Puppy Love

Meet Sarah. 

Meet Arthur. 

These are our puppies and I am obsessed. 

The End

7 bits of random...

1)      I am slightly confused about the shade of my natural hair color.  I think I’m going to dye it the color of my roots and just see what happens.

2)      I’m thoroughly enjoying a new set of exercise dance videos I found on instant Netflix.  Although the hosts combine a series of odd facial expressions with unfortunate phrases like, “this is funky fresh” and “you are now going to get your groove on” they’re pretty good dancers with surprisingly difficult choreography.

3)      Last night I was dancing my heart out to the aforementioned video, dressed in my shamrock pajama pants, home-made graphic blue t-shirt, and tall brown boots. (My tennis shoes have gone missing.)  Sean referred to this ensemble as “Thrift Store Throw-Up” or “I Have to Go Grab More Wood From the Pile”. This wasn’t mean-spirited… I knew my get-up was a target from the second I started my first step-ball-change. 

4)      It is so cold in Nashville that I turned the heat on.  Sarah is bundled up on a blanket next to the air vent and I’m in fuzzy pullover with my second cup of coffee. This is awesome!

5)      I had a dream last night I was trying to get in a building but there was a wasp on the door and when I went to grab my phone (to have someone open the door from inside), my phone was under a webbing of spiders.  Every time I tried to get the phone a bug would jump on me.  I woke up itching so bad I couldn’t go back to sleep.  Eventually I took a Benadryl.  Not sure if the itching caused the dream or if the dream caused the itching.  Either way… t’was no good. 

6) Painted Pumpkins:

7) The Middle and Modern Family come on tonight. J  

That’s It.

Happy Wednesday!

Sean's Free Music

Sean has taken some time off of the road to write, and in the meantime he decided to make a FREE download available on his website. "Kiss" is one of his favorite songs to perform, but was never put on a record. You can click HERE to go get it, and if you haven't heard Sean before, I highly encourage you to watch this video.  I was a fan before we ever started dating, so I'm not just being biased...  (PS This performance was recorded for radio, so the man sitting on stage without an instrument is the radio host ) 

Okay... enjoy :)

~Happy Tuesday~

mae

An Amazima Event

Last Fall, I was sitting in my living room, browsing Facebook when I saw a link my dear friend Tricia had posted about helping her friend raise money for an adoption.  Curious, I clicked the link and was immediately taken aback by what I saw.  Tricia's friend was young, single, beautiful, and was not adopting one child, but FOURTEEN children.  I was absolutely stunned and had to know more.  Through a series of links I was led to her blog where I spent an entire day reading. Since then, I have continued to follow Katie's journey and I have been consistently inspired by her courage, her heart, her writing, and as she puts it in her new book: her decision to "quit her life." While most of her friends were worried about frat parties and college exams, she was the mother of 6 and founder of a non-profit by age 19. Her ministry now sponsors over 450 children, providing them with education, medical assistance, food, and more. Did I mention she's only 22?

A few months after our discovery of Katie and her non-profit, Amazima, Sean was downtown talking to some people at work about our choice to adopt when he mentioned her name. One of the awesome men Sean works with, spoke up and said he actually knew Katie well.  Long story short, he remembered how touched we were by Katie's story, and a few weeks ago he and his wife invited Sean and I to be their guests at an Amazima fundraiser.  Not only would we be able to learn more about the ministry and eat a fantastic dinner, but we would also be able to hear from Katie herself. The event was this past Saturday, and it was truly incredible.

Hearing Katie speak was amazing and at the end of the night she even signed our copy of her new book, "Kisses from Katie."  She was unassuming, genuine, articulate, and passionate.  While she is admired by so many, she somehow always turned it away from herself and made it all about God.  She could have gotten up there and said, "I did this. I did that." But instead, her entire focus was on what God had done, and how thankful she was to have been witness to the miracles and have people state-side invest in that journey.

