Isn’t she just the tiniest little piece of heaven you’ve ever seen?! I wanted to put something together with all the info to post at Kimmy’s work tomorrow morning. Not sure if she’s planning on sending out announcements or not but she can always use it for that too. I think it could use something below the flower but it’s storming here so I had to unplug the external HD.

Speaking of storms, we’ve had some good ones lately. And the best part is they’ve been at night and the days have been gorgeous! I’m startin’ to get spring fever. :) Heard the birds chirpin’ for the first time this morning and it was warm enough to go without a jacket even today. Saw quite a few people wearing sandals and short pants which seems a little premature to me. I’m not sure it was even 60 degrees. Funny how in the spring you haul that stuff out at 55 degrees but come fall we’ll be bundling up as soon as it dips below 70. :)

And I have to say I’m REALLY jealous of my brother Dino. He is on a business trip in Vienna right now. I think the business part of it is in Slovakia but he’s staying in Austria. Seriously, soooo jealous. Here’s the picture that made me most jealous but you can check out some of the others he’s taken on his free time so far here. Hopefully he’ll be updating it with more pictures over the next few days.

I’m at the hospital and don’t have my external here to do anything real fancy but I had to at least post a few pictures for now. Kimmy’s doing great and the baby so far hasn’t needed any special treatment. They’ll watch her bilirubin levels real careful but so far so good. :) I’m off to the theatre to see Failure to Launch and make some room in here for more visitors. I’m sure I’ll be back tomorrow to get more pics. :)

"Do I like smiles? Yes, but only if they are real and filled with life. And I also like tears. You see, truth is beautiful, no matter what the expression." ~ Randy Bacon

I came across this photographer’s site through Elsie Flannigan’s blog. I’m blown away by the realness of his photos and this quote of his kinda says it all. The entire website is incredibly creative and inspiring. I had been torn about sharing a little realness here and then came across this quote and this site and decided ‘real’ is what I really want to try and be as much as possible on this blog of mine. Sometimes that’ll mean fun stuff, adorable family photos and things that inspire me and other times it means raw emotion and maybe not always flattering bits of life and the real me. Not sure I 100% buy into the title for this post but here’s a bit of that ‘truth’ from today, beautiful or not…

First of all, I try as much as possible to share Jacob’s story in an uplifting way. Not even always intentionally but I love that so far, for the most part, each page seems to convey how blessed we were to be part of his family. I know it’s tough to understand feeling somehow blessed to have a nephew that’s not here to bribe for precious hugs and kisses or to put fingerprints all over the big screen tv. I don’t really know how to make sense of that.

Today I happened to be near the cemetery where he’s buried and I decided to spend a little time there. I don’t really know what to do there. I don’t know if there’s a proper place to stand or walk or not to stand or walk. I wanted to just sit down awhile but there was snow on the ground. Being there somehow makes it feel more real that he’s gone but somehow more real that he was here at the same time. I wiped some dirt off the top of the headstone and wished I had brought some flowers to leave. Tears started rolling down my cheeks and I wished there weren’t people walking by with their dog when I just wanted to be there alone. I wished I’d brought kleenex. I wished I hadn’t gone there alone. I wondered if up in heaven he knows when I’m there. Or if he knows that even when I haven’t been there in awhile I still think of him all the time.

I didn’t have my camera with me but I wanted to include some photos of the beautiful headstone my sister and BIL had made for his gravesite. Someday I’d like to include these in his scrapbook but have never been able to figure out just how to scrap them. Sorry for the heavy post. It just felt like posting anything else would be fake and ‘not’ posting this didn’t feel right either.

There’s a song that I’ve been listening to lately and I wish they had a video so I could play it here. If I’d had the headphones with me for my ipod I think I’d have listened to this while I sat there tonight. Here’s just some of the lyrics. It’s by Casting Crowns and it wasn’t working for me tonight for some reason but it looks like they have it streaming on their website if you go there.

Praise You In The Storm

I was sure by now
That You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say “Amen”, and it’s still raining

As the thunder rolls
I barely hear Your whisper through the rain
“I’m with you”
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away

I’ll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
Every tear I’ve cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I LOVE digital scrapbooking but sometimes I see a paper scrapped page and wish I could add that little sparkle or whimsy to my pages without the scissors and mess. So I’m hoping someone with the know-how and design savvy sees my special request for some gorgeous glittery doodly stuff like Rhonna’s, some way (maybe a frayed edge brush to use as an eraser) to get that frayed ribbon edge look like Elsie’s. You know how our digital edges are always so perfect. I HATE that. LOL And I can never get enough messy stitching like Jennifer’s. Ya gotta click on the image to truly appreciate the beauty of ‘em. Oh, and I guess while I’m a-wishin’ I’d love to have even half the talent of these amazing scrappers. :)

My incredibly sweet friend Lauren came across this prayer in the book Invisible Women by Nicole Johnson. I had every intention of doing a page with this prayer for my own art journal and when I saw what she’d done with it I knew I could never come up with anything different and my own that I’d love half as much. Lauren’s art journal is a different size but she took the time to make an 8 x 8 version of it for me to print for mine. Thank you so much Lauren! I will print this out and look at it often. You can click on the image to view it at a more readable size.

Off to work but I haven’t posted in awhile so I thought I’d post a LO I finished this weekend & a little Oscar review. The LO is of a couple of my favorite photos of Paige & Ainsley taken almost 2 months ago. Can’t believe I waited this long to scrap these. And yes Leeandra, I journaled! Shocker I know. Everything here by Gina Cabrera, mostly from her Chilly Cheeks paper & alpha packs.

So did anyone watch the Oscars last night? I watched the pre-show to see all the beautiful gowns. Which btw, did anyone else notice the new ‘pocket’ trend in evening gowns – seems like half the actresses had their hands in pockets. Anyway, truth-be-told I was disappointed in alot of the films that were nominated and some of the others that were left out so I just wasn’t at all interested in watching this year. This morning though I’m happy to see that the movie Crash won 2 very well-deserved awards both for best picture and best writing. If you haven’t seen this movie yet it’s amazingly written. I can’t figure out how to easily link you to my favorite review of this movie by another scrap-blogger. Courtney Walsh said this on her blog and it’s EXACTLY how I felt about the movie and I couldn’t say it any better:

"…But I still was not prepared for the movie that unfolded before my eyes. Intense doesn’t quite do it justice. Now, I am a Christian, and there is a LOT of language in this movie. There are scenes that are disturbing. It’s gritty. It’s edgy. It’s RAW. It’s real. Someone went and made a movie that identified every prejudice any of us could have and it called us on it. It challenged me to consider my own prejudice. How do I react to certain people? How do I feel in certain situations?

I have never watched a movie with an ensemble cast so large and actually cared about all the characters. For instance, the movie "Love Actually" has a similar sized cast and I couldn’t have cared less what happened to any of them. In "Crash," however, this entire cast was in my heart. I wanted them – all of them – to change, to be better, to have that epiphone they all wanted to have. Even Matt Dillon’s character, who was incredibly flawed (and wonderfully portrayed…) I cared about him. HOW DID THE WRITER DO THAT???"

If you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend it. Incredibly powerful movie.