Beautiful Life

This one's gonna be short and simple. :)

It's March, and it's 80 degrees in the midwest. Beautiful day!
Today marked the end of another work week. That was a beautiful thing.
My husband is currently en route to Spain with his good friend Lynn. Internationally beautiful.
I got to spend the entire evening with my daughter. Deeply beautiful.
The sun was still out as we took a walk through our neighborhood. Beautiful canvas.

This was the truest, most beautiful thing I've seen all week:

love. ♥

Please pray for travel mercies for Joe and Lynn as they take the next week to explore the beauty that is Spain :) We'll certainly miss him while he's gone....

Here comes the weekend!

xo | cmd

What. Just. Happened? :: Metal Concert?

tickets | joe & brandon

So before I get into this one, turn your SPEAKERS DOWN.

Did you catch that? Turn your speakers down... or off.. haha.

Mmmk.

So have I got a story for you. [Yes, this one's post-dated...]

Anyway, Joe approached me earlier in the week with an invitation to go with him to go and see a live band performance tonight. Since the drummer of this particular band works with Joe, I gladly accepted, knowing that Brandon [the coworker] and his band are a Christian gig. Apparently, nearly everyone in Joe's flight bought tickets, so we knew we'd be in good company. It was a date! We left Sydni with Dawne and made our way "somewhere towards St. Louis," as Joe had described the venue location. I was totally cool with that...

... until I realized we were in Sauget, in the parking lot of Pops. Haha. Yeah. So that's fine, right? At least there were a bunch of us there. Once we were inside, we settled in for the show. As it turned out, Brandon's band was co-headlining, so that put them in the 4th spot out of 5 bands. That being said, we all waited patiently for his band to take the stage, enduring in the meantime the 3 bands that lined up beforehand.

Here's how that went:

I know. That was our front row experience for nearly 3 hours. Man oh man. That video's not Brandon's band, but by the time his was up and moving, my phone had died, so that was a bit disappointing. Either way, I can now officially check the box on my bucket list that may have said, "Attend a death metal concert?"

Haha. We got home at the ridiculous hour of 1 AM, and so for obvious reasons I didn't even think about compiling the events into a blog for anybody. Now that I've been back in motion for the day and have the majority of my hearing back, there ya go. Haha. :)

Here's to bands! :)

xo | cmd

I'm a Closet Gleek

Yeah, about that. So the phenomenom that took over every closet theater nerd a few years back, known to the masses as Glee, is among those shows I classify as fun to watch, whenever I happen to catch it. I don't schedule my evenings around weekly Glee showings, but I'm guilty of YouTubing videos of their musical numbers and live performances, just to check 'em out.

This particular Glee interpretation of the F.U.N. song We Are Young came to mind today, after sitting at work for eight hours and hearing the original version about .. oh, I dunno,.... at least 400 times. You all know what I'm saying: most radio stations, especially the top 40 frequencies, typically have a playlist of 10-15 songs, if that, and it is those 10-15 songs that play on rotation .. alllllll... day..... long..... .

shyeah.

So before I get sick of this song, I figured I'd post up the Glee version of it. Quite frankly, I like it better, even without the visual of all the little Glee characters bopping around in their noted carefree styles. There really is a mass of vocal talent on this show, pained as that may be to admit. Hah.

It's off to church for now, before Joe has to start packing for his little vacation next week.
See ya!

xo | cmd

Short Lived But Well Worth It

In case you didn't know, Joe's in the Air Force. It's the military that brought us here to Illinois and opened the door for everything that is now a part of our daily lives. In hindsight, I should really be exercising a more prominent sense of gratitude for everything we have now and everyone who we've met in the last few years. I absolutely believe in the God things; my life now is the perfect testament to just that. [Free Plug specifically for our incredible church, Towerview Baptist, and its family, who has become one of our favorite, favorite things!]

So since Joe's been in the Air Force, he's found some once in a lifetime opportunities: he traveled to Virginia and earned a position on the 2011 All Air Force soccer team. They won gold medal in their tournaments, and he returned home an athletic icon at work. He's met a full battery of amazing people; by association, I've had the pleasure of meeting many of them. We've gotten a taste of military life and the perks that it offers. However, when it came down to it, we prayed over it and Joe felt prompted to part ways with the Air Force and pursue another avenue. His flight decided to throw him a going-away party of sorts, which was tonight! We summoned the aide of our unbelievably awesome babysitter, who agreed to keep Boogie overnight so we could enjoy the shindig company unrestricted. By 7:15, a crowd of nearly 30 people were packed into tables at Bdubs being entertained by the happenings of the evening....


too much. too much.



