this week: spring break

this week has been ... interesting.  fun. exhausting. exciting. hard work.  this is spring break & unlike my spring break posts from the last three years - there's no beach here.

last weekend was full & busy.  i had a girls' day in nky with two of my best friends that we'd been planning for quite a while; we went eating and thrifting of course.  it's crazy that life gets so busy that we're forced to plan lunch months in advance but when you live in different cities, have husbands, babes, ministries, jobs, etc. i guess it just comes with the territory.  although i do wish it could happen more often, i really do cherish our time together.

sunday i got to go to ikea with my super sweet hubs.  it's not actually very close to where we live so it was a bit of a road trip.  we packed snacks :)  while we were there we gathered up our very first baby toy purchase - i'm in love.  a tiny little tea set.  um precious.  and i got her a little flowered tray to hold her knick knacks and baby things as they pile on her dresser or side tables.

we also got a little hamper & chandelier for the princess.  benny already hung this sparkling light and i was too lazy to drag a chair in there for a good pic.  settle for this taste until later.

when we finally made our way back home we had a lot of work waiting for us.  we had a goal to basically deep clean / organize / refinish a big chunk of our house in a week.  since it's benny's spring break and i had a week of vacation that was just going to slip away if i didn't take it - it only made sense for this to be family work week!  i did have to go in to the office on monday to take care of some things, you know... should we gloriously win a national championship that night [WHICH HAPPENED].  we print t-shirts for that type of thing and i get to be the lady writing up all those orders.  sweet people stepped in the rest of the week so i wouldn't have to come back.  that was such a blessing.  i was having a little bit of a mental breakdown thinking about missing my one & only week where i could knock things out and prepare for itty bitty.  maybe i cried.  anyway it all worked out and we have been busting our tails for the last 5 days.

ben has been such a diligent & steady worker.  i am so incredibly blessed to have such a caring husband who would spend his free week serving his family so hard.  i wish that i could work as hard as him.  i just get tired so easily and want to lay down.  i don't really do it but its all the more exhausting when the whole time you are working you're thinking you'd like to just lay down in the middle of the floor surrounded by your heaping piles of half-way organized fabric.  that my friends is a battle.

i've done lots of normal chores: taken care of the dishes, washing and folding laundry, cleaning the bathrooms.  and then i've done some 'spring cleaning' where if i'm honest has never really happened [i'm sorry if you're gagging].  you know, removing everything from the cabinets, cleaning, organizing, etc.  it is amazing how much more room/storage we have when things are organized well.  we cleaned baseboards and doors.  those kinds of 'fun' things.  i also painted a dresser & created a floor plan out of yarn with sweet emily & i. am. obsessed.  i can't wait to show it to you - complete.  but here's the idea.

::dresser in progress::

ben's been doing all the manual labor.  he's moved the entire back of our house to the front so we can have carpet installed in our bedrooms. 

he painted the babe's room: walls, ceiling, trim & doors [which is no small feat if you saw the condition they were in originally!], he painted the master bedroom & organized our garage.  everything he's touched has a major transformation.  i love it.  it will take a while to finish putting things back together, decorate, accessorize and all.  but at least we're primed and ready for it!  our list of major chores and projects has been basically cut in half [or less].  and that is all thanks to my sweet husband.  thanks boo.  i'm overwhelmed.

on the agenda for today is carpet installation [HOORAY!]  and a kitchen deep clean.  my momma is coming to town to keep me company while benny is out of town with his family.  my father-in-law is having surgery - prayers appreciated!  so i'm going to hold down the fort and get as much done as i can!

far less important than what came above or what will come below this statement:  i tried lipstick.  yes i'm 26, married, with a baby on the way but any time in my past where i have tried the stuff i've always just felt silly.  well after about 2-4 years of not really 'getting ready' on a daily basis i decided that i needed to be a little girlified from time to time.  enter cherry tart lip butter.  a fantastic suggestion from my sweet shannon [who i'd let do my make up any day]. this one's for you!  

and while we're at it.  the mid-week mega bump.

and like i said, of much more importance ... i don't want to miss the opportunity to share this.  while cleaning our garage we got to listen to a sermon about Jesus, his death, resurrection & ascension from tim keller.  this quote, this truth grips me.

"Don't think of love abstractly; Jesus is the love of God. In the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, do you know what was happening? All the greatest forces in the universe were arrayed against Jesus, and he could have stopped them. He could have stopped the rejection, he could have stopped the torture, he could have stopped the death, he could have stopped the rejection of his Father, he could have stopped eternal justice coming down on his head. All he had to do was give up on us. That's all he had to do, just walk away...Jesus was up on the cross bleeding and dying, looking down at the people betraying him and forsaking him and denying him, and in the greatest act of love in the history of the universe, he stayed. Bomb after bomb after bomb was coming down on Jesus Christ trying to get him to drop us, to separate him from us, and even hell itself couldn't do it. He stayed. Nothing could separate him from us, his love from us. He held onto us; he was our Savior. He died for us! Now that's how you know nothing can separate us from the love of God. It's not an abstraction. It's not just saying, 'Oh, I just believe that God loves me unconditionally.' No, he loves you counter-conditionally; he loves you against conditions, because of Jesus."

God is so good.