The "B" Word

Babies. This seems to be the topic my friends (not family) have been asking about most these days. I have my answer when the question is asked, because I feel blessed to be well informed on the subject matter.

"When are you guys having kids?" I realize this is a normal question to married couples, & I am fine with that. It is not that it is a bad question, it just seems that my answer is not always respected. To which I think, how is that anyone else's decision but mine & Chris'? When really, the simple answer "We are waiting" should suffice anyone and everyone.

That being said, I am SO happy for my friends & family who have babies & kids of their own. The fact that I get to be apart of their lives and their children's lives is an amazing gift from God. I am not writing this because I do not appreciate motherhood, I am writing this to hopefully stop someone from scolding me for postponing motherhood in my life. Yes, that has happened. And yes, it was ridiculous.

I was a nanny for four years combined, to five wonderful children between the two families I cared for. Not only can I make a homemade meal while bathing two kids & helping the third with homework, but I can make funny puppet voices, make excellent forts, and change a diaper with one hand while holding down a wailing child with the other.

I began babysitting when I was 13. I can't count the number of families for which I have watched their children! Next month, at the age of 23, I will have 10 years of experience with the little rascals, and I have loved every chance that I have had to take care of kids ranging from 3 months to 12 years old.

Not only does all of this precede me, but I also have a mother that taught me how to do everything from cooking & cleaning, to sewing & cross stitch (and these are just the homemaker skills, I wont even go into the backpacking & survival skills she has taught me). She is amazing, I can't remember a time where she has worked less than three jobs. I learned baking & knitting from my grandmother, another amazing woman.

My wish to wait to have children does not stem from the worry of "not being prepared." If this was the SAT, I'm Paul Allen. A baby is not a "thing" to me that I can dress up & decorate a pretty room for. If that is was how I viewed kids, I would have start at it tomorrow.

A child is a family member, someone I will love & care for, someday. It is a person, one that I am responsible for raising to be a respectful, kind, caring, productive, hard-working, individual who contributes positively to society. 

When I was little, I wanted to be many things, actually I still want to be many things, but most importantly, being a great mom has always been most important. I even have a "someday." board with ideas for when I am a mom someday (Check it out, it's pretty great http://pinterest.com/brio27/someday/).

I want to be a great mom, because I had a great mom. One who watched my brother & I all day, taught piano lessons in the afternoon, while finishing her Bachelor's degree, and did a paper route from 9 pm to 4 am, everyday. For years & years.

I admire both her & my dad's sacrifices and it is something that motivates me daily. However, that is not a position I wish to be in, and I know that my mom would back me up 100% on that. Although I would do it in a heartbeat just like she did if that's what life called for.

Right now I have career goals, I have savings goals, I have travel plans. If I get pregnant tomorrow will I be the happiest woman on this earth? Absolutely. Am I trying for this anytime within the next 3 to 5 years? Nope.

I am enjoying my husband, and enjoying working, and that's perfectly okay. Period.

Our Wedding: The Details

It is hard to believe that 3 months have already passed since the day that I said "I do" to my college sweetheart, Chris.

First of all, I would love to say a HUGE thank you to our wonderful wedding photographer, Caleb Cooke of Caleb Cooke Photography. Not only is he an amazing photographer, but he is a great guy that I've been blessed to know for years. All photos posted from my wedding are his wonderful handy-work, & I am IN LOVE with every single photo!

I decided to break up my "wedding posts" into sections. This one will go over the things I chose for my wedding. Everything from bridesmaids dresses to the Etsy seller who made the little hanging flower balls for my aisle decorations. Enjoy!

 Beautiful, aren't they? Blessed to have soo many wonderful young women in my life. Bridesmaid dresses in Pewter by David's Bridal.

 (I'm especially partial to the one in the middle). Suits by Joseph A. Bank in Norterra Shopping Center (Phoenix, AZ)

I ordered this awesome sign off of Etsy from ShabbyHound. We displayed it on the cupcake table, and it is now hanging over a doorway in our black & white kitchen.

