Seeing as I've already ordered my little photo book, and have these pretty images on there way, I figured it was time to post them here too. Although its been near a month, I still find myself returning to take a look at these beauties. It was such an awesome trip. I'm so thankful we got to go.

 

 

We went to a Luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center one night, and it was a total blast. The following Day, we checked out all the beaches near us. It was sunny out (thus the squinty-eyed-ben) But we had a lot of fun and in that 3-4 hour walk, we got to talk quite a bit about what we're excited for, and we got reminiscent of how on a similar beach our little relationship began three years ago!

 

 

Every year there's a fancy dinner banquet that AGM puts on. Seeing Ben get all dressed up is my favorite part. What a dreamy man.

Not gonna lie, I stare at him like when I was a teenager with my closet sized poster of jonathan taylor thomas.  My tastes have graduated into a fine, fine standard of man. I kind of want a poster sized picture of this guy.

 

We also got to attend a Lifehouse and Gavin Degraw concert. For some reason these kind of silly pictures (above) always turn out to be my favorite. Maybe because of just how alive Ben becomes whenever he's in the music realm. That man was made for his music. We spent a few hours after talking about and how much he appreciates certain aspects of Lifehouse's performance and the cool conversation we had afterwards with him. :) Ben's in his element when you put him near any type of instrument used for rock music. You want to deepen your appreciation for music of any genre? This man's your guy-He'll point out things you've never even thought of before.

 We had such a great time. It was short and sweet, but really was the perfect amount of time.  We like you Hawaii. We like you a lot.

28 weeks

 

 

 Last week was the official last week of LDI. We've had a wedding every weekend and will close the wedding marathon this next weekend. It's been a good week of reflecting, and I have about 5+ blog posts I'm looking forward to posting.


My body is getting to get all achey, and the first appearance of the much treasured (harty har) stretch marks have appeared. I joked awhile back about a post I saw calling them 'tiger stripes.' Ben's decided to embrace that saying-which adds a little bit of grace to the morphing of this body of mine.

Overall, I think everything thats happening is to be expected. Nothing new under the sun.  

Some exciting things that have been happening:

>>We ordered our first set of cloth diapers. We ordered just a few with some amazon credits we had.  It'll be fun to see how our little cloth-diapering experiment goes. I'm looking forward to it.

>>God has been especially kind in sending a handful of compliments my way. This has been especially a blessing when daily I feel like I grow exponentially. Having women ask me about my maternity clothes (which really are thrift store finds that happen to work on this massive belly-very few maternity clothes here yet) and a few other kind women's compliments have left me feeling especially cared for.

>>Ben and I have been just overall reflecting on life. This has lead to alot of good conversations, and a lot of re-adjusting of priorities and goals. It feels good.

>> This week starts my summer! I have a few more things to wrap up with LDI (more paper work type work) and then it's getting geared up for the babe. I'm looking forward to this season and looking forward to see how God plans on using it.

>>Craft projects have been coming out of everywhere. This always leaves me feeling PUMPED.

>>Ben has been especially good to me these past weeks. He's always a pretty magical man, but he's been extra-magic. Praise the Lord for that good husband of mine.

Giving up on good.

I've really loved the series "Giving up on good," that Naptime Diaries has been doing and with an invitation from her and the blog tiny twig to respond, I figured I'd join in. It's a pretty awesome concept, I welcome you all to join, read all their posts and just process what could allow you more by giving up on good.

When being pregnant, there are two sides that I've been hearing. There's a "enjoy it while it lasts! Eat those cookies! Indulge!" attitude I'll get from some, and then on the opposite spectrum, there's a "Don't play the pregnancy card. Just because you're pregnant doesn't give you the right to do X, Y and Z."

When I hear both of these, my brain does a quick processing move. The former, at its extreme, are embracing a life of complete abandonment of responsibility.While the other, at its extreme take a no-mercy, judgmental approach. Both suffer extreme consequences in those positions, and the opposite side can clearly see the consequences of the other, but struggle to see their own.

Whats interesting is I find we all have a tendency to go to one camp or the other. My tendency is to go into the second.   I tend to wander far too easily into a life of self-imposed non-God lead 'convictions.' And because of the 'convictions' that I have decided I should have, I get acidic to every woman who takes any liberty to celebrate in her life. Even reading that statement that I just wrote, it makes me not want to be around myself. But, its something I've noticed in my heart too often.

Plainly put, there's too much license on one, and the other feels like prison for everyone.

