thursday three.

what a great week. holy week. and these past seven days have been some of my favorite. nothing spectacular happened (besides celebrating our risen savior... you know, he came back to life three days after being buried in a tomb) ;) this week wasn't out of the ordinary. but it was just good. ever have weeks like that?

i had several moments this week where i just made myself take time to treasure them in my mind. nick rocking bella and reading her stories before bed. nick&i talking on the couch after a long day. bella leaning in to give us kisses, talking to herself and bopping up and down in excitement, an ear to ear grin spread across her face. it's these simple moments that just make me feel blessed beyond measure.

since it was holy week this past week, this thursday three is all about easter.

nick

my parents had gotten each of us couples "the passion of the christ" movie for easter a few years ago. neither of us had seen it since it first came out, and nick suggested saturday night that we watch it and finally break it out of it's five-year-old shrink wrap. we got in bed--with a roll of toilet paper--and watched and cried. mel gibson may have kind of fallen off the deep end these days, but he directed such an amazing movie that is full of truth and depicts jesus in a way i really appreciate (you know, besides the flowing-hair-walking-beside-sheep, weak, boring, no personality emotionless jesus that we see all too often). it really prepared our hearts and set them right going into sunday. it's easy to become desensitized to what we really celebrate on easter; the unfathomable love and sacrifice of the cross, and the hope and power of the resurrection!

meg

i *love* going to church on easter. love, love, love it. it never feels like easter until we go to church. our church also has an amazing good friday service. at the last minute nick and his best friend, matt, got tickets to a rangers game, so me and camille (the baseball widows ;)) and my good friend candace took bella and went to the good friday service. on sundays, nick&i always go to our church's five o'clock service, which feels a little strange on easter... but it was well worth the wait. i love the feeling of celebrating in the midst of other believers, and easter is just the best. several people shared their testimonies and the hope that covers their pain... because he is alive. our service ended with this video that i've seen several times before, but forgot just how much i love it!!!

bel

since our eleven month old doesn't yet understand the theology of the cross or the resurrection, i think it's safe to say that the highlight of her easter was her easter basket. she loved it. let me rephrase... the highlight of her easter was the sunscreen that was in her easter basket. yes, sunscreen. i filled her basket with a few items that we needed to get anyway (i know, i'm thrifty like that) aveeno lotion that i adore, butt paste, bath wash and baby sunscreen. and she literally played with that bottle of sunscreen for what seemed like ages (especially for bella, our little busy-body!) she also got some new onesies, cute new pj's, some banana cookies and a stuffed easter bunny... and another one of her favs: bunny ears. this girl won't keep anything on her head, but once she saw herself in the mirror with those bunny ears on, she wouldn't touch them. guess she thought she looked pretty cool as a bunny. and i have to say, she was the cutest lil bunny i have ever seen :)

we had a great easter. so blessed by many things in our lives but most of all our loving and faithful savior!

thursday three.

i can't believe another week has *flown* by. life goes so fast sometimes i can barely keep up! this week i decided to mix it up with the thursday three by doing my three favorite pictures of the week.

so... here's this week's thursday three. picture style.

{one}

we went to tyler, texas this weekend to visit my friend hannah and her sweet family! hannah and i met on a missions trip to england with teen missions international when we were just sixteen years old... crazy!!!! we got really close that summer, and kept in touch through letters (yes, old fashioned letters... don't you miss those??) and visited each other off and on until i moved to texas almost seven years ago! we've seen each other through the past almost-fifteen years of our lives including high school, college, weddings and babies. priceless. she has been such a source of encouragement, wisdom, prayer and truth in my life and i love her so much! here is a picture of us with our lil girls :)

{two}

tuesday evening after work, we dressed bel in her easter dress and drove over to a spot near our house where there were bluebonnets galore! since it is our last spring living in texas, bluebonnet pictures were an absolute must. it was a beautiful night, bella (miracle of miracles!) actually sat still and let us snap away, and it was a fun lil family outing. love the shots we got... this is one of them.

{three}

i *love* this picture because i love watching nick be a dad to our lil girl. bella loves her daddy. she crawls around all day, playing and exploring continually saying "dadda. dadda!" and she loves riding on his shoulders. i started snapping pictures when we were out and about the other night... these are my two greatest loves on this earth and i thank god for blessing me with them every single day!