But let's REWIND. It's been quite the multi-tasked ride at work over the past week or so. With the warmer seasons comes a budding of business; it's awesome, but it's got each of us now shedding our winter coasting skin and branching out into all kinds of different directions at the same time. Apparently, I've been so engrossed in my day-to-day that I figured I'd make some last minute calls on my way home...

... with my computer mouse.

Yeah.

We pulled into the parking lot at Bdubs tonight and I thought i'd double check my memory to bring my camera. I thought I'd found it in the bottom of my purse, but instead fished out my mouse. I immediately sent a picture to Meagan & Nancy, who confirmed that I had just taken it to a whole new level of crazy. Woops.

Anyway, this night wasn't about me, at all. Joe's friends from work made the trek from base and surrounding area to hang out and celebrate his short lived but impacting career in the Air Force. Brandon even got him a plaque engraved that reflected the hilarious sentiment, underlined with Joe's famous tagline, "Hey big guy.."

joe's plaque | joe & brandon | puppy!
cori & caitlin | c&n's beautiful save the date

Pretty funny. We stayed through dinner, and ended up taking Caitlin back to her and Nick's apartment afterwards. We got to meet their adorable dog, and we even got a personal delivery of their Save-the-Date for their big day: November, in Arizona! [can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!]

All in all, definitely a good night. I'm spent though, and it's off to work early in the AM.

G'night!

xo | cmd

Monday It Is

Hey Meagan -

welcome baaaaaaaack ...... =P

It was absolutely a Monday. There's something almost tangible in the air in our office on Mondays. Each time, I find myself debating whether it's the fact that two days have passed without hint of human traffic, or if it's the remnants of cleaning product from our owners' son doing his routine scrub-down of the entire place. Today I realized that it's probably a mixture of both of those things, along with the naturally occuring vibe that just is ... Monday. Yep. It's just Monday: the constant rhythm of phones ringing, messages flying between desks, unread emails, and an invisible sense of urgency to get caught up on two days out of the office: two days that we were closed. Hah. Mouseclicks reach triple digits within the first five minutes, and we hit the ground running, at lightspeed. 

So Meagan [&Rob] returned safely from their Mexican cruise over the weekend, and I completely empathized with her on flipping the switch from relaxing vacation to the mayhem that is our job :). We are so, so glad you are back. By we, I primarily mean, I, but nobody's counting.

Once the blur slowed down enough for me to start processing it [that happened right about 5:00pm], I headed home to unwind before The Voice aired. I became a huge proponent of this show last season when it originally debuted, and I am completely fine with repeating myself this time around. I also know that Team Adam [or whatever his team name is] won last season. I'm all about his team again this season; he's got a solid group of talent!

the voice | team adam 2012

It's definitely been a Monday!

That being said, it's about time for this little trio to settle in and watch the show.

Let's go Team Adam!

xo | cmd

Hello, Color!

Hello, Almost Spring!

Sure, it's just barely March here in the midwest, but I have to say I don't think I can remember the last time I saw weather this consistently tolerable so early in the year. There have been a few days of chilly temps and gusting breeze, but for the most part, the weather vibe here seems advanced for where we sit on the calendar. I'm allll for it.

To celebrate the positive impact that all this beautiful weather has had on our family alone, Sydni decided she wanted to doll up [from head to toe] in purple. It's her current favorite color, and a good one at that. She flaunted her purple all morning before she exhausted herself and wound up collapsed on my lap. She's a party animal, really. Hah.

While she [and Joe] were taking their afternoon snoozes, I took the opportunity to play with some color myself. It's been a little while since I had the bead boxes spread out in front of me, ripe for the picking. I dusted off the dress form and took to building around her neck until I completed the first of [hopefully] many pieces that will claim birthday to this spring. :)



newest pinterest addition!



I'm pretty excited, too, that I've finished that, and now this, with 20 minutes to spare before we're scheduled to be back at church for our last night of our Rick Warren 40 Days in the Word study.

I'm also fairly excited that I feel exponentially better than I did at this time last week. Meagan returns to work tomorrow, and the week will surely pick back up at full speed.

40DITW, here we come!

xo | cmd

Saturdays Are So Cool

I just have one thing to say about Saturdays like this:


love.

This one's dedicated to the daddy who makes our lives amazing. :) We love you so much, and hope you will always remember just what you mean to us.

It's family time, ya'll. Have a truly wonderful weekend!

xo | cmd