Today, I want to share some of my wedding album and our story. How God brought us together.

It all started at Borders Book Store.

Well, no quite. Our story began long before Borders Book Store came into play. Our story started when a college aged guy and girl began earnestly  praying for God to send them their soul mates since it felt like they’d be terminally single forever. At the tender ages of 21 and 24, Mike and I were single and thought we’d never find someone! I had never had a boyfriend and Mike had had one girlfriend at the end of high school and beginning of college.

So…where were we?

Borders.

I was single and hating it. Mike was single and hating it. My sister was working at the coffee cafe in Borders Bookstore. Mike and our friend  Adam used to hang out a lot at Borders and in the process met my sister. My sister became friends with Adam and in turn introduced him to me. Through Adam, I  met Mike at a young adult Bible study we all ended up at. This was in October of 1999.

My first thought when I met Mike? “WOW. He’s tall.” ( My dear hubby is 6 ‘7) My second thought was ” I’m impressed! He’s so nice, and single AND a Chemical  Engineer. Mr. Smarty Pants.” My third thought?

“ I could never date someone so much taller than me! (I’m 5′1) But, I have this friend who he’d be perfect for….”

Mike and I became really good friends. I found him to be super funny, nice, charming, very generous and serious about serving the Lord. He also had a great job, was very smart and had  a sweet ride. We’d have these great, long conversations in his truck after he’d drop me off at my parent’s house. One night, he made his feelings known to me. I was so upset because I didn’t feel the same way about him. The next day he wrote me this BEAUTIFUL email telling me exactly how he felt. It made me cry. While writing my response I bemoaned the situation and why it was that I didn’t have feelings for such a wonderful guy. In my response I gave him the usual “let’s be friends” spiel, and how wonderful he was and that God would bring him the perfect woman for him. Oh, and, LOL, I had intended on hooking him up with my friend! How funny was that??…

His response was very nice and he made sure I knew I didn’t have to feel awkward around him because he would never bring up the subject again and we could just remain friends.

Well, after a while I started really noticing all of his wonderful qualities. Then I started getting a little flutter every time he smiled at me. And THEN I noticed I would get jealous any time he offered that cute smile to some other girl. Mike’s wonderful sense of humor, gentle giant soul, quick wit, kind heart and meaningful friendship had stolen my heart!

After a while, I knew I was starting to have feelings for him and started trying to make it REALLY obvious I wanted him to ask me out again. He acted oblivious. I think I went as far as having my sister tell him while we were all at the movies that I REALLY wanted him to hold my hand. He made it obvious that since I turned him down I was going to have to be the one to approach HIM this time. As far as he knew, I didn’t like him “that way” so he was to go on like we were just friends.

I had never, ever, ever been very forward with boys. In high school I was so afraid of rejection that I would DIE if I thought the boy I liked knew I had feelings for him. Boys I liked never liked me back. It was deny deny deny any time anyone joked around that I “liked” certain boys. Coupled with the fact that I’d never had a boyfriend, I was in very unfamiliar waters at this point in my relationship with Mike.

I knew that if I didn’t do something that Mike would continue to  just be my friend and this relationship I wanted to have wasn’t going to go anywhere. Mike and I had been emailing each other every day, several times a day for several weeks. Even if we hung out during the week we’d still email every day and not run out of things to say. I always looked forward to coming home from work to one of his sweet/cute/funny/flirty emails. So, one day I sat down to respond and wrote exactly how I felt about him just to see what it felt like,with the intention of deleting it. With my hand over the “delete” button I thought ” What if I just send this? What if I take the plunge and finally put myself out there?” So, I closed my eyes and hit “send”! Then I started freaking out, unable to believe what I had just done. This was sooooo not me!!

I was so freaked out that I ended up making myself sick over it. By that night I had a fever! But, somehow I knew that after sending that e-mail, I’d be seeing Mike that night. Even though he didn’t respond, I knew he’d be coming over to my house. I put make up on, fixed my hair and got “dressed up”. Then I sat on the couch in a feverish daze, waiting. And just like I thought, the door bell rang later that night and there was Mike! He had a big grin on his face and told me he got my email and would I like to go out to dinner? Since I was already prepared for it, off we went. Our first official date was at Chili’s. That’ s where we discussed in depth our feelings for each other. Mike still had feelings for me (thank God!) and wanted to know if I was his “girlfriend” now. We held hands. It felt so weird that this moment I had been waiting for since I started liking boys was finally here. It was all very sweet. He told me how thrilled he had been to get that e-mail from me and when he read it, he leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He then looked at his co worker and said ” She likes me for me!!”. (Does anyone remember that song by Third Eye Blind? That song has been our inside joke since this very day). This all happened January 10th, 2000.

