Friday Fun Day

Knock, knock…who’s there? Orange. Orange Who? Orange you glad Friday’s color focus is Orange? I think orange is fabulous. It is the color of Crush Soda and my high school mascot. It is a bold color, close to red but more fun, close to yellow but way more intense. Orange is deep and flirty. If orange was a kid in high school, he/she would have been voted “Most likely to have a good time with.” I don’t think that was an actual award, but maybe it should have been. I can’t get enough of Orange these days. Let’s all appreciate and look for orange out there amongst us, today.



1st Row: Prada Dress, J Crew Umbrella
2nd Row: Christian Dior Sunglasses, wedding party from Martha Stewart, Chair from Target
3rd Row: Juicy Couture Swimsuit

It's a ...

Beautiful baby boy.

Luke Thomas Hooper made his grand debut today. Tamara and Scott were amazing and the Lord has bestowed the greatest of blessings upon our family with the gift of this babe. I hope sweet Tamara gets good sleep tonight.

I will write more later but just had to post a couple of pictures of the new life.




We love you baby Luke! Love, Uncle Chris & Aunt Kim

bébé

Petite Cub is almost here! Tamara has had a pedicure and her hair colored; she is all ready now for the babe to come ;-) If he/she hasn't already come on his/her own then Tamara will induce on Thursday morning real early!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had several moments today where I just blurted out, "The baby is coming! The baby is coming!!!!!!" My gracious boss who offices with me is kind and put up with my outburst and even rejoiced with me. Words do no justice for all the feelings bouncing around inside of me, an already overzealous proud Auntie. Baby baby baby.... Reese Janelle or Luke Thomas is big and chubby; the doctors predict over 8 1/2 lbs!

Love to you and yours... please pray for a safe arrival for the babe.

White Now

In English law, a proclamation is a formal announcement made under the great seal, of some matter which the King in Council or Queen in Council desires to make known to his or her subjects. Now, I don’t believe I am a Queen nor do I think anyone is my subject but I would like to make a modern day proclamation, maybe more of a normal person’s declaration.
Friday blog entries from this day forward will be dedicated to color until I don’t want to anymore. When I was in elementary school, I remember playing with my friend Rena. We were just chatting and I asked her what her favorite thing that God created was. She immediately responded, “Color.” Brilliant, I thought. She then turned the question around on me, to which I replied, “Water, all forms of water. Snow, Rain, Ocean, Ice, Drinking, baths…” It is fun how we are all so different.
This blog is dedicated to Rena, the one who so appreciated God’s magnificent pallet at a young tender age. The color I want to start with is white. White is so pure, chic and simple. It is the color reserved for making marriage commitments, the one most of us feel a little afraid to wear because we probably will do something to soil its perfection. If I sat down and had a conversation with ‘White’ , it might say things like, “Relax. Stop. Take a Deep Breath. Shhh…You are doing just fine. I’m breezy. Come rest here. I have a summer home in the Hamptons that you are always welcome to visit”. . White seems perfect all on its own and yet it is always there beckoning me to come and linger for a visit. It is the color of innocence and doves. It is a vanilla ice cream cone on a hot day and the pillow I lay my head down to sleep on at night. It is a cotton field in west Texas where my dad grew up and the left over icing on a spatula my mom always lets me lick. White is clean linens and seasonal white chocolate covered Oreos. It is soap and bubbles. It is the frothy milk on my cappuccino. White is sophisticated and lovely. What white things tickle your fancy?

baby haven

By definition, a haven is a safe and secure place. We all need havens. A haven doesn’t have to be a room or a physical place. It can be a person or even a state of mind. In a world that can be cruel and unkind, havens can serve as a respite or a creative place to be inspired. Tamara and Scott (sister in love and brother) have been busy at work creating the perfect haven for Baby Hooper or as I like to call he/she, petit cub (small cub).





I have never known anything, to date, that encompasses God’s love like that of a new babe born of love. Isn’t that the very nature of God? That He creates life out of nothing? That he would take away and GIVE? There seems to be this undeniable rhythm to it all. I love our future niece or nephew so much it makes me cry sometimes with tears of joy.



I can’t imagine how Scott and Tamara must be feeling. Scott and Tamara have been so gracious to let us be a part of the process. I wanted to share with you all some pictures of the nursery I took. The picture in the weathered window frame is from Canton. It is a blown up image of a postcard from the 1930s.



I think it is so sweet and nostalgic. The little camo boots won’t fit the tiny guy for quite sometime but I feel certain they will be put to good use in no time.


One more quick story, Scott sent us all an email the other day at work with an attached PDF map of the hospital with directions on where to go once we arrive at the hospital. He also gave everyone their quickest routes to the hospital from all of our various location, either work or home. So sweet. He is already Father of the Year!






We love you baby Hooper, only bake as long as you need to and then hurry up and come out already; we can’t wait to meet you ;-)

baby style

There is so much excitement hovering around our family right now. I got married on September 27th. Scott and Tamara are having a baby (the first one in our immediate family), and Todd and Lauren tie the knot on May 3oth!


Baby Hooper is due to make his/her debut on February 12th. Scott and Tamara did not find out the sex of the baby, which has made the whole experience completely thrilling! However my Granny said, “Well you can just shoot me with a double barrel if that baby isn’t a little boy. Look at how low she is carrying him.” I don’t doubt Granny.


We kind of all think it is going to be a little boy. I just went to Tamara’s baby shower last weekend and was obsessed with the adorableness of the décor. Martha coulldn't have done a better job herself.







I couldn’t help but to show you all how perfectly decorated every little station was. I have shown above the invitation (green rattle) and the same little rattle was on the pedafores. Oh the details! We are not quite into the baby shower season with my friends yet, but I know the day will come and I plan to implement the adorable baby style I learned here.