...aaaaand because i can never just stop at three... and because i love this picture so freaking much. i went to check on bella the other day after i laid her down her for nap. this is what i found :)

it's been a good week. every week... every day... every minute is a gift. life is full of precious moments and i want to fully embrace and treasure each one.

happy-almost-weekend, everyone!

thursday three.

this past weekend we took a road trip to houston to visit my family! we left thursday early afternoon and stayed until around noon on sunday, so it was a great trip. my aunt cynthia lives there as well as my cousins and their families and my mom&dad and gret&jude (my sister and nephew) came down for the weekend too! it was a full house and so. much. fun. not only was our family all together, but the final four was also in houston that weekend.

bonus.

so this week's thursday three are all of our most fav things about our weekend trip to h-town.

nick

when i asked nick his favorite thing about our getaway, he said getting to spend time with my family... talking, laughing, playing games and hearing more stories about uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, etc. that just warmed my heart. i love that my husband loves my family so much and enjoys being around them... after all, he is one of us now ;) we do have so much fun together... we are loud, laugh alot, and love to reminisce and story-tell (some of us tell longer stories than others...wink, wink) :) and now with four littles in the mix, it's even more crazy, loud and fun! love it.

meg

my highlight was two fold (besides the obvious... getting to hang with family that i love SO much!!) first, nick and my dad and i headed downtown on friday and took the metro to reliant stadium to check out the final four festivities. this was *super* special for me... i grew up watching college basketball with my dad; it was something special that we shared and loved to do together. when i met nick, one of the things i instantly loved about him was how we enjoyed watching sports together too, and the first spring we were dating, he joined my dad and i in our annual march-maddness-bracket-competition :) it was just so special for me to get to go check out the final four stuff with the special men of my life!! we ate some good texas barbeque, checked out the festivities and went into the stadium to watch team practice (which we figured out is really just team-shoot-around-for-fans-time). still fun. it. was. awesome!

my second highlight? saturday night we packed up the kids and headed to a local outlet mall. i never got to shop with my mom and sister--maybe once or twice a year--which is really just a travesty :( so it was reallllly fun to get to shop with them (well... mom really just pushed bella around forever 21 while gretty and i shopped... but still). looking forward to many shopping trips to come!

bel

bella hadn't seen her grammie and grampy or aunt gret since christmas, and the minute they walked in the door she reached out for them :) she loved snuggling with grammie, singing with grampy and playing with aunt gret. and she got to meet my cousins and see aunt cynthia again (she loves her!!) and of course, she loved getting to play with her cousins! she was the baby, but that didn't seem to hold her back much. she loved trying to keep up with the "big kids" and i've noticed since we've been home she's been a faster crawler, puller-up-er and such a jibber-jabber! she learned alot from her cousins, i think...

we had a great time last weekend and we're looking forward to another road trip this weekend to tyler, texas to see one of my longtime friends and her family... so excited :)

thursday three.

it's been a really great week! although, i am exhausted; probably the most tired i've been in a while. but it's a good exhausted. bella has been becoming more and more active and keeping us on our toes... so now that she is more on the move, so are we! active baby=tired parents!

so here is this week's thursday three. please excuse any typos or sentances that don't make sense. i'm on my second cup of coffee, but i can't promise anything. here. we. go.

nick

i'm going to go out on a limb and guess my husband's highlight of the week. i think it would be two-fold. the first one: saturday night was "guys night" for him. he went over to his friend, robert's apartment with two other guys to play robert's xbox kinect. i wish i could have been a fly on the wall to watch these four men. let's just say i got lots of text messages from nick that evening about how fun the kinect is and how we have to get one. i would guess that nick's second highlight of the week will be tonight... bella is going to hang out with her aunt jessica, uncle james and cousin wyatt and nick&i are going on a date! and we're going to one of his favorite places: johnny b's in southlake. if you live in the dallas area and like hamburgers, you have to check this place out. oh-so-delish. so, although it hasn't happened yet, i anticipate tonight will be one of his highlights for this week! if you have ever tasted one of their burgers, you will understand.

meg
while nick had guys night saturday, i got to have "craft night" with my good friend amanda (who is an amaaaaazing photographer, by the way... check out some of her work here when she took some family photos for us!) anyway, i had some craft projects i wanted to work on, including a few decorating ventures for our home. i got quite a bit done that i was really excited about, and having quality time with a girl friend? even better. crafting has been something that i've really enjoyed as of late and has helped keep my creative juices a-flowin' since becoming a stay-at-home-mom. just a few little changes and sprucing-up and it feels like we have a new home! love it. next up for my craft projects? some more wall art, hair clips, perhaps some pillows for our couch and my attempt to replicate this flowered belt for bella:

isn't that the sweetest lil belt you've ever seen? i'm going to try to re-create it. let's keep our fingers crossed, friends.

bel
our sweet lil pumpkin has been changing so much this week. probably more than any other week in her 9 1/2 month life :) on monday, she began pulling up in her crib and prompted nick to lower her mattress... tuesday, she began to sit up in her crib... so now whenever i put her down, i peek in on her about ten minutes later and she's sitting in her crib, talking to herself. so. cute. but making naptime a little more challanging... and wednesday night she interupted our girls prayer night by doing this:

she totally loved the audience she had, by the way. so sweet. it's SO amazing to watch her learn all these new things on her own, and how she grows and changes and develop! i love getting to cheer her on and encourage her as her mom and just watch her discover life. she is now such a little girl with her sweet lil teeth, budding (and crazy!) personality and giggles and squeals. i never knew how much joy i could find in such a tiny little person who i've only known for nine months, but it's true. i'm loving this stage sooo much and nick&i have so much love for our sweet bella grace and how much she adds to our little family :)

see you next week for another thursday three, lovely readers. same time. same place.

