Sobremesa Stories

Easy Initials Pennant Tutorial

February 2, 2016 By Lauren

As I’ve been working on the nursery for our little man, I’ve gone through what seems like hundreds of ideas of what I wanted on the walls (you can check out the finished nursery here!). Since I was putting a bigger statement piece over the wall with the crib and glider, I wanted something with smaller pieces for the opposite wall over the changing table to balance things out. The idea for this little, easy initials pennant with our boy’s initials would be the perfect addition to the gallery wall!

I picked up a few random materials on clearance at Hobby Lobby and got to work, pretty much just making it up as I went. It is the perfect pop of color in the gallery wall and was a great prop for our maternity shoot. I love how it turned out and it was SO easy!

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25 Questions To Deepen Your Friendships

February 1, 2016 By Lauren

It only took about three months into my post-college, “adult” life for me to realize that grownup friendships are really stinking hard. It took work and planning to spend time with the few people I was getting to know and it was so easy to fall into a pattern of just “catching up” and making small talk when we did see each other (like I shared about in this post about six reasons I struggled to find friends after college).

Now if you’ve followed this blog or known me for more than about five minutes, you know I’m an introvert at heart. I love real conversations that dive deeply into the heaviest issues on our heart and nothing wears me out faster than long periods of small talk. As such, I’m all about asking real questions that give people a chance to open up and share about how they’re doing. It takes bravery and the risk of rejection to ask these questions, but I can think of no better way to deepen a friendship than to ask questions that clearly communicate your heart to know and love a person.

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Five on Friday: Sweet Community And Not-So-Sweet Snacks

January 29, 2016 By Lauren

Happy weekend, y’all! I hope you had a great week and didn’t get slammed with TOO much snow if you’re up in the northeast. We’re heading into a beautiful, sunny weekend with weather in the 50s and are so excited for a few days of rest! Here are some updates from our week.

1) Baby Snuggles

Jordan’s whole family lives in KC and we love getting to share life with them on a weekly basis. And even more fun than that? My brother-in-law’s girlfriend just had a sweet little baby boy named Merritt (see below), Caleb will be born in March, and my other sister-in-law is pregnant with their third child, due to arrive in late June. Our family will grow by three babies in six months and I am so excited for all the cousin playdates and memories our kids will have. Living by family is oh so sweet!

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Womanly Wednesday: A Guest Post On Navigating An (Imperfect) Open Adoption

January 27, 2016 By Lauren

Welcome to this week’s Womanly Wednesday! This week, we have the honor of hearing from Kendra of The Ruth Experience, an amazing mama whose heart to love kids with hard stories is beautiful. I know lots of families fighting for the hearts of kids through foster care and adoption and Kendra gives an honest, revealing glimpse into what that life looks like behind the scenes. Thanks for sharing, Kendra!

I sit staring at the last Christmas card envelope I need to address. Next to me, a completed stack for family and friends sit ready to go. I pull out my daughter’s card, look over her note again, the one she thought up by her seven-year-old mind alone –it’s addressed to her birth mother. She’s wondering if she would care to come to Christmas, “if she’s not too busy.”

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Our Cozy, Winter Maternity Pictures

January 26, 2016 By Lauren

Let’s be honest: pregnancy is not always a time when many women feel their most beautiful. Like I shared in this post about learning to love my pregnant body, it has been a sometimes challenging journey to embrace the stretch marks and new pounds and find joy in the midst of them.

But you guys – these pictures? They make me feel so, so beautiful. I am deeply grateful that my amazingly talented best friend Haley was willing to fly out and visit, and even more grateful that she was willing to take our maternity pictures for us. These pictures remind me that there is such beauty in growing life and I am so excited to share them with you today!

Haley shared some of her favorites in this blog post last week, but today, I’m sharing a few of my favorites from our cozy, winter maternity shoot. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

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Two Things To Do Before A Major Life Transition

January 25, 2016 By Lauren

I received a message from a reader and friend a few months back that has stuck with me as our first baby’s due date’s gotten closer and closer. She said something along these lines: “My husband and I are so grateful to be pregnant and can’t wait to have our first little one this year. But as we soak in some slow mornings together, date nights, and just plain alone time, I can’t help but be a little sad about the major life transition headed our way. I’m sad to leave that time behind. I’m going to miss all the time we had together just us but I feel so selfish and guilty even saying that out loud. Is this normal?”

My answer was a resounding, 100% YES.

For a long time, I’ve been a little bit embarrassed and confused by my own reactions to big life changes and transitions. I worry about how I should feel in a certain situation like graduating, moving, getting married, getting pregnant, etc, and when my emotions don’t match what I expect to feel, I feel ashamed that something’s wrong with me.

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Five on Friday: Photo Shoots And Best Friend Time

January 22, 2016 By Lauren

Y’all, last weekend was WONDERFUL. I had Friday off for a doctor’s appointment and Monday off for MLK day, plus my best friend from college came to visit so we soaked up lots of sweet time together. The short week after that flew by and I am so glad to be at another weekend again! Here are a few updates from our week.

