Thank You

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!His faithful love endures forever." -Ps 118:1

This verse has been running through my mind all day. I have so much to worry about. So much to think really hard over. Even more to fear, but for each of those thoughts, worries, & fears are blessings that outnumber them all. I am so thankful for so much! For starters, I have a God who sent His ONE AND ONLY son to die a horrible death just to allow me to spend eternity with Him. WOW. He takes on every one of those nasty things so that I can go through my days without them. Jesus is truly my best friend and I am so incredibly thankful for Him each and every day. Other things I'm thankful for? Well, I have a job that I absolutely adore. I experience new brides, families, firstborns, all of it! AND I get paid to do it. I'm sorry, but that makes my job something to be thankful for I'd say. I only have it b/c the Lord allows it. And I hope to glorify Him every step of the way. We are commanded to use whatever gifts He's given us to better His Kingdom and I should remember - that means picture too

Over the last year, I've also been blessed to be a part of these girls' lives. Pursuit 31 is a group by Karen Stott (amazing photog btw) who felt that the Lord wanted her to bless other photographers starting out as well. She is more than a mentor, business owner, or entrenpreneur.....she is a wife, mother, follower of Christ, & friend.

Ah, the most unexpected of all .... my neighbors! We moved in to our first home last year this time and now I can't remember not knowing the three of them. God really went the extra mile there. I mean, who vacations with their neighbors? WE DO

Another thing I'm thankful for today? My sister. How does someone love me so much? How did I end up with someone like her when I know I could never have been that for a younger sister myself. She may not ever have kids (darn NYker) but she has me and she's been a pretty incredibly mother figure if you ask me - the kind that lets you have wine when you're 19 and takes you to rated R movies at 15.

Amanda comes with 2 parents. Oh my mom and dad. Could I ever find anything to be more thankful about? So many people have so many struggles within their immediate families, and Joey and I were both blessed enough to not only grow up in un-broken homes, but to see our parents just as in love today as they were when they were our age. Just bliss!

MY PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!! I'm SO thankful for my people. My Mr (you've seen him a lot) & Aspyn (i KNOW you recognize her). They both are responsible for a bit of the stress mentioned in the beginning, but they are also responsible for a HUGE part of the blessings in my life too. They will both quickly point out that that makes the bad totally excuseable. And well, I agree.

BLAKE!!!!!!! My neighbors' son Blake is my little nephew in love. We moved in when he was almost one month old and he has our entire hearts. It's fun loving on a baby like he's your own, then handing him back to his parents when he gets fussy. Just splendid

Birthday weekend....

This weekend isn't just Valentine's Day for me and mr Jones, it's a time to celebrate Joey's birthday too! (poor guy ends up buying something for me on his birthday to prepare for Vday......) SOOO I always try and make his birthday extra special
We had our families over for steaks & were so thankful another February birthday baby (Kristen) was able to come visit us! That baby is the love of my life....chatham phoenix brobeck. He is seriously one of the sweetest, smartest babies you'll ever meet.
We hung out for a while and discovered he has the BEST Sunny Bunny impression around! You ask him to do his best bunny and he blinks a few times with more concentration than you've ever seen. Apparently, this is what bunnies do. . . . and they eat rod iron. . . .

Mom made Joey her famous strawberry cake...and I ruined it with blue candles :( Sorry momma!

*!Make a wish!*

Thanks every one for making our night so special! We love you all so very much!!

Dear Mr. Jones, thank you for being born 25 years ago. Thank you for being the little sperm that could ;) I seriously can not picture a life without you in it. I look at you sometimes and seriously wonder how I ever made it through each day before there was you. If I could remember those days, I know that my heart wouldn't feel quite as complete. Thank you for being you, thank you for being my best friend, thank you for SO much love.......thank you for being my "Mr."

Xx

Just Bragging

My husband is AMAZING! Have I ever told you guys that? He cooks me breakfast every morning, packs my lunch (sometimes with notes on the napkin), makes me a pot of coffee, and let's me lay on his chest and watch Golden Girls as I attempt to wake my sleepy self up.

He always finds the perfect time to call and tell me he's thinking about me, and somehow makes me feel safe when everything tells me not to.

And more ......

He's the best looking Wealth Manager I've ever seen. If we weren't already married......

Seriously though, the guy has created a program that helps people see the potential they have for retirement. Want to pay your house off early? He helps people do that! Want to retire att 60? what about 65? He helps people meet their goals and make the most of their hard earned money. Cool job, right? No wonder the guy is racking in clients left and right.....if it isn't his love for God and his way of helping people be good stewards of their money, it's gotta be that smile :)

Okay, I'm done. Seriously. I'm finished. Xx

Our Weekend

Well Halloween weekend was pretty fun around the Jones home......

