Our 2nd Anniversary!!

Two years ago we said, "I do". Two years ago we stood in front of the people whom we care most about and vowed to love each other until death do us part. Two years ago we had our first kiss. Two years ago we started a beautiful life together filled with love and happiness. Our God knows my every need and He knew that I needed you to be alongside me in this crazy and yet magical life. Neither one of us is perfect but we are perfect for each other. I love you, my sweet husband and I pray the Lord gives us MANY more years together! Happy 2nd Anniversary!!!!

Mi Familia

I love how my family is ever growing. I remember talking with my brothers and laughing about how weird it would be when we are all married. What we thought our spouses would be like and how many kids we would all have. Adoptions, marriages, a few more adoptions, and babies being born in young households, keeps our beautiful family large and growing. 

All the couples in love together. Looking back, I think we should have had Mom and Dad kissing as well in this. But it's okay. It's still a wonderful picture filled with love.

 Oooh my darling... I love you so much I cannot even begin to describe. 

"Our family is a circle of strength and love, with every birth {and adoption} and every union, the circle will grow, every joy shared adds more love, every crisis faced together, makes the circle stronger."

Until next time, 

Adios

4th of July 2013

Life is good. *happy sigh*

Yesterday was our Independence Day Celebration!! Most everyone from our church gathered at my parents house for an afternoon/evening of recreation, good food, fellowship, and a time of remembering the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I didn't take too many pictures because I was too busy talking with the amazing church family my Lord has blessed me with. While I was busy talking, Justin was busy beating the Dad's for the first time in their annual Father-Son volleyball match. Let's just say the guys were pretty happy to have won! 

The Lord finally blessed us with the perfect weather for our celebration. It was upper 70's to 80 with a lovely breeze and no humidity!! *cheers* It was fabulous! Some people even wore light jackets/sweaters. Like I said, perfect.

Anyway, enough writing and more pictures...

My darling love and I getting a picture together before everyone started coming...

I have said this before and I will say it again, cuteness runs in my family! Hattie is the perfect testament to that! Isn't she adorable in her little hat and dress? And those chubby cheeks? Goodness, I love her.

My cute siblings and outlaw brother William having fun playing in the sandbox. I'm pretty sure right before I took this picture they were singing "happy birthday" about to enjoy the little sand cake they had made together. 

This is only some of the people who were there. I love it when we have a full crowd of friends and family just relaxing with each other. 

Olivia being absolutely adorable as always. She seriously cannot get any cuter!

The little brother-in-love, Jadon figuring out the beanbag toss. Yes, his shirt is right, he is Captain Adorable! 

It's always a blast when Garr and Mel are there! These two are so sweet to watch together. 

Want to see some men turn into little boys? Just hand them some dangerous fireworks and watch the transformation take place before your very own eyes... With that said, they did a good job setting them off without hurting anyone.  

Jelly Bean!!!! In this picture she is telling me that her name isn't "Jelly Bean" by saying. "No jelly bean, no!" *laughs* Cutie pie! 

Justus is laughing pretty hard at me as I try to take his picture. He kept hiding from me so when I actually got it I was pretty proud of myself. Just look at that huge smile!

I end this post with these two beauties! Sara and Geneva are the best of friends and can always be found playing together. Their friendship is the sweetest thing to see. 

I hope each and every one of y'all had a fabulous celebration yesterday!! 

Until next time, 

~Meli

My love...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!!!!! 

My darling, words cannot express how much I love you, care about you, and cannot live without you! You are the rock in our relationship, keeping me from getting lost inside my own thoughts and feelings. You can lighten up my mood just by singing some random disney princess song and you always make me laugh. You are the peanut-butter to my jelly and the sun to my blue sky. I love you, I love you, I love you!! I hope you have a fabulous day even though you have to work... :P I'll see you soon though!! *blows a kiss*

Such a hunk!!

I pray that our Lord and Savior gives you many MANY more years to serve Him on this earth! I also pray that the Lord give us 70 more years together full of love, laughter, and lifelong memories. 

I love you my dearest darling!

