31:365

We went over to Jimmy & Megan's tonight to watch the Grammy's... it was a lot of fun. These boys always crack us up when they're together. I was so excited for the 3-D Michael Jackson tribute... While I would have preferred an MJ Mashup of all his greatest songs, I thought the 3-D was pretty cool. And the background video was one from the tour that would have been just spectacular. So all in all it was pretty good. Of course, I would have loved nothing more than for the King of Pop himself to have been on stage tonight. I still remember staying up way past my bedtime one year in the early 90's to watch him perform on the Grammy's. Ok, so next award show up this season... its the biggie! The Oscars! And the nominees will be announced on Tuesday! I can't wait!

PS- Since I've officially been doing this for 31 days now, does that mean its a 'habit'? I hope so! I'm really enjoying this project... even if there are some days that are much more boring than others!

30:365

Yummmmmmy.... Red Robin for dinner after church tonight! (Guacamole bacon burger for me... Bleu Ribbon burder for Seany.) It was yummy. Also, I got new glasses. I tried to wear them all day today and did pretty good, but I definitely still like wearing contacts better. Today I also painted our fireplace mantel... its only been a little over a year since mom and dad were here and helped us build/install it! I have one more coat of paint to put on it tomorrow! yay for another thing to mark off my list!

29:365

This is me (and Seal, apparently) trying to get our stuff together for taxes early. I actually did a more decent job this year of staying on top of organizing receipts and everything... but I can still do better. And hopefully next year, it will only take the tap of a few keys on my keyboard, thanks to Quicken for Mac that I'll be installing shortly. :-)

*Update* That "tap of a few keys" thing totally didn't happen. Why? Our bank is stupid and so is Quicken. I can't get them to sync and download my stuff. Boo. Guess I'll be tallying up receipts the old-fashined way... a calulator. Shoot me now.

28:365

Some good friends of our's from church gave us this precious book and CD of lullabies... I went home and listened to the CD while I relaxed in a bubble bath... it was a great way to wrap up a VERY busy day. Thank-you so much Kim & Miles for your thoughtfulness... we can't wait to read Whitney this book "on the night she is born." :-)

27:365

♥ Brothers ♥

Its been a long day today! I am so tired! Almost as tired as my kitty cats who are sleeping on my lap. I sure love these furballs. :-)

26:365

THIS IS IT! Wahooo! This Is It came out today, and you KNOW I was there to get it! (Although I didn't go at midnight. Much to my surprise (sarcasm), there were plenty DVDs left on the shelves when I went at noon .) I can't wait to watch it! MJ was such an inredible artist and performer, and this documentary just scratches the surface of his true artistic genius that made him the King of Pop. *tear* Oh, and make sure that you go to Target and pick up your free pair of 3-D glasses for the Michael Jackson tribute this Sunday during the Grammy's! *sigh* I just love that Mackson Jackson.

25:365

Day 2 of finishing our baseboards... our great friend, Jordan came over after working all day to help us out. We set up shop in our garage (bright construction lights and all!) the boys knocked out a lot more! We had a great lady from church bring us a delicious dinner... It was SOOOO good and really nice to not have to cook. It was so sweet of her. It was a busy day, but tomorrow is going to be even busier! Although, I am super excited for tomorrow's picture... just you wait!

24:365

Today we tried to finish up the flooring that we started before the New Year... well, we didn't finish. But we got a little bit done. Or should I say, Sean and Jordan got a little bit done. I don't know what builder/designer thought that bullnose corners should be "in" but for the record, I think they're TOTALLY stupid! Not only do they pose a logistical problem in painting two rooms different colors (where to stop one color, where to start another?), it causes you to have to make at least two or three additional cuts and puzzle pieces when putting in new baseboards. Absolutely stupid. I don't even think they look good. I much prefer the crisp, clean lines of regular 'ol square corners. Ok, enough ranting. This was me finishing up the painting of the last few baseboards. I can't wait to have them all in and be able to put our house back in 'order!'