We started off with some pumpkin carving....
I finally decided I'd join in and pull some of the gook out......it didn't last long
After MUCH deliberation between the ghost and the kitty, I won. My tactics included reminding Mr Jones that I was, in fact, the grocery lady (I use this often) and that I was the one who had to work the next day (I had a bridal shoot). Guilt works guys :)
I have not found something that "works" for making him less odd......still trying different angles.
vuala! Meet Mrs. Kitty......

After my shoot, we started up a night of football complete with parents, fire, Cam, hotdogs, Chuy's chips and dip (white dip too YUM), and kabobbs......We were full....
We figured having parents over would keep the place clean since I wouldn't have time to clean the next day
we thought WRONG. My dad dropped a chip and ever so delicately shoved it with his foot under the oven. Mr Jones (Senior) left bottle caps on the table, and the ladies did NOT help with dishes......We'll let it slide this time.

Joey's dad DID teach me (being an engineer) that if you open a package of smarties, you should be careful to eat two at a time. Avoiding this could end up in the disaster of leaving you with an odd number of smarties....GASP
Sunday I caught Mr Jones washing my car (who I hope gets the boot here in the next year for an RX :) .....) I think he believes that the cleaner it is, the less I'll want a new one......I'm sticking with the argument that it's "too big" for me
& finally, meet our newest bedroom addition. THANK GOODNESS I ran into the store to find it marked down for one day only! WHEW! Here's to waiting on a sale!
Happy week every one! Only 3 more days....................

Dear Mr. Jones.....

Before there was you, there was her.....

We GRACIOUSLY allowed you into our lives, and before too long you kinda rubbed off on us. In my opinion, you rubbed a little too hard on my princess ;)

She texted me a photo of a little Christmas gift she'd like a moment ago from her Barbie phone. At first, I was upset....."Why should we buy you such a thing? How could you ask your father to go that extra mile for something of these sorts?" but then she sent me a link of this photo and I got it....."I'm lonely momma" she stated. Can we blame her hun? I mean, hours on end at home with absolutely no entertainment....

What's the gift you might ask??
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A MINI MEEEEEEEEEEEE ASPYN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now tell us we can't have one!

WE LOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU SO MUCH! We know you'll make the right decision...

Excuse me

While I take 5 minutes to brag....

about Mr Jones.

For the past week with my much busier schedule, this man has completely taken on the role of "morning wife" as I've named it. He makes the coffee, breakfast, and packs my lunch for work. After dinner, he takes care of the dishes & has completely taken on the chore of keeping our laundry in order. It's amazing how much help he's been. This morning a breakfast of blueberry muffins woke up my tummy with a cup of coffee so I could edit some photos from last weekend's shoots. All this while sweeping the floors. I don't know why, but I'm blessed.

So thank you Mr. Jones. Thank you for being my best friend, my helper, & my husband. You make me smile.
xxx

date overdue

well, tonight mr jones and I will be having a 2 hour date. It's way overdue after all of the moving stress so we decided during our morning kiss goodbye that we'd set the date for tonight. I have lots of wedding photos to edit by Thursday night so I'll go home to work on those for a bit, & hopefully Joey will hang my chandelier in my future office while I do so. I'm so ready to get my desk in there and start organizing things. We have a "media room" aka "what should I put in here?" off of the living room, so my dad and Joey are going to put french doors up and make it my office. I'm pretty excited to work on things at a gorgeous wooden desk rather than in bed with Joey wanting to watch the whole time. Don't know why but I hate being watched when I work on pics or sending emails.



while I edit wedding photos I plan to cook us up a few of these with Bobby Flay's recipe in one of our wedding gift cook books. I'll probably throw in some fresh potatoes from the farmer's market with something green to make us strong :)



And finally, once dinner is finished, we'll head to the bedroom...cuddle up...grab Aspyn & some chocolate milk and watch our new favorite show. We missed the finale so we'll have to use my mac to watch online. It's called Persons Unknown. Anyone ever watched? Apparently it didn't get great reviews, but we have loved it! Here's the trailor to give you an idea of what it's about. I just started watching a few weeks ago so I'm planning to go back and watch the ones I've missed. Don't judge me for content until you've seen them all. Language is as usual, but the violence isn't as it seems. All I can say.

One year later......

well, after quite a long day Friday, followed by an even more tiring day of moving Saturday, we slept in our new home :) It is a pretty amazing feeling, and of course, I'll share photos as we work on making it just right, but for now I thought I'd give you a peak into our first anniversary!

As I'd said in the past, we'd planned to vacation to Savannah, Georgia, but buying a house took precedence and we figured that was a big enough gift for our first year of husband and wife.