~Your loving wife

Hadassah Evangeline Sanford

March 30th 2013

I was in bed sleeping, since that's what normal people do at 2:00am, when Justin's phone rang. It was my brother Josh telling us that Jen had gone into labor with their second child and today was the day. They had a couple false alarms before because the baby has a flare for the dramatics, so I was hesitant to believe that today was actually "the day"... So I texted Jen real quick asking if she was absolutely sure. She wrote back assuring me that this was it! So I hopped into my truck picked up another friend who was supposed to be there and we headed to Josh and Jen's house. I am pretty sure Jen had already been in labor for 2 hours when I got there and she pushed through the labor for around 6 more hours until the beautiful words were said, "Aww! She's beautiful!! Welcome to the world, Hadassah!" 

She weighed in at 7lbs 10oz and was 20.5 inches long. She was, and still is, absolutely adorable... But you don't have to just trust me! Look at the pictures and just to make you even more jealous of the cute nieces I have, keep in mind that she is even MORE adorable in person!

Such cuteness... This blanket and hat were made special by Jennifer for her new baby girl. 

One big happy family!! I still cannot believe that my big brother is married, not to mention he already has a sweety pie in Jael. Now that he is a family of four it just blows my mind! In a good way. *smiles* Jael was unsure of Hadassah at first, but when I asked her if she liked her new baby sister she immediately said, "Mmmhhhmm!" Which is her way of saying, "yes!" I asked her if she thought Hattie was a beautiful baby and she answered the same. Such a sweet big sister Jael already is. Goodness, I love them...

Sunday was Easter, and since Josh and Jen couldn't leave the house, we came to them after church! It was the first time the rest of my family got to meet Hattie and my parents got to hold her for the first time. I just can't get over how adorable she is!! 

On top of my parents getting to hold her for the first time, I was also blessed to have some time cuddling the sweet little girl.

Justin also got to hold his new little niece for the first time! Justin has always been good with children and it brings tears to my eyes to see him so happy with a little one. Hopefully some day soon it will be our turn... It's really hard waiting and trying to be patient! But then the Lord sends little blessings in the two adorable nieces we have and it helps just a little more.

Here is our 2013 Easter Sunday picture! This is our second Easter being married. Oh, the amount of love I have for this man! 

Until next time! Have a fantastic Spring!!

~Melinda

Melissa's Party!

As many of you may already know, I'm getting a new sister-in-love in about a month. I'm SO excited and cannot wait till the wedding! But we couldn't send Melissa off into the stage of "old married woman" without throwing her a girls only party! It was decided to have it at my house since it's normally just me during the day. When asked to host the party I told myself right then and there, "Self, this is going to be the BEST party you've ever thrown!" And I made sure of it. *nods* A week before the party was scheduled I went out in search of the best decorations. I wanted to transform my house into something fun and hip. While at Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite stores!) I came across all of these wonderful things! 

Paper lanterns! I love those things!

I found those adorable cups, a flip flop plate, a palm tree center piece, a net for the table, flowers for every one's hair, and lei's for everyone to wear.  

Here I am sporting my crazy outfit along with the lei and flower.

Jessica made the comment that it would be fun to have a dancing game to fill the afternoon with. So the sweet future husband of Melissa went out and rented us a dancing game for the Wii. He even drove the 45 mins to my house to drop it off just for our party. Thanks, Garrison! 

Here we are trying to figure out how to work the game... imagine 3 girls who don't have much of a clue how to work a Wii doing this... Note the confuzzled looks on our faces. 

While us three girls were being brave/goofballs and dancing together to the game. The other 3 ladies at the party took some hilarious pictures of us so we'll never forget how silly we looked. 

It sure was fun to dance though! After dancing and talking we watched a movie called "Bride Wars" together. We laughed, ate snacks, and went "aww" together throughout the whole thing. Then afterwards I made sure we got a group picture of everyone who made Melissa's party special. 

Jesi, Jess, Mel, Lily

Laura and I.

After some smiling and serious ones we took a couple goofy shots as well... I mean, what party is complete without a goofy shot of everyone?

I love all these wonderful girls! 

Jessica and Melissa, sisters and the best of friends forever.

