Cake

At the risk of bombarding you with posts about my birthday I am going to indulge in sharing just a few more photos. Monday night our lovely friends Tytus and Jamie invited us over to dinner and the lovely Carolyn, Isaac and Sage joined as well. It was a nice, low key dinner which ended with us all marveling at Sage's new ability to CRAWL, watching Tytus decorate his Christmas tree, and a tasty little ice cream cake. Thank you again to everyone for all the amazing birthday wishes, I felt SO loved :)

Carolyn and Sage

Crawling!!!

Fire cake. Keith insisted on all 24 candles

Pulling herself up on my stool.

Having a blast banging on the table with the boys haha

Spreading Holiday Cheer

For the past 2 years Keith and I have sent out a Christmas cards to family and friends, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite holiday traditions. It's always silly and has to include Theo which is half the fun (or struggle) of getting the perfect picture. I love the idea of getting Christmas cards from people, and the only way of getting added to their list is to send them one of your own. I always loved helping my mom with our Christmas cards when I was a kid because she has a special spiral notebook where she puts her list of names in every year that I'm sure she's been using for about as long as I've been alive. Last year I started my own little book of recipients which I'm hoping will include many more friends this year.

Just check out our card from 2009:

Look at that tiny cat!

I wasn't very pleased with the quality of the cards we ordered last year so when I started my card search this month I was really pleased to find Tiny Prints. My biggest problem with choosing a card in the past was trying to weed through all the blah designs and find something that I can make work on my budget, but now my problem is going to be deciding between all the awesome cards! My favorite thing about the Tiny Prints website though is they let you mark all your favorites as you scroll though, and they store them at the bottom of your screen. Then when you're done you can compare all the ones you marked and decide from there.

So without further ado, these are my top picks for our card this year... let me know which one you like best!

number 1

number 2

number 3

number 4

number 5

I think that all of these would make for a really great card, but I must admit that our success is really resting on whether or not Keith will let me buy this Santa hat for Theo:

pretty please?

To My Beautiful Wife:

Today is my beautiful wife's birthday. On this day in 1987 Rob and Claire Beal brought my best friend into the world and I will forever be grateful.

Today my wife turns 24. It's crazy to think I have known her since she was 19. That means my life has been a little bit brighter for right at five years now.

Dana has found a way to make me happier with each day that I have known her and I can only hope I am able to reciprocate. She has such a beautiful soul and outlook on life and I think that is evident by all of you that enjoy this blog.

To My Beautiful Wife:

I could not be more grateful that some five odd years ago you saw something behind my crazy 2 year old beard, lip rings, gauges and rat tail and saw something worth taking a chance on.

Nothing makes me happier than thinking about where we started and where we are now and the beautiful journey that has been. You have become such a amazing and beautiful young women and wife and words cannot express how excited I am to see where the Lord takes you in the years to come.

On this day my love, make sure that there is continuously a smile on your face because you are cherished and loved more than you could ever possibly know. I hope 24 is one to remember!

Love you . . . Always

your Husband

24

Today I am 24 and it feels awesome. Although I must admit that 23 was a pretty great year also. Keith and I moved to Nashville, had many many visitors, took some great trips, celebrated a few holidays, worked some great jobs and some not so great jobs, and here I am today... embarking on a whole new year of adventures. I am so excited for what this year has in store for Keith and I; I think it may just be my best one yet!

Instead of having just one day of birthday celebrations this year, I requested a birth-weekend which I started off with a bang by going to see Twilight on Friday night. Saturday was Friendsgiving and then after church on Sunday we had a tasty lunch with our friends Bennett and McKel. That is when Keith's ultimate surprise tactics came into play... later in the afternoon he brought me to the mall to pick up my birthday gift:

This is such a cheesy picture, but I'm not sure you truly understand how excited I am!!!!!!! Keith arranged for our whole family to pitch in to get me a new computer, which I had been wanting very desperately! Now I am typing this to you on my brand new iMac, which couldn't be prettier :) The last time I got a new computer I was still in high school and while it's still hanging in there, it's not completely functional. I actually have an iPod that has a larger hard drive than that computer so it made it really hard to upload and store photos or even to archive emails haha. The more I look at my new computer the harder it is to believe that it's actually MINE and that I get to keep it. Thank you SOOO MUCH to my awesome family and to Keith for putting all this together to make it a reality. 

This is the truth.

Friendsgiving

This past Saturday our friends Trent and Jordie hosted a fabulous Thanksgiving get together for some of our friends here and it was SUCH a great time. It was a great chance to catch up, eat WAY too much food, and play some games together before the actual Thanksgiving holiday when we'll all be out of town. Here's hoping this becomes a yearly tradition, because everything tasted so awesome, my tummy is grumbling just thinking about it...

Keith and Ives

Jordie's beautiful tablescape

Jordie and Sammie

Esteban

Keith, Ives and Trent

Steve and I shared a bench at the table

Ives

Trent with Tytus and Jamie

Carving the turkey!

My plate, which I couldn't evening finish. The stuffing and sweet potatoes were a definite highlight

A riveting game of dominos 

and we ended the night with Dutch Blitz

Such a great night, we love our friends!

New Gig

I honestly have a list like 10 deep of things I've been meaning to write a blog post about, but this week has seriously just walked away from me. Between catching up on house cleaning and laundry, applying for jobs, fitting in a couple 5 mile runs, and planning my lessons I have completely ignored the internet and haven't really felt like I did a good job of doing any of those things I previously mentioned haha.

