I am Chosen! recap: day 1

Wow! Where do I begin? This past weekend was amazing. I attended the women's conference at Seacoast Church, and I am already way too excited about next year! I am still soaking in all that God has done in my life this weekend. I really just wanted to share some scripture and pictures from this weekend. SO here we go!

As you walk up to the church there was a red carpet leading straight to this huge mirror with flowers and beautiful decor around it. There was a vision for this from the women's minister and what a blessing this was for so many women. The women were escorted by a few men of the church on the red carpet. It was just a great start to the conference of showing all the women that THEY ARE CHOSEN! See that beautiful chosen logo painted on the window? yep, my sweet friend April did that on the windows all over the church. SO beautiful!

This verse kept coming up throughout the conference and the breakout I went to on day two, and I wanted to share it just to remind all of you ladies reading here that the Lord is with you and has anointed each one of us. What more could we ask for?!?! We are so blessed to be chosen by Him!

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Luke 4:17-18

I am a part of the missional moms community, so I made this sign for our info booth. I also made one for the sisterhood booth! They looked beautiful on the tables!

Here a a couple of the seating environments in the breezeway at the church- one in which was a bed swing hanging in the hallway. Everything was so beautiful!

The first night of the conference our awesome Pastor, Greg Surratt spoke along with Lisa Bevere. If you have never heard her speak, she is phenomenal! Lisa encouraged us to be virtuous & capable. Now those are two things that I am now striving to be through the Lord to serve others. I love this verse she shared with us:

"The Lord announces victory, and throngs of women shout the happy news."

Psalm 68:11

I was blessed to be apart of the Chosen boutique and sell some of my items that I am now listing in my etsy shop. {I'm putting the headbands in there soon, I promise!} This was the only picture I took of the headbands and hairbows, but I also had some monogrammed items for sale too.

Some of the other women who sold in the Chosen boutique were

Jessi from Naptime diaries, April from Worship Artist Ministries, Tiffany from the Sassy Shop, Stacie with her Sabbath in a Jar scrub, Jessica & her adoption fund beauties, and Hillary from noonday. It was such a blessing to be able to hangout with these ladies all weekend while we sold our crafty beauties! Each one of these ladies are dear friends of mine, and I support them, you should too! :)

In case you haven't seen me, I got 8 inches cut off my hair on Thursday morning before the Chosen conference. I absolutely love it! If you are in Charleston and need a beautician, Ashley is your girl! Message her on fb and she will get you in! Tell her that I sent you! :)

It was kind of perfect timing for a haircut. When I got to the church and walked up on the red carpet and looked in that mirror, I was reminded that He has chose me, no matter if my hair is short, long, messy, or just perfect. That humbled me just to see myself with a new fancy do, that He loves me no matter what!

Lisa Bevere also shared this verse with us at the conference:

"So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law."

Galatians 5:1

That is some powerful stuff! We are free in Him. Praise the Lord! To Him be all the Glory!

cousin fun & hat weather

On Wednesday, we headed over to my brother & sister-in-law's house for Maggie Claire to have a little playdate with her cousins Jack and Tate! She had the.best.time. Thanks Bethany & Brad for hosting us. :)

The kids played in the backyard for a while and ran off all of their energy!

Jack was showing us all his new digger he got for Christmas.

Attempt to get a picture of all three of them. They are so sweet! I love these little blonde headed babies! :)

Since it has been a little chilly outside lately, you know I had to get pictures of Maggie Claire in her adorable cupcake hat she got for Christmas!

seriously- cutest cupcake ever!

teaching mags how to warm her hands by rubbing them together

I love this picture of Maggie Claire and her friend Will who is 11 months old. I watch Will a few days a week and Maggie Claire loves him. She gets so excited when he is here! He is such a sweetie! :)

"A friend loves at all times"

Proverbs 17:17a

weekend recap {on a tuesday}

I guess you can say I started my weekend on Thursday and well, ya know finally getting around to telling you all about it on late Tuesday night. So here's how it went:

Thursday: I get off work and head to Columbia with this lovely bunch of ladies to go to our friend's open studio and shop around for some lovely products! Talk about a fun car ride- seriously I think we need to go to Columbia more often together girls?!?!

