I now pronounce you Husband and Wife

I have a husband.  Some days that thought still blows my mind a little.  I mean, I'm still just a kid, right?

Part of the reason I feel that way is probably because I was just a kid when we got married.  There, I said it.  We were young.  But do I regret it?  Not in the slightest.  Do I think it was the right decision for us?  Without a doubt.

Hunter is the only real boyfriend I've ever had (you know, besides those elementary school ones...).  He's the only person I've ever kissed.  He's the only person I've ever fully trusted with my heart.  

Five years ago, we publicly promised our lives to each other.  Not just in the happy times, but in the hard times.  Not just when we feel good, but when life just plain sucks.  Not to like each other all the time, but to love each through it all.  To take care of each other; to be honest with and trust each other; to tough it out; to beat the odds; to stay together and love each other until death separates us.

We had already been together for over four years by the time we got married.  All of these years together with him have been incredible.  We have traveled to amazing places including Alaska and Roatan; we have gone on two mission trips to Honduras, once dating and once married; we have mourned together the losses of family members and close friends; we have been supported our friends through their weddings and their babies; we have both graduated High School and college; we have moved and bought a house; we both began our careers; we have had a beautiful and perfect daughter; we have walked with each other through the dark times divorce brings, both of family and close friends; we have and continue to work for the Lord's kingdom, particularly the youth group; we've taken care of each other through sicknesses and surgeries; we have been through two major hurricanes hitting our town; we have made each other giggle so much we cried innumerable times; we have grown up together and grown together; we have made our years count.

I guess we're not technically newlyweds anymore.  Is 5 years the milestone that makes you an old married couple?  I feel like it's a milestone of some sort.   

Hunter Paul, you are my absolute favorite.  You make my heart smile.  Thank you for protecting me, for making me a wife and mama, for believing in and standing up for me, for loving me in spite of (of maybe because of!) my quirks.  These past five years--FIVE years!--have flown by.  You'll always be my boyfriend.  

It's me and you, babe.  Forever.

His Senior Prom--I was a sophomore (which he asked me to on our first "date"--a week and a half before the dance...).  2003

The night of my 16th birthday party (also the night he kissed me for the first time :))

My Junior Homecoming.  2003

Our first Christmas together.  2003

My Junior Prom.  2004

My sister's wedding (about a week after the one above this...notice the hair...I was so ticked at the time...).  2004

Our second Christmas.  2004

My Senior Prom.  2005

LA Tech Bulldogs!  First football game, 2005

Honduras Mission Trip.  2006

My 19th birthday.  2006

He proposed...

and I said yes...  2006.

So we got married...  August 25, 2007

2007

Thanksgiving 2008

LTC 2009

Alaska 2009

and then there were three...  2011

 We couldn't be happier.  Loving life and loving each other.  Just Dancin' Through the Minefields...

love, angie

I guess we're not technically newlyweds anymore.  Is 5 years the milestone that makes you an old married couple?  I feel like it's a milestone of some sort. 

Best friends and clothes for AJ

I have the best best friend a girl could ask for.  I mean, really.  Sorry--I've already got her, you can't have her.  And on top of that, our boys are great together too.  And the four of us--what a combo...

Anywho, we both just had babies this past year (and might I say they are the coolest kids on the block).  I was thinking we would get to see even less of each other than we normally had because our busyness was going to be amplified.  The busy thing is true, but we've seen each other and spent so much more time together since having those babies than we have since college.  It has been fantastic.

OH it's my Hudson!  He's my friend!  Let me get in his carseat with him.  (and she did...)  This was at Popeye's right when they got into town.  I'm so glad they like each other :)

This little exersaucer arrangement has been the best!  Hudson is about 4 months younger than Arabella, so she is quite a bit bigger right now.  And he can't get away from her just yet.  So if he's on the floor, she basically attacks him and he has no means of defending himself.  This little gadget allows them to play together and visit, while protecting Hud-Stud at the same time :)

 Well, she came to our house this past week to play and visit before she headed back to school.  I had not intended this to happen, but we spent pretty much her whole time here making clothes for Bella! She's my sewing friend (and when I say this, I mean she sews pretty things for me while I talk to her and try to keep her from throwing her sewing machine across the room!).

(I'm going to be jumping on board the sewing adventure here pretty soon--I've been itching to enter that world in crafting, and I'm finally going to do it!)

Here are the things we were able to make for my little toot in just three days:  4 beautiful pillowcase dresses and 5 outfits (an assortment of t-shirts, onesies, and dresses) that we appliqued!  I love, love, love them all and can't wait for her to wear all of them!

