06.19.12

I haven't posted in a VERY long time, but I thought I would start back since school is out and I have some more time on my hands. I've decided to go with a new format for each post - a picture from each day and a post to go with the picture.

I've recently started decorating our house, which has been a ton of fun. And it's been really nice to finally have somewhere that feels like home, somewhere to make OURS. We've moved around A LOT the past couple of years and haven't been able to plant our roots anywhere.

I went thrifting yesterday, which is one of my favorite ways to spend the afternoon. And I found a couple things for the house. Along with a pretty awesome shirt. One of the things I found was this pitcher, which has initials carved in the bottom, which makes me think it was handmade. We have this huge bookshelf from IKEA that is a pretty huge disaster zone right now and it looks perfect on one of the shelves. And it is slowly turning into something we can stand to look at every day.

It's the little things that make a house a home.

family weekend.

There is a lot going on, but I just wanted to stop in and say hello. :) I hope y'all had a good weekend and got to spend time with family and friends!

Nate's grandpa came down from Minnesota this past Thursday and stayed with us until Sunday. Then we took him down to stay with the rest of Nate's family in SC. He's celebrating 90 amazing years of life this month and it was really great to be able to spend this time with him.

(thanks for the picture jen!)

How did you spend your weekend?

the MOST wonderful time of the year.

I love Christmas and I love decorating, but I'm not one of those people who likes to go crazy and cover the house with kitsch or theme it up or go with a ton of gitz and glam. Not that those are bad things, I love seeing all different kinds of decorations and think they're all great! But I try and keep things simple. That's just how I like it at home. And I've been slowly adding things around to get us in the holiday spirit. Because this is absolutely my favorite time EVER.

So I'm sharing with y'all because it's Christmas...and why not?! :)

our front door. (i keep the wreath and change the decorations out with the seasons.)

our back door. (i made this for $6 total!)

our windows at night. i love candles. :)

we're ready for all the cards! (totally stole this idea from pinterest.)

love came down.
(this manger scene has been around for as long as i can remember. i had it in my room and used to turn it on when i went to sleep. and i hope our children can do the same.)

Now I just need to put up some lights and we'll be good to go. :)

How do y'all decorate?
I would love to hear about it! And if you have pictures on your blog of your decorations, PLEASE link back! It would be great to see how you make your homes special for the holidays and how each of you make the decorating experience unique to yourselves.

future architects.

So my kids can do some pretty amazing things. I love teaching four year olds because they're learning and discovering SO much about the world.

Four of my boys who couldn't work in a center with each other without fighting the whole time at the beginning of the year built this massive structure TOGETHER today. :)

And one of the youngest children in the class built this all by himself. He said it was a "spooky house." He sat in the block center for a good thirty minutes working on it without saying a word and then he came over saying, "Mrs. Bredeweg, Mrs. Bredeweg! Look at my spooky house!" I LOVE it.

And then I got to help one of my boys write a letter to his cousin today. At four years old, only three months into school, he's already wanting to write sentences. Together, we wrote "I LIC U BCOS U AR ALWAS MI FND. U HAV A LOT OF LEGOS." Most of these kids are writing their name and drawing pictures still, but for him to be wrapping his mind around the purposes of writing and running with them like this is just so great!

Days like today that remind me that even though I'm waiting on my license to come in and the classroom isn't "officially" mine, I'm still playing a HUGE role in these children's lives and I still am their teacher. And they're learning! They're working together and problem solving. They're hearing letter sounds and associating those sounds with letters and beginning to make words and understanding that those words have purpose. And I know I sound lame, but those things still make me so excited!

What is it about what you do that makes you excited?

shoeboxes!

So I haven't posted on our OCC Project in awhile, but I have a short update. We've FINALLY started getting all of our shoeboxes together. We're going to local shoe stores and asking for any extras they might have. By doing this we don't have to spend any money on boxes or containers and we're able to put all our money toward the items in the boxes.

On our first trip, we only got three boxes, but it was still exciting! And super encouraging because the manager told us to keep coming back every few days. And of course, I took a picture to commemorate the occasion.