Anyway, enough of my ranting... before we left for Philadelphia last week I hinted that we had some good news to share and then totally dropped the ball on actually sharing it. By now a lot of people have already gotten to share in the joy of this news, but nothing's official until you blog about it, right? Here goes nothing, I'm about to get REAL wordy...

KEITH HAS A NEW JOB!!!


I know it kind of feels like Keith just recently got a new job (he left American Eagle back in February) but if you've been journeying with us at all since then you would know that Keith was not having a great time at that job. The office he was working at didn't respect him AT ALL and completely overloaded him daily. They set him up for failure and were never pleased with anything he did... which made my poor husband completely miserable. He would come home every day in such a funk and was definitely not himself towards the end there. Part of the reason that Keith and I moved to Nashville was so that he could pursue a career in the music industry which is what he went to school for and now a year later he can finally make that a reality!!

So here is what has been going on: for MONTHS Keith looked and looked for a new job. He applied to any and everything he could find online and came up feeling defeated and worn out. He met with friends and friends of friends to try and make connections in the Nashville music scene but nothing seemed to be bringing up jobs. I tried my best to encourage him to stay positive, but I know too well how depressing it can be to feel like your gifts aren't being used at your current job and just wanting to be set free. He had a job offer that wasn't going to be very realistic but even that glimmer of hope left him desperate to get out of his current job. Meanwhile, our friend Brad left his job at a booking agency to pursue his freelance wedding photography business and gave Keith his bosses phone number to get in touch. When Keith called they said they weren't looking to replace Brad right away, but offered to have him come in to meet with a couple staff members and share his resume. This didn't seem like it was going to be very fruitful but Keith wasn't in a position to turn down an interview. His meeting with them went really well, but they still weren't looking to hire anyone so we kind of put it out of our minds. Then out of nowhere a few weeks later they contacted him again to come in and meet the owners. That was the only info they gave him though so we had no idea if this was an interview, or a job offer or just another meeting haha. Obviously, Keith went and I nervously waited for a phone call with info on what the meeting was about and by some crazy miracle they offered him a job! Cue the excitement? Not quite yet... Their original salary offer was about a $10,000 pay cut from his current job which was not exactly the news we were hoping to hear. It was so bittersweet because this job was going to be the perfect opportunity to get his foot in the door with the music industry and was going to be a great step in his career, but a pay cut like that was going to REALLY rock our family. The night he came back with that news, I shed quite a few selfish tears. I wanted Keith to be able to have a job he enjoyed but the immense sacrifice we would be making financially was a lot to think about. I cried mostly because I was really sad that it seemed all our friends were getting great job offers with bigger and better salaries but that wasn't coming true for us. Here's where the good part of the story starts though: The morning after their original offer Keith called them back and explained the situation and gave them the minimum salary he could accept for the position (which was about $6,000 than the highest number in their offer) He was pretty scared to do this because he was sure this was going ruin his chances of getting the job because most music industry places can just hire an intern and pay them nothing. But guess what they said? YES! They said yes AND because Keith won't be making commission for 6 to 8 months they also offered him an advance on commission to help us transition a little easier on the front end. SUCH A BLESSING. This was just a couple weeks ago and looking back I still can't believe what an absolute whirlwind that week was. We went from excited to crying in defeat to absolute elation in just 3 days time haha. So Keith got their updated offer on a Thursday, put in his two weeks notice at his crappy job on Friday and then we flew to Philadelphia in the evening. It was awesome and we've been celebrating ever since.

Everyone should DEFINITELY send Keith some congrats today because it is his absolute LAST DAY at his old job, and Monday morning he will be starting his job as a booking agent for Elite Talent Agency (who books tours for bands like: Switchfoot, Underoath, and THE ROCKET SUMMER!!!!) He's so fancy and I am so proud of him for being so patient and waiting for the right job to come along. With everything that happened to make this job a reality we can safely know that this is the right step for him and for our family and I CANNOT wait for Keith to have a job that he absolutely loves.

Lake Wedding

As I mentioned already, this past weekend Keith and I were just east of Nashville in the mountains of North Carolina celebrating the marriage of our great friends Jonathan and Erin. It was SUCH a beautiful setting, and an equally beautiful wedding. I think a good time was had by all especially with staying in the groomsmen house all weekend... lots of antics. It was a great opportunity to spend a little time with family, yet also to relax and breathe in the fresh mountain air. That being said... it is also INCREDIBLY awesome to be HOME for the first time in what feels like forever. Theo has been following me around these last two days like a total creep; I think he's worried I'm going to leave him again haha.

Here are some photos of Jonathan and Erin's wedding day:

Another ridiculous sunset over the lake.

Rehearsing.

Wedding day groomsmen preparing for pictures (and preparing their cooler)

Lookin sharp in his suit :)

The gorgeous chapel!

Bride.

Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Hillyard!

Keith, Mom, Christopher

First dance.

Mother/son.

Christopher/Christopher

Delicious cakes!

Toasting 

Mom with the bride and groom

Their grand exit

There are also some delightful pictures that Keith's mother took with her camera that I cannot wait to see and share (I'm just hoping the stain I got on my dress isn't TOO obvious ;)

Now... maybe no more out of town weddings for a little bit?