Crafty Fun With Paper

I had a hodgepodge of pictures on my camera that I wanted to upload, and as I was doing so, I realized they're not so unrelated after all. They all have two essential thing in common: paper & creativity :)

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Exhibit A:

I went to a wedding this past weekend, and will be attending another one in spirit this weekend. Weddings mean wedding presents (in addition to lots of other things, obviously), and I couldn't be more thrilled with how these wedding invitation ornaments turned out!

I simply cut the wedding invitation into thin little strips & curled each one. Then I took a clear ornament (available at AC Moore, heyy) and put all of the curled up strips inside. I finished them off with a sheer, shiny bow -- and tada!

I told you -- paper & creativity :)

The upcoming wedding that I'll be attending in spirit is my big sister's* wedding in Arkansas.

(Thanksgiving 2008; Zach actually took these pictures)

Sadly, a road trip to Arkansas and back is 32 hours, but the wedding present package seemed to travel through the mail much quicker than that, because it arrived today! And fortunately so, because Rebecca loved it so much that she wants to use the ornament for the cake topper at the reception! Now I really will be there in spirit :)

Crazy to think that after all these years of hearing dad call her "Stover," she's about to become "Roetzel!"

Long story short, these wedding invitation ornaments are the perfect addition to any wedding gift & you should probably make it your life mission to ensure that every newlywed couple you know has one. However, let it be known that if it's a wedding I'm also invited to... I call dibs! :)

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Exhibit B:

'Tis the season... for designing Christmas cards! I've been threatened asked to come out with a set of Christmas cards in my Etsy shop for people to buy, so I've been glued to my sketchbook recently playing with a bunch of ideas. They're still in the rough stages, but they should be ready & online in the next couple of weeks, once they pass judgment by my relentless adoring fans :)

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Exhibit C:

What better creative thing to do with paper than make a super awesome card/letter & mail it?

Clearly a ton of my friends have gotten the memo :)

And what better creative thing for me to then do with said papers than to tape them all up on my Snail Mail Wall?

At this rate, the Snail Mail Wall will be filled by the end of this semester! I'm not really sure where it will expand to, because...

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Exhibit D:

...basketball season has officially BEGUN & the entire border of my room is prepared to be covered in newspaper clippings :)

(I'm obviously taking full advantage of my final year in a dorm room, where it's still perfectly acceptable to tape everything to the walls...)

Countdown to Craziness with the Blue/White game was a couple of weekends ago, and the first exhibition game was this past weekend. One more exhibition game this coming week... and then the road to the national championship begins. Oh, boy... :)

Tada! I hope you've been inspired to have a little fun with paper today :)

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Birthday Princess

Today is my best friend's birthday!

I could go on and on about how we became friends on the awkward first day of 9th grade & have been inseparable ever since, or about all of the incredibly ridiculous things we've done together over the past 7+ years, but I've done that before. More than once. Instead, I'll just let you know that I feel sorry for you. I'm sure your best friend is awesome & all, but mine's actually the best in the world. Hands down. Period. Just stating facts here. She's the quintessential definition of what a true friend should be and I love her forever...

Even if she did use to eat straight lemonade powder out of a bowl :)

I know what you're thinking: birthdays = cards, right?

Obviously.

Before we proceed, let it be known that the best friend has a stronger-than-normal love for pandas.

Best friend also spends longer-than-normal amounts of time studying/doing homework in a coffeeshop.

Tada, it's the 22nd birthday panda card!

:)

Given Kacey's love for pandas & coffeeshops, imagine how ecstatic I was to discover this coffee cozy (you know, the sleeve you put around a cup with hot liquid) on Etsy:

I cannot even begin to imagine how it's possible to crochet something like that. But I adore it!

After Coffee Cozy Panda spent some time being tested on my bottle of green tea & bonding with Birthday Card Panda, he got wrapped up & enjoyed a 20 minute trip to Chapel Hill last night. (Seriously, my best friend & I attend major universities just down the road from each other -- how blessed am I?)

Did I mention that best friend is a twin? Two birthdays in one night! Happy birthday, Tucker :)

Did I also mention how difficult it has been being friends with two ridiculously good looking models for the past seven years?

awkward hands-in-pockets twin pic - love them :)

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Parades, Pumpkin Pie, & Pictures

Oh heyy, guess who hasn't posted in forever?

