19 & 20

Weeks these days are becoming more and more real for us here.  Stella is kicking and rolling around.  She especially loves to move when she is in church and when I eat spicy food.  Her room is coming together slowly.  We have it painted "Pink Lemonade". It's a gorgeous pearlescent light pink.  Grammie and Granddaddy got her crib and mattress.  It was very simple to set up and didn't take John very long at all.  It looks great in her room!  Nanna and Big Papa got back from the beach and brought back several boutique items.  Her closet is beginning to fill quickly!  I can't wait to dress her up every day! The other day I received a phone call from a sweet friend who found a $20.00 solid wood dresser for her room.  We got that immediately and it's in the process of being painted as one of my chalk paint projects this summer!  More to come on that soon!  Stella is beginning to make her appearance more and more.  I'm 23 weeks now and a bit bigger than these photos.  It's so fun to watch her grow!

Celebrating 4 Years

This year for our anniversary John and I decided to stay away for a night in Nashville.  We stayed at the Hutton.  Once we arrived, they escorted us to the elevator and said "Oh, by the way, you'll need to use this special elevator because we upgraded you to the Penthouse suite.  Happy Anniversary!"  We probably looked like the two most stupid people in the world with struck faces.  We were so excited!  It was beautiful.  They had a huge arrangement of roses for us and the view was phenomenal!

It really was a special night.  We got ready for dinner and enjoyed our favorite place P.F. Changs.  Once we returned to the penthouse, we noticed the hotel had left us champagne and a sweet card. The thought was so kind and made us feel really special.

We relaxed the rest of the evening and the sun rise over Nashville woke us up the next day!

We enjoyed breakfast at the Pancake Pantry and spent the afternoon in Green Hills.  That night back at home, John surprised me with some homemade hot wings.  It was a great way to celebrate 4 years.  We didn't go far, but being alone and with just each other for one night was so special.  We cannot get over the kind care that Hutton had on our stay.  It was so wonderful and we couldn't have asked for anything better!

Our Sweet Baby Girl

Going into the doctors office yesterday we were certain that we were destined for a boy.  I have always said that I would have boys.  A nervous wreck as always, we entered the ultrasound room and instantly when we saw our baby's profile we fell in love.

We let the tech know that John could read ultrasounds and we did not want him knowing something before I was aware!  Once it was time for the reveal of the gender she froze the screen and asked John what he thought it was.  He said that it was a girl and the tech confirmed.  I leapt up off the table and yelled so loud and immediately had the "ugly cry" I couldn't believe it!  Seeing her type "girl" on the ultrasound was unbelievable.  Wow, it feels good to say she.  She is going to be active that is for sure!  She wiggled and moved and squirmed.  She moved her mouth a lot and then at one point placed her hands on her face and crossed her ankles.  Adorable.  That was the best part!  She is completely healthy and perfect.  We prayed for our sweet baby to be healthy and happy.  We prayed that we would be happy with what God chose for us for our family.  It's so humbling to know that God has given us the gift of a baby girl to raise in this world. I cried again in the waiting room and then again with our doctor, then on the way home out of pure joy.  It's been the greatest experience and we haven't been able to stop smiling since.
We wanted to share our news with our family and church family "chamily" that night.  We planned a dinner for everyone and then we had the reveal afterwards.  It was a perfect night.  Just as we'd hoped for.  Our friend Jessi made a cake and cake pops for fun and they were all to die for!

The votes were right down the middle 21 and 21.  I loved that!  Although, the grandparents sure were shooting for a girl! It was adorable!

Here is a picture of everyone, Team Blue and Team Pink.  They help some balloons for extra pop for the picture and then just let them go up in the sky before we revealed.  It was great!
Everyone was overjoyed to find out what we were having!  I love the idea that John had on how to reveal.  You know we have to be original!

He and I threw two balloons with pink paint at a wall covered in white cloth.  The color exploded for the reveal.  After we hugged and celebrated with everyone, the guests got to throw a balloon too to add to the art!

We will be cutting the cloth into 8x10 sections and framing them for the grandparents and for her room.
We were overwhelmed by the excitement and joy that our families had last night.  We are so thankful for each of them and for our sweet Chamily.  We don't know what we would do without everyone's support!  We announced the name and told my Aunt Beth personally that Stella will be wearing the middle name proudly after her Great Aunt Beth and after her mommy.