On another note, the wonderful Laura over at unpunctuated life has joined up with Nate and me in our challenge and wrote a great post about her experiences with Operation Christmas Child and what she and her husband are doing to give this year. You should definitely head over to her blog and check it out! And maybe it'll inspire you to get involved too. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. ;)

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." - Nelson Mandela

little things.

Do you ever get really excited about something and it just makes your day or week?

Well I put together this outfit today and made Nate take a picture of it so I could remember it and recreate it later. Am I lame or what?

What made your day today?

ps. I posted this on the blogger app and it sucks so that's why the formatting is nonexistent.

why i thrift.

So. I get pretty passionate about a few things, and one of them is personal style. I'm a big believer in putting time, effort and thought into how you look everyday because I believe that how you choose to present yourself to the world speaks VOLUMES about who you are as a person.

Because my personal style is so important to me, I have developed quite an, um, fondness for shopping. I love clothing, accessories, shoes, make-up and all you can do with them! I'm a pretty artistic person and because don't always have time to sit down with a paintbrush and canvas as my creative outlet, I have found that I can funnel some of that creative energy through the way I dress.

In order to keep my individuality and to be able to constantly satisfy that part of me that wants to be creative with my personal style and use it as a way to express myself, I have had to really stop and look at how I shop, and had to be very intentional about the way I do so. One of the biggest intentional choices I have made in the past year is to start doing as much shopping as possible at thrift stores. And as I have become a more avid thrift store shopper, it has become something in which I very strongly believe. I no longer do it just because I can find some good deals, or because there are really great unique pieces in thrift stores. There are SO many more reasons why it's important to me. And this post is going to be the first of many where I hope to start sharing this important part of my life with y'all.

But for today, I just wanted to show you why it TOTALLY pays to thrift. I don't know how many of you go to your local thrift stores or buy clothes from them. But I do know that I personally know a lot of people who have attached quite a stigma to shopping at a Goodwill or something similar. And I used to be the same way. Promise! There was a time when I only shopped at the mall and you would have had to have paid me money to get me to go in a thrift store. But after some time and after a good bit of heart change, I realized I was TOTALLY not above wearing someone else's clothes. And that I am no better than the people to whom I'm donating clothes. And I'm doing a lot of good for society and the environment by helping produce less waste when I buy re-used clothing. And I'm doing a lot of good for my family when I'm saving money on clothing. And when I spend less on clothes, I have that much more to put toward things that are more important.

But anway. Enough preaching. Here are some pictures of some stuff I wear that's either vintage or thrifted. Please excuse the quality - I took them with my iPod!

So here's an outfit I wear pretty regularly. This is a vintage 80's shirt from Goodwill for $3. And I've had at least three people ask me where I got it.

Can you guess what was thrifted here? If you guessed the dress, shoes and purse then you're right. I got them all from Goodwill together for $10 total. The dress is a Target brand, which I normally don't buy at thrift stores, but it was in perfect condition. This goes to show, though, that you can find a wide range of items.

Here is a vintage 80's sweater I got at Goodwill for $3.79. It's still in excellent condition and it is totally my style. Finds like these are why I thrift. Because I know I'm not going to find them anywhere else.

So if you've read this far, I am not at all trying to sound all braggy-braggy. I'm not trying to be, like, "Look at me! I buy used clothes and that makes me better than all y'all who don't!" I'm really just trying to share something with you guys that's important to me and help y'all understand WHY it's so important. And maybe, just maybe, if you've never tried it...you might get the guts to do it. Because, if nothing else, I think it's a ton of fun just to go try on some of the crazy clothes you might find and get some good pictures! And Nate and I like to go on the weekends together and see what kind of random things we can get into. Because you really never know what you'll see or find at a thrift store.

And if you're interested in more information, here some links you can check out:

The Tyranny of Trends (a great article on fashion, trends, and the impact on society)

Adored Austin (one of my favorite bloggers who is a serious thrifter)

my edit. (another of my favorite bloggers who is thrifting inspiration)

Thank y'all for reading! And please leave comments! I would love to hear what you have to say on the subject. And any questions you might have. I want to keep this topic going, maybe even start a "Thrifting Thursday" or something. Who knows? But only if I feel like it'll go somewhere! It's kind of a leap from the personal blogging that I've been doing, but it's something that's been on my mind for awhile now. So FEEDBACK PLEASE AND THANK YOU! :)

what a haul!

