November 29th, 2019. I could’ve just written “grateful” for this and it would be true and enough for today probably, but... I’m more wordy than that. 🤪 and it doesn’t seem like that sincerely conveys how meaningful this all is. moving into our new place. being so close to our next season together.
I’m in my favorite chair right now (a gift from our Mimi & Poppy) in our beautiful apartment, cozied next to our own bed (where Matthias is currently snuggled in his famous red robe), sipping on an eggnog latte that is burning my tongue off (the way I like my drinks😂). it feels complete now. the move, I mean. getting the piano here makes it feel complete. everything we own is under our own little roof again. 1100sq ft of just us and the things we like & love enough to call our own. it’s been one week today in this place. there is so much we want to do to make it *home*, but having things on the walls and being mostly unpacked and having a functional kitchen is a great start. I have ALL THE FEELINGS (and hormones). 😭💕 tomorrow is our first full day we have scheduled to be HOME all day and I am so. very. thrilled.
also, can we talk about the view from our bedroom window? cuz 🤩🤩🤩
November 21st-24th, 2019
November 24th, 2019. Weekend recap! More like a week recap.😱 So many events. So many emotions. 😂 Took a break from daily posting since Wednesday, but we didn’t stop taking our daily photos.
Thursday: we had about 30 minutes total (that’s a generous estimate😂) of awake time together, so a selfie in the driveway before falling into bed was appropriate. It’s very similar to a photo we have while dating that I have always lovedddd and we’ve never recreated. We need to actually do that...
Friday: we moved! We MOVED! We’re in the most beautiful place - the first place to miraculously check off every single one of my very specific requests. 😭 ALL THE HAPPY DANCES. Thank you for those who prayed with us that we’d find the right place before Eliot’s arrival.
Saturday: celebrated Big Mom’s 80th birthday with so many people who love her, had an impromptu meeting with the midwife after some post-move concerns, but all is well(!!), a gumbo with the Bonin side of the family (this is RARE & so it’s precious!)
Sunday: Baby shower! Our largest daily selfie by FAR! 😂 How are we a month from meeting a new human that will be all ours? Overwhelmed with gratitude for this season and the people who love us & our baby already too.
November 8th, 2019
Friday night family dinner at the Bonin’s featuring some angry orchard ciders behind us. 😂 today we signed our lease on our next apartment, yay! I’m dreaming of our Christmas tree already! Earlier this year my amazing grandparents gifted us the most beautiful ornaments & I cannot wait to have them up! It’s basically Christmas! And that means it’s basically baby time! This is all flying by! Someone remind me that I felt this way when I’m in the last few days and feel like this pregnancy has taken forever 😂
One Year
i’m glad i didn’t wait for life to be easier or settled to get up and do the damn work. i have the most amazing community of people to work alongside & their support, their dreams & the hard work they all put in fuels me and inspires me daily.
Read morePre-baby Sundays
I bet we’ll hang on to our sunday nap tradition.
Read moreOllie's Birthday
why not throw a party? why not make things beautiful? Matthias & I do this anyway as often as we can for little life things, why in my head was I making an exception in my head for babies? today wasn’t just about Ollie, it was coming together and celebrating the gift of a family, the gift of love.
how lucky we are.
Adult Halloween
Over the summer I had talked about using my bump as part of a costume this year, but here we are on Halloween & it hadn’t crossed my mind again until like... this exact moment.
We celebrated our dear friend Bailey’s birthday this evening & there was wine & beer & pizza & cake like all our birthdays in the last few years, but there were also children. We’re... big people with tiny people at events now.... not siblings or other people’s kids. *Our* kids. (Well, our friends kids. You know what I mean.) THAT feels like adulthood. That & the fact that like 4 people had left the party before 8pm. I don’t know what I expected entering the season of life with our friends growing their families, but it’s happy & fulfilling. And driving home right now with Matthias beside me & Eliot fluttering around in my womb makes me happy sigh. If I ever thought getting older was going to be lame, I was wrong.
Hurry up, wait
tired. so. tired. hurry up, wait. “it’s always 10pm” he said tonight. it does feel that way. at least right now. we’re worn out. we wouldn’t change anything about where God has us in this season, but I will cry about it sometimes, like tonight. and that’s okay, I will be okay with that. it won’t always be like this.
I took our photo selfie style in the mirror tonight with Matthias petting Byron (who you can barely see) in the background. real. life. and thats what I’ve been wanting to capture with these.
right after taking the photo, I laid down to just chat with him. it’s nice to have someone to reliably confide in. and I realized in that moment laying with him, *that* was our moment today. that should be our photo. right there. as we were. exhausted beyond exhaustion, together. cozy. I am so glad my camera was already out. I’m so grateful for the gift of this moment documented forever.
A reason to get up
It doesn’t matter what time we start our mornings, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day for all we want & need to do! I hope that continues to motivate & excite us. There is so much life to be lived. So much to talk about. So much to accomplish. So many places to still see. A son to still meet. Ah. I’m so grateful for these days, crawling into bed exhausted, looking forward to the next to do it again. There have been seasons in life when that hasn’t been the case. When sleep was what I looked forward to because I lacked meaning. (+ depression adds another layer to this. If you’re dealing with it, find someone to talk to 🖤) Without the grounding of & direction from true, deeply rooted meaning & purpose, life can be unbearably hard. It doesn’t have to be that way though. There is more for each of us than grinding at work and living for the weekend. Books have played a major role in shaping my outlook on life and helping me out of my ruts. 😭🖤 I have recommendations if you are looking for places to start in your search for meaning.
