6/30/11

now put your hands up

its been a year! a year since brian asked me to be his!
we took a drive to our homeland, and once we crossed the saskatchewan border, he gave me my delightfully sparkly ring as we watched the sun set in the familiar sky. it was so beautiful. we sat together and talked about our future together. we laughed & cried & hugged & kissed, four things we've continued to do over this past year.
thank you brian, for asking me to share this life and the next with you. you make life an adventure. you help me to learn and grow, and you encourage me to be and do my best.
i'm so glad i said yes.

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6/29/11

another month?

what we've been up to...
(photographic evidence of june, the month that rushed by, but not unpleasantly.
it was a wonderful month!)

we moved!
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i do miss my pantry.

but i'm in love with our windows!
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i'm growing a herb garden. chives, basil, cilantro & parsley.

brian & taylor have been practicing their juggling skills
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and we've played like, a ton of bocce ball.
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we've celebrated a couple of birthdays.
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(all joviah is thinking about is that cake...)

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brian had a few days off work due to the rain, so i came home to dinners like this...
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are you serious? this was delicious. i'm so spoiled!

i took photos at a wedding for the most delightful couple.
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shout out to my dear hubby for holding an umbrella over my head all day. you're the best!

we've babysat & played with lots of our favourite kiddos.
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please note brians creepy hand in the bottom corner. ha!
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and we did some nature watching out our kitchen window.
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i've decided to start up a little bun business! if you're in the area, you can order dinner rolls, cinnamon buns, pizza buns or cinnamon knots!
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its been a busy, busy and such a fun month! we're hoping july is just as big of a party.

love,
lauren & brian
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6/22/11

our baby

i have wanted to be a mother for almost as long as i can remember.

as a child, i loved to help my mother with the baby she took care of; she was like the little sister i never had. i loved to babysit and was occupied most weekends of my highschool days tucking other peoples little ones into bed while they went out on dates. i was always the girl who told my roommates that i would have a baby nine months after i got married. seriously.

the day after brian & i got engaged, i called my oldest brother, whose wife had given birth to number five the day before, and said, "i just wanted to call and let you know that i'll be having a baby in a year: brian and i are engaged!" it was no secret that we wanted a baby, and wanted one soon.

we couldn't have been happier when we found out we were pregnant in october of last year. i was ecstatic. i remember, very clearly, those first couple of months of my pregnancy. the tiny life within me was a secret to most of the people around me, but i could think of little else. i anxiously awaited the time when my belly would begin to swell with the growing baby. i thought of whether it was a boy or girl and what it would be like. i yearned for the calendar to move faster, looking forward to the end of june. i hoped all fingers & toes would be perfect, but i never worried about miscarriage; not once did it cross my mind.

one day, in the middle of december, when i had just passed 12 weeks, we found ourselves at the hospital. i was driven by my sweet sister in law and brian met me there after his final. we found eachother in the waiting room and fell into eachothers arms. i will never forget the way we clutched eachother that day. we let our tears fall. we were admitted to a room. nurses and doctors came in and out. they poked and prodded and asked me questions. and every time they left, we cried. finally, i asked the question i couldn't bear to think of, and a kind nurse gave us the answer, softly, that we didn't want to hear. we had lost our baby.

we're coming up on a year since brian asked me to marry him, coming close to that deadline i gave my brother for a baby, now just a few days away from my would-be due date. i think often of our baby and how close we would now be to welcoming him or her into our little family. my heart aches when i think of that day in december and the sad days and weeks and months that followed. we wanted that baby; we loved that little one already. i know that there are much harder things to go through. i know that some people wait much longer, that some couples are never able to have one of their own. but for me, this is hard. for me, this aches.

although we experienced sadness and lots of tears, i will always thank my Heavenly Father for the tender mercies he showed to us, and to me. just after we had the miscarriage, brian finished his exams and then we went home, home to our families for Christmas. we were spoiled with comfy beds and delicious food and plenty of hugs. we felt healed by the love of our loved ones. brian was incredible. he held my hand and wiped away tears. he hugged me and spoke with me. it is impossible to describe the strength he gave to me when i needed it most. i could not, truly & honestly, have been through that without him.

i will be a mother someday. i don't know when, but i do know that when our little one decides to show up, i'll love that baby with my entire heart. i can't wait.

6/5/11

moved

ah. we're moved into our new place. we're still in the midst of a few cardboard boxes, but the kitchen and bathroom are workable, it feels good to be here.

i spent last weekend sewing up tears on our couch and making pans of scalloped potatoes and planting a herb garden to sit on my window sill. i feel like a little domestic goddess while brian fixes everything that needs fixing. he's been repairing lights and putting windows back onto runners and moving furniture around. he asks me, "do you like this here? what about there?" our little apartment is slowly starting to feel like home, and less like a storage area.

the thing we love most is the windows. the added counter & cupboard space in the kitchen is wonderful and the location is amazing, but absolutely nothing tops the windows. we had been living in a basement suite for the first nine and a half months of our marriage and the windows were teeny tiny. i'm not sure they even constituted real windows. when we got home from church last week, we raced to open every single blind and window. oh, the light! the air! its glorious. i absolutely love it.

we love our new little place. a lot.