Her reaction was breathtaking.  I loved it so much!
As for us, we are still on cloud nine today.  Having a baby girl seems just right for us and we are so excited and overjoyed to be here.  We cannot wait to meet Stella Beth Maholland.

But, until then, her closet needs to start being filled with lots of bows, shoes, dresses, and bling! ;-)

Four Years

The twenty-first of June we celebrate four years.  It is this year that I feel most thankful.  When you are shown God's Grace and love, it makes you learn how to love and show God's Grace to others, especially your spouse.   Thank you John for choosing to love Christ and in turn love me deeper than we ever thought was possible.

14 & 15

 Life with Baby M on the way is going along quick smoothly!  I wanted to show a few pictures from a few weeks ago since Baby M is starting to rapidly grow!
  A few weekends ago I came to the realization that I would have zero weekends available in June except that one to clean out the house.  When I say clean out I mean closets, drawers, underneath beds, you get my drift.  Luckily, I have the best mom ever that dropped her world and came to my rescue all weekend and we successfully accomplished our goal.  Michaela and Rebekah even got to help as well!  
  We now have a beautiful and cozy spare bedroom, completely shredded and cleaned out master closets, bathroom, and kitchen, one empty canvas of a Baby M room with an empty walk in closet just waiting to be decorated.  Baby M has drawers and a cabinet in the kitchen empty and waiting, and in the bathroom and hallway closet.  The amount of stress that has been lifted is remarkable now that this is finished.  I was dreading it.  The good news is, in the process, we cleaned out all of my clothes that have accompanied me since high school.  Yes, since high school.  That's terrible!  I have so much room now and everything is so organized of what I can and cannot wear.

Because as you see, Baby M is starting to really pop out!  Yay!  And even more so since this was taken a few weeks ago!
  We will be having a yard sale with some other ladies in our small group a few weeks from now so we can hopefully get rid of everything and get a little extra cash too!  Only a little longer and we will find out if our sweet baby is going to be smothered in pink or blue!  2 weeks to be exact!  Yay!  Every little piece of me wants to go to a 3D clinic and do it now, but we have agreed to wait!  We cannot wait to see what our bundle is and to get to see Baby M move and kick.  It will be a large change since we last got to have a ultrasound and Baby M looked like a little sweet gummy bear!
  Being pregnant has been everything more than we dreamed it would be.  We have soaked up every moment.  We are so thankful to be able to experience this miracle and gift from God.  What a blessing!

How We Shared Our News

 So here we are one by one how we told each grandparent, great grandparent, aunts, and uncles.  Enjoy the sweet mix of emotions! Have fun choosing the most hilarious reaction!

Bump Ahead!

When we took our pregnancy announcement pictures  and placed a sign in the road saying "bump ahead"  I guess we really never thought that a bump would be this soon ahead!  We woke up one morning and bam, Baby M was out to be seen!  We soaked up that moment and were very elated at how cool God's creation is! I am now 12 weeks but wanted to begin including my week along progression since "the bump"  We look forward to watching our baby grow more from week to week!

Thoughts on Twenty-Five

This time twenty-five years ago my father walked me through the hospital to my family and said "It's a Lindsey Beth!"  What a surprise.  The past twenty-five years I have experienced many life changing things.    I have learned a whole lot about myself and over the past 6 months I have learned that "I" am not worthy of any of it and that "I" need to stop thinking about, talking about, and worrying about "I".  God has shown his tremendous strength and love towards our family.  He has laid His great mercy and grace over us when we do not ever deserve it.  As I gaze upon this day I am humbled by Gods transformation He has performed in my life.  This will be the year of being selfless, thinking about my husband and family well before my own needs, loving on all people as Jesus did for us, being in a constant state of prayer and thanksgiving to God, and a year that a baby will join our family.  We have a lot to be thankful for.  So on this day of twenty-five year I praise God from whom all blessings flow, for He is the One that has rescued us!

Baby M

It is our deepest pleasure to announce that Baby M will be joining our family in November!  We are beyond thrilled to be blessed with such a sweet little miracle.  Baby M is truly a gift from God!

Love Is Not A Fight

Love is not a place
To come and go as we please
It's a house we enter in
And then commit to never leave
So lock the door behind you
Throw away the key
We'll work it out together
Let it bring us to our knees

Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
If we try to leave may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

To some, love is a word that they can fall into
But when they're falling out
Keeping that word is hard to do

Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
If we try to leave may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

Love will come to save us, if we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us, but demand we give our all

Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
If we try to leave may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

I would fight for you, would you fight for me?
It's worth fighting for.