thursday three.

this week has been fun, exhausting, long and happy all at the same time. my cousin, rachel is a 20 year old photography student at rochester institute of technology, and she chose to come visit us for her spring break! we were happy to have her. that was the fun, happy part. the exhausting, long part? our poor baby girl was diagnosed with rsv last friday (which included coughing until she threw up her oatmeal and prunes all over herself just as we pulled into the dr's parking lot... poor baby; and poor mama!). and she had a few pretty awful days before that. so, all in all she has been pretty sick for over a week now. fortunately, her rsv hasn't been a serious case--thank you jesus. it's just been a nasty, nasty cold that we will gladly bid adieu. we are ready to have our sweet, fun, cute baby girl back!

now that i have given you that intro... (drumroll please)... here is this week's thursday three.

nick

i cannot even begin to describe how thankful i am for this man. not only am i so blessed with him as my husband, he is such a wonderful father. i *love* watching him care for bella and so naturally fill this role over the past nine months. he is so gentle and loving as he cares for her, as he rocks her at night, and prays over her before bed. he is so patient as he disciplines her and tells her "no". and he is so playful and fun; this week bella squealed and shrieked as he gave her several rides around the living room and through the kitchen in the laundry basket (which does double as a pretty fun go-cart for little ones, i must say). this week nick&i had to juggle our schedules quite a bit so we could keep bella at home to get healthy and still try to work as much as we could. nick was in heaven to get off work early--or miss it altogether one day--and get to be at home with his baby girl. he played with her, rocked and watched "baby einstein" and "praisebaby", administered all the saline drops, steam baths and suctioning, and even cooked chicken enchiladas one night when i got asked to work late. while he said he had a whole new appreciation for moms, this was definitely his highlight of the week... and i'm sure it was bella's too :)

meg

as i said in the intro, my cousin rachel came to stay with us this week for her spring break. since i am ten years older than her, we haven't really gotten to spend a whole lot of time together as i've been out of state for college, graduate school and our life in dallas. even though we had to change our plans a bit because of a sick baby, we did manage to get out and have some fun. we took bella for a walk to the park and for fresh air one day, got mexican food from one of our fav restaurants, watched movies, got sprinkles cupcakes, went shopping at two of my favorite malls, walked around deep ellum (a funky, artsy area in dallas) and did a drive-through-downtown-dallas-tour. we had a lot of fun and it was a good distraction for me... it's not easy for me to watch my sweet bella feel so bad :( i missed her a lot this week... i think it was the most i've ever been away from her since the day she was born, since i usually get to bring her with me every afternoon to my babysitting jobs. this week i was so glad she got to have some special hang-out-time with daddy, but i missed her. alot. so it was nice for me to have rachel's comany and go do some fun things! it was a great visit and definitely the highlight of my week!

bel

getting extra time with daddy this week was definitely a highlight for our little girl, i just know it. she also squealed and kicked and laughed every time she saw rachel and would just stare at her. she loves people, our little social butterfly. and she loves having company in our home! which works out well, because we do too :) since we had to be extra careful bella wouldn't get dehydrated along with her rsv, her pediatrician told me to get her some pedialyte and add it to her bottle. since we don't give bella juice, this was like a little treat. it was orange flavored and she *loved* it. let's just say when i mixed up her bottle, it looked a little bit like a creamsicle. i was a little jealous... although i'm pretty sure it didn't taste like a creamsicle. anyway, bella grace managed to have a pretty good week even though she was feeling so crummy. i know i can safely say that us suctioning her nose with that blue-suction-bulb-they-give-you-in-the-hospital was definitely NOT the highlight of her week. but holy cow, i never knew you could get that much snot out of someone so tiny. phew.

hopefully next week's thursday three will be sick-free! we have high hopes. if not, you may find me wandering around the street barefoot. why, you ask? because i will probably lose my mind. happy almost-weekend, everyone!

thursday three.

well, it's 11:43 and i had fallen asleep but woke up to a huge coughing fit. we are seeming to pass allergies and colds around this house and it's kind of a drag. i decided to get up and use my trusty netti pot and get some water, while also allowing time for my husband (who i undoubtedly startled half to death with my racking coughs) to fall blissfully off to sleep once again.

and here i sit.

which gives me time to write the thursday three in the fifteen minutes i have left before it is no longer thursday.

