Blessings and Memories

I was kind of dreading Thanksgiving this year.  It wasn't until about 2 or 3 weeks before Thanksgiving that I started to feel the dread slowly leave.  You see, Thanksgiving Day this year also happened to be the one year anniversary of my father in laws passing.  When he passed it was actually the Wed after Thanksgiving but this year the 28th actually fell on the holiday.  When I first realized this months and months ago my first reaction was "Oh crap." But I think it was actually a blessing in disguise.

Thanksgiving this year wasn't an overly sad day.  I think we were all so happy to be together and just be able to love on one another.  Joel was missed for sure and is always missed and it was definitely different without him.  But he was part of the reason we were all together. He and his wife made this awesome family and I am so selfishly blessed to have married into it.

My husband Drew has a wonderful family.  He was blessed with some of the most loving, giving and Christ-like parents.  You can tell this from their actions, their amazing children, and all of the wonderful stories that are shared.  Drew's father, Joel, was seriously one of the nicest men I have ever met. He wasn't one of those people who just talked to talk. If he had something to say there was a reason and you listened.  He was the best Poppy to our nieces and nephew.  He also was a gifted and talented singer with the best tenor voice ever.  When we would visit church you could always pick out Joel's voice in the choir.

I will leave you with these favorite memories.  When Drew and I were dating I had a dream that Joel was a mobster and was out to get me for dating his son.  It was one of the most hilarious and unrealistic dreams ever. After he heard it, Joel loved to pick on me about him being a member of the southern mafia.  Another sweet memory is during our first year of marriage Drew and I did a show in town and Joel also got cast in it.  Three Archers in one show was quite a fun time! It warms my heart to think that we all got that opportunity to be together doing something we all loved. It was a special time!

Thanksgiving day had sad moments...but Thanksgiving was also a great day. We got to love on one another, eat good food and make more memories.  So blessed and thankful!

I am grateful for God's blessings...in good times and bad.

I am thankful for many, many memories of a wonderful man.

I can't wait to share stories of this great Poppy with his grand babies that are on the way!

October fun

I wrote this on 11/2 and completely forgot to post it..wanh wanh. Better late than never...I guess!

October was a fun month.  We celebrated a bazillion birthdays. You think I'm Kidding? Our niece Caroline started off the month by turning one on Oct 1. We had a great celebration for her the weekend after her birthday in Macon with all of her family. She is such a special little kid. Our nephew turned 8 the next day and we got to sing with him too!

Next up was the hubs.  Drew had class on his birthday so we actually celebrated the Saturday after his birthday. We went to one of Drew's favorite mexican places in the ATL called Nuevo Laredo. They have such good food and it didn't disappoint. There is normally a crazy, long wait but we hit them at a good time and only had to wait about 20 min. There have been many a time we have waited 45 min-1hr to get seated....which wouldn't have been so great for this prego. We were thankful to get seated quickly!.We were also excited because it was my first attempt at Mexican in a looooonnnggg time (not so good attempts during the first trimester put mexican on the no no list) and I didn't get sick.  Nuevo Laredo is a great authentic restaurant that has the best mole and margaritas. We didn't partake in the margies this visit but we did partake in chicken enchiladas w/ mole and they were SO good.

After the Drew celebration we had a joint celebration w/ my Dad and Mama Deb. We all have Oct birthdays. So we ate some great Italian and traded birthday cards. Mama Deb also brought us some awesome homemade sourdough bread, gingersnap cookies, fresh honey and apples from NC-yum! After that celebration next up was Iris' birthday (Drew's mom). She went to the mountains w/ some friends so we didn't get to celebrate with her but we did serenade her on the phone.  After Iris' bday was yours truly's birthday.  Drew had class again so I went out with two of my closest ATL gals. We hit a new (to me) pizza joint and then headed to Cafe Intermezzo for dessert and coffee. It was such a fun night and I didn't realize how much I needed a night like that. I had the best decaf butterscotch espresso drink and oreo cheesecake with the best company. Drew and I were going to celebrate w/ a dinner the next night but we were both so tired that we postponed and haven't gone yet. We will soon!

Drew has been in class most ever weekend in Oct but we still managed to have a great month.  I can't wait to carve pumpkins and dress up our little ones for Halloween next year. Until then I will just keep brewing them!

Who Knew?

My friends, I am almost 20 weeks pregnant and finally feeling good. I didn't want to blog for so long b/c all I wanted to blog about was finding out we were pregnant. And now that we've announced it, it has taken me so long to figure out what to share next. I promise I'm not going to turn this blog into just pregnancy talk...but let us all get real...that's what is on my brain. Eventually I will share how we got to where we are but what I want to talk about it the stuff that no one tells you. This might get a little tmi for you...so stop now or forever hold your peace : ).