Carrie, Katie, Jessi, April, Abbi, and me

We were all there supporting Jessi, over at naptime diaries :)

Friday & Saturday we just hung around the house because Hurricane Irene was coming! My goal was to get a picture for Maggie Claire's birthday invitations. She is such a squirmy girl so it is hard to take pictures of her! Here's a sneak peek- There were also balloons involved! :)

Sunday was Maggie Claire's 1st ever "girlfriend birthday party". So fun and so adorable! It was a baby pool party for Gemma! Gemma's mom is my friend Whitney and she throws the best and most beautiful parties and showers! Seriously! I was sad when we left and I realized I didn't take any pictures of all her cute decorations. I did get these little sweeties in the pool though. Gemma is in the yellow and Maggie Claire is in the pink.

We were inside cooling off and Maggie Claire wanted to hang out with her newest friend Elle. It was more like Maggie Claire wanted to kiss her! precious!!!

maggie claire, gemma, and elle- they haven't gotten the hang of "squeezing close to your best friends and smiling." They'll get it some day! hehe.

me and whitney with our babies- I can't believe they are turning one! Gemma is 6 weeks older than mc. I told Whitney that we have to coordinate our next pregnancies together so that we'll have babies the same age again! :)

That's all for now! I've got to tell yall about my double stroller story... that's another blog post! stay tuned! :)

pool girlfriends

Yesterday I met a couple of my girlfriends at the pool. My friend Carissa, has a little girl Sage, who is 4 months older than Maggie Claire. These girls are so funny, because they are both BIG TIME mama's girls! They sat at our feet the entire time and if we got up, they were watching our every move! Of course, I had to snap a few pics!

pool cuties

lunch time!

{carrots, strawberry apple puffs, and a slice of an apple}

I gave her a slice of an apple for the first time. I think she liked it because she thought she was a big girl. She chewed on that thing forever!

leftover carrots on Mags face. hehe.

I am loving all of these summer playdates! Invite us to a playdate and we'll come play & bring snacks! :)

Proverbs 17:17a
"A friend loves at all times"

baby hugs

This was just the sweetest thing the other day! We were at the sprinklers with some friends and my friend Michelle's little boy, Ryker just got really excited when he saw Maggie Claire and wanted to hug her. I was holding her up and they just hugged and hugged, and it was so sweet!

The sweetest part about it was that Maggie Claire was giggling the entire time! I guess Ryker was tickling her neck while she was hugging her. Oh, it was the sweetest thing! He is 11 months older than her, and this was really the first time they ever played together! I love these babies!!!

bestie

Tonight I was texting my best friend since birth {seriously- she was at the hospital when I was born, our parents were good friends & my older brother stayed with them while we were in the hospital}. So technically we're friends since my birth. ha!

Me & Stephanie Amber

Today it hit me. We're getting old, our friends are driving minivans. haha. As I was texting her I was googling different strollers. {yes, that's what motherhood has done to me!} Stephanie moved from Charleston to Florida 5 years ago {I can't believe it's been that long ago!} and ever since then we've really only seen each other when she's been to visit in Charleston for different events, and now that her parents moved to Georgia, she rarely visits... excepts for weddings & baby showers! She surprised me at my baby shower back in Sept... you can read about that here.

She is moving to the big apple next week. {ahem, I might be a little jealous. ok... a lot jealous} Out of our group of friends from highschool/early college years, she is one of the single ones. {She's waiting for Mr. right} She can just move to the big New York City with out taking anyone with her and that's what she is doing. She's always up for an adventure! I'm praying that she finds her hubby there so I can have an excuse to go to NYC for her big snazzy wedding! hehe. I'm super excited for her and I know this is just the beginning for her. I think Stephanie will be perfect to live in the big city! By the way, I don't think Stephanie has any interest in getting married anytime soon, but... until then I can dream about her NYC wedding! hehe. :)

Watch out new york city, Stephanie Amber is coming to you! She's gorgeous, more trendy than I will ever be, has a huge heart for missions, and most importantly loves Jesus . :)

love you steph! :)

baby friends

I wanted to do an updated post with all of my preggo mama friends with our babies! Whitney Courtney & myself get together pretty often and have breakfast or lunch with our girls, but all 4 of us don't get together very often b/c Abbey moved to Charlotte after she had Annabelle. This picture was taken last week when Abbey was in town for New Years Eve. We got together that weekend for breakfast and had so much fun catching up! We had breakfast at crackle barrel, and we got some pics of us & our sweet little girls! :) Here we all are!

Whitney & baby Gemma, Courtney & baby Gentry, Me & baby Maggie Claire, Abbey & baby Annabelle

This is us when we were all super preggo, actually this was just 2 days before Whitney had Gemma!

Whitney, Abbey, Courtney, & myself

Here was our first preggo mama get together when we all had just found out we were having girls! I think I was 16 weeks here!

