Elise

Orion and Coda got to meet Elise this weekend. Orion didn't know what to do with himself, but Coda was fascinated by Elise. He kept talking about her and wanted to hold her and give her a bottle, but he never called her by name, he always called her "the baby." This picture captures his awe. Hilarious. I laughed out loud.
Look at her sweet face! I can't wait to meet her.

This is What Relief Looks Like

I know you don't believe it, but that took 7 hours to hang. Ridiculous.

Three Nails

In the past two or three weeks, God has been reminding me that any time I am tempted to sin, He ALWAYS provides a way out, and I must choose to take that way out to avoid sinning against Him. Needless to say for this stubborn girl, this has not been an easy lesson to apply and I have made very little progress in giving Him the glory He deserves with my life. Last week, I was struck by reading the story of Christ's death and resurrection. I just got a new Bible, and it amazes me how fresh His Word becomes when it doesn't have notes, highlighter, and dates written all over it from the past several years! As I read Luke 22:40-46, I was struck by Jesus' humanity and divinity coming to a very defining intersection. This was make it or break it--would He save us or not? It was this night many years ago, and he had just shared a meal with his friends. He loved them, had taught them, showed them how He was fullfilling God's covenant, but they still didn't get it. They still didn't love Him as much as He loved them. He withdrew from them and prayed to God, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from Me!" I finally got it. Jesus' humanity of being able to choose whether or not to die a gruesome death for us was facing Him. What if He had responded as I do when God gives me a way out of sin and sinned anyway? Oh, how this life would be so very, very different. Shattered and broken and absolutely hopeless for lack of a Redeemer! I hope you will join with me in praising the One who had a choice but still, He loves us!

And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfullness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." Exodus 34:5-6b

Above all, fear the LORD and worship Him faithfully with all your heart, considering the great things He has done for you. 1 Samuel 12:24 (emphasis mine)

Idea Noted

Tell me this is not adorable. Do-able? Not so sure I'd be up for riding one of these in a dress.

She's Here!

Betsy and Rocky had a beautiful baby girl tonight around 5:30pm! She has long eyelashes and lots of hair! Introducing, Elise Makayla, 6 pounds, 12 ounces:

Betsy looked quite a bit like this herself as a baby...lucky girl, good genes!

The new family!

I have never seen anyone look so radiant after having a baby!

Please Pray!

Betsy's in labor, just one day before her due date! I'm so excited to have a little niece and see how beautiful this little baby is! She called at 7am, so she said she should be calling again this afternoon to report. I'll post pictures as soon as they're sent to me. In the meantime, please pray for a complication-free delivery!

Small Victory

I'm in the process of cleaning things up for my senior show, which opens in a week and a half! When I'm under deadline on one of my interior design projects, things tend to get done, but not always to the quality that I want them to be done to. I've had the opportunity to revise things so that they can go up in the gallery. One of them has been this perspective of a studio apartment:

If you hate it, sorry. It looks kind of circus-ey to me, but it's one of those things where you just spec paint colors and you choose walls arbitrarily and then you draw it out and you think...I wish I would have ordered more neutral paint samples. :) Anywho, I like to think it would look good in real life. I designed the bed/bedside tables myself.

This thing represents a small victory because this is the only perspective that I have not cried over! This is not the area of interior design that I excel in. My sophomore year, I had to be enrolled in what was effectively 25 hours of design courses (design courses meet for double the number of hours you register for). It was awful. I literally slept less than 5 hours a night for the entire semester and I would lay in bed and mentally draw a set of construction drawings in my head because I could not sleep. So one weekend, I was going into crunch time on a project. I still needed to draw and render (color with depth and shadow) a perspective. For the life of me I could not get it to look right. I figured out I was maybe drawing it too small, so, after 7 hours of struggling with it, I went to the library to blow up my plan so I could draw it bigger. While I was in the library, it hit me...this project was not going to get done. There was no way. So, I wept my eyes out, right there in public. The librarian came up to me and hugged me. I still cannot look at her. :) Needless to say, that project did get done and now, I'm maybe even a little sad that the projects are over. Sigh.