nick
miracle of all miracles this week is no guessing game (although i guessed it right on my first try... i told you i know the mind of my husband!) i actually remembered to ask nick today what his top moment of the week was... and alas, it was going to the mavs game last night with three of his best friends for *free*. that's right, people... f-r-e-e. love that! his friend matt won free tickets because he won some score-guessing-contest (and actually guessed the score to a mavs game spot on which is pretty crazy) and was awarded four free tickets to last night's mavs game against the jazz. i know my husband acted like the crazy sports fan that he is; complete with his mavs t-shirt, screaming&yelling and his giant-number-one-foam-hand waving in the air (just kidding on the giant hand... but still.) anyone who knows my husband knows he loves his sports, and i just love watching him in action, as does everyone else. love. that. man.

meg
i would have to say my highlight of the week may sound like a shallow one, but please hear me out... these days shopping for myself is an extremely rare occasion. but as i have been learning over the past several months, the lord reminded me of again this week: god always takes care of our needs... and sometimes he chooses to take care of our wants. this week with some sale-watching, coupon clipping and store credit at the gap, i managed to snag a pair of $70 skinny jeans for a mere twenty bucks. yep, i loved it. almost as much as i love. these. jeans. aaaaand due to a shipping mishap (long story) i also was blessed with a super cute easter dress for bel for practically free. i definitely tend to struggle sometimes with our lack of "things" or the means to obtain "things" especially since we chose to have me be a stay-at-home-mom for our family. i wouldn't have it any other way; it just makes finances a bit tighter. i've been asking jesus to help me with that this week, and to keep my mind stayed on the many things i'm so thankful for. he--as always--has been faithfully changing my heart and helping me focus on the irreplaceable blessings around me that i could never even imagine my life being without. the "things" that are worth *far* more than all the money in the entire world. so that, my friends, is really the highlight of my week :) doesn't mean my struggle is over, but it's always good to have those little reminders... and god is so sweet to give them.

bel
our poor little sweetie has not been feeling so hot the past few days. she's had a runny nose, cough and just doesn't look or act like herself. it's quite sad. but this has also meant more time in her pjs, more cuddle time with daddy and mama, and more "praisebaby" and "baby einstein" (which we ordinarily limit to a few times a week... but this week i think she has watched one or the other every single day. ahhh well.) i think bella's highlight this week was getting a couple new toys from grammie and grampy! they had given bel her first tea set (plastic, of course) for christmas, and i stashed it in the closet to bring out later when the newness of some of her other christmas toys had worn off. we brought it out this week, much to her excitement in only the way a baby can show it. as soon as she saw the box, she began squealing and kicking her feet with a huge smile on her face. so. cute. so we've been playing "tea" which she hasn't quite gotten the hang of yet and certainly has no manners. the english would be sorely disappointed. for valentines day, grammie and grampy gave her an activity walker that we just picked up this week. it makes lots of noises and has tons of buttons that light up and play songs. it keeps her entertained for a while. hard to imagine that she will soon be pushing it all over the apartment as she waddles behind it! it seems like just yesterday when all she did was lay on a blanket and blink. she has been growing up so fast i think i cry about it every day. just kidding, but i do get teary-eyed. a lot.

and there you have it, friends. our thursday three just before midnight. i will now go back to bed and hopefully be asleep within seconds. stay away, cough. stay away.

thursday three.

it's been a good week. nothing extraordinary, but good. spring is in the air... after a couple of weeks of snow&ice, it's been in the 70s the past few days here in dallas.

crazy.

there's something about valentines day that i love, even though i think it's annoying it's become such a commercial "holiday". i still think its fun. i've had to convince nick of this fact a little bit... he always says he'd rather show me he loves me every day, rather than one day dictated by the pink and red aisles at target and flowers-chocolate-and-candy-businesses. true, but i'm still a fan. i've been real nostalgic lately... amazed and thankful at how our life has changed in the past year. this year, i had two valentines; last year one of them was hiding out in my belly:

can't believe how fast time flies... so thankful for where we are right. this. moment. here is this week's thursday three.

nick
as usual, i forgot to ask him about his highlight this week. but i like to think i know the mind of my husband so well that i can figure it out on my own. here goes. nick was the assistant coach for the second year in a row for the girls varsity basketball team at his school, first baptist academy. while he enjoyed it, and it was fun for bel&i to go to his games, the season ended on saturday and i know he was relieved to have a bit of a break! his girls were so sweet and gave him a big bag full of gift cards and other goodies, which was really nice. seriously, i think my husband has gotten close to $100 in starbucks gift cards over the past couple of months. crazy. and he loves it, that coffee addict that i married. i would also guess that another highlight for nick would be our date night on saturday which we used as our "valentines date". we dropped bella off at his parents, went and got take out from our fav sushi place, brought it home and watched a movie on our couch. we've done this alot lately for date night, but it is our favorite. with our weeks being so busy, it's so nice to be able to relax together, baby-free, at home in our pj's. our idea of a perfect date night.