(That'd be me...)

BUT for perfectly good reasons: I went home for Thanksgiving :)

Isn't my house so cute & fall-ish?

In my family, Thanksgiving means waking up just in time to go downstairs & crawl into bed with mom to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in our pajamas :) I just love that parade. I've watched it every year, except for the one year my sisters & I were grounded from watching it because nobody would confess to plastering a nearly-impossible-to-remove sticker on our bathroom wall.

We later learned that our three year old cousin did the damage. Good thing we're not bitter about it or anything...

The second Santa Claus appears on the screen (signaling the end of the parade), my entire family jumps in the car & makes the annual two mile trek to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving lunch... complete with deep fried turkey:

Every year, Grandma seems to miss the memo that there are only ten people in our family and cooks for a small army of three thousand. Needless to say, the food-induced coma kicks in shortly after said feast, and the afternoon is well-balanced between napping in the middle of Grandma's living room floor (yes, on the floor) and decorating the Christmas tree. Let's be honest: I opted for the nap this year---and my claimed spot in front of the sliding glass door has never felt better :)

The routine has changed a little over the years, but this Thanksgiving wasn't about "routine" at all. This Thanksgiving was simply about... giving thanks (imagine that!). Specifically: giving thanks for the current health of a grandpa who was in critical condition/emergency surgery a year ago due to a traumatic brain injury & spent the following three months in the hospital.

And giving thanks for a family that been joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer (Romans 12:12) during one of the more difficult years of their life, as well as a God who heals and comforts :)

I'm also super thankful that this was my 4th and FINAL Thanksgiving without Zach - 90% done with this deployment!

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The adventures of Thanksgiving break would not be complete without a series of sister "calendar pictures."

The year my youngest sister was born, my mom began creating a calendar with a picture of the three of us for each month to give to our grandparents every Christmas. Obviously we were cuter back in 1995, plus we all lived in the same house, so it was super easy to get 12 pictures during the course of a year to use for the upcoming calendar. (Well, 9 -- we each get our birthday month to ourselves.)

But now we live in three different cities and the sibling pics are few & far between. Solution? Take all the pictures during Thanksgiving break, obviously :)

"All The Things" meme - my absolute favorite

Rumor has it that 2012 will be the last ever published Haynes sister calendar because... let's face it: we're not as cute as we were back in 1995 :) (Don't be sad - we're thrilled! We had a good 17 year run, and all good things have to come to an end eventually.)

In honor of the occasion, we suggested doing a flashback calendar (as a way to get out of taking pictures) -- but alas, no such luck. Our second suggestion of a ridiculously awkward outtakes calendar was also vetoed, but still provided some classic shots for your viewing enjoyment:

I'm sure we'll all have kids ten years from now and subject them to the outrageous fun that is calendar pictures.

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Last bit of news in the sister photo department: we were able to convince mom to forgo the dreaded awfulness that is stuffy studio portraits for Christmas cards and be responsible for our own Christmas picture. It may be too soon to tell, but I'll go ahead & say that they're borderline epic.

So epic, in fact, that you only get a sneak peek. You're dying for more, I know.

It's okay... only FOUR weeks until Christmas :)

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Deployment: Week 25-27

How crazy is it to think that there aren't too terribly many of these posts left?

I know at least two people who are very happy about that fact:

A couple of weeks ago, Zach sent me the link to a YouTube video uploaded by the Marine Corps. It features the Marines of 1/9 (Zach's unit) as well as soldiers in the Afghanistan National Army (ANA). While Zach's not in the video, he knows some guys who are, and it was really neat to see his current area of the world :)

I know, I know -- 11 minutes is insanely long for a YouTube video. I took some screenshots so you can get the gist.

I had a lot of thoughts while watching the video. I particularly loved the dog running around from 3:50-4:50 (& I love how they put him on a makeshift leash as soon as they hear gunfire), and I loved getting to see the Afghanistan children at 4:05. I also really liked the part where the Marines and ANA are crossing the little bridge at 5:08 & you can distinctly hear both languages being spoken -- it sounds really cool!

After watching the entire thing, I told Zach:

"Don't hate me for saying this, because I realize that you've been there for over six months & you've seen absolutely nothing but sand & dirt & can't wait to come back home & you have every right to not think this, but... it looks almost beautiful. Not beautiful in the way that the Parkway is beautiful here in the fall. Not beautiful in the way that Center Field at Camp Bethel is beautiful early in the morning after it rains. But beautiful in the way that, well, I guess in the way that only a desert can be beautiful. I can't really describe it, but... it just looks really pretty."