Happy Valentine's Day my sweet husband. 
I am very thankful that our love is worth fighting for.

A New Year, A New Look

John and I have been wanting to redecorate the living room for a while.  It's always nice when you find one piece that gets it all started.  We found this trunk at a local antique barn.  We decided to take the TV off of the mount on the wall and put it on the trunk.

That way I could decorate the mantle.  I have changed my mantel so many times already, I love it!  This is how it looks currently.  I'm sure I'll piddle with it again.  Everything was complete except our pillows.  We couldn't find any anywhere that were the color scheme we wanted.  Finally one night I ran up on one on Etsy and had to stop my self from buying a $30.00 pillow.  Yes.  It almost happened.

I called mom, and we discussed what we could do.  The next weekend we left for Hobby Lobby and spend about $30.00 on fabric and created all of my pillows.

The smart part was we just sewed envelope pillow cases to cover the ones that were in there.  Very resourceful.
These are the finished products!  A special thank you to my mom for being so fabulous and figuring out the logistics of this project and for teaching me so much about sewing.  Because of you our living room is bright and cheery and just the way we wanted it!

We Are Here

We had a large eye opening, life altering change happen to our lives recently. We decided what was and what wasn't important in our life.  It hit us straight between the eyes like a ton of bricks.  We were hanging on to things in our lives that weren't important.  Things that kept us from God and from each other.  One foot in so to speak. We all tend to do that every now and then.  It's amazing what God can do in your life if you 100% full heartily let Him.  We are currently doing a study on how the gospel changes everything.  Every week there is a different specific topic.  We've had how the gospel changes marriage, the gospel changes sex, and the gospel changes finances.  We have seen all three of these things majorly change course over the past 4 months Once we gave everything to God, we started to see change.  Change of things that have never been before.  We have sincere joy for life, a constant strive to serve God every moment, a need to not be selfish to each other, and a true love to serve and disciple with others.  This is a monumental point in our marriage and we are so excited.  We look forward to being true to God, to one another, and to others.  We are here and ready to serve.

2011 Year in Review

We celebrated the first of the year in Gatlinburg with the snow.
We enjoyed two of our favorite singers in concert--Lady Gaga and Brad Paisley
My Granddaddy went to be with Jesus. His funeral service and burial I will never forget. It snowed so much that day and it was gorgeous.
I ran my first marathon and then another one in honor of my aunt.
I successfully ended my first year of teaching, took the show choir to Atlanta to compete and won, and began an even more successful year 2.
Grew the show choir and added another choir. Had a Christmas concert with no snow with show choir in phenomenal uniforms.
Turned into a red head then back to blonde. It was fun.
Was a part of the largest production in Robertson county as Marian Paroo in The Music Man.
The twins turned 16.
Made a few new friends that are real and dear to my heart.
Began to get heavily involved in our church.
Learned how to be honest with ourselves.
Learned many, many things. And then some.
Our marriage experienced that the gospel truly changes everything.
For this we are so thankful.
On the Books In 2012...
Disney World...masters degree...amazing marriage...and who knows what else God has planned! We can't wait to see!
Happy New Year!

Double the Birthdays; Double the Fun!

Here we are, the girls have turned 16. Thinking back over the years that I have watched them grow, I remember them dreaming of this year.

Talking about how they will drive my kids everywhere, come over to the house anytime they want, and run errands for me. It's wild that it's finally here.

We celebrated their special sweet 16 this weekend with family and 20 of their beautiful friends. John and I helped cart some to Nashville for catered dinner and dancing at The Wild Horse Saloon.

Afterwards, we enjoyed cake and presents at their home.

 

It was such an enjoyable evening with everyone. I am so glad that John and I were a part of it all.

Rebekah, my gorgeous dear, I pray that you will contiue to be the light that enters every room. Remember that you are beautiful, and you are loved by many.

Most importantly, keep your strong faith and continue being a wonderful woman of God. I am so proud of you! I love you so much.

Michaela, miss sassy pants, I pray that you will always keep your fire and spark. Stay confident and always be true to yourself. Love strong, and be kind to everyone around you.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made my dear. God made you special and there is noone like you. I love you so much.

Love, John and Lindsey