23:365

We spent a good portion of this Saturday cleaning. It feel so good to be starting the week off with a mostly clean house, and all but one load of laundry done! (I'm waiting on Sean to bring in socks from his truck before I wash the "whites"... I know, don't ask.) This picture is of the bed in our guest room. I spent a good deal of time in here today, dusting everything, picking up and changing the sheets on the bed. Well, it appears that Seal loves clean sheets almost as much as I do! When we couldn't find him later in the day, we went to the guest room and saw a lump under covers! Oh, boy. What a cat. He makes me laugh!

22:365

Today was a great Friday off! I had planned on getting a lot more done that I actually did, but that's ok. We started off with free Chick-Fil-A breakfast (yum!), then headed to sign some legal mumbo jumbo papers. After that, we went to the mall in search of a sweet stuffed animal for Whitney. Sean's been looking online for the perfect one, and found some that he liked at Anthropologie. *sigh* I love that store. I would buy and/or wear and/or use anything in that store. LOVE.It.ALL. So we settled on this sweet, soft and Velveteen-like rabbit. I love it. Whitney will love it. Its great. One more step closer to getting ready (?) for her arrival. Oh, and of course, no trip to the mall is complete without a slice of cookie cake. My hubby is the best. I.LOVE.HIM.LOTS. :-)

21:365

You may have heard about these crazy storms that California has been getting lately. Well, by my snobby, mid-west storm standards, they're hardly spectacular, but the rain has been really nice! I have a skylight right above my desk at work and its so fun to hear the rain ping off of it. I saw this beautiful rainbow tonight as I was leaving work. It is the second one I've seen this week. The first time, I didn't have my camera with me. I was so thrilled to see this one AND capture it! The colors in this rainbow were so vivid... I could even decipher clearly between the Blue-Indigo-Violet! Sometimes rainbows aren't that clear, but this one was perfect. The sky behind it was growing darker and it was just such a great (and timely) reminder of the promises that God makes AND keeps to his children. I wonder, if God were to give me my own "rainbow" for this time in my life, when we're finally "on the other side" of our pain, what would it be?

20:365

International Food Night! Sean and I have been doing "International Food Nights" with Tommy and Shiny ever since we moved out here several years ago. We take turns cooking authentic meals from different countries. Tonight it was Kenyan food! Here is Shiny and Rahab preparing chapatis. Along with chapatis, we had ugali, stew and cabbage... it was delish! I'd never had it before, but it was sooooo yummy! And really pretty healthy! So International Food Night is now back in the Wilson's court... hmmm... what will we fix this time?

19:365

Its been raining cats and dogs in the Cali Central Valley the past few days! I love this time of year in California because it is truly the only time we do get rain. There was even a tornado warning on Monday! Crazy, right?! The storms are nowhere near as great as they are in the Midwest... no thunder and certainly no show-stopping lightning. But I love the sound of the rain on the skyight in my entryway. Now if only I could stay in bed, read some books, catch up on American Idol and drink hot chocolate all day for the rest of the week... then I'd REALLY be enjoying the rain!!

18:365

Today was a near-perfect day. I had to be at a meeting for work at 10:30 so I slept in till around 9. Got done with the meeting in time to meet hubby for lunch! It was raining a lot (by California standards) today, so we ate at Panera... a delicious choice for a cold rainy day! Hubby was getting the oil changed on his truck, so we had some time to kill and spent it in Borders. I love bookstores. This afternoon I came home and got to work on starting Whitney's scrapbook! I spent a good three hours or so and got quite a bit done! I also discovered Hulu.com for the first time and was in heaven to find that both 21 Jumpstreet and My So-Called Life are available on there!! yay! 2 episodes of Jumpstreet and 2 of MSCL. It brought me great joy! This set-up is in our dining room... I really need to make my own craft room so I don't mess up the main rooms of our house! It was a great day. Oh! And to top it off there was even a tornado warning today! Didn't last long at all, but still kinda fun nonetheless. :-)

17:365

I was fortunate to get today's Picture O'the Day early on, as Sean and I were heading to Chili's for lunch after church. We were behind this Crown Victoria, and I couldn't help but notice the decoration plate around the license plate.... "FREELANCE GYNECOLOGIST." Kinda made me chuckle. Funny if you're a frat boy. Whenever I see something both twisted and witty like this, I always wonder what kind of person associates themself with that, in this case the driver... and being that this was undoubtedly an "old person" car, I was curious. Sure enough, it was an old guy... probably mid to late 70's, who was driving the car, and his sweet-looking gray haired wife. Weird. Weird. Weird. Weird. Creepy, hillarious and disturbing all at the same time. I just had to get a picture. :-)

16:365

The mountains today were absolutely beautiful. So often, the skies of the Central Valley are grey with pollution and fog. (Cough! Hack! Blech!) Its not very often that we can see the beautiful landscape so clearly! And the next 9 or 10 days are supposed to be rainy. I took a few minutes this afternoon to take drive out East towards these beauties.