I've been thinking a wee-bit about this, and have decided that would be a perfect area to' give up on good.'  I'm giving up on worrying that individuals will judge my actions-that I will fail to appease the pregnancy-card-destroyers, and I'm going to go ahead and give up some of the legalism I've labeled as "convictions."  I'm going to allow women to find freedom in their decisions-both in and outside of pregnancy-knowing they are just as capable to pursue God and hear from Him regarding their decisions as I am about the ones He's given me to make.

I've already began walking in this due to one awesome man (known as my husband! Ben, you're a stud.) And I've already found a lot of joy. I'm not saying that if God is convicting us of something, we should choose to take license anyways. Nor am I saying that those that have legitimate convictions that may seem 'unnecessary' to the outside world should be told to not follow those.  And I'm most certainly not saying that we shouldn't speak into each others life when we see our friends and family running into destructive habits. But I am saying that I need to reexamine how I define 'destructive' through a biblical lens, and check my heart to see if I'm really concerned or gaining some sort of satisfaction over the fact that I'm choosing to do 'something better' than the other person in the room.  I think a lot of joy is to be found in celebrating successes,  pregnancy, and life in general and allowing others to celebrate their lives (and join them in that!) as well.

Ben has especially taught me this. At first, the way he celebrated life seemed excessive to me. Really? A whole week to celebrate birthdays? Really? We're going to celebrate that?! And yet, I find myself able to praise God all the more. Ben actively seeks ways to see God moving and then to celebrate that. I tend to look for self-improvement projects that leave me, when unchecked, angry and bitter towards God and any one I've enlisted, because they supposedly are the ones who asked me to do all this. Ben's taught me a lot about rest, and a lot about celebrating the fact that God is capable to handle my problems, and the others. He's in the business of making things right.

In this season, He's given us reason to celebrate: a baby growing and being added in every possible way to our fam. He's also given us a season to rest before she comes. I could choose to see this as a time to get busy-especially to keep myself impenetrable from any speculated judgement-but I know that's not whats needed, nor asked of me. So I'm giving up on that. I'm also allowing there to be joy, and to take on that attitude towards all the areas of my life, even in struggle. I used to fear being vulnerable with others when Ben and I struggled in our marriage, or any other time-fearing people would become unimpressed with who we were. But, I'm learning to get over that. There's a season for struggle too, and I'm allowing there to be freedom in general from the fear of criticism, the fear of not being labeled as 'good.'

I hope that when you ladies spend time with me, you can know my goal is for you to find freedom from criticism and a whole lot of room to be.  I know God is faithful in doing a good work in you and I'm looking forward to celebrating in season or mourning in season alongside you. I'm excited to set my expectation that the same will be offered to me.

 

I like this series....What 'giving up on good' are you doing this week? What does that look like? How are you able to live for the better because of it?

Hi baby! 27 weeks

oh babies.

Dear John #34

 

P.S. I like that you take pictures with me, even if the sun blinds you a wee bit. Yet another way you're good to me.

Back from Hawaii

 

We're back from our trip! Both Ben and I are pretty exhausted due to overnight flights and a 5 hour time change, but we loved it. We had some great conversations, got to see beautiful sites, and enjoyed the few days of rest. Thanks for all your prayers for a safe trip!

I'll be posting more pictures soon but in the meantime, here's a few that I took with instagram

http://followgram.me/brittanysprague/ 

if you have the instagram app, my username is brittanysprague. You can find me that way too.

Happy Monday!

Smelly Clothes and Jesus

We're getting ready to leave for Hawaii tomorrow. I've been scrambling around getting things lined up, emails sent and the like so that once we're there-I can fully be there. It's been interesting to me that even in the midst of my busy to do list, God has still been showing me some things.

I put on a fairly cute outfit this morning-I even got the approval from Ben. I dropped him off, started running some errands, and in the midst of it, I kept smelling this weird smell. I could not for the life of me figure it out. These were clean clothes. They were hanging in my closet....so It couldn't be me.

But no matter where I went, to make some returns, to pick up some last minute things, I kept smelling something. I searched the car, I searched the house...looking for the smell. The saying goes, If you keep smelling something-It just might be you.

So I came home and took my clothes off and discovered indeed it was me. When I went to transfer the laundry so I could wash those nasty smelling jeans(laundry I needed to put in the dryer 4 days ago) I was greeted with the familiar smell. The same smell I had been smelling all day. Clothes that have sat too long. I had to wash them all over again and make sure I transfer them a whole lot more quickly this time around..