meg
definitely date night would be a highlight for sure (goes without saying). we also wrote each other letters this year for valentines day... which is always the *best* gift ever to me! another highlight for me was some "me" time i was given this past weekend! on saturday afternoon, nick took bella to his sisters while he was at his game and i got to go have some great time with my girlfriends. it's such a blessing for me to have time to myself, and i was so excited! even better: we had an "anne of green gables" marathon. can we say blast from the past?! so fun. i grew up on those movies, so it brought me right back to being an eight year old girl watching them with my sister. we ate snacks all day and got lost in the world of prince edward island. it was pure bliss. so thankful for my girl friends!

bel
baby girl is changing *so* much. it's pretty unbelievable. she has her four front teeth, is eating chicken and toast and graham crackers, and loooooves people; mostly when they're giving her attention :) if she could tell me what her highlight was this week, i think she would say getting to see so much family. she spent the afternoon on saturday with her aunt jessica, uncle james and her favorite: her cousin wyatt :) then, she got to spend the night at her nonni and papa's saturday night, which she loves! and sunday she skyped with her grammie and grampy in maine, smiling, shrieking and kicking her feet with excitement! such a fun weekend for our little social butterfly.

there you have it, friends. this week's thursday three. so much to be thankful for.

snow storm six.

so this post title took a lot of brain power on my part. instead of "thursday three" i wanted to do something different for this week... since it's been, well, a different week. dallas has been hammered by winter weather this week, which caused the entire city to shut down from tuesday until saturday morning. businesses, offices and schools were closed. streets were just sheets of ice. cars were spinning out all over the roads. people were losing power. and just when we all thought it was about to be over, we went to bed thursday night watching it snow and woke up friday morning to over five inches of powdery white! for a city that seemingly has one snowplow to take care of every snow-covered street in the entire dallas-fort worth metroplex, and a salt/sand supply that doesn't know icy roads, this was a week we will not soon forget. so crazy... and for the cornwell three: so fun.

so i bring you: the snow storm six. our top six favorite things about this snowy, icy week when dallas shut down and life slowed for just a little while.

clever, i know. here goes.

1. school cancellations. ahhhh yes, i still feel like a child in grade school growing up in maine, where we actually had snow days because of... well, snow. but here in dallas if the word ice is breathed from the lips of any weather man or woman, i am anxiously awaiting news that nick will be home for the day. it is like music to my ears and i am a giddy eight year old girl all over again.

2. mexican train dominoes. this goes without saying. the best all-day-play-forever game in the entire world.

3. family time. i truly began living for the weekends when i became a mom. i *love* our time as a family to relax and be together. it's also nice to have an extra hand with baby-duty, too and nick is beyond helpful. we were given the best gift this week to have four days together when we otherwise would've been apart. love. it.

4. f.r.i.e.n.d.s. the tv show and the real thing. nick&i love getting in bed at night and watching our boxed dvd sets of our fav show. not going to lie i think we've watched all ten seasons maybe three times through in the almost-three-years we've been married. it makes us laugh and something we both love. this week we stayed up extra late and thursday night got to get in bed to watch tv with the curtains open in our bedroom, big snowflakes falling outside. so cozy. we also happen to live in the same apartment complex as some of our best friends. which makes snow days even better. every day we walked to each other's homes, shared meals together, played games, stayed up late and even walked to starbucks and walmart when we got really stir crazy. we are so blessed by our friends!

5. games, games and more games. yes, it's true. in addition to mexican train dominoes, we spent our four snow days playing trivial pursuit, some dice game and spoons.

6. snow, snow, snow! "it won't be long before we'll all be there with snoooow. i want to wash my face, my hands, my hair with snow." ahhh, yes. white christmas, anyone?? nick and i were up late talking thursday night when we discovered the beautiful snow falling outside. i think nick went out on our balcony at least four times to check it out and take pictures. i love how much he loves snow... because i love it too :) friday afternoon we brought bella out in the snow for her first time! she LOVED it. not even kidding. squealed and kicked her feet like crazy. we spent a good hour sliding down a hill in our apartment complex with all of our friends with whatever "sledding" supplies we could find (this included a blow-up plastic baby pool, a card table, and several cardboard boxes. gotta love texas!) nick took bella for a couple trips down the hill and most of all, she loved watching everyone having fun. and it was!!

life doesn't slow down for much. it presses on--sometimes with an unforgiving tenacity that leaves me scrambling in its wake. scrambling for more time to get things done, another chance to accomplish daily tasks, some peace and quiet and some time to treasure sweet little moments with my family. this week, i was given the precious gift of time. quiet, peaceful, stillness. it was bliss. pure bliss. and still, went by too fast. so thankful for the past few days and for the snow that made life slow down. even for just a bit.