Tonight Nate and I were out looking for some stuff to decorate the new place when he decided to see if there were any toys on sale for our Operation Christmas Child project. Sure enough, we found eight frisbees and nine kaleidoscopes on super clearance! So now we've officially started getting our boxes ready. And we're pretty excited. :)

It was pretty awesome to find this stuff on such a great deal because we have a budget to stick to and we want to do as much as we can to help as many kids as we can with that money.

Have you found any great deals lately?

i feel pretty, oh so pretty!

 

Aunt Jen bought her a new dress. And she is LOVING it.
She thinks she is the STUFF.

moving day!

So. Now that we're pretty much settled I figured I would start updating y'all on the craziness that has been the past two weeks.

Our moving day was Saturday the 20th. We had hired movers. And my awesome friend Mary had come up from Columbia to help me out with the cleaning and unpacking and arranging. I had to start work on that Monday and had to go get a TB test read that day, as well as go to the sheriff's department to get my background check and fingerprinting done. So we had decided that Nate would stay at our apartment to wait on the movers (who were supposed to arrive at noon), Mary would head to the new place and turn on the power so the AC could start doing its thing, and then I would take care of everything for work before going to meet Mary.

Sounds simple, right? You would think.

I'm leaving the courthouse to head to our new house when Mary calls and tells me she can't get the air to come on. After talking to her some, I find out it's because the power won't come on. We try everything we possibly can to try to get it work and nothing happens. So I call Nate. At this point, it's 2:00 and I'm expecting the movers to have gotten there by now. When he answers the phone he tells me their morning move is taking longer than expected and they don't know when they're going to be there. Then I tell him our issue with the power, so he calls the electric company and tells me that someone will be out within the next three hours to fix whatever's wrong.

Fast forward to about 6:30. Mary and I have been waiting four and a half hours in a hot, powerless, empty house with a smoke detector that is screaming at us because the battery needs to be changed. And Nate has been waiting all day on the movers, who have gotten lost twice, to get to the apartment.

Abby and I waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

FINALLY, the guy came and fixed the power situation around 7:00. And the movers found Nate. And at 9:30 that night, they made it to the house. We pushed and pushed and pushed and helped them unload everything as fast as we could and they were gone by 11:00. 

Needless to say, we didn't get even half of what we wanted to done on Saturday, but thank God that we did get moved in. And nothing was broken or lost. And we had the help of our great friend Mary, as well as our wonderful, loving family (who came on Sunday to help clean) - which made a HUGE difference. So despite all the insanity of the weekend, we definitely were blessed!

And here's one of my favorite things in our new house.

The lights over our kitchen table!

If you read all of this, then I am pretty impressed. And appreciative. It means a lot that you would take the time to invest your time in our lives. :)

I'll update y'all soon on the rest of the move, the new job, and hopefully get some pictures of the new place posted! And I'm slowly working my way through all of your blogs. I've missed so much in the past couple of weeks!

new features!

Hey y'all! Just wanted to let you know that I added an instagram badge - so y'all need to come find me on there!

And I also wanted to remind you that I put buttons up on the side for Pinterest and Twitter as well. I did some rearranging with those too. So if you aren't following on there yet, go ahead and do so pleaseeeeee! :)

I ALSO started working on the 'blogs we love' page and have started up a pretty good list. There are still more blogs and a couple more categories to be added, but we're definitely getting there! So check it ooouuuttttt!

That is all. Now it is back to packing.

NEWS!

So. First of all. Let me say that I am HORRIBLE at doing hair - especially my own. But I did manage a decent messy bun up-do thingy that I was pretty proud of the other day for a first try. And I took a picture. I'm trying to be more adventurous with my hair and I'm slowly getting better with practice! But so far, all I can manage is pigtails, braids, and whatever you want to call this crazy mess.

And second. We have BIG news!  Those of you who are close to us already know, but for those who aren't - we are moving. AGAIN! Just to the other side of Charlotte this time - nothing too crazy. We're leaving Lake Wylie and heading up farther north. But nonetheless, it has been super crazy and super exciting.

