Oh what fun!

Some of these are still in the mail on their way to our friends and family, but in the meantime, I needed to share our Christmas cards this year... 

Usually we just send one, but this year we had such an amazing opportunity to send the silliest card in our history (but couldn't chance sending this to work colleagues and older family friends) that we had to go with an option 1 and option 2. :) Option one shows us as we REALLY wish our life was all the time... you know, perfect-looking.

We're smiling! Everything is perfect! We look fantastic! There's snow and a sled for goodness-sakes! 

That's not to say that we're not smiling an awful lot of the time and that we don't have an incredible, amazing, really blessed life together, because we do....

But let's be honest... no one's life LOOKS like that 100% of the time. Which is why card #2 makes me so happy.

I mean, in real life sometimes you have the most fun when you're zooming downhill at 30mph heading straight for some super scary-looking brambles and you have no idea how to steer the sled. Everyone knows it, but the ride is so fun that it's totally worth the crash at the end...
Or maybe in real life you have the most fun when things mostly just aren't going right, and you have no idea on God's green earth where you're heading but that's ok, because you're a team and you've got each others' backs and you figure things will turn out just fine..

Or maybe real life's fun because you've made a crazy choice that will change things forever for the two of you (like having a baby) and you're both hurtling toward that new phase in life without a CLUE of what it really means, will look like, or bring into your family, but you keep heading that way because it just feels right and the anticipation and uncertainty is BEAUTIFUL and what life is all about.

Regardless of which possibility resonates with you, Option #2 captures what I feel like our life really feels like these days.  The photo is terrible, we look ridiculous, but Oh, What FUN! :)

Happy New year and Happy Christmas, and ALL other holidays this season from me!

news!

I just realized that I never shared LAST year's holiday card with you! gosh. it was so belated that it was a new year's card... It was clearly a bigger sign of how the year was going to go for me...especially when it comes to blogging since my last post was this summer about my trip to San Francisco. gah.

The good news is that I've already placed our Christmas card order for this year! Once they come in i PROMISE I'll share them. I think we've really outdone our awkwardselves this year...get ready.

I also wanted to share some pretty big news... (which is also incredibly bloggy-belated) we've bought a house and are expecting our first BABY in March. It's pretty crazy to think about that I was actually already expecting when I wrote my last post. True story, I had some serious initial anxiety about becoming a mother and whether or not I was ready...but once we heard our little one's heart beat for the first time I was absolutely and totally overjoyed. I didn't expect to feel so strongly about the heartbeat, but it was so magical and surreal. Anyway, although I'm totally not ready (the nursery is a wreck, I have NO idea how to change a diaper, I can't even imagine how little sleep we're going to get) I'm also totally, one-million percent, knee-deep in excitement and joy for his arrival here in the real world.

in other news, at this point I'm ENORMOUS, y'all. I look like there's a beach ball under my top. In fact, the doctor said (and I quote) "my goodness! you definitely should have pushed back a bit sooner from the Thanksgiving table!" and I thought, "you should have kept your mouth shut if you don't want me to punch you in the face." if you don't believe me about my new look, check out the photo below taken only 2 weeks ago...

Truly, although it's so crazy that we'll be parents, Boone and I are over the moon about all of this and've been working nonstop to get everything ready in the new place for our little guy. I'd promise to be better about posting here, but with a new little one, I'm just not sure how that's going to go. Wish us luck and look for the Christmas card soon! (and maybe some other fun updates depending on what life throws at me)

Smooches.

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

TWO big wishes getting fulfilled to report! Right this minute I'm on my way to San Francisco to visit a favorite friend and to meet her new little one! I'm most excited to meet this new little girl, give my lovely lady friend & her honey a giant hug, and maybe eat as much dim sum as my stomach will hold. It's a busy time of year... Conferences, welcoming new teachers moving to Mississippi, other work- related things... And on top if it all, we're in the process of buying our first home! with all this, it was hard to leave the Delta, but i guess San Francisco for work AND to meet a new baby isn't a bad place to spend a week in the middle of the summer. 

Boone and I are more than pretty excited about the house buying though... A realtor said that we had "been so incredibly thorough" when we looked at maybe the only 8 homes for sale in the part of the Delta that we wanted to live in at least twice each. When he said that I was a little bent out of shape at first... I mean, who doesn't exhaust all the possible options when they're making such a HUGE decision?? I guess I just wanted things to feel just right, you know? Like the stars aligning and the heavens opening up and a light shining down on the one. 