To my surprise, he agreed with me!

"No, it is! I definitely know what you mean. There are obviously a lot of areas that have been affected by the war, and there's a lot of rebuilding that needs to take place, but Afghanistan is still a beautiful country."

I like people who can find a little bit of beauty in everything :)

The Marine Corps website is actually doing a 4-part series of articles that goes along with this video entitled "Victory in Nawa." The first three installments can be read here, here, and here.

Other fun facts worth mentioning:

• Zach is starting to pick up on "Pashto" -- the language spoken in southern Afghanistan. While Zach has about a dozen words & phrases under his belt, I can only say "sabr woka tishnaab," which is what you say when you're telling someone that they must wait to go to the bathroom. I mean, if you're only going to learn one phrase, that's definitely the one to go with. Useful life knowledge, no doubt.
• I lied -- I know two other words! In Afghanistan, "yah" means "no," and "wo" means "yes." Pretty counterintuitive -- Zach has some funny instances where he's instinctively said "yah" and then realized that he actually disagreed instead of agreed. Whoops!

There's no way I could begin to do justice to some of the stories Zach has told me over the past few weeks: stories of the Afghanistan detainees. Perhaps I'll get him to write another paragraph or so, because he really does tells them so much better. Their commitment to their Muslim faith is truly inspirational. They're currently being detained -- some may be terrorists and some may not be -- yet they're in such high spirits. They constantly say, "Insha'Allah" (ooo, I know FOUR words/phrases) which means "God willing" or "If it's God's will."

That amazes me. These men are being detained knowing that there's a chance they could be turned over to the Afghanistan government at any moment. But regardless of if they are set free or die at the hands of the Afghanistan government, they are at peace with whatever happens because they genuinely believe it is "God's will" for their life.

They pray five times a day, as is the Muslim custom. When they're not praying, they're asking Zach if it's time for them to pray... even if they just asked five minutes earlier. Zach says that each prayer can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours! Sometimes, they sit and read the Qur'an. Or sing in Arabic from the Qur'an. And they don't do it as a form of, "Oh, God, my life is so hard, so I'm going to be super devout because I need you to fix everything & get me out of here." Because let's be honest, I think a lot of Christians (myself included) have a tendency to do that when things aren't going so well. But for them, the singing & praying & Qur'an reading happens with such intensity all the time -- good or bad.

Definitely makes me think.

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Please continue to keep Zach in your prayers -- he's done such an outstanding job throughout this entire deployment, but he's definitely ready to be home. While there's not too much time left...

...there's still just enough time remaining to make it seem like an eternity. Perhaps taking a few moments to send him a bit of extra encouragement (on here or via Facebook) would make things better... ;)

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Engagement // Jonathan & Allison

I've mentioned before how close my extended family is. My mom & her siblings were fortunate enough to grow up with all of their dozen+ cousins in the same town, and as a result, the rest of us second cousins (that we just refer to as "cousins" to make things simpler) are a lot closer than most. Since there's over 30 great-grandchildren, we're almost guaranteed to have a cousin who's our age.

My same-age cousin is Jonathan:





... and yes, we were two of the cutest kids to ever walk this earth :) But now we're both all grown up... and Jonathan is engaged!

When Jonathan found out that I had been asked to do an engagement shoot for long-time camp friend over the summer, he instantly asked me if I'd be interested in doing his engagement photos as well. I was shocked -- engagement photos can be a really big deal & I'm by no means a professional! Fortunately, Jonathan & his fiancée, Allison, are undoubtedly the most photogenic couple in the world, so professionalism wasn't all that necessary :)

Jonathan & Allison traveled up to Durham last month & we spent the afternoon in the Duke Gardens (with a little bit of the Duke Chapel & downtown Durham thrown in). I absolutely loved getting to hang out with them -- they're perfect for each other! I'm SO excited for them, & really hope these pictures reflect how wonderful they are :)



Jonathan is currently in his third year of pharmacy school at Campbell University and there just happens to be the cutest "Main Street Pharmacy" located a mile from my dorm -- it was too perfect!



Congratulations, future Mr. & Mrs. Beam :)