Thursday, July 21, 2011

A Home For The Burkes: How God is Like a Bunch Of Hot Air


See that curvy woman to the left there? For the past three years she's been raising her hands in the most dramatic way possible yelling at God "WHY HERE?! Where do we belong?"


See this honey eye'd babe? Every week we go to Central Market with her. She gets a purple or green balloon [usually purple] once we get to the produce section. She has it secured to her wrist and proudly shows it off to anyone who notices at the store. Every week after being in our home for a few days, the helium escapes the balloon and the balloon floats across our floor til I decide it's time for the trash. Sometimes it's already popped by the time I get to it. Have you ever tried to stretch out a balloon to make it look like it did when it was inflated? Can't be done.


A few days ago I found Lily's popped balloon, stretched it over my knee and started pulling every which direction, trying to make the CM logo look like it had before when it was full of air.


We had an amazing opportunity this month to find someone to take over our lease, move into a friend's house for a month, rent free, then move into our own rental home in September. We've done everything we can think of to try and get out of this place, to make things progress. To inflate our dreams.

As I'm stretching out this balloon [aka, playing with a piece of trash] I think "This is never gonna look the same unless it's whole and there's helium in it." Then I kinda feel God roll his eyes and say "THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU!!" It all hit me right then, while examining the logo from all angles, Eamon and I can tug and pull and push our dreams into existence, but it will never be the same as if we let God start off with his plan, whole, and he fulfills them.


While in the DFW, the Lord has provided us a place to nourish our babies. How foolish am I to think otherwise... He brought me to women who know how a woman's body works and who helped me welcome my girls into the world. He's brought be true friendships that were worth the wait. He's provided Eamon jobs when there were none. He's given me a calling into a career that is becoming fruitful. Even since telling us that we are to stay here to the end of our lease, the management changed [again] Biggie Smalls and his possy have been evicted and they started cleaning up the apartment complex. I feel rewarded, loved, like He's proven Himself when He didn't have to.


Right now, our home is in this apartment complex. Soon, I'm certain our home will be in the Mid-Cities of the Metroplex, not Rockport. I feel like we've been faithful in exploring each avenue the Lord has pointed us to and where ever we end up, he's gonna take care of us.

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for us along the way. We love you very much.

Mae

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Breastfed Baby, Stick Around For the Show

Today I'm featured over at The Mommypotamus!
Talkin all about why I do what I do.
And guess what?! My photography website is all finished!

www.maeburkephotography.com is the official home for all of my work!

I'll be back later with our family pics that Michelle took the other day :]
For now, here's Norah last week scooting. She has perfected her army crawl at this point...oh dear. Y'all, she's not even 4 months old!




Untitled from Mae Burke on Vimeo.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Another week

Another week has gone by and my little infant is no more. She's a baby. There's no doubt about it.





We got a "Sophie the Giraffe from a friend and she loves it :]
We have pics with Michelle this Sunday, so excited to have pics of all of us!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Our Weekend in Pictures: Birthday Edition

This weekend we got away to a friends house. I didn't take many pictures because I had Norah on a blanket frantically taking her pictures trying to work my new camera ;] *Hopefully* we'll be moving in their in a few weeks [pending someone takes over our lease] so there'll be plenty of pics to come!
Saturday morning was Lily's birthday party. I made a bunch of pizzas and Lily had some of her baby friends over. It was very relaxed. I had it recorded and as soon as it's edited, I'll be sure to post it!
Then Sunday was Lily's BFF Eliza's party. I love that Morgan and Aaron are able to come up here with the kids so often

Baby Beck & Norah

"Yily & Ziza" Sharin there watermellon. Tell me that bun isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen. Try. ;] 

 Oh you know, just BFFs

 Baby girl had the right idea all weekend. Sleep. But unfortunarely weekends only last a few days, so back to real life we go. ;] Today will be for paying bills, cleaning house, and trying to get someone to move into our apartment by August the 1st. Wish me luck!

Happy Monday,
Mae

Friday, July 8, 2011

Two

My Lily Annette is two years old.