Courtney, Whitney, me & Abbey!

I love all of these girls and I am so thankful that we get to share being moms together! It's so nice to have friends to relate to! Tonight the three of us that are in Charleston are all starting in our 2nd parenting class that is offered through our church. Can't wait to see all these moms & babies! :)

just doing life together...

Every Monday night we have a life group that meets. We have been apart of this life group ever since we have been married, which has been a little over 2 years. Last year we started the tradition of going to the festival of lights in our town together as a life group! A couple in our group have family members who own absolutely charleston, a company who rents out big party buses for events and special occasions, and we got to have one for the night! It was so fun!

Here is me and Mike on the bus.... (this picture was taken with my phone, poor quality)

On another note, look how long my hair is! My hair hasn't been this long since high school! I guess this is what prenatal vitamins will do to ya!

Here is our entire group. Our group hasn't always been this big, three couples just recently joined in the past 2 months. Actually this was the first time that everyone was together- all 16 of us! The festival of lights is a drive through deal, where you look at all the lights, but halfway through you can get out and walk around and they have stuff to do. There are big fire pits to roast marshmallows, so we brought our own fixings to make s'mores & hot chocolate. {they charge way too much- like $1 for 4 marshmallows- rip off!} We really had such a great time!

This is the crazy sand sculpture that was on display at the festival. I told Mike to not take a picture of it, because it is just going to waste space on my laptop. So I decided to make the picture serve a purpose and show it to all of you- It is pretty impressive and it is huge! I guess I'm just not the kind of person that takes pictures of random things. I like pictures of people and their faces, not dumb sand sculptures! hehe.

Here is our entire group again in front of the trolley that we took! A pretty good looking bunch of people! I'll name everyone from left to right:

Travis & Lisa, Leland & Mary, Matt & Ashley, Joel & Annette, Garrett & Lauren, Robert & April, Stew & Ashley, and Mike & me.

Such a fun way to get into the holiday spirit! Have you done anything fun to get in the Christmas spirit?? We did put up our tree{s} this weekend... I'll post on that later!

life before maggie claire...

Happy Monday Everyone!

So I got the call at 5:25 this morning that the labor & delivery unit was full, and they didn't have enough beds to induce me today, which I'm totally fine with! :) They are going to call me again tomorrow, and if they are still full, I have an appointment on Wednesday w/ my doctor to see if I have progressed anymore & we'll go from there.

I'm thinking she is holding out to share a birthday with my brother, Jacoby, tomorrow! {10-5-10} Or maybe she wants to have the cool birthday of 10-10-10 which is on Sunday! It's all in God's perfect timing, and I don't mind wait until this weekend either! :)

Here is my 39 week belly shot!

Last night, I decided to make some treats for my hospital guests & the nurses for when I have Maggie Claire this week! I made the famous pretzel surprise and bagged them up really cute with these adorable tags that I won from the pretty paperie! :) You should go check out Natalie's blog and her etsy shop! She is super talented with graphic design, and I loved how my tags turned out!

This is Mike & I on Wednesday at groundswell united, our mid week youth service! We are representing the "blue tribe" which is 7th & 8th grade. Mike looks real thrilled to take a picture with me... lol. Oh, speaking of my cutie husband, I cut his hair last night, and he is looking mighty fine today! :) I told him that he needed a "daddy haircut" so he will be looking sharp for when maggie claire arrives.... hehe.

This past week has been super fun, but a little busy with everything going on in ministry!!

Last weekend, was the middle school allnighter! {Crazy! I went and stayed until midnight!} Since Mike is the Middle School minister/director, he was busy getting everything ready. On Wednesday was our midweek service and this weekend was the last weekend of Nitro, our middle school service on the weekends. Needless to say, this was a very bust week for ministry! Now it's behind us and we can relax and enjoy our baby girl coming soon! :)

Here are some crazy pictures with me & my friends on Wednesday after groundswell. These girls are some of my best friends, and they just love talking to maggie claire in my belly! They can't wait for her arrival either!

{from right to left in the 1st picture: Sarah, Brittany, April, and me}

oh yes... one last thing! I am so in love with this fall weather that we are getting in Charleston today! This makes me excited about staying pregnant for a little while longer... {well, not too much longer... a week max!} I'm finally not sweating as soon as I wake up in the morning! lol. I'll be rocking the maternity jeans today with a light jacket! :)

Since it is Monday, I'm going to go ahead and link up to carissa's miscellany monday.

Enjoy your Monday everyone!