I ordered 9 of these flower poms from Etsy seller astylishdesign and they looked stunning hanging from the 6-foot tall candleabras Highlands Church provided.

There's me! And my wonderful dad. His suit is also from Joseph A. Banks, and my dress is from Suzanne's Bridal Boutique (Gilbert, AZ). This is a diamond in the rough dress store! Dont let the outside of the store or website fool you, they have amazing dresses at amazing prices, it is so worth the drive.

 A view of our ceremony! And a glimpse of 250 of our wonderful friends & family!

This was one of my DIY projects! Chris' father owns a cabinetry shop & made these beautiful wooden boxes. I am a graphic designer & created our monogram. A post on these Manzanita Branch centerpieces will be up soon!

Chris D'Angeli of Slice Cake Designs did our beautiful cake, she is amazing! She has been featured on Food Network, & not only was the cake beautiful, but it was sooo yummy!

Nicki Anderson, owner of the Cupcake Cafe, did our amazing cupcakes & cupcake teir. We had an assortment of their Award Winning Red Velvet, Chocolate, and Wedding cake flavors. They even sprinkled edible glitter on them! One of my absolute favorite parts of our wedding!

Well I think that is all for now! I have so many more vendors, friends, & family to thank for making our day so special.

- Bri

Things We Learn

As I tell my mom the stories of life as newlyweds, she cracks up and then Im sure tells her friends. It really is very comical, day to day life with a my new lifelong roommate. We each have had our own paths up until October 8th, the day we said I do. Now we are on one path, figuring out things together one adventure at a time.

The key is to make sure we are walking side by side, hand in hand with every tiny, large, miniscule, ginormous & unimportant decision. Who does the dishes? Who takes out the trash? Who cleans the grout when someone spills jelly on it? Who kills the spider, the one who finds it or the one who has bigger muscles?

If we do not claim each other as partners & continue to make independent decisions, this will turn into a three-legged race with no finish line in sight. We will both be exhausted & fried, and dying to cut that knot we tied. Lets stay away from that.

Pray. Where will we live? We prayed. And God blessed us with a home. Where will we work? We prayed. And God provided us jobs in a down economy. When should we have kids? We pray. And He is so far telling us to wait. How should we spend our money? We pray. And we tithe & budget as wisely as possible.

God has answered, He always has. His guidance is priceless, valuable beyond compare. After praying we have seen the holes in decisions we were about to make, and things have been made clear. We know that we are stewards of His belongings, His home, His money and He intrusted us with these things.

Everyday, this is what I've learned.

I Needed That

I was fried. My eyes were burning. My head and neck hurt. When Chris asked me if I wanted to watch TV, I almost said, "Not during the life of the policy." But caught myself.

I was studying for a 2.5 hour licensing exam for my account managing position at a brokerage firm. I was finished. The color highlighter yellow was laser-beamed into my eyeballs.

I hear a buzzing. Kind of like an electric toothbrush. I'm sitting there wondering about all the possibilities that it could be. It hits the wall. Well that's not good.

I get up, slightly annoyed that my studying is interrupted. I walk to the doorway of our bedroom and I see my husband flying a toy helicopter around our room. I found the buzzing.

I laughed to myself, I mean just an immediate smile. It was like this was the Christmas toy he never asked for but always wanted. His joy gave my joy.

And I needed that.

The Things We Do For Love

For Chris's 27th birthday this week, I decided to go all out. It is, after all his first birthday that we've been married. Six weeks and going strong, Kardashian has nothing on us.

Chris is a huge Arizona Cardinals fan. I mean ginormous. He and his dad have had season tickets to Cardinals games for 20+ years, even way back when in the days of playing at the ASU Stadium. Talk about die-hard fans that had heart attacks when they made it to the Super Bowl. My first NFL game ever was when Chris took me to the NFC West Championships, and what a game it was.

To commemorate this other love of his, I have been plotting and scheming to do something big. So we have this loft, it is a nice loft. It has our pool table, & arcade game, and is therefore officiall the "Game Room / Man Den / Cardy Cave." With our red & black pool table, I knew there was only one thing left to do: A huge Cardinals logo.