Like I said, we were EXHAUSTED!!! but Sunday came and we woke up with huge smiles on our faces. A new home, a wonderful marriage, & such an amazing day in our life to re-celebrate. Our wedding was magic from beginning to end and our marriage has been even more magical. I can honestly say that Joey is brings the greatest joy to my life here on Earth. Christ made us for one another and together He has amazing plans for our lives. That has been so apparent this past year in the way He has answered our prayers. Sometimes it's "no" sometimes it's "wait" and sometimes (And we love these times) it's "yes". The house was a "yes" and we plan to use it for His glory and not our own.

After a yummy breakfast we got dressed and headed to do some window shopping in Mountain Brooke. A quick trip to bed bath and beyond (talk about being married! ha) and headed to get one last load from the apartment. We hated to do any moving, but we needed to. After working around the house, we started to get dressed for our dinner reservations at Flemings. This part did NOT go according to plan. The lack of photos are for good reason. We looked ROUGH! haha. I'd find a dress to wear only to realize my shoes were at the apartment. Joey didnt match, I had no eye makeup or hair straightener (if you know me this is a necessity) and I felt yucky :( well wouldnt you know but Mr Jones stared at me and told me I looked amazing and instantly melted the worry away.

Dinner was FANTASTIC! steak (rare) with parmesan peppercorn butter on mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus, and a lava of chocolatey goodness for dessert. The ice cream was in chocolate chip wafer cups. Basically, AMAZING!

After dinner, we stopped by my parents' house for an anniversary gift. It was the postcards from our wedding. Everyone filled out postcards with a photo of us on our wedding day drawn by my father (architect) wishing us well. They had planned to mail them out to us one at a time over the first year, but we insisted on moving so they gave them to us wrapped in ribbon from the wedding and we had a few giggles reading some funny (and sweet) messages from our family and friends.

Then it was off to the new house. Being resourceful, we had champagne in wine glasses (still not sure where everything is) and defrosted the top of our wedding cake! I had a surprise up my sleeve for Mr Jones. We had a wedding video made, but it didn't turn out exactly how we'd hoped. I've spent a total of 20 hours taking the clips and photos and creating a 45 minute video of our rehearsal and wedding day with the perfect music in the background.

Here is the cake as it has sat in the freezer for the past 12 months...

& here it is unwrapped. A little disfigured, but it took the punishment like a trooper if you ask me

Last week I had told Joey I wanted to watch our video on the wall at the new house with a projector since our tvs wouldnt be set up. He thought he was about to play the dvd we've had and was quite thrilled to see what I'd put together. Even more fun was the fact that this huge empty frame is sitting above our fireplace. What a perfect frame for our wedding video!

We cuddled on our new (very long) couch and watched the greatest day of our lives together

It was so much fun watching Joey and his groomsmen that day since we weren't around each other for most of the time before the ceremony. Hearing him talk and say "Im getting married today this is awesome" melted my heart :)

We (hesitantly) sliced into the cake, and of course I made Joey taste it first.

Believe it or not, to have been frozen for a year it was quite good!

We really had the most romantic night & loved reliving the start of this journey

I had him a gift made through shutterfly thanks to my friend, Heather's blog. She had an amazing idea to document her and her boyfriend's years together with photo books. Less clutter, clean, and not as bulky as huge scrapbooks. Plus, who actually prints photos anymore? The binding says "year one" and each year I will make him one documenting that year of marriage. Kudos to Heather and Payton for blessing us with such a fun idea! We are already planning next year's.

Our neighborhood brought us this wine and note inviting us to the neighborhood. We were so excited!

Mr. Jones gave me a gift certificate to make (I've been DYING to wait to afford this) a huge coffee table book of all of our wedding photos! I am thrilled to finally get them off of a disk and have something gorgeous to keep our memories inside of.

To every one who was at our wedding, thank you. Thank you for witnessing our covenant to God and each other and for your prayers and support. We are happy to report that we are loving every single instant of our lives as one and look forward to many more to come.

Let me tell you a story

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl who fell madly in love. They got married in a castle, and moved home into an apartment. (Here's where the story went a little off course I'd say). They turned out LOVING every minute of it! The three of them (they have a fluffy little white dog) turned the apartment into a beautiful home, and made it a special place to come home to after their jobs - They play with other people's money all day long, and she takes a few pictures of pretty people and their babies on the side.

After 10 months of bliss, they got an itch to make an addition to the family. Not quite ready for a baby, and not being cat people, they decided they'd try to find a castle to move in to and officially make their home their own. Well, as these stories usually go, it wasn't as easy as they'd hoped. If she loved the kitchen, he hated the yard. If he loved the garage, she didn't like where the future nursery might be. After almost losing hope and giving up for a while, a precious little cottage showed up on her computer screen and they took a night drive to take a look at the precious home. Thinking that something would be wrong with the interior, they didn't let their hopes get high and decided to see if it was open to take a peek inside and immediately discover what part didn't quite fit. This had become the norm. Find a cute home, find whats wrong with it, and cross it off the list.

