happy birthday husband!

today celebrates the best man on earth.

happy birthday chris!

my heart celebrates this guy's life every day, but today I'm especially grateful! I'm thankful for his parents, and the family he came from, I'm thankful for the heart God placed inside him, I'm thankful for his dreamy eyes and the smile lines that accompany them... It's all part of what makes him who he is today! Chris, I couldn't have created a husband from scratch that's better than you. you are the very best part of my days, the most incredible father to our littles, and I still tear up and think, "wow, I can't believe I'm married to him," on a regular basis. I'm so lucky to have you to love, thanks for celebrating life with me daily. you're the best... I love you.

this morning we celebrated at snooze for breakfast! hooray for pancakes :)

11 years.

todays marks 11 years of dating the man of my dreams. here's to the next 60. i love you chris!

what do i want in the new year?

a second helping of what i've already got.

my boys.

firstly, two words... my husband. heart eyes all day.

in all seriousness, i just think he is a beautiful human being. i look at my kids and i see his face & am so thankful. more than that though, his heart makes mine melt a million times a day. he gives us his everything. he works hard all day so that i am able to stay home with our littles & raise them up, and then he comes home and gives more. i love him so much & am thankful thankful thankful for who he is & how he loves us.

second... abel. he is suddenly a teenager & he has to stop because my heart can hardly take it. he's the very best. he loves to play & have fun 24/7, him in his new clothes for fall... i can't even, the way he loves his sister and snuggles up with us daily is the sweetest ever, and he & chris... that's the sweetest bond in the world. i love that little boy to my end. thank you Jesus for these two boys... lucy and i are the luckiest.

there are moments that i know i will long for, even as i live them...

i came across this (title) quote & i feel it in my bones. i've learned over time, that life just keeps getting better. it really, really does. i was married to chris & my world was enough, and then we had abel, a son, a little piece of each of us that is now out in the world bringing happiness with him wherever he goes, and our world got bigger. i assume it will do the same here in about two weeks too! but still... this quote just gets me. as we play together as a family, laughing, snuggling, eating, all of it... i can feel how much i am in love with our life & how much i will remember these moments and my heart will ache a little when i think of it because then there will be more of us, or we will be older, or we will be in a different season entirely. it's so hard to explain it, because i know that in those future moments, looking back on these ones i will feel the same way about that time too. am i making any sense here? i guess i'm just trying to say that life is so very good. so good, i could eat it with a spoon and not feel sorry asking for seconds or thirds or fourths. the Lord has blessed me ten times over with the sweetest family, a loving husband, an unfairly cute toddler and now a baby girl. i have friends all over, near & far, sisters i adore, in laws that we don't see near enough but love & think of daily, a mother who taught me to love well & to have a giving heart, little brothers who warm my heart with their smiles & the way they look at my son, the list. goes. on...

so before this little lemon makes her debut, i had hoped to capture a little bit of the magic that this family of three has going on RIGHT NOW, before things change again & we have new love in our lives & a different skip in our step. thank you to my sister for taking these for us! they turned out pretty dreamy, which is a miracle considering we were working with a big ugly cloud that decided to come in and block our gorgeous light, a camera we are still learning, a toddler who only wanted to run... and run & run, also a 9 month pregnant lady who's emotions are over here AND there and everywhere else. at least we had chris... always looking like that & keeping his cool :) 

^^^lastly, these ponies were on the side of the road on our drive home... you know me & my weakness for pictures of ponies, and this sunset was waiting for us when we pulled into the driveway. amen.

a couple reasons why my husband is the best.

he cooks. like reeeeally cooks. & enjoys it too. i'm more of a baker & only make a handful of meals around here (really, a handful: tacos, eggplant parmesan, pasta fagioli, most of our breakfasts, & if i'm really feeling crazy- something off of pinterest) ...so him cooking is something that i appreciate extra. my dad was an amazing cook & food was an area that he and chris could really relate on, so it's still so special to me whenever chris is making a meal or uses my dads cooking phrases like, "dinner is swerved." it keeps a little piece of my dad in our kitchen & also food in our bellies with actual nutrition.

he looks like that. 

he gave me abel. period. & i'm sure when our miss gets here, that quality is only going to explode my heart even more.

he's adventurous and gets us out and about on the weekends, but also knows how to balance fun & work & rest, and keeps our life full of the best.

he makes me laugh daily. 

he's hard working & he's enthusiastic about ideas & goals & food, three areas where i believe enthusiasm is 100% necessary. 

he treats our marriage like a true partnership. shares responsibilities, makes decisions together, respects my wants & needs, takes care of me & allows me to take care of him where needed.

he treats me like the apple of his eye. he loves the mother i am to abel & appreciates me & all that i do.

he loves abel in a way i can't even explain. it's the sweetest to see them together. playing, hugging, laughing. whatever it is, you can bet your booty my heart is somewhere on the floor melting, having leapt from my chest due to the overflowing love i have for those two.

he smells good & kisses me every morning before he leaves for work and every night before he falls asleep.

his heart is made up of pure gold, and again… he looks like that ;)

abel's first baseball game!

while in seattle, we got tickets to see the mariners and the yankees play! hip hip! okay, so i'm not really a baseball fan... okay, i'm not a baseball fan at all. but i am all about new experiences, my little's FIRST experiences and concession food. so this was a win for me. abel lasted 6 innings before he wanted to get down & run all over the place, and that was longer than we had planned to stay anyway so we were happy all around. they gave him a 'first game' certificate and baseball card & the way chris held onto that thing like it was gold made me love him even more than i already did. seattle was so good for so many reasons, but my favorite thing about it was having that much undivided time with chris & seeing him and abel together... melt. me. those two together are my everything.

^^^PLEASE don't be afraid of asking people to take your picture. i am not usually one for the super posed shots, but i just think it's so important to have pictures of all the members of your little clan present & not always be behind the camera or be taking them selfie style. it may turn out like this one & you feel like your head looks 17 months pregnant because you got the front lean in spot, but i'll hold onto this one like gold because of the special moment that it captured... and because the guy eating the burger behind me makes me laugh out loud :)

s e a t t l e || part TWO

i bring to you, part two of our seattle vacation!

our favorite spot was pike place market... probably the most touristy spot in seattle, but we were in fact tourists so you know. we stopped at the original starbucks, tried some deeeelicious donuts we heard about via google, sampled fresh fruit, chased birds around (abel) & watched street performers make a parrot do a back roll into a headstand... wide eyed emoji here... abel loves anything having to do with birds, so naturally he enjoyed that. it was imperative that we head down post alley & stop at the number 5 most germ infested spot ever, the bubble gum wall at market theater.. because obviously, the pictures. the market was the best. there are fish throwers & brick streets, and the hustle and bustle makes me feel like i'm somewhere important. please visit seattle in your life... it will probably rain. it did most days that we were there, but it's so pretty. there's lots to see and do, and if you're lucky enough, you might get to see mt. rainier on a sunny day like our first day in the city.