1) Best Friend Time

I can’t say enough how fun it was to have my friend Haley in town. This girl has an adventurous spirit and a passion to see and know the world, both with her camera and her heart. We played lots of games of Settlers, sat on the couch and talked forever and ever, and she was such a trooper to help me do 101 nursery crafts and projects so we could get it all done and photograph it while she was there to give me tips (okay more like to just take the pictures). There’s something so sweet about being with an old friend who knows you inside and out and I miss this girl already. She leaves next week for two months of adventuring in Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia, and I can’t wait to follow along with her adventures on her gorgeous Instagram and photography blog!

2) Maternity Photos

While Haley was here, we captured some maternity photos. I was envisioning a beautiful outdoor winter shoot, but the weather decided to be a little TOO wintery and was between 2-5 degrees all day (felt like it was in the negatives). We ended up doing most of the pictures in our bedroom and the nursery and ten quick minutes of VERY cold pictures outside near our house before all of our fingers and noses froze. And y’all, they turned out so beautifully! Haley shared her favorites yesterday on her blog and I am so excited to share some of my favorites here next week. Haley made me feel beautiful and not like a giant ball of aches and pains, and I am forever grateful for that! Here’s one sneak peek that I love:

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Caleb’s Rustic Neutral Nursery Reveal

January 21, 2016 By Lauren

I received free hardware for our nursery from D. Lawless Hardware in exchange for my honest review of their products. This post also contains some affiliate links (aka I earn a little commission if you click through and end up buying/loving the product too). However, I only ever recommend products I love and use myself. I promise!

I may or may not be squealing as I type this because I am SO excited to finally get to share Caleb’s rustic neutral nursery with you! It has been such a fun process to turn this room into a beautiful, cozy space that we can bring our son into and I am so excited and honored to invite y’all into our home to see it today.

First, here’s a glimpse of the before. The walls were a faded yellow, the trim was orange, scratched wood, and the whole room just felt very warm and yellowy (is that a word?), especially since the sun shines directly into it in the afternoons and evenings.

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Womanly Wednesday: A Guest Post On Finding Worth After Sexual Abuse

January 20, 2016 By Lauren

Welcome to this week’s Womanly Wednesday! I love this series and am honored to have the chance to share the real life stories of beautiful woman like my friend Haley. Haley, the creative mastermind behind June and Mae, is a brave warrior of a woman who has found healing and hope in the aftermath of what she describes in this post. It’s an honor to have her story on my blog today!

I thought my life was perfect. I was so blinded by my intense desire to feel needed that I completely lost myself in the process. I was with a guy who cared nothing about me yet I fell so hard I was clueless. He wasn’t the first male to come along and whisk me away with fancy words while having other motives. This wasn’t the first time I wore rose colored glasses out of ignorance. The string of disrespectful boys numbed me to the intense pain I would feel with this boy, though. This wasn’t just another boy.

He was handsome and charming, had quite the gift for weaseling his way into the deepest parts of your heart. He would get upset with me a lot, cursing me out in public parking lots over his alcohol problem and then bringing gifts the next day out of an apologetic spirit, or so he said. I learned the art of forgiveness quite well and threw the phrase around that “no one is perfect” a little too often. But the day he told me I was too skinny to be sexy hurt more than it should have, I hid the pain because I never wanted him to think I was emotionally weak.

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Eight Month Pregnancy Update

January 19, 2016 By Lauren

This past weekend marked 32 full weeks (aka eight months) of pregnancy done. Holy moly. That means I am officially moving into my ninth month and the final eight weeks where little man’s arrival is starting to feel oh so close! Here are some updates from the last month:

How I’m Feeling

To be honest, I am really starting to feel some of the effects of having this little bean packed into my rapidly growing belly. I’ve been having lots of aches in my belly, hips, and back as things stretch and move and it’s getting harder and harder for me to be on my feet and moving around during the day at work. One wonderful silver lining of how exhausting teaching is? I have been sleeping like a ROCK at night. I know this is not the case for many pregnant women so I’m trying to soak that up while I still can. I’m praying for strength and the occasional comfort (at least once I get home from work and can put my feet up) as I keep getting bigger and bigger and the day we meet Caleb gets closer and closer!

Another update: after failing my gestational diabetes test a few weeks back, I had to take the day off work Friday to do the extended three hour glucose test. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that was NO fun at all. I am a baby when it comes to fasting and I was about as grouchy as they come. But it’s over and I got the phone call yesterday that I passed the test and am diabetes free! I celebrated my good health with a big bowl of mint chip ice cream and extra chocolate chips. Feeling pretty good about that.

Fun Celebrations

A few sweet friends (shoutout to Leigh and Kat!) threw me a sweet surprise baby shower this past weekend! It was so fun to have people I love from so many different places in one room and I’m grateful for all the work they put into planning it. I got so many adorable gifts and loved getting to catch up with some sweet friends. Thanks to all the ladies who love me so well and threw such an adorable shower!

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