On April 16th, 2000 he proposed to me in my parent’s living room. And on August 4th, 2001 we got married!

Now 10 years, one condo,one house, three adorable kids, one miscarriage, several life changes and many pounds later we’re still madly in love. I can’t thank the Lord enough for bringing this wonderful, godly man into my life.

(This was taken on 4th Of July of this year)

(Also taken this July)

God had a perfect plan for us. What were we worried about???

Thank you for reading our story!

This picture was taken at my parent’s house in Texas when we were staying there for several weeks last March. I love how relaxed Madelyn is hanging out with uncle Bryan (or “Bob” as she called him back then). I also love how she had her hand resting on his arm. She was only 19 months old!

This picture was taken at the park we frequented while there. Katelyn loved it and this picture just showcases that.

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I made lasagna for the first time last week.  I have never made it before and am now wondering why I waited this long to do it!

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? It turned out yummy! I froze half of so we can eat it tonight for dinner and I still have enough ingredients left to make another pan of it to freeze.

We’re onto our next two weeks of food shopping on a smaller budget and I’m really trying to make our dollars stretch to the max. We have purposed that we absolutely cannot take cash from a different envelope for groceries. We have to make sure those envelopes build up and are used for what purpose in which they were intended.  If we divide out our food budget right now by day and designate $20 for eating out on Sundays it comes out to $14 A DAY.  That sounds like nothing to me! But I know we can find a way to do it.

When you have an X amount of dollars there are a lot of things you usually buy at teh grocery store that you find you don’t really need anymore.

We stayed up very late last night trying to close out this months budget and make sure everything was balanced.

Uuumm, not so much.  Like Dave said the first few months will be spent tweaking our budget until it does work.

Here is another one of my creations. I call it the “Melzone”.  I know everybody makes a variation of these. I was trying to use up different ingredients I had in  my freezer already and was able to use up some frozen bread dough and last little bit of frozen chicken nuggets. I  rubbed some olive oil on the dough, cut up the frozen chicken nuggets and spread the pieces evenly. Sprinkled cheddar and mozzarella on laid the rest of the bread dough over the top and pinched the sides. Then I baked it at 350 until it looked done. The frozen chicken inside cooked at the same time. It was really good!

Oh, I didn’t put any tomato sauce inside because none of us are super crazy about it unless it’s on spaghetti or pizza.

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If you didn’t read my post from Saturday don’t forget to check out my new blog!

Hannah’s Prayer TTC And Fertility Blog is a Christian support blog for women struggling with infertility issues.  Tell your friends and family about it! It could use all the followers and support it can get right now so it can grow to help others.

Happy Monday!

I love this picture of my grandma Ross and the girls. This picture represents all the times we ate at Pizza Garden while the girls and I were there. We love Pizza Garden!

I can’t help but smile every time I see this picture of Madelyn and the one of the girls below  it. My mom had made pig tails in my girls’ hair that day and they looked really cute! She’s also the one who took these pictures. I love how they came out.

We let the girls ride on the merry go round at the mall while we were there. Katelyn loved it. I like how this picture of Katelyn came out.

Although the photo quality of this picture isn’t very good, I’ve always liked it. Not only do my sister and Madelyn look exactly alike in this picture, their dimples are showing up identically too!!

The next few pictures are of the trip we took to the Fort Worth Zoo with my parents and brother last February. It was a great time and I’ll always have fond memories of it.

I always crack up at this picture of the penguin and my brother. This penguin was soooo cute and friendly. It and my brother shared some special bonding moments and it seemed to follow my brother back and forth.

This picture of my dad and Madelyn captures the fun we were having on  that beautiful day!

This picture of Madelyn and my mom reminds me so much of the fun we had taking walks and going to the playground while we were there. Madelyn wanted my mom to hold her hand the whole time she was on the climbing structure. So my mom obliged! Madelyn was only 18 months old here! *sniff*

This picture makes me laugh! Katelyn (in true Katelyn form) wore out my grandpa Woolbright with all the lifting and playing she had him doing with her!

I could have posted many more but I needed to stop here.

I encourage you to look back at your photos from a year ago this month and  see the changes in your children, you or your life!

Here are my favorites from around this time last year. Katelyn was 3 years and 3 months and Madelyn was 1 year and 5 months.

This picture just makes me laugh!

Madelyn was just discovering snow and tried to eat it every chance she got!

Katelyn is definitely our snow bunny and is so silly and happy when playing in the snow

Madelyn had gotten into the dishwasher when I had stepped out of the kitchen for a second. Thankfully all she grabbed was a spoon and not a sharp knife out of the utensil basket!!

* If someone is already doing a meme like this with this name please let me know.

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