Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Update...update...update

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 0 comments
Geez. Blogging must not be my thing.

All is well in the Fantasma family. Keeping busy with our little business, little church, and little girl. Not much going on besides all that!

Our biggest thing right now is plugging through photography and design work. It has been such a blessing that things have picked up. It has really helped our family financially to have a bit more steady income. If anyone needs Christmas cards, let us know!! We are excited to offer custom cards again this year. Postcards are a great way to save money on postage and still have an awesome greeting for your friends and family! If you want to keep up to date with our most recent stuff check us out on the Fantasma Imagery fan page or visit our website at www.fantasmaimagery.com

Our church, the Avenue, has been going through a sermon series lately called "When Life Dumps On You". It has been amazing going through the life of Job and how his sufferings relate to ours...and even more how his reactions and attitudes to suffering relate to ours. You should check it out at www.walktheavenue.com.

Sweet little Elliana is awesome too. She is now almost 14 months old and I can't believe it. I keep having these flashback moments where I see her sleeping in her little swing or laying propped up on pillows smiling at her Daddy. Now she's just walking around telling us all about everything she sees. I'm amazed at how many words she says...and how well I can understand her. She has developed this gentle, quiet personality, loving to just sit on the couch and read quietly with her stuffed animals even if a big ruckus is going on around her. She's just a little tiny thing too, at only the 10th percentile for height and weight at her age. I think that just adds to her dainty cuteness. I think she's the cutest thing to ever grace this earth, but I'm not biased at all.

Life is good.

Posted in , , ,

It's the little things...

Thursday, March 12, 2009 1 comments
Lately I have been noticing the lovely little things that God does to make our days a little brighter. 

As many of you know, I am a die hard coffee drinker. I have gotten myself down to drinking only a cup or two a day, but that cup or two 
is one of the things that gets me through the day. Most people dread rolling out of bed to start another day, but when I wake up I actually smile to myself as I think about playing with my baby girl and sipping that warm tasty treat. It became even more special a few weeks ago when I realized that my coffee stock was starting to dwindle. I brewed more sparingly and tried to stretch it out as much as I could but couldn't avoid the inevitable. I am going to run out of coffee. Me being me, could not rationalize spending $9 on one pound of coffee that wouldn't last me that long when that money could just as easily go towards the actual necessities. I made a deal with myself that I could not buy any more until I made some extra photography income that wasn't already allotted to something else. The next morning I got up and in my quiet time and asked God to just let some coffee show up at my doorstep. I then finished getting ready for the day and went out to run errands. When I got home I saw a small box on the doorstep. I excused that it was probably the replacement part for something in the basement and quickly forgot that it was there. Brian brought it inside when he went to get the mail and said..."it's from your grandparents." I wasn't expecting anything from them so I opened it excitedly. As soon as I broke the tape across the top of the box I could smell a familiar fresh roasted aroma. Inside was a sweet note from my Grandparents along with a check for birthday money and three boxes of Gevalia whole bean coffee. I was blown away. There it was. Coffee at my doorstep. Just like I had asked. 
First was the obvious. My grandparents are the best. Their phone calls just for the heck of it and thoughtful care packages make me wish that they lived closer so I could hug them every time I think of them. Second was the more obvious. God answers prayers. Even the smallest request. He delights in delighting us. 
Now every time I brew a pot of deliciousness I thank God for the love he lavishes on us and for my amazing grandparents who, even though they don't live in town, take time to bless me with the little things. 


Posted in

What's this?...an Update?!

Monday, August 4, 2008 0 comments
I know...I know...I suck at this. I am no good at keeping up with this stuff. I guess that's what happens when life happens :P

Lot's on the home front as of now.

I'm 33 weeks pregnant...and growing steadily. Baby Elliana is very active and has blessed me with many early and painful contractions which has been an absolute blast!
The doctors finally cleared me from being on partial bed rest which was extremely exciting! I went 4 months without being allowed to have any aerobic activity or hold anything that weighs more than 5 lbs. It sounds like it would be a nice break...to have a medical write off to be lazy...but it was actually very sad. I'm just super happy that even though I was forbidden to exercise at all I still have only gained 20lbs total in my entire pregnancy. Now I am doing my best to make up for the atrophy and walk when it is not 100 degrees outside. Brian has been very nice to walk with me in the evenings when it cools down :)

We are going to be blessed with a niece due to Heather and Aaron in December! We're excited to meet Baby Holly and know that she and Ella will be the best of friends! Vince is growing like a weed and I have to say that I get quite a bit of satisfaction from the fact that every time he sees me...whether or not his Mom or Dad are holding him...he always needs me to hold him. It's a tough job being the kid's favorite person ever...but somebody's got to do it!!

Mom and Dad celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary (the actual anniversary date) in June. My darling sisters and I had the privilege of planning a vow renewal ceremony for them. It was awesome to see that after all of that time they are still madly in love with each other and were so eager to say "I Do!" again. No one could ever truly be as blessed as my sisters and I to have such an incredible example of God's picture of what marriage should look like. By God's grace we'll all have what they have someday.

The Avenue launched out from LSCC's facility in July and we are now meeting on Saturday nights. It has been quite an adjustment for us as half of our weekend is taken up by practicing, and setting up and tearing down Brian's drum set every week but we have really enjoyed being part of the team. We have been blessed abundantly by the awesome group of people that are working so hard to keep everything up and running at The Avenue and are so excited to see what God has in store for our baby church!!