The event was profoundly unique and I even ran into my 7th grade Science teacher, whom I had not seen in over 10 years.  (She was one of the reasons I went into teaching, so it was so fantastic getting to see pictures of her kids and hear about her life.) 

Sean and I are truly thankful we were able to attend the event and look forward to seeing what happens through Amazima in the future. 

You can check out more about her book HERE and more about Amazima HERE. 

mae mae

P.S. I'm about halfway through the book. It's amazing.

Pot, Chalk, and BS

I have a serious love for all things chalkboard.... This board lives in my kitchen:

And this board lives in my dining room, (given to me by the one and only, Mrs. Thriftary):

A few months ago, my friend Brittany combined my love for globes and chalkboards and created this awesome piece, which I posted about HERE.

Today, she's done it again.

She's a genius. Rather than putting live plants in the pot and labeling it, (which I would do if given a chalkboard flower pot) she used them to hold her fall decor. (Did you think I meant a different kind of pot? If so, I tricked you... and made you read this post with a little more interest than you might have.. S-napp! Did I mention I'm on a lot of allergy meds these days?)

Anyhoo, I think I'm going to take Brittany's lead and make chalkboard pots for pretty much everything in my house: pencils, remotes, art supplies, silverware, matches, mints, toiletries, sponges... my mind is literally spinning.  (could be the allergy meds I'm on, or it could be the insane amount of chalkboard paint I'm about to dive into...) If it can fit in a pot, it will be put in one.  You can check out more of Brittany's awesome crafts at her new blog, "Buttons, Birds, and BS."  Her nickname is BS because of her initials. (Brittany Stewart)... aaaaannnndd because she has a tendency to lie a lot. Just kidding.  She's the best. Check her out!

Yours Truly,
Mae Mae

P.S. What do you think about my new header? I love it. It was designed by the very talented Danielle Roy.  You can read her blog, Changing Lanes, HERE.  I LOVE her vintage style and unique designs.  Plus, her daughter's name is Mary Mac and you can't get much cooler than that.

~Happy Reading~

***

We are moving. We think.

We made the very difficult decision to put our house on the market this week.  We absolutely LOVE our home, LOVE our street, and really LOVE our neighbors.  Unfortunately, this home doesn't offer the space or the school system we want for our family.  For the two of us, it's great... which is why the decision is so difficult. It's hard to make choices for the sake of a future that is so unknown.

But, when we imagine the future as best we know how, it seems that our 1400 square foot cottage (with 300 square feet dedicated to Sean's studio) will feel twice as small and twice as loud. Without a doubt we would be busting at the seams after 2 children.  So why not move now before kids get here?  That seems like the easiest solution and the one that would provide the most stability for the kids.

We debated on moving to a larger home in our neighborhood (thus keeping the amazing neighbors) BUT we aren't comfortable with the school system (past the 5th grade) and hated to move to a home that would have an expiration date on it.  Adopted children have so much transition, we would hate to throw "you've made friends at this school and in this neighborhood, but now we're moving to a different county" into the mix.  We'd love to be where we'll be for a long time when they get here.

So... we've made the very difficult decision to put our house on the market, look at homes in Williamson County, and just see what happens.  If you know anyone looking for an adorable 1930's cottage with a wood-burning fireplace in the coolest part of Nashville send them our way :)

We are excited about the future, but growing pains hurt. Period.

If you're the praying kind, send up a prayer that this transition will go smoothly and we'll find the home we need to be in. We'd greatly appreciate it. Also pray that my constant harassment will prove effective and our neighbors will follow us wherever we go. Just kidding. But seriously.

Love,
Mae Mae

I've been spending a lot of time on my computer lately...

and someone's had enough. 

Isn't she adorable??

Sorry for the lack of posts this week...
As of this week our house is on the market (eek- more on that later), I'm in the middle of a big research project, and I am suffering from a debilitating addiction to Pinterest and instant netflix episodes of Frasier... It's so much funnier than I remember.

But, I do have a lot to tell and more posts coming soon...
(No news on kids... still waiting.)

Until later today,
Mae Mae