My poor, antiquated (5 years old!), point-and-shoot camera just does not do the sights justice... driving down the road towards our house, the mountains literally look like you are just 5 minutes away or so. (Really its about 45 minutes.) They are covered with snow and because the foothills sit in front of them, there are just layers and layers of hills and mountains. You can really only see two of the mountain layers in this picture. I was playing around with different photoshop actions and enhancers, but couldn't decide which I like best... I kept coming back to the original straight out of the camera shot (or, SOOC). Some of the others seemed over-processed. I just couldn't decide. So you tell me, which do you like best? (Click on the photo to see them more up-close....)

15:365

Today, Sean and I were so blessed to go out with this great gal to do some maternity photos. During our brief stint in California youth ministry, Hannah was a part of the youth group and has now graduated and is in college. She is also pursuing her dream of becoming a photographer. She is so gifted and talented and was a great joy to shoot with today! You can look at some of her pictures on her website... Hannah G. Photography. It was a great day, and Sean and I really had a fun time celebrating the life of our little girl. Thanks, Hannah!

14:365

These are some wondeful ladies I work with. They are prayer warriors, superwomen, and all around just great friends. I am so thankful for all the incredible people God has placed in our lives for this very season.

*Update from yesterday... everything went great at the dr. this morning... Whitney's heart is still beating strong!*

13:365

So today I ran all over town, trying to get together last minute things for my hospital bag. No, I'm not ready to have our baby yet, but we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and just in case something is wrong, I want to be ready. But no matter how much stuff I got to fill this bag, I have come to the conclusion that no matter what I don't think I will ever really be ready to have our baby. I like having her inside of me, kicking and living, sustaining life. But I know the day will come when we grab this bag for real. And when that day does come, I just want to be as prepared as I can be! So... here it is, and hopefully here it will sit for a couple more months. :-)

12:365

I came home last night after a very tiring 10+ hour day. It was a good day, but very late and very tiring. I was so thrilled when I saw the big box on my kitchen counter and I knew right away who it was from! There is a wondeful, amazing organization called String of Pearls. It is an online organization that offers support to women who are carrying to term despite a fatal prenatal diagnosis. I have been in email contact with the founder of the organization. She offered to send me a memory kit, filled with things to help me make memories with Whitney after she is born.

There are packets of 3D gel so that we can make a 3-dimensional mold of both her hands and her feet; there's a little package of Sculpey clay for us to make hand and foot imprints; a big ceramic ornamet with paint and paintbrush for us to put her footprints and handprints on.... then we just take it to one of the pottery places and have it fired! She also sent a teeny hat for Whitney, a photo album, a journal and devotional book for me, and some wild mint tea, which will help decrease my milk supply and hopefully ease some of the physical pain that comes with that. Words cannot express my gratitude to Laura and her heart for women like me. Afterall, she knows how I feel better than most people, because she lost her daughter, Pearl right after she was born. She sent all of those things to me completely free of charge. Laura has also put me in contact with a woman who has lost her daughter to Triploidy... it is so rare to go this far in a pregnany with triploidy, so it has really helped to talk to someone else who has been through something similar.

You should check out her website here... String of Pearls.

11:365

How do you dig in to your burrito? As Sean and I were at dinner tonight we both ordered a custom Monster burrito, but when it came time to dig in, we both went about it a completely different way! I cut mine in half to get the best of the middle and leave the doughy ends for last, if I'm still hungry. Dear handsome man of mine digs in from the end of his burrito and works his way through it. Ah the differences that make us a perfect pair!

