Gallery Wall: Updated!

The past couple weeks I've been inspired to change up the gallery wall. I felt like it was lacking something, and I knew it could be put together a little more beautifully.

I don't really have a good straight-on view, but here is what it looked like before (click here to see the full living room post):

Instagram Snapshots :: Spring 2013

1. A weekend away in Asheville. Michael had a conference so I tagged along! We hiked, toured the Grove Park Inn where the conference was, spent time in downtown Asheville, and had the best pizza of my life.

2. New summer bedspread! Our room tends to get really hot in the summer, so I swapped out our down comforter for this lightweight quilt I found on online. Of course that meant I needed new sheets as well. I love the fresh, white look and it's nice to have something different after almost 3 years of using the darker blue duvet gifted to us for our wedding.

3. We love when college friends get married, because that means it's always a reunion! It was so fun to see some good friends who I hadn't seen in a while, especially the one who recently had a baby!

4. This is actually from when my sisters came to visit in February. So ridiculous.

5. One of our gorgeous spring days here in NC! I hate having to work during weather like this.

6. We went camping in Tennessee and even though the weather was terrible we had a blast. It was pouring on the second night, so we opted to stay in a hotel that night, but it was still a lot of fun! We treated ourselves to crepes in Asheville on our way home. Mmm!

7. Trying to get fit for summer! This has been an ongoing process since January, but with the recent weather and the purchase of new running shoes it has been much easier to want to get outside and be active!

8. Some snapshots from our vacation to Palmetto Bluff in South Carolina. That place was heaven, I tell you! Read the recap here.

9. I took the plunge and threw my first surprise party ever for Michael's 27th. He may or may not have had a few clues, but overall the party was a huge success and we had so much fun with our friends who came to celebrate with us!

10. This is the best roasted veggie combo I've made, I think ever. Broccoli, cauliflower, and cherry tomatoes! It also helped that I used regular olive oil instead of extra virgin. See why in this post by Chris Loves Julia.

11. We had a family wedding to go to in Charlotte last weekend, so my whole family got to go out on my in-laws' boat on Lake Norman for the afternoon on Sunday. It was a perfect day. I am so sore from wakeboarding, but I am really amazed that I could still do it!

12. We sorted through all of my late grandpa's old pocket knives with my dad's family. He had quite the collection and it was neat to see all the different places he had collected them from.

13. Spending time with my mom and sisters cooking a Memorial Day feast was exactly how I wanted to end my 3-day weekend. So much fun to be with them & all of my dad's family!

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My new toy

We kind of splurged on ourselves this Christmas: we got a Canon Rebel T3i! I haven't been this excited about a Christmas gift in a long time. I've only used a simple point-and-shoot, so this is quite an upgrade. I've already had so much fun taking photos and practicing different settings and functions. It is a little intimidating. I definitely feel like an amateur and my photos are not stellar yet. But it's awesome to have such a nice camera that most of the pictures turn out great because of the quality of the lens! It will be a while before I get experienced, but here is a peek at what I've been photographing since I opened the box.

some fun Christmas presents

my favorite niece (for now!)

handsome man

oh, the lights!

Charlotte skyline

a neighborhood walk

my beautiful sister

Memories

This past weekend I went through some old boxes from my parents' house. It was so weird to go through all of my high school memories, and some even older than that! These boxes were filled with old notes from friends, hilarious journals from middle school, sewing projects, and photos. I also came across about a billion ticket stubs to various movies, concerts, and high school musicals. Don't ask me why I saved all of them, but it was fun going through and seeing all the different movies I saw in theaters. Teenagers see SO many movies it's ridiculous! Take a peek at some of the things I found.

Notes written in class and passed in the hallways to my friends,

all kept in a priceless homemade memory box from a good friend

Yearbooks! I have yet to leaf through these.

My now 10-year-old doggy as a 1-year-old pup

A matching mother-daughter picture. Love this so much!

Of course a good amount of things had to be tossed...