Outstanding party.

Bonfire Birhtday

My darling (in a Braveheart-manly kind of a way) husband just turned 26. I had been scrambling trying to plan a surprise birthday party full of all his favorites: bonfire, friends, smores, a movie outside and lemonade. Well I won’t tell you how he found out because it would make the people responsible feel really bad, but he found out basically the first day I started planning. Instead of telling me he knew he got busy devising a surprise of his own. He went down to his local Party City and bought a very silly scary costume and made plans to jump from the woods and scare me. Which, he did. Since it was his birthday I figured that getting to dress up and try to scare me probably was more fun than the surprise I had benn planning anyways. Our dear friend Jacob made his party a reality. I could not have done 1/10th of the planning without his servant’s heart, so thanks again for that Jacob. It was a really special night and it felt like college. Celebrating is just so much fun. Some of the highlights of the night were the bull that was roaming openly on the land the whole time we were there. Hayley and I got there to set up only to find that the bull and horse thought we were bringing them their dinner. After I said, “Mr. Bull, look, we don’t have your food please leave and go to the front of the property, near the gate where you were earlier.” And that didn’t work, Hayley got brave and waved a chair at his head causing him to at least scoot back enough for us to set up.
There was a great break out Boys II Men session in which everyone burst into song. We have great friends. I feel so blessed to have a husband like Christopher James. He is just so gracious and fun. In the words of Ben Harper, “You put the happy in my ness.”

Love you hubby.

Love their Love

What a year for my dear friend Lindsay Killingsworth SCHARDT! That is right…with the new year she also has rung in a new last name. Her wedding was wonderfully beautiful.
A collision of old world elegance and modern style. Lindsay made black and white with punches of Red, swirl romantically around every adorned detail. With black iron that crawled up the windows like groomed vines I thought Medieval and then I turned the corner into the grand ball room and thought Royal Court.
It was breathtaking. They had a macaroni and cheese buffet with all of these atypical toppings. It was a tasty surprise. I looked around and all of our friends and thought of all the love packed into one place and it was enough to make me teary.
More importantly than the beauty achieved with countless sleepless nights, are the hearts of these two dynamic people. Scott is funny, sweet, intelligent, gentle and aware. Lindsay is a tiny person with a huge heart. She is sympathetic, tender, talented and an amazing listener.
They have been dating for over four years and deserve to call each other roommate! Well done Linnie and Scott! They are currently in the Grand Caymans playing and frolicking in the sun I hope.

Cheers to the beautiful life you two are now starting together.

Merry France-mas

I know it is Christmas and this would be maybe a more relevant blog entry if it had anything to do with the birth of Jesus, but instead the topic pertains to how my morning has been spent. My lovely coworker, Cheryle, gave me a parting Christmas gift for the holiday in the form of Vicki Archer's book called, "My French Life". Little did she know that I have spent countless minutes sitting in Anthropologie getting lost in the story and images, but never could bring myself to just purchase it. This book is all about how Vicki Archer, her husband and three kids who were from Australia, find this farmhouse (more like farm mansion) in the south of France about 40 minutes outside of Aix-en-Provence. They purchase the land and broken down palace only to spend the next three years working rigorously to have it even livable. Livable in deed. I am obsessed with their story and her exceptional taste. I think I need to be her friend. She says so many things about the people of France, the way of the French woman, charm, the organic beauty of the land and praises the experience of travel, all of which resonate in the inner parts of my heart. I then proceeded to look around a bit on the internet at real estate for sale near the same area and stumbled upon this dream of a home. It is situated on three acres, and even though I have never seen it before, the image of the house seems oddly familiar and nostalgic. The last picture attached to this blog is of a door outside the apartment I lived in while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. I also have a sincere infatuation with doors. They are the keeper of so many secrets, things & people to marvel at, lives, tears, great loves and a fortified protector to those they keep. This dried bouquet of flowers is especially intriguing to me. They are obviously dead and were once alive. No one ever removed them. Did the person the giver intended them for never receive them? Did they like them so much the receiver decided to leave them for all to see? Perhaps the mystery person was lazy or forgetful or always running late like me and thinks, "Oh yeah, I need to throw those out... I will do that when I get back." Only to forget until they are running out the door rushed next time? I would never think to paint my door that electric blue color and yet I appreciated that door so much on rue de Oberkamf. One of the details we made for our wedding was a fun questionnaire that was situated on all of the tables at the wedding. One of the questions asked us each where we would go and live if money and travel for limitless... Chris said, "I would say London, she would say Paris...I guess we will just have to take the Chunnel." He knows me well. My lovely new espresso machine makes drinks that taste like France and on a morning like this one where rest, indulgent writing and reading are the only things on my agenda; if felt like France, too.

Merry France-mas,
KP

Mini Moon, Middle Moon, Large Moon

We deemed the road trip with Sleeperstar to their show in Chattanooga the Mini Moon... the time home the middle moon and the trip to Jamaica as the Large Moon.... THE HONEYMOON! Chris and I got to spend 7 nights in Jamaica. It was incredible. He is and continues to be my favorite person to travel with. He taught me to play chess, we swam in the water with 40 feet of visibility and sailed alone for hours. It was the stolen season of a lifetime. Honeymoons are good.We really felt closer throughout the trip. It was a time of rest and drinking each other deeply. I am pro honeymoon and pro taking the trip four weeks after you get married. It made our time together something else other than the wedding and we had it to look forward to. We weren't just recovering from the fun whirlwind of the wedding. It rained half of the time we were there, but we didnt' mind. Chris brought his guitar and played me songs. We read books. We drank coffee and slept in. It was all things happy. Those are all of the details I have for the public.

love love,
KP