10:365

After several months of searching, Sean and I FINALLY found a rug big enough for our living room! We found it at Cosco. Last week we got some coupons in the mail that included $40 off the rug. Well, we accidentally threw away that coupon. SO, when we got up to the register today at Cosco, Sean put on his 'Nati boy charm and asked the lady at the register if she could help us out with that... she said "Oh, no problem, I gotcha." Sweet! We saved $40 on our rug! As Dave Ramsey says all the time, it never hurts to ask!! :-) Our cats love the new rug.... Seal tries to attack it all the time, while Duke just rolls around on it. :-) Now we've just got to put those baseboards in!

9:365

This is me, explaining to Sean the steps involved in using a condom consistently and correctly. Ok, actually I am just getting ready to teach the sex ed class at a high school tomorrow... Saturday was pretty uneventful. :-)

8:365

Sean and I just got finished watching "Paranormal Activity." Kinda freaky. So here's our own version of "Paranormal Activity." Happy weekend!

7:365

Part of doing this Photography Project is that it is supposed to challenge my creativity. Today's picture was going to be of us eating our free Chick-Fil-A breakfast this morning (free Chicky EVERY MORNING for the enitre month of January... we're going on 6 for 6 right now), but then I remembered what I promised in yesterday's post... not all about food, cats or baby bumps. Hmph. So I had to get creative and try to see the beauty that's around me. This evening I went to JoAnn's because I am going to make a bracelet for Whitney. So I went to the bead aisle and this is what I saw! Pretty pretties! (On a side note, the register lady and I went 'round and 'round about whether or not the alphabet beads I selected should have been on sale. I finally let her win, even though I think she was wrong. So, note to JoAnn shoppers... I guess they don't consider tiny squares with holes through them, presumably for stringing together on a bracelet or necklace, to be a bead. What they call it, I don't know. But its not a bead and is therefore not 40% off. Just thought you'd like to know!) :-) Tomorrow's pic may very well be a Chick-Fil-A shot. But don't say I didn't warn you!

6:365

Ok. So I promise (or will try to promise) this whole year's 365 picture project won't all just be photos of food, cats and belly shots. But I had to use this one of my kittybaby Duke that I took last night. He lays his whole body flat out on the couch and puts his chin down even with his body. SO FUNNY. He looks like a giant speedbump on the side of our couch. Silly boy. I can't believe our kitties are almost 6 years old!

5:365

This is my desk at the end of a crazy day... and the tunnel vision that results because of it! I had my first training session for our Healthy Options in Prevention Education Team. It went well, but I didn't leave work until after 9 pm. Luckily, I did clean up my desk before I left, though. Unluckily, just looking at this picture reminds me of five more things I have waiting to do in the morning when I get back to this little blue corner. Such is life, right?

4:365

So yes, techinically I am cheating... this is two pictures, but I photoshopped them into one... so that makes it ok right? :-) We went over to the Corrao's tonite to take them some tortilla soup since Meg just had a baby last week. "Uncle Sean" and Ellie were playing Monster, trying to scare each other. So cute.

3:365

Last day of my two weeks of break... Bengals are on tonight! This is us getting excited before the game... but it ended with much less excitement... they lost 37-0. Oh, well. They're still in the playoffs next week! Lets hope they play better then! Go Bengals!

2:365

This is my sad face because I forgot to take my picture for the day... it was going to be a really fun one, too! Matt Proctor spoke at our church, Northside Christian, this weekend and afterwards, some of us Ozark grads went out to eat with him for dinner. I had my camera and everything, but we were having so much fun eating sushi and chatting, I forgot to get it out! So this is my sad face at the end of the night when I realized I forgot to take the pic. I will not give up on this project, though! I just have to get better at this!

1:365

New Year's Day 2010. Sean had friends over to watch football all day and in the evening, we had Tommy and Shiny over for dinner. Sean cooked ribs in my new crock pot and it was delicious! Then we wrapped up the evening with a game of the Train Game (Ticket to Ride)!

365 Project

So I've seen several people do this, and it sounds like a fun project.... so why not try it? 2010 is no doubt going to be an eventful year for our family and thought this would be a good way to document it.

Here's the jist of how it works... each day, I will take a picture and then post it... only one picture each day.

Here's a link to the 365 Project website.

Here's a link to tips on taking photos every day for a year.

So.... here's to a new endeavor!