(yes, I used to cross-stitch. maybe I'll show you some of my lovely finished projects another time)

 But there are some things I would never, ever, ever throw away.

Like this decorative rack, hand-painted by my grandmother for my nursery.

She passed away when I was 5, and I love that I have this keepsake from her.

It makes me want to name my daughter Laura just so I can put it up in her nursery.

Things like this make me cherish the memories that made me who I am today. They make me thankful for the full life that I have lived, all due to my parents, siblings, friends, and experiences that influenced me so much. These things also make me thankful for where I am today. One day I will look back on my 20s, fondly I hope, and think of these times as "the past." What will I remember? What will I not remember? I'm realizing that what I do every day is me adding pages to my story. So every day really counts. Because pages add up to chapters, and chapters compile the book. I hope one day I'm proud of the way I'm living right now. Mostly, I hope I remember. At least the good things anyway.

Annual Photo Album

It's here!! I ordered our 2011 photo album over a week ago and it's finally here!

I love it and I'm so excited to have this be the first of our collection of yearly photo albums. I came up with the idea when I realized that I haven't been good about printing our photos, but we have so many fun ones that document our first year (and a half) of marriage. Instead of making photo albums for certain big events like trips and holidays, it will be so much easier to have all the events that take place in each year compiled in one succinct book. Apparently I'm not the only one with this idea. The day after I placed my order, Young House Love posted pictures of their family yearbook, and they got the idea from the Bower Power family.

I basically spent all of my free time for over a week straight trying to get all the photos I needed and write little blurbs about our year. [I am hoping that I can work on our 2012 book throughout the year so at the end all I have to do is edit and order it. We'll see!] YHL and Katie Bower did it more of a yearbook style with no words, but with my horrible memory I decided it would be good to record a little more detail. It's always so fun to go back and remember what you thought at certain stages of life. I also want to highlight big prayers that were answered and reveal God's faithfulness in our life during that particular year. Plus, it will be really fun for our kids to look at and read one day!

Some pictures of our various vacations... we traveled a LOT this year.

I also did a spread on what our apartment looked like in 2011 and also how we both got grown-up jobs that year!

With the discounts going on at Shutterfly.com at the time I was able to save over $60 and get free shipping, so for a 12x12 album I only spent $34.99! This book is about 31 pages, but I imagine with each year it will get larger (especially one day when we have kids). I am not sold on doing Shutterfly every year, so we will see what else is out there. In the past I used Picaboo for our wedding album, but their baseline prices for a 20-page book are pretty expensive, even with the sales. And I'm definitely going to need more than 20 pages. I need to check out MyPublisher next year because I was blown away with the deal that John and Sherry got - $45 for 100 pages shipped! However, I was very satisfied with the quality of Shutterfly. They are still having some great deals on their books (maybe even better than when I ordered mine!) so if you're thinking of doing making a photo book, now's the time to do it!

Do you make a yearly photo album? What method do you use - do you scrapbook or make it digitally and get it printed? If you don't make one, now is the time to start! I highly recommend it as a way to document the years of you and your family's life!

Our 2011 Christmas Card

Now that all our friends and family have received our Christmas card in the mail, I wanted to share it with you here! I bought this "card" from an Etsy shop, which was really just the digital version. I didn't really think through how difficult it would be to get it printed as a card with envelopes, so it ended up being not the most economical way to do it. But I loved how it turned out! (The photo is from the photo shoot we did with my friend Blythe over Thanksgiving. She did an amazing job!!)

We are now spending good time with family and enjoying the Christmas holiday. I hope you are getting to enjoy time with the people you love as well! Merry Christmas!!

Photo shoot!

While we were at home for Thanksgiving, we had the opportunity to take some photos with my friend Blythe, who is aspiring to build her brand in photography. I wanted to give her some more experience, and also get some good photos of my husband and me for our 2011 Christmas card. I know this is kind of spoiling our card, but Blythe did such a good job I just had to share! (Be sure to get a good laugh at my model face... yeah definitely don't have "the look" down yet.) I am so happy with these - it will be hard to pick one. I am excited to have some quality photos to frame around the house as well. I never loved the engagement pictures we did back in 2009, so these totally make up for those!! Thank you Blythe, you are wonderful!

