"40"

So excited to share with y'all a little project that has taken me one entire year to complete.

I started it the day I turned 40.

I finished it the day I turned 41.

What you are about to see is what my "40" looked like.

"Every day of my life was recorded in Your book

before one of them had taken place."

Psalm 139:16

"Teach me to number my days that I may gain a heart of wisdom".

Psalm 90:12

"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,

Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning.

Great is Your faithfulness,

"The Lord is my portion."  says my soul,

"Therefore I hope in Him!".

Lamentations 3:22-24

Stephanie :)

The Countdown

As of today, the wedding is officially one month away.

This time next month we will be watching our daughter leave our home to begin her new life with the man of her dreams and the one we prayed for through the years.

That's all can say about that today...

The words just aren't there yet to share all the emotions that are bubbling around.

I tend to keep a lid on stuff like this and keep it pushed down inside.

It will seep out soon enough.

the joy.  the bitter sweetness.  the gratefulness  

I've yet to share any of their engagement pictures with y'all so

 I thought in honor of  "the countdown" I'd do that today.

But we are counting down so much more than just the days left we have to get all the projects finished. And so much more than just counting down to the day that Lydia has dreamed of since she was a little girl....  So much more than counting down to one day...

No, we are counting down the days to her beginning.

We are counting down to the start of a new lifetime.

Wow.

(First, before we get to the engagement session photos, these are from the very day she got engaged way back in November on Thanksgiving Day... so appropriate.)

My momma running her over with excitement.  love this scene.

 Showing off her ring....notice Marcus.  I'm not sure if he's relieved or more like "what have I gotten myself into?" in this picture.  lol

And my favorite....

Her Daddy checking out the ring.

So much could be said about what's going on in this picture.

Now....onto the engagement pics.

These were all taken by April and Paul . 

They are a husband and wife team and they will rock your world with their talent...

Enjoy.

And yes...he really was playing the banjo in all these pics... and singing from what I've been told.

I think happy people do stuff like that.

Stephanie :)

Hi Y'all

I just wanted to pop in and say Hi!
 As of this post we now have 36 days left until the wedding!!!!

Are we ready? Uh...no.  Do we have everything made? Uh....heck no.  

Am I starting to get a little nervous? Uh... Y to the E to S!!!!!  Big Time.  

But I do know from past experience it will get done and what doesn't get done was never supposed to be. (one of you that reads this who will actually be here the week of the wedding, please remind me that I said that...OK?!!.   Thanks)

I've been absent on here but very present in all the wonderful stuff that has been going on around here in my daughter's lives.  The biggie lately was  Lauren's graduation!

I'm gonna share about all that in a different post but here is a peek...

So proud of her.

I can't wait to share the rest of her big day of celebration!

I mentioned in my last post that we were taking a girls trip in Lauren's honor ....

Kind of a very mini Senior Trip.

As usual, we had some fun things planned.

The first item of business was that from the moment the car pulled out of the driveway, 

No one could say the word "Wedding" or talk of anything related!

Poor Lauren's major milestone of graduating kind of got lost under the Wedding shadow so we wanted to make sure this trip was all about HER!! Woo hoo.

So I bought a stamp with a graduation cap on it and whenever anyone said the buzz word, they got stamped!  Talk about hard!!

It wasn't long into the journey that Lydia already had acquired two stamps!

Our traditional "Woo Hoo Let's roll and get this party started" pic.

 We also had special hat's for Lauren to wear throughout the weekend.

Here was her first beauty....

(the funny thing is my mom actually loved this for reals when she saw it. lol)

Poor Lauren actually wore this one into Starbucks.  She's such a good sport.

Then we introduced her to Little Miss Lauren.
All you instagram buddies saw all of her adventures from that weekend...
Whenever we traveled by car, she took her rightful position on the dashboard.
You shoulda seen her little head bobbing to the music.

She popped up in some crazy places...

We discovered Little Miss Lauren liked Target as much as the real Lauren.