This evening we drove around [read, got lost] in search of a particular location to take her pictures...an hour later... I just pulled over. And as luck would have it, some Brahmas showed up.



The personality she has developed this past year makes me fall so deeply in love with her.

She loves adventure




But still approaches situations with the most earnest of child-like timidness.


The ten tiny toes I had Eamon count over, and over, AND OVER when she was born have taken her to so many places.


I can never give the Lord enough thanks for my motherhood through Lily.


I feel like I love her like no one's ever loved anyone else in this world. Like no one can possibly understand my love for my beautiful girl. Tonight I did her hair all pretty and got her all cleaned up, she looked gorgeous, but it just wasn't "Lily." I took her hair down, she got it nappy in no time, and I just enjoyed the scenery that God laid before me. Seeing how small she was compared to the cows and watching her chest rise in excitement every time a cow moo'd struck me with awe at our mighty God. How he love us....

We'll be celebrating her birthday this weekend with a few friends, I'm so excited for her.
You can read her birth story here and watch her birth slideshow here.

Have a wonderful weekend all!
Mae

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Birthday's with Eamon

I've celebrated my birthday with Eamon since I was 16 years old. Six. Teen.

16- Had a bowling alley costume party. Eamon and his band mates showed up and we both swear my parents were going to kill him. Most awkward birthday ever, lol
17- I had 3 parties that year! My family threw me a small one, the ladies at the title office that Eamon, all his friends, and I worked at threw me one, and Eamon threw me a surprise one at our friend Daniel's house. It was awesome.
18 - I was on my first plane ride to Thailand! I spent the majority of it on a plane...longest birthday ever considering it lasted like TWO days because of the hemisphere change, lol. I cried for like 5 minutes and wouldn't walk on the pea shooter of a plane that flew from Corpus to Dallas.


19- well...we just got married two weeks earlier, so we SHOULD have been doing something else, but a friend was in labor, so we watched her friend's little boy that night. We got to play parents for a night and it made me want kids SOOOO badly!
20- I was miserable, lol! I was almost a week overdue with Lily and in false labor.
21- we took that little almost one year old out to our local sushi bar for karaoke :]

Today we are takin it easy and I think I'm going to be taking Lily's two year pictures, yay! We're having a dinner party next week that I'm super excited about though!


Happy [birthday] Wednesday!
Mae

Monday, July 4, 2011

Bloggin.

I sold my camera yesterday...I'm kinda panicking waiting for my new one.

Goodbye Midge, you will be missed :[

Last night I thought, "Why blog if I don't even have pictures?"
I mean, obviously takin pictures is what I do, but should that really stop me from blogging? Then I thought about why I blog. I've always had a weird relationship with blogging. Sometimes I blog and I can't believe that there are strangers out there who read all of these personal details and I wonder why they care to stop by. Other days it irritates me that my mom is reading about how I hadn't had sex for 4 months, but could care less that someone in Australia knows. Weird right?
I've always tried really hard to not be self absorbed or make my blog about what I wear day to day, there's plenty of that out there already. I don't have groundbreaking research on what wine is best for you [although, I've discovered hard apple cider is the shit] or how to feed your family on $2 a day organically [if there's someone out there who does, you hook me up with that blog!] Lately I've been struggling on what to say here since my professional career is picking up. What do I want people to already know about me? Will people not hire me if they know I talk about Jesus in the same post as talking about how hard apple cider is "the shit"? It's all kind of daunting.

Just kinda thinking out loud today.
Those of you who are the prayin type, keep us in your prayers. My birthday's Wednesday [my family used to make a BIG deal of birthdays and we haven't really since we've been married, it's a hard adjustment for me] and Lily's is Friday [and Rusty's is Thursday!], I'm trying to figure out what direction to push my photography, we're hopefully moving into a house soon [PLEASE pray for that!] and somehow I've got to figure out how to go see me family as most of them haven't seen me since Lily was about 15 months.


Somehow I have a three month old baby