35 Days of Portraits
i spent my drive time this afternoon & evening dreaming of what i imagine hanging in our home, & it’s not all perfect, smiley, well lit portraits.
Read more"Framily"
Who could’ve guessed that the “Mr. & Mrs. Cole” I grew up in church with would become my best friends as I entered adulthood & be such an influential part of our life & marriage.
Read moreTaking Time
not everyone is made to work for themselves, but some are. the ones who want freedom & will do the work to earn it, the ones who have fear, but choose to fight it anyway so they can have something better than they have right now.
Read moreHappy
Wednesday nights are family dinners at the Frost family home. Unfortunately, tonight Matthias missed the fun & chaos of the full table & conversations & babies & all the good things that happen when you get people you love into a room and around food. He’s working so hard on his dream & it makes the late nights worth it, but it’s still sad when he comes home late.
It was really nice to have some time talking with his parents tonight when he finally made it to their place & ate his dinner at nearly 9pm. This was a moment we were laughing about our budgeting habits with his mama. 🙈 It makes me so happy to have captured a genuinely sweet moment together after two long days apart.
BabIes & Stuff
Hannah Joy made me a baby registry today. I’ve been putting it off... and since we’re getting so close, it just needed to be done. (How am I 30 weeks pregnant??) Baby registries are overwhelming and complicated and... there is just *so* much stuff for babies. When I got to her home this evening and scrolled through it though, it made me laugh & nearly cry. It hit me again. We’re having a baby. A tiny person that is from Matthias and me. Our person. And he’s going to be so little and squishy and, oh my gosh, he *is* going to need stuff. Even if it’s just basics like diapers and some clothes. THANK GOD for sisters who make baby registries for the procrastinators.
And I finished Jenna Kutchers Pinterest Lab today. Dang, that girl can put out SO much content. She’s impressive. I’m inspired by her and so many other women who work their butts off from home to support their families. I have LOVED my career as a wedding photographer, but I am thrilled to be slowing that down for working from my laptop so I can do less travel, have more weekends at home, and just be present for motherhood in the way I picture will work for us & all that entails.
Head Rubs
can it count as a self portrait if there is so little of me in the photo? I’m telling myself so... I mean, yesterday’s photo was just our hands. so this is sort of that again. just with a whole lot more of Matthias. 😉
he often plops a pillow in my lap & lays on me for head rubs. sometimes just for the comfort of touch. sometimes for an achy head after a long day. sometimes to talk with my undivided attention. sometimes to fall asleep, like he is now, while I do other things on my phone.
I’ll always treasure the many days we’ve had together with four easily available hands to love & serve each other with. I’m also excited about having them more full, even as inaccessible as that may make them, as we have babies. maybe we won’t get as much opportunity for head rubs, but trading that for baby snuggles seems fair.
Ten Years Too Late
honestly, looking back over years of journaling, my dreams really haven’t changed all that much.
except recently, when i wrote down how i pictured my life & things it included entering motherhood, i think i surprised myself when i included a blog on the list.
Read moreOctober 14th, 2019
Monday’s we have Bradley method birthing classes in Houston & we typically grab a hotel to make the night easier. I say typically, but we’ve missed like half the classes so far, soooo... (life, man...) Instead of me driving down to meet Matthias right before class (since it’s near his work), & then driving both our cars at 9pm the hour+ ish back home, JUST for him to turn around to drive back to Houston at 5:30am, having a hotel gives us freedom to r e s t before and after it. 😭💕
we actually had time to sit and breathe, even had dinner and talked for while this afternoon beforehand. Our intention was to get an after dinner portrait, but we forgot the camera & said we’d do it later. And then later turned into 10pm. (to be fair, we didn’t make it back until 9:30 after class anyway.)
When he reminded me we should take it, I recommended we just get it right here. “Is it because you don’t want to put pants back on?” ... yes. Yes, it is.
October 7th, 2019
a post walk photo. full disclosure, Matthias took off his comfy big red robe for this photo. I didn’t ask him to. but he did.
Matthias & I like to walk together. it’s nice because we can have the most important conversations, or no conversation at all while walking, and things are still being done. movement, togetherness.
it’s also important with pregnancy, so we’ve been diligent these few months to make time for it, even if that means walking after dark. it’s kind of romantic. mostly it’s nice to have a small activity together that is completely technology free. we try to stay phone-free at meals too, but that doesn’t always work out. walking though, there really isn’t a space for it. hand in hand or arm in arm, we’re on each other, intentional to share a pace. it’s an us-activity.
With Papa Norman
meals are sacred in our family. we share them as often as we can back home, piling as many of us as possible around tables inevitably too small. we just want to be near each other. we want to delight in each other’s presence.
Read moreGoodbyes Are Hard
I wasn’t prepared for this. we were going to drink coffee & talk. death. that wasn’t going to be a part of this trip. I... I don’t know what to say.
Read more