Brian started his new job at Plattform Advertising in May..gosh has it been that long since I have posted on here!?...He is really enjoying working there...minus the 45 minute-hour long drive to Lenexa and back every day. It was really an answer to prayer that he got a job at this place because the insurance is absolutely what we needed in order for me to quit my job and us still have the same coverage and doctors that we had.

As mentioned, I will be quitting my job at Summit Tech when our baby girl comes to take on that full time job of being wife and mommy! I'm really looking forward to spending all of my time with my sweet Elliana but it will certainly be a change! I will also be working on our photography business for income, so if anyone of you needs any portrait photography services give me a shout! Now is the time to think about photos for your Christmas cards!!

Brian and I are celebrating our 2 year wedding anniversary a week from today. I was working on our wedding scrapbook the other day (yes...still working on it) and got to re-read the vows that we wrote for each other. It brought tears to my eyes when I read Brian's promise to my Dad to take care of me and then Brian's vows to me. He has kept every word...I couldn't be more blessed. There is no way to describe how awesome it is to be married to that man!


Ok...that's all I can think of to update on for now. I'll try to get on here a couple more times before our D Day...I mean Delivery Day :P

Posted in , , ,

Ahhh Mexico

Wednesday, April 9, 2008 0 comments
Last week my parents took us girls (and hubbies) to Aventura Spa Palace in Cancun, Mexico to help them celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary (that's right folks...25 YEARS!). Frankly I don't know if we will ever be able to top this vacation. We had an absolute blast.

Funny Story: When you check in at this resort you receive a colored braclet that tells the hotel staff what 
you are there for (vacation, business, honeymoon, anniversary, time share, etc.). When Brian and I checked in we were greeted by a very friendly gentleman named Carlos who immediately recognized that I was pregnant and excitedly asked the normal pregnancy questions and told us that he and his wife recently had their first baby as well and what an amazing thing parenthood is. He then asked us what we were there for. I looked over at my parents who were being checked in at the same time and said - "It's my parent's 25th wedding anniversary". He said..."OOOOHHHHHH...wellll"....and turned to the girl checking my parents in and spoke spanish to her very quickly. She smiled and cut off the yellow vacation bracelets that she had just put on them and replaced them with 
pink HONEYMOON bracelets. I was excited because they got this special treatment because I had mentioned it and said toBrian ..."that's so cool!". Carlos smiled at me and said..."Oh you like the pink bracelet?"...like a retard I just stood there smiling. He then cut MY yellow bracelet off and gave ME a pink bracelet and gave one to Brian too! So here we are checking in to a resort as honeymooners whilst I fashioned my lovely baby bump.

We did get some extra nice treatment from the people at the resort, but the funniest part is that the servers would always look our bracelets...say "you on your honeymoon?...you have baby?"
It was kind of embarassing...but worth it in the end. Dad said it was fine because it just made Brian look like a "stand up guy finishing the job".

A typical day would start out with breakfast at one of the amazing beach-side breakfast buffets followed by fun in the sun around the pool (not to mention an occasional shot of tequila as shown by Brian above). Then we would go back to our rooms to catch an afternoon nap and get ready for dinner. Most of the time we would get dressed up and go out with the fam. It was such a relaxing trip. Brian did get to do some rock climbing and made it all the way to the top! I was impressed :)


We were sad to come home because it had been so amazing but we hope to go back someday.


I'm sure there will be more Mexico stories to come as I remember them but that's all I've got for now. Now I'll go back to freezing in stinkin Missouri.




Posted in

So Worth It

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 0 comments
The sickness that has been floating around our friends and family has been awful. Over the weekend and specifically Tuesday I decided to join in on the fun!
I have had the stomach flu. I have never been one to catch anything like that very badly but this really knocked me down....I'm guessing because I have another person that's trying to live inside of me.
I called my OB at about 4:30 Tuesday evening and told the nurse that I couldn't even keep a sip of water down. She said...ok then...you need to go to the Emergency Room.
So off we went. When we arrived we were supposedly the first ones in line because by blood pressure was in pretty bad shape. Two hours later they finally brought us back to our room and put me on some meds to get me rehydrated and then they started an IV to get me to stop being sick. Then the doctor gave us a pleasant little surprise. He asked if we wanted to hear the heartbeat or anything to make sure the baby was ok and of course we said yes. Then he said that he could do better than that and could let us see our baby instead. We were so excited. My doctor had told me on Monday that she didn't want me to have a sonogram until I had hit 18 weeks so this was very welcomed.
He brought the machine in right away and we got to see our baby for the first time! It was so awesome! It was just bouncing around in there, probably really pissed at me for the hell I put it through. Then it waved it's little hand and put it's thumb right in it's mouth! It was so cool. The doctor had perfect timing in snapping the baby's first picture too...it's thumb is still in it's mouth...as you can see below :)
Even better was that Brian and I got to have our own little moment seeing our baby without any distractions.
Now I have reached prepregnancy weight, am completely sore, and have a rediculous headache, but I would take the stomach flu any day to see that sweet baby again. It was so worth it.

Posted in

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)