Pillowcase dresses that I LOVE!  The trim on the purple damask and the multi-flowered just make me grin inside.  And that dern bird fabric and blue peacock pointy stuff was such a PAIN...but the result was worth the headache!

Showin' off my pretty new threads

LOVE these little outfits!  She's already worn the two that aren't holiday affiliated and they were just finished on Friday!  We also did one with a Christmas tree, but I'm going to add some more snazz to that one before I consider it finished.

There's just something about time with that girl that is good for my soul.  She gets me and I can be completely myself.  Love you RBS.

love, angie

American Idol Concert

The Cajun Dome in Lafayette is not the largest of all arenas.  But it seems a lot bigger when you're seated all the way at the tip top and far away from the stage...

So my parents, sister, and I were able to go to the American Idol concert last Monday.  I enjoy the show well enough--they have some really talented people on there.  I watched it it's second season (one of my teachers was very much into it so it was always a hot topic in class--she even took a group of us to that concert when they came to Houston!).  But then I quit watching it.  I didn't have the time and I wasn't vested enough in it to care all that much.  And then Casey Abrams came around last year...and Hunter and I fell in love with him!  He was so different from anything on the show and right up our alley.  So after watching the last half of last season, we fell straight on board to watch this season in full.

And what a great year it was to do that!  We had our hometown boy, Joshua Ledet, on there to cheer on!  He's probably the main reason my family gave into a guilty pleasure and went to the concert.  

We laughed so hard that night.  Here are some snippets.

We ate at Blue Dog Cafe before the concert.  So nice to get a taste of home...

When I say we were sitting at the top of the Cajun Dome, I'm not exaggerating.  I was leading the way as we looked for our seats in row PP.  As I climbed the stairs, I saw that they stopped at LL.  Then you had to go up a few more in a different direction to NN.  Then up another little landing to the whopping two seats housed in row OO.  Then finally up to our little platform of PP, backed up against the wall and in the corner by the staircase...  Once I noticed where our seats were, I could not stop laughing!!  I couldn't breathe by the time we sat down because my stomach hurt so hard from laughing on top of climbing stairs (with no rail, mind you!).  We were ISOLATED!!  There was a good 4 foot gap between us and the row in front of us.  And there was even a pole on the other side of Mel to separate us from the 3 other lovely souls stuck up there with us!  It was Hilarious.  When Mel and I went to get drinks, we stopped at the little landing leading up to our section 322--you know, that little set of stairs that separates the two levels of the stadium seats?  We cracked up laughing again.  Because all you could see of our seats was this tiny little head poking up above the rest of the crowd--and it was dad's!  It was funny enough that I climbed all the way to the top to get my phone, go back down the stairs to take a picture of it, and then come back to sit down (giggling all the way).  

My arrow is pitiful.  But that little bitty head you see poking up over the stairs--that's dad's head.  And he was leaning forward for me to take this or you couldn't have even seen that!

We should have brought binoculars...

On the plus side, we had PLENTY of leg room!

We knew we would be high up when we saw we were in row PP, so Mel said, "it's ok, we'll be watching the big screens anyway."  Well from where we were and the angles of the screens, they didn't seem all that big and they didn't help all that much!  Something else to giggle about.

The screens don't look so big from way up here...

Dad had been saying that he was going to lose his man card for going to this concert and acting all nervous that someone would know he was there.  Well, he was the only one of the four of us who ran into someone he knew--and he saw two friends...and they were both men...  I think he can still hold onto that man card.

I really wanted Josh to sing "When a Man Loves a Woman" and Phillip to sing "We've Got Tonight."  Neither one of them sang my requests.  How did they not get that memo?  I was also fretting the entire first half of the concert while Phillip made no appearance at all...  Dad had joked with me at dinner that he had read an article stating that Phillip wasn't coming (I didn't believe him, but he really did act like he wasn't joking...the whole night).  So I was starting to believe him.  I was going to be TickED! But he showed up, so it was ok :)

The crowd was kind of duddy.  Only the people on the floor stood up and got into it.  And of course I did.  But hey, in my isolated state where no one could really see me, I had a full four foot platform on which to boogie the fool right outta myself.  Mel stood up with me when I got excited about Elise singing "Whole Lotta Love"...and then I looked over to tell her something 5 seconds later and she had sneaked back to her seat.  Turkey.

We sang, we giggled, we ate good food, we made jokes, we had fun.  I wish Michelle could have come and completed our little five family core.  It was definitely a night that will be tucked away in my memory file for a while...

love, angie