Well, I hope you all are well-rested with your extra hour of sleep (unless you live in Hawaii, Arizona, and somewhere else???).  I used my extra hour to stay up extra late in preparation for getting ready for our family vacation!  I have deadlines to meet, a house to clean, clothes to wash, fold & pack, and character meals to schedule! As I’m fretting about today, and the next day, and the next, and making a hopeful list of all the things I “need” to get done, I’m reminded of God’s truth in Matthew 6:34:  “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  You may think this doesn’t sound very helpful or hopeful, but go up a few verses and begin at verse 25…it’ll all make sense!

As we say goodbye to October, I’d like to share a few of my favorites from this busy month…

My favoritest of all!

Well, today is my birthday.  Here’s how I awoke to my special day:  Emma coming in & me turning on cartoons & drifting back to sleep.  Two phone calls that I didn’t answer…sleep was more important to me.  The dog howling at the phone (because it’s the kind that talks).  Emma – my 4-year-old – going in to my 2-year-old Brooke’s room & letting her “out.”  Me finally wiping the sleep dust out of my tired eyes & checking the weather on my phone.  My surprise & smile at noticing over 50 emails from my Facebook friends wishing me a happy birthday.  A text from my mommy wishing me a great birthday.  A phone message from my sister-in-law wishing me a happy day.  Lunch at McDonald’s with my two lovelies.  And now…probably a nap!  (Oh, and the husband said to expect some packages that I can’t open ’til he gets home!)  What a wonderful day.  Thanks for all the love everyone.  I feel very special.  And, to end this post that is selfishly all about me, I give you a photo of Emma & Brooke!  Happy Tuesday!

I have been checking the Weather.com app on my iPhone all week hoping and praying it wouldn’t rain this past Sunday.  The weather here in Maryland has been crazy unpredictable these past few weeks, and it was changing daily on my weather app.  Luckily, or by the grace of God, I was blessed with a mild, rain-free Sunday evening in Fells Point for Mark & Lindsey’s engagement photos.

I believe I met Mark when my family first moved to Maryland from Oklahoma and we began attending the same church as his family.  I’m reaching waaaaaay back in my memory here, but I believe I would have been about 8 years old then.  And I met Lindsey not too long after in the fourth grade at Belvedere Elementary School.  I remember that year well because I misspelled “chimney” in the class spelling bee and didn’t make it as far as I’d hoped.  Don’t worry though, I wasn’t crushed too badly.

Well, my point is, I’ve known Mark & Lindsey seperately for a number of years, but I always find it so neat when two people I know, who I didn’t know knew each other, find each other, fall in love, and begin a life together.  Isn’t it a small world?  They were such a great couple to photograph.  All I had to do was tell them tons of cheezy jokes and stories, and they just laughed it up!  Plus I think they were a little nervous being in Fells Point on a Sunday with tons of people watching them cuddle, kiss, and do engaged-people stuff.  But everything went great.

And what I loved was that Lindsey did some research on some ideas she had before we went out.  She’d found Max Wanger‘s site and loved the session he did of a couple with a huge balloon.  So, we tried some things with balloons and some without.  All the while, I felt like we could have been the pied piper and gotten little children everywhere to follow us with those balloons!  They were coming out of nowhere saying, “ball-oon, ball-oon!”

I had a smashing good time (like my new word) with you both, Mark & Lindsey, and can’t wait for your wedding this October.  I know it will rock!

My husband thinks this one would look appropriate with a pitch fork

Do you know what we spelled?

And I think this one has to be my absolute favorite!  Look at the way he looks at her.