 On our way to our destination we stopped for pics on the Louisiana boot.
We've been taking pics here since the girls were little.  ~sigh
Oh...and I forgot to mention Nate Dog got to hang out with us on the trip.
One of the perks of being nursed...you go where momma goes.

This was so sad...missed our favorite store by 15 minutes!!!
They were closed on Sunday when we drove back through :(
(If you ever see one of these stores....GO!  Their jewelry prices are phenomenal!)

Super stoked in this pic....about to see the Avengers!!

Let's hear it for the great grandparents and nursing momma of an 8 month old for going to the 11:30 pm show!!!  Woo hoo!  They hung in there all the way to 3am when we got finally got home!
(this was opening night when we saw it and the line went on for mile.. so  a big thanks to guy who gave us his seat on  a bench for Elizabeth to sit with our gigantic baby....chivalry lives on folks!)

 And the movie was amazing by the way.

And after getting in bed around 3:30am we wake up to this delicious breakfast..
My mom is the bomb y'all.  The best!

And here is Lauren's next hat she had to wear. :)

Nate thought her hat was pretty rad.

"NO wedding talk all weekend" update:
Surprisingly, we were all doing good.  I think I scared them to death with what the loser had to do. hehe. Lydia is in the lead, then me and then my mom.  Lauren had no problem with this challenge.

It's trips like these when I could kick myself in the butt for trading in the minivan for a car.
Three grown folks  AND a car seat back there.    Bless them.

We surprised Lauren with lunch at Cheddars.  So yummy.
We gave my momma a refresher course on iPhone 101 over lunch..
She was a happy camper.

The we headed off to the biggie of the weekend.
You see when we go to Shreveport, it's to stay at my moms but this trip we surprised her with a staying in a hotel right on the boardwalk!!  She was totally surprised!

Before we hit the boardwalk we had a few things planned..

Here's her next party hat...

Time for a little pampering and relaxation!  So we slipped our pj's on in the middle of the day and indulged ourselves.  (Well we did.... Lydia worked her booty off )

My momma had her own little party with her new heel scraper thingy that was in her goody bag.
I can't tell you how excited those things make her.  She gets giddy. lol.

Little Momma and Nate Dog had their own kind of party.  Pretty awesome.

After all that,  it was time to step outside the front door of our accommodations and start shopping on the Boardwalk. In Lauren's word's..."Gosh, I feel so wealthy".
It was fun to pretend for a day this is how we normally roll.

 Nate Dog chillin in his ride.

 Then we settled in for the night with a little pool time..

some sister hot tubbin

  And some MAJOR indulgence from Copelands Cheesecake Bistro.

We were like vultures y'all. lol

Then it was time for Maw Maw Loni's Prince Charming to come pick her up.
(she didn't get to spend the night... I know. Boo.)
So we had to count up the stamps to see who the loser was.


And the prize goes to.......

Lydia! 

I don't know if I was just tired or in a merciful mood cuz I deviated from the original plan....she was supposed to put her bridal veil on and skip through the lobby singing "I'm going to the chapel and I'm gonna get married" but instead, I let her just walk her maw maw down through the lobby in pj's with the veil on. She still got a lot of looks.  :) hee hee.

We said our goodbyes to Loni...

Packed up the next day and headed home.
They all slept while I drove. Dislike.  I couldn't crank up my jams cuz Nate Dog was snoozing.

But hitting Starback's happy hour was the perfect ending to a perfect trip.

I think the graduate loved it.
Fun times:)

Hope y'all have a happy weekend.
Mine won't be quite as eventful as this one was.
Except for the fact that Blakey-Poo' s baseball team is playing for the State Championship tomorrow!!
He's a humble guy and would never say this...but he's kinda a big deal on the team.
He pitched a no-hitter a couple of weeks ago and then pitched one where they only got off 1 hit.
 Hoping for a BIG win tomorrow!!

Stephanie :)