We ended up having to move because of work, so we were going to have to break our lease four months into it. Which was going to mean a TON of crazy fees on top of moving costs. But after lots of prayer and consideration, God came through to take care of us. As He always does! A man who lives in our building had put in his notice to leave, but at the last minute ended up having to stay. When he went to the office to re-sign his lease, he found out they had already rented out his apartment so he had nowhere to go. So he had been working with the office to find a place in our building he could move to for a few more months.

At the EXACT SAME TIME, Nate approached the leasing office to see if we could find someone to take over our lease so we wouldn't have to pay all of the breaking fees. And in God's perfect timing, we all got together and now we had somebody to take over our lease and he had somewhere to live! The only catch to this was that we found out on Saturday that we had to be out of our apartment and have it completely cleaned by the 26th. Which meant we had FOURTEEN DAYS to get our lease switched out of our name, find a house to rent, get our application approved, pack everything up, move in, and then get our old apartment cleaned out.

And on top of all this, I have been going to job interviews like it's my, well, job.

Basically, life has been CRAZY.

But God is in control. And He is good. He is oh, so good. And even though things are very uncertain right now, they're starting to come together pretty nicely.

Have you ever had to do anything crazy like find a house and move in two weeks? What's your story?

fill in the blank friday - 6!

1.   My most favorite birthday was   probably my 24th birthday, because it was my first birthday spent with Nate when we were married and my first birthday spent in our first house. :)

2.  My worst birthday was    probably the year my friend got my cat stuck up in a tree. That might have been my sixth birthday?

3.  My favorite birthday memory is     just getting to spend time with family and friends.

4.  The best birthday present I've ever received was   my new purse!

5.  The  best birthday present I've ever given was      ...I don't know. I guess you'd have to ask the people I've given presents to!

6.  Birthdays are   a great way to celebrate life and growth, how far you've come and where you're going. They're great times to spend with loved ones and show them your love with gifts. They're also fun when you're the recipient! :)

7.  My favorite age so far has been   26 definitely. I know it's just started, but so far this year is starting out to be a big one and I can't wait to see where it's going! 

If you want to join up, go here to 'the little things we do' and follow the instructions. And have fun! :)

 

Oh, and speaking of birthdays and celebrations, our blog has officially reached ONE HUNDRED POSTS! 

 

Also, little Miss Cocoa Beans turned TWO YEARS OLD this past weekend!

 

 

We celebrated with a birthday haircut!

And here she is with her gift. She LOVES it! :)

We also have some big news coming up, but I'll wait and save that for later. ;)

So, is anyone else out there as obsessed with your dogs as we are?

it's my birthdayyyyy!

Well, not technically. It was actually on Monday. But I've been busy. I don't have much time right now. But I just have to stop by and say that I am SUPER excited for three reasons.


ONE.
Nate got me a great new leather purse. Pictured here:

 
TWO.
I got some new birthday chucks from the parents!

THREE.
I got a ton of money to use on new books for my nook. The first book I'm getting ready to start reading is "The Happiness Project." A few more I bought are "One Thousand Gifts," "Still Alice," and "Pictures of You" by Caroline Leavitt. If any of y'all have read any of these, let me know how they were or what you thought! I'm pretty excited to get started on them!

PS.
Look at these awesome birthday cupcakes Nate's mom made me! (I LOVE penguins, btw.)

And the great card that came with them and surprised the mess out of me with confetti!

Basically, I'm having a pretty great birthday week.
More in-depthness to come soon. Promise! :)  

fill in the blank friday - FOUR!

So, it's 'fill in the blank friday!' But first, here are some sneaky pictures I took of Nate after one of our nightly tennis games this week at our apartment's court. After we play, while I'm cooling down he likes to do all sorts of tricks with the balls. And while he wasn't looking, I snapped some shots of him playing. ;)

That's my hubs! And now for filling in the blanks...

                 

1.   My favorite color is       green. Not lime green. Not dark green. I'm talking full on bright, happy GREEN.

2.  My travel destination of choice is    small towns with character. Whether on the coast or in the mountains, I just love going somewhere cozy where the people are friendly and where I can find things I wouldn't find anywhere else. I also think these places are where you can truly experience the culture of an area.

