Wedding Book: Florence and Maxime

I recently finished this wedding book and shipped it off to Belgium :) (Tis the season for weddings! Yesterday I shared about another wedding keepsake journal that I also recently completed :)) The bride's colors are pink, dark pink, light grey and dark grey. They are using pink Gerbera daisies as their flowers and wanted to incorporate that into the book. Simple and elegant - I love how this book turned out also :)

Thank you Florence and Maxime for letting me create your wedding journal :) Congratulations on your upcoming marriage :)

wedding planning journal: crystal and paul

I recently had the privilege to put together this "wedding planning and memento" journal for a sweet lady in Ireland - Anita. She wanted the journal so she could document the wedding planning with her son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law. 

She wanted the journal fun, pink and pretty :) I've never put together a pink and girly journal - so it was fun to coordinate a bunch of different papers, envelopes, and embellished pages. I made a "confetti page" instead of a confetti window - I sewed the clear window material directly to a glitter cardstock page. LOVE it (will definitely be exploring this concept more with other projects ;)).

I used my Silhouette to cut out a few pages of "key places" in the couple's story - where they are each from and where they met.

I also used a doily, baker's twine, ribbon, tulle, diecuts and other things to embellish the pages.

I love how it turned out. I love how I made a new friend halfway across the world via our back and forth convos about the book :) Thanks so much, Anita! SO great to work with you on this book and am thankful to have "met" you :)

Food: Homemade Toffee

This toffee has been a fave in our house for years - some dear friends gave us this recipe. I hadn't made any for awhile and decided to yesterday :) My hubby was so excited to see it when he got home from work :) Easy to make, and it makes a lot. Good to package up and give as a gift.

Homemade Toffee

1 sleeve saltine crackers (enough to fill a cookie sheet if you lay them flat, side by side)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional - sometimes I put these on top, sometimes not)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper.

Lay saltine crackers side by side and cover entire cookie sheet in a single layer.

In a medium sized saucepan, melt butter. Add brown sugar and stir frequently. Bring to a boil and boil for 3-5 minutes (you're pretty much making hard caramel here, and want it to get to the hardball stage if you have a candy thermometer).

Pour caramel over saltines and spread gently over entire pan. Bake for 6-8 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over caramel. The chips will melt - spread chocolate gently over caramel. Sprinkle nuts (if using) evenly over chocolate.

Let cool completely (Sometimes I put mine in the fridge on hot pads to make it cool faster. So we can eat it faster ;)). Break (or cut) into pieces. Store at room temperature in an airtight container. Enjoy :) 

------------------------------------
Thank you all so, so much for the sweet comments and emails and Instagram comments about Hannah's birthday and my thoughts on the past year the other day. It was truly a blessing to hear from so many about their faith and their sweet comments about our little one :) Thank you!

hannah jane: 1 year old

A very happy, happy birthday to my sweet hannah :) 1 year ago today at 9:33am our sweet baby girl was born.

Born a month early, she was immediately taken to the NICU to have help breathing. I held her for less than one minute. I didn't see her again until late the next day. I was too scared to see her. 

So grateful to the Lord for this past year - a very, very challenging year. My hubby and I were talking about it last night - recounting the (many) different difficult events that have transpired over the past year - probably the hardest in our entire almost-10-years-of-marriage. Postpartum depression - which clouded many, many, months for me (and of course made things more difficult altogether), major sicknesses in myself and our family, many dear friends moving away, my sister and her husband moving away, and many exhausting circumstances.

But each thing we talked about, we were also able to talk about God's grace to us and our family. Through my tears as I wept, we talked about His unending grace and comfort. We were able to recount the many, many blessings - the huge blessings (like the fact that our baby girl developed really well and was healthy and able to come home after a week!) and the mundane but special things that could easily go unnoticed. We were able to recount how He never left us.

Did it seem like there was no hope sometimes? yes. 
Was there no hope? no. 

He was faithful to bring us through, one day at a time. He was faithful to me through my husband who has always had unwavering hope and faith. He was faithful to our (now big) family through our extended family (my mom spent many, many weeks here off and on after Hannah was born and I was back in the hospital, my sis and her husband were here a lot as well) and through our close friends and church family. We were shown so much grace and love by so many.

We are so thankful. So thankful for God's love. So thankful for other's outpouring of love. So thankful to have this year behind us. So thankful to have learned and grown. So thankful to continue to learn and grow. Thank you, Lord.