After I did that, and now changed into actually clean clothes, I'm beginning to see God using my love for analogies to teach me something. God has been showing me a lot about the process of getting to know Him. I come up with a plan about how Him and I are gonna spend some quality time, how I'm going to choose him over my insecurities, how I'm finally going to choose to forgive... etc.  I take a few steps, and then tend to just get busy and forget. A few weeks later I remember my commitment-I see a half empty journal, or a brand new book I just bought, 3 pages read, a conversation I was going to have-and I remember that conversation God and I had.

Sometimes, even when I see it though I don't do anything. I wait for a few more weeks not really thinking of it. And then, lo and behold something in my life stinks. Typically the routine is to be convinced its someone else. " I'm washed! I'm clean!" But when I see a trend, in my relationships, in my heart no matter the situation...I begin to wonder-maybe it is me.. More times than not, it is. A weird spiritual mildew smell seems to accompany my heart.

At first, it might seem to me that God was the one that didn't do the good job. In other words, if my washer had really worked-then my clothes would never end up smelling bad, right? Wrong. God still is doing the work, and he's doing it perfectly, but if that work isn't embraced-if my part of this relationship isn't acted in-God has generously put a stinky smell in my life to remind me.

I'm excited for when the washer is done and when I can put all these clean clothes in the dryer. I'm especially when they come out clean and don't smell funky. I'm excited spiritually when I can see something in me that certainly needs cleaning, be cleaned and the next time its 'worn' I can tell that indeed it has been made new.

I see this in my heart with people and even in where I get my identity. I see it when I chose to love on someone rather than choosing to be insecure about who I am and leave them to be the ones to initiate, or when I decide I'm going to celebrate Ben rather than find a thousand ways to get him to celebrate me. Those are some of the ways God's been washing me.

Lucky for you and me, my nose and my Jesus refuse to let me stink for you all. Praise. You. Jesus.


**The Blog will be a wee bit quiet for the rest of week. We'll be off doing awesome things in a place we've never been.

Until Then!

Brittany

Dear John # 33.5

At the end of this month we'll be together for a good 3 years. At the end of next, we'll be married for 2 of those. I regularly think to myself "How did I manage to land this one?!" I've told you this before, but I'll tell you again. I thought you were pretty awesome when I got married to you-I had no idea that you'd turn out to be THIS awesome. Last night we were talking about how far we've come. Looking back on the things that used to cause conflict, at the words we'd say...and looking at how our relationship is now. I made a comment on how while I'm excited to see how far we've come, I'm curious whats next. I know we haven't arrived fully to the land of awesome marital bliss. That's when we started talking about this baby and how it'll affect our family and what you and I will need to be a blessing to each other. I think this is the part when I realized yet again truly how awesome you are.

There's something about hearing you talk about intentionality and making time for the things each other needs. It continually blows me away to see that God clearly made me for you. It amazes me just how much time you've taken to know me. It's conversations like that that prove it. I am so blessed that I get to be your 'helper.' Ben! You! Are! Incredible! 

At this point I typically get the urge to get silly and talk about your body. One because you roll your eyes and two because we both know its true. (well I do, and eventually you will too.) But rather than spending a paragraph on that today, I figure I'll hold that off for another day.

When we first were married I would wonder if this was really a good idea. My guess is you would too. We didn't go together as naturally as I had hoped. I figured It'd be bliss and giggles-and to be confronted with struggle was especially hard some days. Now, however I'm pretty thankful for that. I'm thankful because it let me see the leadership that you've exhibited. You're up for a challenge and you work not just to conquer the situation-but to really love and cherish this relationship, to really love and cherish your wife. You've always encouraged us to be teachable, so that we can be open to hear what others have to say that would benefit us. You want us to hear what each other has to say and to see you actually be teachable is a big blessing to me. To see you take suggestions and use them, to offer them back and to work together to make us better; it reminds me daily just how incredible of a creation you are. It gives me all sorts of reasons to praise your creator. 

My prayer is consistently that we'll be together till the day we die. Preferably that day is the same. Maybe God will humor me. I think the best marriages are the ones that make it through 50, 60 years of life and I'm excited and hopeful to get to potentially taste that. If the past 2 years are any indication of what it'll be like (which I think they are-because I can see your character) I'm pumped for the next decades. Thanks for being the man you are. It's easy to be proud. 

And thanks for gearing up for this new life stage and for keeping the perspective on Christ and our marriage. I know one thing, we may will do a whole lot of things wrong with raising this little girl (As you say-we'll be sure to let her know we're two imperfect people), but she will know that her mom and dad worship Christ and cherish each other and through that, really cherish her. "The best gift you can give to a child is a good marriage." Thanks for being willing to work with me to make it possible. I love you a million bucks.

A trillion bucks.