It's hard to believe that in just a few days Christmas will be here! E, R, and I have the next couple of weeks off, so we're hoping to eat, relax, see friends and family, and of course, play. The girl and I have been making cookies, wrapping gifts, and decorating Christmas tree ornaments. We don't go overboard with the gift idea - we didn't get R anything this year (as we didn't get E anything her first year), and our budget for E was pretty small, as she likes pretty cheap-o stuff. We want the kids to understand Christmas is about our Savior's birth. We also want them to understand contentment and have a heart that understands that there are those who don't have the luxuries we have here.

I think E is mostly excited to see the grandparents anyway. She's been talking about seeing her grandmothers for days now. I pray she always treasures family and Jesus above presents under the tree.
I'm sure you've noticed these pictures are not very "Christmas-y", but we found them on our camera the other night - one of our last hikes before the snow. I love my kids. R is seven months and so close to crawling - he'll see E run by and push up on his arms, trying to propel himself in a foward fashion while grunting. He's waving and getting pat a cake, which is so cute. He's starting to do the army crawl a little bit, but he doesn't go very fast. He's got three teeth at the moment, and we see three more coming in. Yikes.

E is becoming more and more independent. She likes to pick out her own clothes, and dress herself. And you know what? She actually matches a little bit - sometimes she's purple from head to toe, but we're impressed.

Her speech is insane. L was reading her a book the other night, and she pointed to a picture (it was a squirrel), and said, "Daddy, that's terrifying!" and her prayer before bed the other night was "Thank you Jesus for a nice day. Thank you for Daddy, Rhys-y-pie, Grandma Mona, Grandma Linda, Mommy, my bed, Emma, Madeline (her friends), Megan (cousin), Ann, Steph, lights. Oh, and my toes. Amen." I'm thankful I have toes too.

As far as our family goes, our life is very full right now - we have been, and continue to be very blessed. As you've probably seen on this blog as of late, I haven't been posting much. That is probably not going to change much - in fact, I've debated bringing this blog to a close. I'd like this upcoming year to be focused on my personal journal that can voice what this blog cannot. My main goal for the new year is simple - I want to love Jesus more deeply, and my journal helps me do that.

So this is a close for now. May you all have a lovely Christmas filled with wonder, and a happy New Year that brings you even closer to our Savior.

Nice Day

We are at the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and it's been full of friend and family fun, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, a lovely church service and of course, good food. You can see that the little guy was pretty tired by the end of the Thanksgiving day that he just crashed. The girl sighed on the way home, "Nice day, Mom", as she says every time she sees friends or family. She went from one grandparents' house to another, not wanting to leave either one. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful family to love our kids. E and a couple of her cousins had a great time playing together, and R wasn't left out of the mix. Cousin M wanted to touch his head over and over - evidently my sister in law said that she talked about it all day. It was cute. E announced later as we drove home that she wants to see her cousins "lots more times".
Typically we spend the Friday after Thanksgiving with family, but the hubby had to work, so we headed home. Our little town had their annual tree lighting ceremony where kiddos can make and decorate an ornament and visit with Santa. We heard kids yell "Eden" over and over again - we both kept looking around to see who was calling her name (because seriously, this name isn't common in these parts). We discovered two of her daycare buddies there, so we visited with the parents and the kids ran around, loving life.
It was a lovely weekend filled with many of the blessings we are thankful for. L and I have two pretty amazing kids - a crazy chatty two year old, who has a new interest in board games, Bible Stories, Jingle Bells, and counting to 14 (who knew?), and a happy happy 6 month old who is so curious, yet pretty relaxed and smiley. My girl is so right - it has been a nice day.

Our Bedroom

"The After":

Per Kristin's request, I have uploaded some pics of our bedroom. This really isn't the project we're working on, but since that is still in process (trimming out windows/doors/hanging curtains), I thought I'd show you these.

There are still a few things we need to do in this room, like painting the window and our chest, getting our closet system set up, but it's "done" for a while. As you can see in the "before" pic of our room, they had painted the walls an insane purple, and then sponged one wall blue and purple. You know, they put effort into making it this busy - yikes. The carpet was nasty and ugly, so we pulled it up, kilzed it (it smelled like dog urine, so we primed the subfloor), laid new carpet, painted it like 30 times, and put our stuff in here. Sorry for the last dark pic - it didn't save the changes I made to the photo.