(Taken from my phone, I need a better pic!)



Voila! An approximately 3 or 4 foot representation of the team my hubby loves so much right there in our loft. Chris' sistere was nice enough to help with the stenciling & painting as I was crunched for time before Chris came home from a weekend in PA.

(Also in picture) I got him one more thing...a flat screen for his sports room. He was like a little kid in a toy store when he finally noticed the TV.

Hopefully I scored some "cool wife" points :)

The Pursuit of Perfection

(Im not perfect, & I like it)

This week I have been contemplating perfection, and what that looks like in our lives. In my life, it shows itself in my anxiety & stress.

For four years of high school I worried about boys, my performance on my Track & Field team, what colleges I would apply to & get accepted to, friends, and my future marriage. I was so worried I wouldn't get these things right.

For four years of college I worrid about boys (until I found mine), roommates, schoolwork & graduating, picking a career, being a Young Life leader & if I was doing a good job or not, friends & relationships, and time management. I wanted these areas of my life to reflect perfect decisions & actions.

Post-college, pre-marriage I worried about my wedding being perfect. I wanted everyone to have a great time, the photos to be perfect, my dress to be perfect, and for my husband to enjoy everything.

Now as I feel my life morphing into more of a well-oiled machine rather than a ping pong ball bouncing around, I still contemplate the pressure to be perfect. I am not, so lets just start off by saying that.

We are so highly affected by social media, relationships, work relationships, our significant other, family and even strangers, it is hard to sort through the messages that people are sending us. Everyone is telling us something by their actions or lack thereof, & it often translates into: You're not perfect, you're not good enough.

My issue is taking all of those influences, and giving them the same amount of voice into my life, & it shouldn't be that way. The people that should have the most important voice into my life should be God, my husband, my family, my friends. In that order. Work comes next, but only between 8 and 5 pm Monday through Friday. I should not be stressing about what someone said about my spreadsheet at 6:30 on a Tuesday as Im cooking dinner.

If a stranger is beautiful, I read the message: You're not pretty enough. If a co-worker stays til 5:30 & I stay til 5, I read the message: You don't work hard enough. If I lose touch with a friend, I read the mesage: You weren't important enough.

Why does my mind read things this way? The healthiest epiphony I've ever had is realizing these negative messages & how they affect me. I do not need to be perfect. I don't even consciously try to be perfect, somehow something twisted in my subconscious mind that gave me the need to accomplish, to create, to work, to do until I cannot anymore, and it is still not good enough.

This is my goal: to just be. To do everything I currently do but to not create images of everyone else's opinions about me. I am realizing if a friend is a true friend, they wont give up on you, ever. If my imperfections can't be accepted, then it is not a person I need. Someone who gossip's about you is not a good friend either.

I will create my businesses. I will be a great wife. I will be a great friend. I will accept the things I cannot change. I will never give up. I will never ever let the pursuit of perfection negatively affect me again.

I am good enough.

Those Darn Napkins

Every year since 2006, my parents host Thanksgiving. It has always been one of my favorite holidays, & when my Grandma passed away it was difficult to see how this day could ever be the same. She made the best everything, even though it was simple, it was great.

So now the job is up to my mom & I to set the table and make this day special for our entire family. My mom does an amazing job, her table is always the most beautiful and creative that I have ever seen.

For one reason or the other my mom loves to set out silk asian print napkins. I have no idea why. And every year I give her a hard time about it. Why would you have an asian place setting for an American holiday? Beats me. But just one more thing that makes my family unique I guess.

So this year I sent her a bunch of ideas to squash the asian table setting (pun intended...ha!) from Martha Stewart's endless list of ideas. Including these:

Corn husk tea lights

Acorn napkin ties


 The one she picked was pears that we will have on each table setting with everyone's name tags on them. So cute!

Maybe the napkins will go eventually. I hope they do. But for now I will do my best each year to introduce a "traditional" element, so that those darn napkins just wont match everything else.

Here goes nothing.