Ultimately though, we went with the one with no central A/C (yet), green formica in the kitchen, and tiny closets...but also the one that made the most sense financially, location-wise and had the most beautiful hardwood floors, crazy-high ceilings, and natural light. Not perfect, but pretty. Darn. Great.

But when I think about it, I've been sort of feeling the same way about babies. I mean, starting a family is such a big decision. And recently I've gone through about a zillion different scenarios in my head about what kinds of things change when you have a kid, and I keep coming up with giant question marks about whether or not I'm ready. But then, a baby is different than a house. I've rarely heard of buyer's remorse when it comes to a little one... And from what my friends tell me, most mothers seem to feel like the heavens DO open up and a light shines down when they finally get to hold their baby in their arms. Unfortunately, that only happens a good 9 months after you commit to the whole motherhood and fatherhood thing. if only it felt that way BEFORE...

After the new house, I'm not sure what other big changes might be in store for us over the next few years, but I think that  we're going to be ready for whatever those might be. I think. It sure would help if the heavens opened up sooner rather than later, though.

Holiday wishes

Y'all, we had the most amazing Holiday season. We got to spend tons of quality time with our families, found a church (finally), hosted a fun dinner party, sang Christmas carols, mastered the art of the Prime Rib (coming soon on Mess of Greens), went out on the town dressed in black tie, had a great New Year's Eve in Jackson with dear friends, slept in, and got some great down time together. What's also pretty fantastic about this holiday is that we both love our jobs and what we get to do every day so much, that we're actually excited to go back to work, and ok with the holiday coming to an end. I know... I'm pinching myself because I feel so thankful and blessed. We had so much change and adventure in 2012 (the everglades! moving to a new town! 3 promotions!) that I'm looking forward to a 2013 where we settle in, put down some roots that will keep growing deeper, and celebrate lots of other people's happy new beginnings with our nearest and dearest friends (babies! weddings! home-ownership!)

Here are a few photos from our happiest of holidays, and here's wishing you a 2013 that's as filled with joy, adventure, merriment, love, and peace as our 2012. :)

Smooches.

a smidge of cheer

poor smidge.

we already have our christmas tree up (no lights or ornaments, but it's in the corner ready!) and i've done a good bit of shopping for the little ones on our list (the nieces, baby cousins, etc). plus, it's christmas card design and ordering time, and somewhere i got it into my head that ours is going to feature these awful (awesome!) printed turtlenecks and smidge in a santa outfit. she's not really keen on the idea, and we didn't get the best shots our first go at it, but i'm determined. anyway, here's a little "smidge" of holiday cheer for you as you start getting in the holiday spirit.

:)

wishfulfillment planned: the everglades

oh my dears,

it's been way too long since wishfulfillment got an update. BUT I finally have something fun and light-hearted to report (not that things haven't been fun, or lighthearted sometimes, but not really report-worthy)

we've decided on a vacation (AND it's top on my list of places in America that I want to go!)

we've got a conference in miami in the fall, so we're headed to explore the everglades for a few days afterwards and are going to drive down through the keys..all in all, we'll be vacationing a week! the everglades are so high on our travel list because (like glacier national park) there's a chance that the environment is shifting so rapidly that in a decade or so it won't be the same. also, swamplandia's beautiful and melancholy descriptions of the landscape and wildlife peaked my interest something awful. 


have you been? are there any must-dos or must-sees?

stroll down memory lane...

every time i get a jcrew catalog i stop whatever i'm doing for at least 10 minutes to page through and check out the color schemes.... it's not that i really buy that many things from them, or even that i particularly like all of their shapes and sillouhettes, but the COLORS.

last week, when boone and i FINALLY went to post office box after about a week of putting it off, i found the new balinese vacation edition and promptly started devouring it cover to cover. here's the thing... first, i had an issue using children from bali as props for the shoot. then, as i looked at the photos i realized that boone and i had been to the exact same spot as the Ubud temple and monkey temple shots. cray-zy.

knowing that we'd actually been to the spots in the shoot made me also realize how awful it must have been to be a model wearing at least 3 layers of clothing on the beaches in equator heat...i could hardly stand to wear tank-top jersey dresses with flip flops, much less a tee-shirt, dress, and cardigan with closed toe leather flats all at once.

regardless, it was super fun to remember that at about this time two years ago boone and i were on a plane to singapore to see our nieces, and then took our jaunt to this most amazing island. thanks jcrew for the stroll down memory lane. and also, i'd really like the seafoam maxi skirt pictured above. for serious.