Be sure to check out Blythe's blog to see her amazing photography skills!

The Master

Ok, so this project has been a long time comin'... I have toyed with tons of ideas, trying to find the right fit for our master bedroom. Out of all the ideas I hemmed and hawed over, I ended up choosing some pretty simple accents. And I love it! I am not too much for super flourishy decor, and since our Pottery Barn duvet cover is so busy, I ended up simplifying the rest. I would also have to say that this room still is not totally "done." There are some things I'm still deciding on and/or don't have the money for; one being an upholstered storage bench for the end of our bed. But for now, this room at least has pictures on the walls and a comfortable feel to it. For now, I am content!

Thankfully, we did not have to spend much on furniture. Michael's generous parents bought us this bedroom set for our wedding. I got to pick it out, though! We bought the mattress and an extra nightstand since only 1 came with the set.

Ideally I would love to paint our bedroom one day. Possibly a cool blue or light khaki. Since we are renting an apartment and are not sure how much longer we'll be here, I decided not to paint the walls because we'll have to repaint them when we leave. I sort of wish we had just done it when we moved in so we could enjoy it longer... but the ceilings are high so it would be a pain to repaint when we leave. One day we will have color on our walls!

I did not post any pictures of Michael's highboy dresser, because there is nothing fun on top of it. Still looking for something to decorate it with...

See what I mean about the curtains? They just hang there. Does this look good or do they need help?? (it's kind of hard to tell but they are blue - bad/blurry picture quality, sorry!)

Furniture: Consignment store and Target

Lamps: Target

Duvet cover and shams: Pottery Barn

Wicker clothes hamper: Ross

Above bed frames: Target

Dresser frames: Pottery Barn and Ross

If you want to see my living room, click here.

Beachin' it

I just spent a glorious (half) week with my family at the beach. I wish it had no time limit! But right now, life and responsibility has called us back home. Thankful for the few days we did get to spend at the lovely Litchfield Beach. Some highlights:

• Spent some fun time with my cousin's sweet daughter Ella, who is going to be 1 on the 14th. Talk about feeding the baby fever! We tried so hard to get her to take her first steps, but she keeps trying to walk on her tip toes, just like a little ballerina. Precious!

• Bachelorette finale with allll the girl cousins. Every year at the beach, the house is full of way too many girls, and it is too much fun! There are 15 grandkids in the Christian family, and 2 of those are boys. My brother is quite glad to have Michael to pal around with now.
• Finally finished reading Jane Eyre! Started it on my LAST beach trip with Michael's family, work and busy weekends provided necessary distractions, and 2 months later I finished it. Such a classic romance, with the most rich luxurious language. Long, but so glad I read it. Now I'm going to watch the movie, and probably be disappointed.
• Night beach walk with the hubs. Haven't been on the beach at night in such a long time but it was great! And we saw a shooting star!
• AMAZING food, as always. Every year I try to diet for the beach, and then have to diet afterwards, too. But it's sooo worth it.

Missing my family already! Here are some photos from the trip:

Beautiful girl

no makeup the entire week... and it was wonderful

The cousins, minus a few who weren't there. Love them!

Picaboo Wedding Album

Ok so it's not the official one, I still have yet to narrow down the 40 pictures I want in that. But I decided to make an album that had more pictures of the guests that were at our wedding instead of just us, which is so fun to look back at! I used a site called Picaboo and I'm very impressed with the results compared to other photo printing sites. I chose the "lay-flat" pages, which cost a little more but were worth it because it literally lays flat on the table and looks very professional. My favorite part about it was the program they have to create the album - you download it to your computer and it pulls from the pictures in your memory. Once you have designed your album, it then uploads it to the web so you can order it. So you only have to upload the pictures you're actually using in the album. It is so much easier than working online with web pages. Check it out!

Let me know if you make one with them and what you think of it!