As luck would have it, the door was open! they took a peek inside and fell in love! Every one told them not to do it, bc they'd end up paying a price that would be more than they could afford, or they would lose it and be heartbroken. But the couple didn't listen and fell head over heels! She loved the formal dining room and immediately imagined Thanksgiving dinner with their families at her farmhouse table. She loved that the kitchen had a see through fireplace into the living room. There was a perfect spot for her photography office, and the master had a door leading to the back porch! But don't worry about the boy.....He loved a bit himself. He immediately pictured his new porche in the two car garage, safe and sound. He saw the yard he could take pride in, and he found the perfect spot to create a home office so he could sleep in while his wife headed to a long day at work in Homewood.

Everything was perfect, until they saw the price! They both screamed and felt their tummies in their throats knowing that they could never live in such a perfect place! The price was about 40 thousand dollars OVER what they had saved in their giant piggy bank. All hope was lost.

OR WAS IT?

They discovered that since the market was so crummy, no offers had been put in, so they decided to offer what their ideal price. The boy made the offer, and the builder said "NO! I WANT IT ALL, buuuuuttttt maybe you can have 2 thousand off." Well the girl was sad, and so was the boy, so they prayed that God would show them the perfect number that they could live comfortably with to offer. They prayed over their decision, and let it be in His hands. The boy offered, the builder declined, and they moved on. The girl's heart melted when her new husband thanked the Lord that they lost the house. He was so much of a Spiritual leader to her that he proved His faith and they both felt more protected than ever. Obviously the cottage wasn't the right one.

The girl went to work the next day, and the next, and on that Friday, her husband called her to tell her that the builder called back. He said he'd call to let us know that the bidding was complete and he hadn't accepted. He told the girl that he got the call from the realtor, that she said they tried to help us get it, but that 30 thousand dollars was a big drop on the price of a house. Then he told her that he was sorry to tell her, but SHE HAS TO LIVE IN THE COTTAGE AFTER ALL!!!!!!!!! She cried, and they realized that God AS ALWAYS had them under his arms and was protecting them from paying more than they needed to.

So now the boy and the girl wait until August 15th to close and move in to their new home. They already lived happily ever after, but now they can grow happily ever after too!



To every one who prayed for God to lead us to the place HE wanted for us, THANK YOU! It is so amazing to see how He knows what is going to happen, and it has been even more amazing to learn to allow Him to take control. We are so blessed to have the friends that encourage us to do His will, and we can't thank you all enough. We are truly blessed to call you our friends and family.

12 months later.....

So, Joey and I have been racking our brains to think up the perfect one year anniversary trip. Don't get me wrong, we could think of a thousand:



1. bahamas
2. bora bora
3. visit Amanda in NYC
4. colorado (bundled in my new fur coat with a fire blazing in our very own cottage)

The "racking of the brains" had to happen bc we are trying to save for a house, and decided to rule out anywhere that required flying.....now you see what I mean?
Well, the beach is fabulous, dont get me wrong, but we are going in July & we can go any time....so that seemed too easy.

Anyone ever read the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil?" It is one of my favorite books, and recently for the first time I saw the movie (hated it...as usual doesn't do the book justice). This did, however, give us the idea of a vacation here. We can do all of the tours that are provided (even a book tour....insert geeky giggle here).


This is a shot of the famous Bonaventure Cemetery. No, I'm not into the whole cemetery thing, but it goes to show that even the cemeteries in Savannah are gorgeous. For someone who can't stop taking pictures, I should be in Heaven here!

Where to stay ? After much searching we found the perfect spot! The Marshall House!

Right in the center of everything! And the rooms (even the cheapest) are gorgeous and updated with everything you could possibly need! All of the reviews go on and on about how comfy the beds are! woop woop bc i usually HATE hotel beds.

Don't worry my food networkers...we DO plan to visit Paula Dean's restaurant while there, and we intend to eat just about everything on the menu. We should come back a good size larger. Maybe all that walking will help burn a stick of butter that Paula is known for adding to everything :)

I mainly can't wait to celebrate the best year of my life and many more to come with my best friend. In one year he has become a registered investment representative for Reliance Financial Group, learned to fold t-shirts properly, become quite good at supporting me with my new ventures, and somehow managed to grow fond of the Golden Girls. Every morning before leaving to go to work, he finds time to sit with me and pray that God will preotect me and give me a good day. You always hope and dream that you'll find someone who makes you a better person, and he's done just that. He inspires me, motivates me, and makes me strive to be better each and every day. I will never know how to thank him for that.

Savannah, Georgia here we come :) Countown begins: 73 DAYS