3.  My favorite  food is    pineapple and pepperoni pizza. Specifically, from Bellacino's.

4.  My happy place is   the bathtub. I know a lot of people think baths are gross and unsanitary. But there is nothing I love more than a long, hot bubblebath.

5.  My favorite saying is      "Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles; it takes away today's peace." I get very anxious about things and I need this reminder daily.

6.  My dirty little secret is  that I don't buy ribbed takes made for women. All my tanks/undershirts are Hanes and come from the mens department in WalMart.

7.  Something friends might say about me is that I    am really bad about calling people back, probably! I am the biggest flake when it comes to that. I try SO hard and then I always end up forgetting.

If you want to join up, go here to 'the little things we do' and follow the instructions. And have fun! :)

big and messy!

So. I just have to share this burger that Nate had for dinner tonight. It was gi-freaking-NORMOUS. I didn't get to snap the picture until after he had already snatched it up and had a bite. But it was called 'The BIG and MESSY' and it came with a GIANT knife stabbed in it. And he ate the whole thing.

After that dinner, we definitely had to go play a game of tennis to even attempt to counteract the bajillion calories that was in it. But, oh, it was worth it! Let me just say that those onion strings were AMAZING. And I was not at all sad about going to play tennis since we hadn't played in at least a month and a half because of Nate's back problems.

Speaking of his back, I guess I need to update y'all on the issue. He went to the doctor this past Tuesday and for now - NO SURGERY! Thank God! The disc seems to have healed itself for now; he has just taken quite a few layers off it as this isn't the first time it has been herniated. The doctor wants him to come in and get steroid shots every few months for the pain. And he's going in sometime soon for an MRI to get everything checked out. The doctor also said the reason Nate was having so much pain in his leg was that when he hurt his back so badly there were chemicals in his body leaked onto his nerve, which caused a good bit of damage. They can go in and clip the damaged nerve, but we're not taking that route right now. Maybe in the future if we need to, but we're going to see how things go now that he has a good doctor and some sort of plan.

So thanks again for all of your kind words and thoughts and prayers! It means a lot to both of us! And we're very glad to know what's going on now.

ALSO. I just entered this INCREDIBLE giveaway on Rose à la Mode's blog. She is giving away, not one, but TWO pairs of Hunter boots (one for you and one for a friend!) to celebrate her one year blogiversary! So you should totally stop by her site and check out the giveaway! You should also check out her blog because she has awesome style and can show you how to be creative and look great without totally draining your bank account. :)

We would love to return the favor. So please leave a comment and let us know anything we can say a prayer about for you!

i carried a watermelon.

So, how was your Fourth of July weekend? What did you do that was special?

Nate and I had some craziness; but overall, ours was pretty good.

On Thursday night, Nate and I were on the way to get dinner and run some errands when we experienced some pretty serious car troubles. We had to call our friends, Ryan and Steph, who were AMAZING and came all the way to the mechanic's to pick us up. But it was a blessing in disguise because we got to go to dinner with them when we hadn't seen them in at least a month. :)

On Friday Nate got a call from one of the guys at the shop. Me, being the GENIUS that I am, locked the car using the security system and didn't leave the key FOB with the key. So of course, when they tried to get into the car they couldn't. So Nate had to come all the way back home to get the rest of the keys and take them over to the shop.

After that trip, we went to our new favorite spot - JASON'S DELI!

Nate is in LOVE with their salad bar.

And I am absolutely addicted to their Chicago Club.

smoked turkey, bacon, provolone, organic spinach, roma tomatoes, smoked red pepper cilantro aioli, herb focaccia. <3

Pretty yummy.

We went down to Columbia this weekend to see the family.

On Saturday morning, Nate and I shared a watermelon that was quite delicious.

chloe jumped in my picture.

nate loves his knives.

After our tasty breakfast, we spent the day with Nate's family. We went shopping with his sisters. He actually came too! I got a pair of silver sandals from Payless for only $6 and a pair of nude flats from Target for $12. Which was SUPER exciting because I love love LOVE shoes, but don't like to pay a lot of money for them. And you just can't find shoes as cheap as you can find clothes.

