby Dream


I dreamt I had my baby.  And then after a day it turned into a little yellow duckling.

I still loved it.

Anyone else out there having weird dreams this week?

Baby, Baby


Dearest Baby,

Oh yes!  We saw you for the second time ever today.  But it felt like the first since last time you were just a blobby blob with a heartbeat.

You are incredible.  Perfect.  We saw you practice your sucking, give a salute, wiggle, wiggle and wiggle.  The Dr says you will have your daddy's chin and already have his super long legs.  She also said that there wasn't a single thing out of place.  Really she just agreed with us that you are a perfect little miracle.

Now you just need to do some more baking, get nice and strong and get ready to meet us in a few months time.

We love you darling.

Your Mama always.
xx

2012 and some stuff I plan to do

I'm not so big on the goal making.  And I'm really not big on the public stating of the few goals I do make.  Like when I made a deal with Joel that if I lost 10 kilograms I could buy any camera I want... I didn't make it public knowledge because I was sure I'd fail and didn't want to spread that over the internet.  Turns out I lost 17 kilograms in 10 months and now I'm waiting for Nikon to release the camera I want.  Come on Nikon!  

We also decided that 2011 would be the year of 'Trying & Doing Things' in case 2012 was the year of The Baby.  We might be prophets...  So we enrolled in Tafe, I bought a motorbike helmut and went riding, we had canoe lessons, went to New Zealand, had our floors polished, painted heaps of walls and other things that we wanted to do while it's just the 2 of us.  I din't tell you about that 'goal' either.  But we did it and I'm proud of us.  

So this isn't one of the thousands of New Years resolutions posts you can read all over the internet at the moment.  It's just some things I've been thinking about and thought I'd share in case anyone else is thinking the same things and, like me, could do with a bit of spurring on and encouragement.

1.            Gain weight happily.  Yeah.  I know.  Didn't I spend last year working on losing weight? Am I mad?  But the goal isn't so much to gain the weight, because that's happening all on it's own, but to allow it happen joyfully and gracefully. Pregnancy is something that hasn't come easily so I don't want to whine about it and feel resentful that after months of hard work getting to a size 10 and a flat belly I am all belly again and none of the new clothes I bought for my skinny butt fit.  I will get back there but for now the goal is to rejoice in the weight and shape because it means there's a baby being grown and a lot of prayers being answered.
2.            Take more photos.  I love it, I'm good at it and after the 2010 365 project we completed I became somewhat resentful of my fabulous camera and lenses and refused to take pictures.  This year I will take more, be more courageous about taking them and enjoy the gift of skills and tools. 
3.            Try more recipes.  Lentils - become my friends.  I want to discover more recipes that I can add to my 'make without thinking' list that don't include meat or dairy.  I've made a start but think I'd like to try at least one new one a week.  Ooohh.. that sounds like a goal!  Might even share the recipes with you.  Ok? Accountability??
4.            Not be lazy.  I mean... I have stuff I want/need to do before our baby arrives (and after!) and I want to enjoy any rest time I have but I can't really do that if things are hanging over my head and I'm just fluffing around on Facebook and Pinterest.  So I need to be somewhat disciplined and work some part of each day.  Especially so poor Joel doesn't come home from working and find the house is still a disaster and all I have to say for myself is 'look what I pinned today!'  
5.            Be prepared.  Try very, very, very hard to limit last minute anything - birthday gift shopping/posting, meal preparation, baby stuff, projects I'm working on, cleaning... whatever.  Rushing doesn't suit me so I'm going to try and not.  Good plan I think.
6.            Have no fear.  In 2012 I am turning 30 and having a baby.  Not really scary things but sort of big things none the less and I want to greet them, and other new things, with excitement, anticipation, joy and an overwhelming sense of being blessed instead of fear, caution, anxiety and stress.  Because that's not the spirit I've been given.
That was it.  For now.  What things have you been thinking about for 2012?