thursday three.

ahhhhh, the thursday three. yes, i'm fully aware that it is--indeed--friday. i know i kept most of you waiting with baited breath. and i apologize.


here we go.


nick
{a disclaimer: i haven't actually asked nick what his highlight was this week, so this is pure speculation on my part. however, i will do my best to name a few so that i will inevitably hit his top moment eventually}
i'd venture to say that one of nick's top highlights of the week was guy time. my poor husband is outnumbered in our household at the moment... and is also in the middle of basketball season, coaching a team full of high school girls. so i'd say any time he can hang out "with the guys" is a good thing. he was able to get away and play basketball with some friends on saturday and on sunday night after church, he had some additional "guy time" with his best buds playing this really-stupid-board-game-where-they-trade-stuff-like-wheat-and-bricks (settlers, anyone??) geesh. anyway, i was really happy for him this weekend to get some good time with friends because i know how hard he works during the week, it's good to have some down time on the weekends. he also got to spend saturday morning with bella while i had some girl time. i know it's always a highlight for him when he gets to hang with his lil girl. he seriously is the *best* dad it makes me want to cry just typing this post. bella loves her daddy! the smile that comes across her face every time she sees him at the end of the day, and how she kicks her little feet in excitement is a top moment of every day for nick. they are so cute together :)


meg
as previously mentioned, i had some lovely "girl time" on saturday morning. one of my sweet friends left this week to start a new nanny job in nyc. so a few of us girls met at one of our apartments for breakfast saturday morning. any time i get to hang out with girls is refreshing to my soul... and as much as i *love* my daughter, it is a wonderful thing to get to go places without lugging half of our apartment with us; or trying to keep her entertained the entire time. it was a nice break for mama! i've also been working hard to incorporate exercise back into my life... and it's been soooo nice. i'm a huge fan of the "30 day shred" with jillian michaels. if you're looking for a good, quick workout to do at home, this is your new bff.


bel
our sweet girl is changing by the minute. this has been my most favorite stage so far... she is just so fun! this week, there are three highlights for little bella grace: first, we have a tooth! nick&i have been on "tooth-watch" lately, as her four front teeth look like they are about to pop through. she has been putting anything and everything in her mouth to chew on... her favorites include our noses and chins. lovely. just on tuesday i put my finger in her mouth and felt along her gums to find a sharp lil tooth that had finally poked through! secondly, our sweet little one has taken a while to develop her leg strength. her auntie gret has lovingly described her as a "rag doll" while trying to get her to stand. she is just such a peanut!!! i have put her in her jumper every morning for the past few months to try to develop those lil legs and it has finally paid off. just this week, while the girls were over one night, bella stood like she had been doing it for years. she grabbed onto our friend, kristin's fingers and stood for a while, looking around at everyone like "what? i'm standing, what?" so cocky-like. love it. and lastly, she took her first big-girl bath this week in the rub-a-dub-tub. can't believe it. she loved it. she chases the bubbles, trying to grab them and kicks and splashes the entire time. our girl is fearless. and she is growing... and we love watching her change, her personality emerge and the sparkle in her eyes while she discovers new things. love her so much!


and there you have it, folks... another thursday three. tune in next week... same time, same place. i will leave you with a few photos of bella's big week.

thirtieth birthday three.

i'm bringing back the "thursday three" (i know, i know... you've missed it). this week will be a little different. it will be all about my thirtieth birthday celebrations last week. i'm going to try to condense it down into three points... here goes.

so i turned thirty last thursday. those of you that are "bachelor" fans and have been watching this season, you'll appreciate when i say: not twenty nine... not thirty one... but thirty. (thank you, crazy michelle.) nick spoiled me and made it so special. here are the top three moments.

1. our beloved, maggianos.

after i got home from work thursday night, nick had lined up his mom to babysit bel and we headed to our favorite special occassion spot: maggianos. YUM. it works out rather perfectly that it's one of our most loved restaurants and a popular gift card choice for parents to give the teachers for christmas presents at first baptist academy. ahhhh, our favorite foods for free?? even better. we dined on our favorites: bruchetta, chopped salad, chicken&spinach manicotti and creme brulee for dessert. throw in a tasty pomegranate martini and good conversation with a handsome man and you have one happy birthday girl.

2. mall date.

yes please. on saturday we dropped bella off at nick's parents for overnight and when we got back in the car, nick looked at me and said "wanna go shopping?" yes, he knows the way to my heart. we walked around the mall (my favorite mall that is nothing but outlet stores. love it!) for a bit and purchased a couple shirts from jcrew and gap. two of my favorites. it was perfect.