My sweet, gorgeous, amazing soon-to-be sister! I love her so much! But not only because she's soooo easy to love and hang out with, but because she makes my big brother the happiest he's ever been or ever will be. They are perfect for each other which makes me happy.

The ever so lovely Jesi and Melissa! It was only after I was done editing this picture that I realized they are both my sisters-in-love. *laughs* Pretty neat, huh?

Laura!!! What can I say about this amazing girl, besides the fact that she is hilarious, sweet, has a fabulous sense of humor, and is SO fun to be around. I'm glad she moved all the way from TN to marry Sam, it's so nice to have another married woman my age.

Snacking and talking before some of the girls had to go home. 

It was a lovely party and worth every penny to be able to spend the afternoon with such a amazing sisters in Christ. I think Melissa had a blast, along with the rest of us and I cannot wait to do it again some time really soon!!! 

---------------------

Pip was kept in a back room most of the day. He was ever so sweet and didn't make a sound the entire time the girls were here. After most of the girls left he was let out and boy was he happy to be loose in the house. I decided to make him a little more festive since he felt left out most of the day...

What a cutie pie! Please excuse the fact that he sorta looks like a girl... *laughs* We just call him a prissy little guy, which he is. :)

Until next time!!!

~Meli

Snow Day with my Honey...

On Tuesday of this week we had a snow storm so Justin was able to stay home from work! Yay! I guess that means there is at least one good thing about snow. I'm not really a big fan of Winter but I know that my husband is. He loves it when it snows and he enjoys the freezing weather, which I think is just odd. But anyway, knowing that he loves it so much I decided that since he was home that day we should take advantage of our time together and spend it doing something we've never done together before- Build a Snowman! So we bundled up in hats, scarves, fluffy coats, boots, and went outside to make a snowman in the middle of a snow storm. It was actually quite fun!

Here I am getting proof that I actually was outside...I have no gloves on in this picture because I couldn't work the phone with my gloves on. Let's just say it was cold.  

I told Justin, "Smile!" and then I burst out laughing realizing that you couldn't see our smiles anyway! Although my cousin says you can see it in the eyes so it wasn't for nothing.

I have not made a snow-angel in years! But that day I indulged my inner child and made one. It was kind of surreal to stare up at the sky as snow was falling on my face. It was very peaceful.

Here is the finished product of our adorable snowman, Woody. We named him that because we had to use wood to make his face instead of rocks or coal. He was almost as tall as Justin!

I didn't even mean to upload this video on here but here ya go! I hope it works cause I've never tried videos on my blog before. It's just a short peek of our snowman...

We woke up Wednesday morning thinking Justin would be going back to work, but we got a call from the boss telling him to stay home again cause of the weather. So we had two whole days to spend with each other! I suggested we go for a walk as the snow was falling lightly all around us. It was pretty romantic and not at all cold. *smiles* We walked to the Post Office to get some stamps we needed...



Of course Pip had to come along! It was nice to get out of the house together and spend some time just walking along our town.

Today Justin went back to work and so it's just Pip and me home alone. I'm thankful for the time I had with my husband these past few days. I love him so much!

Until next time!
~Melinda

MY BROTHER...

....IS ENGAGED!!!!!!!! 

On January 19th 2013 my big brother proposed marriage to my dear friend Melissa. And for some strange reason we still haven't figured out, she said "Yes!" I am so happy for them both but I still cannot get over the fact that they are in love and going to get married! *laughs with a grin*

My amazing big brother and the most wonderful girl I could have ever wanted as a sister-in-love!

At the restaurant where he proposed. I think if they smiled any bigger their faces would crack...

From now on they will be known together. As a couple, a team, and best friends. That is just the coolest thing ever in my humble opinion. 

Today I am having my sweet baby sisters come over for a sleepover while Melissa brings all of her younger sisters (minus Jess *sniffs* We'll miss you m'dear) for a girl's day. We are going to have a blast doing girly things, talking, laughing, and eating loads of popcorn. :)

Well, that ends my life update right now! Better go make sure the house is all clean for guests...

Until next time!
~Meli