We were supposed to go to my grandma's house with my parents for dinner on Saturday night, but her power went out, so we all met and went out somewhere instead. After dinner we got to go by my parents' house and look inside! They're doing a ton of renovations and aren't living there right now and we didn't think we'd be able to go in because the hardwoods had just been redone. But we did - and it looks great! I can't wait to see the finished product! :)

On Sunday we went to church and lunch with Nate's family. His sister, Jen, and her husband brought their little girl over so we could give her the birthday present we got her. We had to miss her third birthday party because it was the day Nate's back went out and we had to rush to urgent care. :(

Being the teacher that I am, I have to get her a book every year. This year was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. And we just happened to find a floor puzzle to go with it on clearance!

opening her gift!

working on her puzzle with aunt "smeshmie"

all done!

We also had a belated birthday celebration for Nate. And his mom baked his absolute favorite. Carrot cake. It was AMAZING.

After all of that, we packed up all our things, loaded up the dogs, and headed to my grandma's house for our second try at dinner. Everything worked out and she fixed a wonderful meal consisting of roast, string beans, squash casserole, homemade rolls, tomatoes, and quite a few other things. And for dessert?

homemade cherry cobbler!

We came home Sunday night and spent our Fourth pretty low key. We had some stuff to figure out regarding the car situation and we were exhausted from our long weekend with the family so we ended up heading to a small farmer's market and getting a ton of fresh, local fruits and vegetables and then finishing up our grocery shopping, fixing dinner and eating together and spending a relaxing night watching Cosby reruns.

But we had a great weekend full of family, friends and celebration. We had watermelon, ice cream, cake and cobbler. We got to worship freely in a church of our choosing. I'd say we had the perfect celebration of our Independence Day. :)

chloe says bye! :)

gettin' crafty.

I am NOT a crafty person. I love art, fashion, interior design. But I don't do crafts.

BUT we did get the dogs a new food and water holder the other weekend at the farmers market.

And I actually decorated it for the puppies!

And that, my friends, is probably pretty close to the extent of my craftiness.

Before I take off, I would like to say CONGRATULATIONS! to Heather and Ben, wonderful friends of ours. They just recently got engaged. And we are SUPER happy for them. :)

That's all.

our little bean needs help!

Friends, meet Chloe.

She is our youngest puppy. She's a lovable, playful, energetic, joyful, amazing shih-tzu who will be TWO YEARS in August. Chloe is the life of the party and she doesn't meet a stranger. She isn't really scared of anything, either. She'll even fight the vacuum cleaner. 

Until recently.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a HORRIBLE storm here and something happened to Chloe. She's experienced quite a few storms in her lifetime and has even played outside in the rain without any issues. But for some reason, this one storm really bothered her. And she had a really bad panic attack. Here's some video of part of it.

It all started when I got out of the shower that night. I went in the bedroom to change and when I walked out, I found her crouched in between the toilet and the shower violently shaking. I called her to come into the bedroom with me and she ran into the corner in between the bed and the wall and hunched over. When I walked over to her to try and comfort her, she started frantically running around the room in circles, and after much comforting by both Nate and myself, she resorted to what looked to me like pacing all over the apartment.

And now, ever since that storm, she starts to have these anxiety attacks every time she hears thunder. We've been putting her in her crate or holding her really close to us to help her feel safe, but I'm still not convinced it's really working. Any other ideas on what to do? Or do y'all think we're doing the right things?

surprise.

Check out the trust30 challenge here. I'm on day thirteen and it's been a pretty enlightening experience.

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself.  How will you surprise yourself this week?

(Author: Ashley Ambirge)

This one isn't going to be very interesting. Or seem major. But I think it might be for me. May actually be life-changing. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to surprise myself this week by getting up and working out before I go to work this week.

I'll let you know how it goes.

On another note, our eldest (Abigail) has apparently inherited my OCD. She tore up "Lobster" and this is how we found his legs:

Now it is time to finish lesson planning. The theme is ice cream this week! And go to the grocery store. And iron clothes for the week. 

How will YOU surprise yourself this week?