House projects with two kiddos underfoot is a slow process, but we have the rest of our lives, right? We remind each other of that quite often, because we get impatient. Still, with each little project done, the house feels more like "home".

Popping In to Say Hi

Life is good and full right now. We're settling into our new normal, as R is settling into his regular sleep routine. It's amazing how much more productive I am now that the babe is sleeping better! We've been working on house projects like crazy people, but are still making sure to get lots of kiddo time in. E requested the playground yesterday, and we were able to get some shots of the kids. Boy, they are cute, aren't they?

Hope you got lots of sunny time in too!

Planning It Out

Well now that we're into October, we're starting to think about preparing for the holiday budget, and thinking about the increase of our heat bill, since we live in the lovely north. Now we don't spend a lot on each other or the kids, but it's nice to have a plan of action so we know how much we have to spend.

We don't really know what to expect for our heat bill, since it's our first winter here, and for two winters we were in a free utilities rental (which was nice). Some things we have saved on, some things we haven't, and some things we're looking into:

1. Our mortgage payment is pretty low for our neighborhood (rumor has it that the neighbors were trying to organize themselves to put an offer on it for rental use since it was such a steal). We tried to put as much of a downpayment as our budget would allow, since we paid $10000 a few months earlier for another car, and to fix our current one.

2. We shopped around for cheap(er) car, life, and home insurance. Wow. We should have done this much much sooner.

3. We tried to save by going to cell phones, since I "need" one for my job (and so our daycare worker can contact me at all times). Unfortunately, our service is less than stellar (actually it's terrible), so we ended up getting a landline anyway.

4. We're hoping to have an energy audit done.

5. Continuing to get our food bill in order. I feel like we have the most control over this area, but also the area we struggle with too.

6. We're taking advantage of craigslist as much as we can for appliances and furniture. I'm not sure we've ever bought a new appliance in our lives.

7. Staying away from debt. No money = no spending. Thankfully when one of us is ready to give in, the other is encouraging us to stay the course.

8. We do pay PMI, so after we do a bit more work to the house, we'd like to have another appraisal to get rid of it. I look forward to that day a lot.

9. Cutting down on our eating out. Seriously, why do we stink at this?!

10. One that I'm aiming for, but don't like: turning the thermostat down. Being cold is yucky.

What are some ways you guys have saved? Or need to work on saving?

Another Frugal Post

All right, it's time for another frugal food post. Mostly to remind myself to be more efficient with the money God has blessed us with. L and I do believe that food helps heal and keep our bodies healthy, so it's important to eat the proper food. Hence, we are willing to pay more for fruits and veggies, and some organic items.

This is the first time in five or six years that I have cooked a whole chicken. I am certainly going to do this more often - it is so cheap, and talk about efficient with time. My first attempt at doing this was when we first got married, and well, I grossed out. So grossed out that L had to eat the whole chicken himself.

Well, I found this recipe (thanks, Elizabeth!), and decided to give it another go, since we had two whole chickens sitting in our freezer, waiting to be eaten. It was good. L had to do much of the work, but it was worth it. We have enough chicken for the week! We can have chicken sandwiches, enchiladas, salads (my lunch today), chicken/rice/potatoes/veggies, stir fry... the possibilities are endless.

In addition, we even used the bones of the chicken to make a stock for soups and to flavor other dishes. Not bad for $5, right?

My List of 15

It's been a busy few weeks for us here, but I felt like we needed to update, so here's our life via list:

1. We all missed L greatly while he was gone. We survived despite two viruses hitting our house, and a baby getting his first tooth. He is now home safely, and had a great time visiting with family and friends.

2. E requested a giant red giraffe as her gift. Red giraffes do not exist, not even in South Africa, but seemed quite content with a regular ol' stuffed giraffe. She has slept with it and her lion from the family since L's been home.

3. R is sporting a rugby shirt as his gift... and staring at the monkey that he received.

4. R has been a rolling fanatic for about a month now. Seriously, R is the happiest baby I've ever seen. He and his big sister certainly get a kick out of each other. Hopefully that lasts.