1. Nausea is NO BUENO-Having Twins is double the hormones-which means double the nausea as well as other things. I was feeling good until about week 7 and then the sickies hit. I was teaching summer camps and downing sprite and saltines like nobody's business. And this wasn't just morning sickness it was morning, noon and night. It was not fun. I talked to some friends who had twins and they said their sickness stuck around until about week 18-20.  Mine started letting up about week 15/16 but really got better around week 17/18. I get a wave every now and then but NOTHING like it was. Praise the Lord.

2. Constipation stinks...hee hee hee-Yes, this hit me hard about week 10 and stayed only about a couple of weeks. I found the magic cure-all...at least for me. My dr said again, this was worse for me b/c of the double hormones...wowser.  So my cure all is yogurt in the morning, an apple in the afternoon and and kefir right before I go to bed. And now life is a much happier place in my tum : ).  What is Kefir you ask? Kefir is a fermented drink made from milk (cow, goat, coconut etc).  You can buy it at most grocery stores but I get an organic coconut kefir from the farmer's market made by Ancient Awakenings. This is a local Atlanta company that has great products and a pretty cool story. Their cultured veggies are also fantastic. All the probiotics are really helping my tum and I would much rather eat those things than take drugs.

3. Are we in Middle school again?-My diet turned into an old school carb eating fest. It was like I was in middle school. I came home with pop tarts one day and my husband made SO much fun of me. For the record I only ate one pack of them.  I drove around w/ a box of cheeze-its for like two weeks. I don't know what was up with me but getting veggies down was SO hard. Drew and I hadn't been eating a lot of grain pre-pregnancy. But that has definitely changed a bit as I now eat cereal again and bread.  The good news is that it has since gotten much better and I can stomach veggies again! I will say I was not happy with the low veggie diet but I was also happy to not be vomiting...so there you go. It passed and I am eating better again now.

4. Trading in ailments-I think that when you are pregnant you trade symptoms in. Once I started feeling better nausea wise my ribs starting hurting and then my upper back. Who am I? An old meemaw? I hate complaining and also don't like feeling icky. But you know what...it is SO worth it. FYI-my upper back is hurting b/c of my massive chest. Yes, people warned me but it still didn't properly prepare me. I will never complain about being small chested again...lol.

5. Overwhelmed much-It can get overwhelming making choices and decisions for these little ones. Especially planning for two. Baby stores love to make you think you need EVERYTHING. But truth be told, you don't. And once I made a decision to not fall into the traps of these stores I felt much better : ).  So do what is right for you and your family. If you want really expensive baby furniture get it...if you don't want it...don't get. And don't judge other mommies. They are doing what is best for them!

More to come on this Adventure I'm starting to call double trouble : )

In my belly

SO my friends...there is big news in our house.

Hence, the silence on the blog for so long.  I will hopefully be sharing more soon! We are thrilled and just Praising God for our little miracles that are on the way.
ps-isn't my husband an amazing artist ;)?

Gone but not forgotten

HI Friends! Remember me? Lindsey here. Actress, silly, goof ball, cheese loving gal who likes to share stories, recipes and deep (mostly not so deep) thoughts. Sound familiar? You probably forgot about me. With good reason too! I haven't posted since March of LAST YEAR! In the words of Mike, (Fred Willard's character) from A Mighty Wind, "Wha' Happened?"  Well, let's just say 2012 was a doozie. And not the good kind of doozie like the cookies from the Great American Cookie Company. Btw-if you want to get me one of those said cookie I won't stop you!

Anyway, 2012 kicked my booty. I will spare you all of the details but let's just say that there was a lot of loss, tears, and just plain ol' hard times.  But the good news is Drew and I survived 2012 and we are still kicking.  So thankful for a great relationship with the hubs and God being a part of that union. Amen! 2013 has not exactly been a piece of cake (why all of the sweets references...can you tell I'm not eating many right now...ha) but it's definitely been a smoother ride so far.  And there have been a lot of great things in the past year and few months.  So on that note, I will leave you with some good things in life since my last post, oh SO long ago.

1. Baby Caroline was born-
Our niece baby Caroline was born.  Drew's older brother and his wife brought their first child into the world last October (best month to be born) and she has stolen the heart of many.

Drew looking so adorable w/ her in Milwaukee last Nov.

2. We took a belated 10th anniversary trip to NYC in August.

Me in Central Park

Some of our closest friends after Brance's infamous Fringe Performance

3. I played my dream role of Kira in XANADU the musical. It was a roller skating, 80's fashion awesomeness, Olivia Newton John singing, ball of fun.

4. My awesome, amazingly talented, superstar of teacher, fellow ballerina co-worker Emily got engaged and she is getting MARRIED (and she's leaving me..wanh wanh...but that's a whole other post entirely).  You can follow her adorable and hilarious blog here.

5. And lastly I will leave you with this tidbit of info.

Luke 1:37- For nothing will be impossible with God.  

This verse has been my jam (not as in toe jam but as in saving grace jam) this year so far.  When it feels like it's all falling a part I just trust in this verse...and I'm grateful for the peace that follows.

Friends, I am back! Get ready for the goober-riffic-ness that is me.