3. surprise!

we left the mall and got in the car to go to dinner. when we were about fifteen minutes away, nick asked me to close my eyes so i would be surprised. when i opened them, we were in one of our favorite areas of dallas: the bishop arts district. those of you that live in dallas... you have to come here if you haven't already. we love it! quaint little shops and restaurants and plenty of hole-in-the-wall places which we are huge fans of. one of our fav restaurant there is a trendy lil pizza place that has oh-so-delish-thin-crust pizza... with toppings like pancetta and goat cheese. YUM. nick lead me upstairs to where all of our good friends were waiting. so. fun. we stayed up that night until almost two oclock in the morning, and since we were bella-free we got to sleep in until almost noon. happy birthday to me.

i am very excited to be thirty... my life has only gotten better and richer and more blessed with each season, so i can only anticipate what the lord has in store for the years to come.

thanksgiving three.

yes, i realize i'm late on this post. a week late, to be exact. but sometimes it's just better late than never. this week i decided to do "thanksgiving three" as opposed to the regular "thursday three". so here goes.

nick

we spent thanksgiving day with nick's family at his sister, jessica's beautiful new home in grapevine, tx. it was a great time with family and all of the food came out ever-so-deliciously. we then went and had a "second thanksgiving" at nick's aunt ann's. she lives out in the country about an hour outside of dallas and we LOVE going out there. we basically ate (oh yeah... she's an amaaaazing cook) and played games the entire day. right. up. our. alley. but the best part was when the four wheelers came out of the garage. nick has quite a track record with his family for having many accidents when he was little, including wrecks on the motorized vehicles at his aunt and uncles. he was quite the lil dare devil and never even cried. (i'm not even joking. at one of my bridal showers his aunt told me about a time where nick tripped and bit through his tongue. didn't even cry, and about 30 minutes later was eating his way through a bag of fritos. yes. this is the man i married.) anyway, when he found out last friday that the four wheelers had come out of their storage, i watched my husbands face light up like a six year old boy :) within seconds he was walking out the door. when i told him to be careful, he called over his shoulder "we have health insurance." that's just great... he did take me for a spin which was one of my thanksgiving highlights. so fun. and thankfully, injury-free.

meg

thanksgiving was a bit stressful for me. bella had one of the worst days i think she's had in her six months of life. she was super clingy and fussy, wouldn't let us put her down for a second and screamed every time she got put in her crib for a nap. usually, when she has hard days i'm able to move past it and just think "well... tomorrow's a new day!" but this was thanksgiving. i'm such a sentimental sap. but we still managed to have fun and enjoy the day even though she wasn't enjoying it too much! i think my highlight was--once again--two-fold. (big surprise, eh?) of course, the patriots winning was a thanksgiving bonus... but let's face it. they were playing detroit. were any of us really that shocked? anyway, growing up, one of my favorite things about thanksgiving was watching the macy's thanksgiving day parade. this year (even though she really had no clue) i was able to watch it with bella. awww. so sweet. it just made me excited to think about all of the things i enjoyed as a little girl that i will get to share with OUR little girl... especially around the holidays.

bella

as stated above, bella had an especially rough day on thanksgiving. however, thankfully she had the attention of her cousin, wyatt to help distract her for a while. she loved watching him make faces at her and talk in silly voices and he actually got her to giggle, which was obviously much better than the cries and screams she gave us. she loves him! she also expanded her menu from peas and squash to peas, squash and applesauce. now that's a feast. happy first thanksgiving, bel!

thanksgiving evening is when we officially kick off the christmas season in the cornwell household. we make oh-so-delish breakfasts, which usually include bacon, egg and cheese biscuits (complete with turkey bacon, egg whites and reduced fat cheese in our attempt to be somewhat health conscious), watch christmas movies and put up our christmas decor. nick and i always watch "elf" thanksgiving night. two years ago, i had run the 8 mile turkey trot that morning and cooked an entire thanksgiving dinner by myself (minus the green bean casserole, which nick always makes) so i fell asleep in the middle of the movie. last year, i was pregnant... enough said. this year; well, let's just say i wasn't the only one falling asleep. but we managed to squeeze in "elf", "christmas vacation", "planes, trains and automobiles" and "it's a wonderful life".

*favorite* time of the year!

thursday three.

is it just me or does it seem like the weeks have been flying by these days? probably because it's my favorite time of the year. september 1st to december 25th seems to just be a blur. anyhow, here were the top moments of our week.

nick
again, i don't have to ask him on this one. i already know (i think i do anyways!). nick's high school football season ended last week, which meant nick officially has his weekends back! it was very exciting. he--once again--got to make us breakfast on saturday morning; every saturday morning since we first got married has started off with nick making scrambled eggs (half whole, half whites), turkey bacon and coffee. any time i've tried to mix it up with waffles or muffins or cinnamon rolls, nick still has to include the s.e. & t.b. combo. he's truly a man's man. i had really missed his saturday morning breakfasts. he got to lay around and watch college football and play with bella aaaaand saturday night included a date with his oh-so-fab wife (okay, okay... i added that last part, but i know he'd say that too; just probably in different words) :) AND to top everything off, his beloved cowboys finallllllly won a game sunday afternoon against the hated giants (and maybe even more hated, eli manning). the only thing that could've made this weekend better for my husband would've been if jerry jones had announced his resignation... which, let's face it. he will probably still be controlling and overmanaging the 'boys from his grave. we had SUCH a great weekend together that monday morning when i brought bella in bed with me when she woke up, she kept looking at nick's side of the bed, wondering where he was. so cute. i felt the same way. life is just so much better with him around.