5. E is potty trained, and has been for about a month. Totally worth the time and effort.

6. I've been approached by a local agency to be a "money mentor". It sounds super cool, but not sure about another commitment.

7. Is in love with our food coop.

8. We are splitting a meat order with some of the sibs. We're grateful for local, cleaner meat.

9. I've been reminded of some of the great things our God has done this week.

10. Our freezer is full of frozen fruits and veggies from our farmer's market, waiting for the winter and for R to get old enough to eat some homemade baby food.

11. Looking forward to apple picking... yay!!!

12. E and I have so much fun making silly faces at each other. We laugh so hard our neighbors probably think we're crazy.

13. Am wearing regular jean #3. You may now cheer.

14. Is amazed at how many people are pregnant - I swear our population is going to double by the end of the year.

15. It's nice to have my husband home.

We're a little busy this week in our house - dealing with some good news (which is rather time consuming), and getting ready for L's upcoming trip to South Africa (he leaves Sunday to see family and friends).

Until I feel inspired to write, here is a blog that I've found uplifting:

http://www.incourage.me/

Hope that you all have a lovely weekend!

Back to School

The fall always brings good memories of childhood. Though it always meant cooler temps and going back to school, it also meant new pencils and of course, canning. Lots of canning. My dad used to have a garden that was was probably larger than a couple city lots. We would can a variety of things, but mostly tomatoes. Oh my goodness. I wish I could show the number of jars we would can... we would tease my dad about his garden, joke with each other, get upset with each other, beg my parents to be done, and my parents would reply "we're almost done", only to bring in more buckets of tomatoes. And in single digit years, a half hour is a lifetime. Hey, it's even a lifetime in double digit teenager years.

Obviously, we didn't get to garden this year with all of the other changes we had going on, but I've been going to the farmer's market faithfully, in hopes of doing a little preserving. I'd like to preserve spaghetti sauce, salsa, and of course, just tomatoes themselves for chili, etc. As far as fruits are concerned, I'd love to make some apricot jam and pick some apples for apple pie and applesauce, as well as just saving them for smoothies.

I love harvest season, and the fact that I scored a couple boxes of canning jars at a garage sale for a buck.

Some other things I'm looking forward to this autumn:

* sewing (being outside is more fun in the summer)
* eating this
* fall hikes
* warm apple cider and freshly made donuts.
* getting ready for holiday season... did I just say that?

Anything that you guys are looking forward to?

On The Last Day of August

We scored some basil at the farmer's market the other day, so we made some pesto. I love me some pesto pasta. I was able to freeze some, but boy, it takes a lot of basil to make pesto in large quantities. Ah well.

We went to the beach today to meet some friends, and one of the moms there had five children. All by herself. What I mean is that she was managing five children all by herself at the beach. How she managed to make sure none of them drowned or hurt on the playground is beyond me. I could barely manage two. Maybe it does get easier as you have more (that's what she told me!). We're not going to have five to find out. :)

Speaking of managing two kiddos, L leaves for South Africa in two weeks. I'm excited for him to go. He, his sister and her husband are going for two weeks. It's been eight years since he was there last, and even longer for his sister, so it's definitely worth the financial sacrifice for them to go. I'm nervous to be in charge 24/7, but I know God will give me strength and grace, and lots of friends and family have offered to help.

My little sister has also just left for her schooling downstate, so I am once again feeling old! My sister is all grown up, and living on her own all by herself. She has such a great attitude about it - I just know she will learn so much in this adventure. She adapts to change so well, and is pretty positive about it, so lots of good memories will be made. She has taught me that much of life is what you make of it. Focus on the negative and that is all you will see. See the positive and you will see all of the blessings around you.

My blessing today is a clean house and good beach time. We're trying to squeeze every last ounce of summer that we can, though I always look forward to the autumn too.

Goodbye, August!

Right Now I'm Loving...

1. Dahlias. Really. I need to stop thinking about these flowers.

2. Curling up on the couch while it's raining and reading a good book. Just started Eat, Pray, Love... Our theologies are certainly different, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

3. Going to the library on a rainy evening. It's even more fun watching E get excited about going... it's one of her favorite places to go. People with kiddos - take advantage of all things free!

