Thanksgiving

Week Forty Eight

November 26, 2015

Our first big holiday as a married couple.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Family Walks

Week Forty Seven

November 17, 2015

Family walks is where it's at!

Week Forty Six

November 11, 2015

I can't imagine life without her now.  The house is messy and we are still settling in after the wedding, but that's ok.  We are giving her a little extra love since she was without for so long.

city to city | October 2015

October's prompt was my wedding.  But, I didn't take any photos right around that day so instead, I improvised.  I picked photos that were similar or of photos of us.

Us with our men.

This is our friendship in a nutshell, she lotions my elbows and fixes me pedi coat.  We laughed because this wasn't the first time she's been up my dress (in a non-sexual way.)  Love you B!

Meet May

Week Forty Five

November 6, 2015

The photo quality is crappy, but the story is golden.

Introducing our newest member of the family, May. From this day forward she will never feel abandoned, have daily meals, toys to play with, a warm bed to sleep in, and a family who loves her. Welcome home sweet girl!

Our Wedding

After going through 1800 photos from our special day, here are a few highlights of the best day of our lives.  All photos by Devine Studios.

He has the best group of guys.

Watching the ring bearers walk down the aisle.

I got him to get teary-eyed!

Married!

 

Settling In

Week Forty Four

October 26, 2015

Home from the honeymoon and slowly starting to settle in.

12of12 | November 2015

01.  Morning routine.  Same, yet different.
02.  Driving to work together.
03.  Hello fall.
04.  He had cooking duty during lunch.
05.  Today was beautiful.
06.  I had potty duty during lunch.
07.  Hamburgers for dinner.
08.  Dinner.
09.  She was ready to play.
10.  Love him.
11.  Mr. Rory, king of the bed.  He isn't too sure what to think with a dog in the house.  Just wait till Moe moves over and there are 2.
12.  Bed time.

city to city | September 2015

September's prompt was animals.
Brandi's photo on the left, Megan's photo on the right.

New Hampshire

Week Forty Three

October 20, 2015

Spent our last day of the honeymoon exploring New Hampshire.  It started off as a rough day, but it redeemed itself!

Week Forty Two

October 15, 2015

Honeymooning in Maine.

Mr. and Mrs.

Week Forty One

October 10, 2015

The best day of my life.  Becoming his wife.  I can't wait to share more photos once we get them from the photographer.  But in the meantime, you can see more on their blog here.

The Comparison Game

It’s something everyone does, compare yourself to another human.  Girls are especially bad at it.  We judge ourselves based on what other girls are doing, wearing, experiencing, etc.  I feel that as I experienced middle and high school years I didn’t let the comparison game catch up to me too much, but I’ve noticed it getting worse in the last few years and I blame that all on social media.  Social media blasts everyone else’s ‘highlight reel’ into your face with every post.  And the worst part?  Most of these people are people you probably haven’t even met in real life.  Someone has a bigger house than you.  Someone just got a new dog or job promotion or car.  Someone gets to spend weeks on end traveling or gets to go out of the country to see something exotic.  Someone got engaged, married, or had a baby.  Someone is always one step ahead of you and you judge yourself based on that.  (And as I type this, I realize that almost all of these are things that happened to me in 2015 and most of them I did share…I’m sorry if you happened to compare yourself to me.)

My point is that we are most critical of ourselves and we shouldn’t be.  There have been two incidences when I was judging myself to someone I’ve never met and D unknowingly set me straight.  I get it, sure he is a little biased because he is my {new} husband, but he didn’t know I was comparing myself to these people and he was able to change my opinion and see myself in a different light.

About a week ago I was going through my Instagram feed and a photo popped up.  It was a photo of a person with no make-up on, in her natural state and I thought she looked incredible.  This photo belongs to someone I don’t personally know, she is a celebrity.  She sings, dances, and acts.  She is in amazing shape.  She recently got engaged.  She is only 6 months older than me and seems to have it all.  On Monday, D and I were watching tv and she was on.  We were talking about her and her fiancé which led me to look them up online which led me to viewing photos.  The photo I mentioned earlier (with her in her natural self) came across the screen and D and I had the following conversation:

D: I can’t figure her out, sometimes she looks really pretty and sometimes she doesn’t.

We continue to flip through photos…

D: Wow, she looks a little scary in that photo.

M: That’s because she doesn’t have any makeup on.  I look pretty scary without make up on too.

D:  No you don’t.  You look a lot better than that.

Later that night, the conversation festered.  One thing I really don’t care about myself is how I look without any makeup on.  What D didn’t know is that a week before, I was comparing myself to this person and thought, ‘Wow, she is so pretty and doesn’t even have to try.’ 

Apparently he thinks the same thing of me.