meg
it's hard for me to pick just one highlight every week, but especially this week. date night would definitely be on the top of my list. it included four of my favorite things: nick (obviously), sushi, a little bit of christmas shopping for bella, and white peppermint mochas from starbucks... which we drank out of their red christmas cups. *perfection*. it think it was when we were wandering around the christmas decorations at kohls laughing at the ridiculously tacky "texan" ornaments that i wondered who else i could have this much fun with walking around a department store at ten oclock at night. my other highlight would have to be the other day when i stepped on a scale for the first time in about a month or so. because of my recent trouble with arthritis, i have not been able to exercise {sad face} thus i have been avoiding the ole scale. however, this week i was elated to discover that not only am i back to my pre-preg weight, i am a few pounds lighter. i gained exactly 48 lbs when i was pregnant and i'm still not exactly sure how that happened. i ate frozen yogurt and sherbet when i wanted ice cream and the biggest craving of my whole pregnancy was grapefruit juice. go figure. so shedding all of that weight with being in too much pain to exercise was quite an accomplishment. a nice lil pick-me-up. i still have a ton of toning to do once i get feeling better, but bye, bye 48+ lbs. i'll gladly bid you adieu.

bella
this week has been a tough one for little bel. between teething and a never-ending runny nose, life has not been so fun. but... it always looks better with a trip to target! we walk up and down the aisles and there is just so much to check out; especially now with all of the christmas decorations. annnnnd grammie and grampy had given her a gift card for a halloween present. bonus. so baby girl now has her very first cell phone (thanks, fisher price). although i'm not sure she's that into it yet. i mean, she's just as fascinated with her hands these days. but, still. every girl needs a pink cell phone. especially one that has a button on it that says "i love you" when you push it. niiiiice.

and there you have it. our thursday three.

thursday three.

so, i'm totally stealing this from a friend's blog. she does a "friday five" for her family, where she posts all five members of her family's highlights for the week. i thought it was really cute, a good way to document our life at a glace annnnnnd gives me something easy to do each week on my blog.

score.

i decided to continue the trend with doing mine on thursday for "thursday three". so, here goes!

nick

i don't even have to ask my husband about this one. nick teaches (7th grade life science, 9th grade biology and 12th grade anatomy) and coaches (football, basketball and track) at a private christian school downtown. there he is known as "coach cornwell", the young, cool teacher... and i'm pretty sure the heartthrob of the female student population. it's true. so last friday they had a pep rally for the last football game of the season... which included... a dance off. right. up. nick's. alley. (if you haven't seen my husband dance, i really think he might've missed his calling. i mean, my man can dance) and even better? it included the song "bye, bye, bye" from the ever popular N'SYNC which luckily nick remembered all the moves to from when he was in middle school. and no christian school pep rally is complete without playing "soulja boy" (??!) which, nick also had the moves to go along with as well. not only did he win the dance off but that night at his football game, i was bombarded by parents, students and other teachers all telling me what awesome moves my husband has. he was definitely the talk of the school... and probably still is :) oh, how i love that man!

meg

it's hard for me to pick just one highlight of this week... but i'm going to go with our family photo shoot we had on sunday evening with the *amazing* amanda guevara of {aka} photography (http://http//www.facebook.com/#!/pages/aKa-Photography/109238242457095?v=wall). amanda is a good friend of mine and she is seriously just so talented. if you live in the metroplex, you should book her ASAP! and if you don't live in the dallas area, well, she's only a plane ticket away :) she's THAT good. those of you that know me well know how much i love pictures. and we have an incredibly hard time trying to get family photos that actually come out! so this photo sesh just made my little picture-loving-heart soooo happy. i am just in love with the style and look of these photos and they capture our lil family so perfectly... here are just a few of the ones she took!

bella

this week nick and i introduced bella to "baby einstein" videos for the first time. she's been teething and just has had some cranky days so for her sanity (and ours) we broke out the ole baby entertainment. saturday afternoon she snuggled in bed with us and we watched together. she was soooo excited, just kicking and squealing away and loving the images and music. it was so cute. getting to be with daddy and mama AND getting to watch tv?? life doesn't get much better for our almost-six-month-old. she was in heaven.

so there you have it. our first thursday three. tune in next week... same time, same place :)