4. The fact that I fit into one of my old pairs of jeans. Yes, I'm sucking in ever so slightly, but I'll take it.

5. Dreaming about how our living space and kitchen will look after we get the money and time to fix it.

6. This lamp shade. The hubby's not so thrilled with it, though. Seriously, is it so bad? You can be honest, people, but I'll love it anyway.

7. This rug or this rug. I think the colors of the poppy rug will go with my chair (above). You know, if I did get to choose a rug at this very instant.

8. This and this flooring.

9. Just to prove that I love more important things than just well, things, I am loving all of the friends and family we've been seeing over the past month. We've been blessed.

10. That we have a roof over our head that isn't in need of major repairs (we can live with green carpet), two working vehicles, food, family, friends, and a big God. Not in that order.

Weekend Highlights

L's cousin from South Africa is in town for a couple of weeks, we (along with some of his other family) took a trip to Mackinac Island. E enjoyed the butterfly house, but wanted to touch and kiss the butterflies (I did let her kiss one).

Some of family at the butterfly house

Along the shoreline

The weekend cleared enough for some outside tummy time.

Decided that dahlias must make it into our flower bed somewhere - these were too beautiful. Speaking of garden beds, we used our first bit of compost on our bed yesterday. You can't imagine our excitement.

E and I shelled the last peas of the season, and snipped the green beans. Notice E put most of them in her mouth... seriously, this kid loves fresh peas (and her diaper showed it). Loving harvest season.

Hope you had a lovely weekend too!

Farmer's Market Love

Harvest seasons is here - hoping to get lots of goodies to store for the winter!

Tea and Sleep

I found these little teacups at a second hand shop the other day. I don't shop often, mostly because my patience runs thin at stores, and can't stand stopping at several different places. Still, this little find (it was even half off!) made it worthwhile (amongst other work toys I was initially looking for).

E and I have had a couple of tea parties since, mostly with water, even though she asks me for tea (she's her father's daughter). I'm looking forward to R being a little older so he can play tea party too ( you know, if he wants to...). I mean boys can play tea party too, right?

The past couple of weeks have been a little busy for us, and this week isn't any different - something happening every day of the week. I'm having a hard time staying motivated in the evening after I get home from work. Once E is in bed, I feel like it's my time to sit and breathe for a little bit (if R allows me to). It's been said a million times before, but boy, am I glad I only work outside the home part time. .

Speaking of sleep, R has been sleeping through the night. Well, he slept through the night for a week, and then had a growth spurt (my daycare worker almost called because she thought she was running out of milk for the fella!), so he was up around 4:12 every night. Last night, though, he did sleep through the night, and did my body need that... getting up at 6 am took everything in me!

Well time to get moving on the day. Lunch, check. Pumped and had breakfast, check. Put together, check... why am I ready so early? Oh that's right; I still have to get the kiddos moving!

Have a fabulous Wednesday!

Shiny, Shiny, Shiny

So this was our kitchen sink for the past few months - and yes, this sink had just been washed. Gross, right? We wanted a new sink, but had a few other projects to get to first (and were debating leaving it until we redid the whole kitchen). When my grandfather mentioned he had an extra sink, we were thrilled. What's better than recycled and free?

Seriously, I think this is my favorite project thus far. Simple pleasures, right?

Nothing fancy, but certainly an improvement... and look how shiny....

Picture Time

This often results in this expression

from R... the flash is a little bright, I think. :)

The Kitchen Sink

One thing that is a little difficult to do with my job is pack a lunch. I don't take a lunch break, and am often in my car rushing from one visit to another. Meals that need to be heated aren't an option, so I often take fruit and sandwiches (salads are often tricky for me). Recently, though, I've been in a certain "dippy" kind of mood, and have been taking pico de gallo, tortilla chips, hummus , and pitas made into chips with olive oil, basil, garlic, salt, pepper, and paprika. I may have hit the jackpot with this. I am still full by the end of the day, which is pretty unusual for me.

Speaking of food and preparing food, L is putting in a new sink in our kitchen. Oh my goodness. I should post a picture of how the old one looked... it was really dreadful. My grandparents just remodeled their kitchen and had an extra sink, so now it's ours.

I just started reading "Animal Vegetable Miracle" and am really enjoying it thus far, but it's slow moving on my part. What can I say? I'm mostly reading a lot of Fancy Nancy and other toddler reads. Can I admit that Fancy Nancy is one of my favorite reads that E picks up?

Beuful (E's Speak For Beautiful)

I love farmer's market flowers. Not only are they incredibly cheap, but it's so much fun to make your own bouquet and know you can have even more the following week. Ah, the happiness that exudes when I look these. :)
Evidently, my girl loves flowers too... or at least weeds that look like flowers. Isn't she beautiful in this picture, even with her crazy, won't-leave-a-barrette-in hair?

Thank you, Father, for painting creation so beautifully
and for making each one of us so uniquely and wonderfully made...

Hiatus

I'm going on an internet break of sorts. Life is getting busier with two kiddos, and my best time spent is not on the computer. I will be updating my blog at times, and will check my email since it's tied to work. My interest in facebook as waned, and I find myself not even going beyond the home page of it. I will only be on there when in need to contacting someone or when I need to respond to a post.

I made that decision a little while ago because it's easy for me to spend a lot of time on the computer instead of spending it on real life - devotional time, time with the family/friends, exercising, or let's face it: cleaning my house. Just trying to find a balance and prioritize what is really important.

Hope that you are all having a great summer!

I Am Thankful...

That our Father hears even the most simple prayers...
That I know our Father is carrying friends, even in hard times...

My List of Twelve

1. R turned two months yesterday. To get the developmental stuff out of the way (what can I say, it's drilled into my head due to my job), R's starting to laugh, suck this thumb, sleep a bit more, mimic facial gestures/sounds, kicking, likes tummy time, growing like crazy. It's nice to see that he's responding to us.

2. My co-worker/friend is giving us a free infant massage session next week. I'm pretty excited.

3. Potty training E is going so/so. I think we've become lazy about it.

4. Work is going well. I'm pretty drained by Thursday, though. Loving Fridays.

5. A friend and I are starting a playgroup for the children in our church. We've been talking about it... now we're finally going to implement it. Pray that parents/kiddos feel welcomed and that great relationships are made.

6. L and I are celebrating our six year anniversary on Sunday. We've been pretty blessed.

7. My good and super talented friend, Kristin, made our announcements, and they are too cute. I have no idea how to post them to show you, since our scanner is still packed away.

8. I've given up all caffeine and soda. Not pretty, but I've found the more water you drink the more you crave.

9. We've been going for walks every day, but it's slow moving. E likes to walk by herself, and stops to pick up every rock she sees "Oooh pretty one! Oooh big one!"

10. E loves to play "I Spy", and it's fun for her to make us guess "Spy something... pink".

11. Looking forward to blueberry season and watermelons from the farmer's markets.

12. I'm limiting my computer time since life is getting busier. You may not see a lot of consistent posting for a while.

Rocks At the Beach

E has an obsession with rocks. If she's outside playing, she's picking up rocks and putting them in her wheelbarrow, or throwing them, or carrying them around. Maybe it's because we don't have a lot of outside toys, and she has to be content with dirt and rocks. Maybe it's a developmental phase or maybe she's a future geologist.

Nevertheless, her love for rocks continued yesterday after we walked down to a beach on the northside of our town. She spent much of her time laying in the water, grabbing a handful of rocks and throwing it back into the lake.

She even decided to go "exploring" and found other rocks to toss in the lake. The bigger the rock, the bigger the splash, right? You can imagine the number of times we had to caution her to keep the rock in her hands and not on her foot.

We decided to join in on the fun ourselves and started looking for sea glass. We had a couple really pretty pieces, but made the mistake of letting E hold them... off into the water they went. I think we're going to go on a "hunt" with each trip to the beach, and see how many we have by the end of the summer.

I have to admit - it was hard to stop once we started. :)

Baby Bliss

It's coming...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Wait for it... seriously, it's coming...

Now... aren't you glad you waited?

A Good Monday

Hope that you all had a lovely Fourth of July. We spent our weekend with friends and family, and with each other. It was nice. We were also pretty excited to find that we have roses that actually bloom in our yard. It's one of the few "bushes" that aren't weeds, so yay.

E and R napped at the same time yesterday, so I faced my own dilemma: nap or no nap? I almost always choose "no nap", since it's my time to relax or get something done. I've decided that can be better than napping, which rang true yesterday.

My time was spent in the kitchen making bread. I haven't had much success with bread making (even with a machine), so it almost felt like a waste of time. Thankfully, Elizabeth mentioned that recipe on her blog, and it turned out really well. Kneading felt almost therapeutic - much like weeding does for me. The homemade butter (which was incredibly easy to make, and really could only have been better if I had used Shetler's cream) and the strawberry jam made the bread all the more perfect. Yum.

I was also able to sneak some homemade croutons into the oven. E loves croutons, and often wants them as a snack (even our daycare worker mentioned this to us). I had some leftover bread, and decided to throw some olive oil, garlic salt and pepper on them for some taste and baked it in the oven. We had a salad for dinner last night, and we found her "sneaking" extra croutons off of the pan. She approved at least.

The rest of the day was spent coloring, digging in a sandbox, and playing with her train set. It was good.

We're Tired, but...

We've survived my first week back to work. Monday evening and Tuesday morning was spent organizing bottles, breastmilk, pumping, getting extra diapers, buying sunblock for E, organizing my own work bag, packing lunch, getting the kiddos ready, getting my pump bag ready...

L took the kiddos to daycare, because he thought it would be easier on me emotionally (it was true). E was excited about showing R off to her friends, and ran right inside without a second thought. L promptly called me to say everything was okay, and that our daycare worker said I could call every hour if I needed to (I only called once).

So, I drove to work, relieved that everything went okay, that we seemed to remember everything, and preparing to get back into work mode. I decided to drive to the bank, which is down the road from my job, to drop my check off, and I realized... no wallet.

I remembered EVERYTHING but my wallet, so I had to turn around and go back home.

Other than that little inconvenience, things are going well. When my maternity leave started, my caseload had tipped over 40 cases, and now (miraculously), I have in the mid-20s. That's pretty great. Really great, actually.

E seems to be into the swing of things, and our daycare worker states that R never cries, and seems to love watching the other kiddos. He's taking the bottle well, which was something I was nervous about. Pumping is going well, though, it's a bit of a pain to do at work.

And a bit of good news on my first week back: I got a raise. A very small one, but my boss said she wanted us to know that she really appreciated all of the work we do.

So, praise God that He provided a smooth transition for all of us. I don't know why I worry so much.

Berries Galore

So these were used for snacking and eating...

and then eating them with cream (of course)

for freezer jam...

and for watermelon/strawberry lemonade...

Thank you, God, for SUMMER!

It's That Time Again....

Strawberry season is here!!

Perspective

I am in the last couple of days of my maternity leave. Next Tuesday I am back doing my "other" job, and trying to get life back to "normal". It's interesting how I'm feeling now about next week than what I felt six weeks ago, and it started with a simple conversation with some friends.

When R was newly born, we were chatting with friends, and I mentioned how quickly the six weeks were going to fly by, and it just wasn't enough time. My friend looked at me and said, "Aw, don't look at it that way. Try to see it as you get six great weeks with your family."

It may seem like a simple statements, but it hit me right between the eyes. My friend probably doesn't even remember saying it. I believe that was God speaking those words to me, and that conversation has come to my mind often since then. I love it that God has put people around me that speak life.

Sometimes God has to remind me that life is about perspective. For example, I have compared my maternity leave with others' - the three months, the paid leave, the six months, others even longer. I could live the six weeks dreading work and complaining about it, or enjoy those weeks even more.

Of course this applies to other areas of my life (which is why it hit me so hard) - that yes, there are some things that I had wish had been done differently over the years. I have dwelt upon those things, when many times I have missed the blessings that have come from those moments. Or maybe I should have just looked at it a little differently?

I'm probably rambling, so forgive me if this post doesn't make much sense. Maybe I should sum it up and say God is good to hit us between the eyes once in a while. He does it with much love. I am praying that I become a person who speaks life to others, and not negativity or death.

So here I am, a couple days out from returning to work. I am at peace about next week - not necessarily looking forward to it, but ready for it. It was God who put that peace there, and it's good. And He's good.

Thank you, Father, for peace that passes understanding
And thank you for those who speak life
And for the right perspective