surprisingly fun

The beauty of moving somewhere new, is that you are prone to go places that you think will be fun only to find out that it is not what you expected. 

That happened a week or so ago with us, where I packed the kids up and drove off to a fun-sounding activity that didn't turn out like I had expected. And we were in a completely different part of town that I am unfamiliar with, so I was just in that limbo stage of "I have two kids who desperately need something to do, but what?" L helped me decide when we saw a playground nearby. Never mind that it was probably the coldest day of the month here in the Queen City, and we were freezing. But the kids loved it!

 Lady-LE especially loved being able to do her own thing - climb up the stairs, walk on the playground, go down the slides, etc. whenever and however she wanted. She is getting more into the climbing world and loves it. 

 We played on these slides almost the whole time. And we laughed a ton making up games and trying to get one another. Oh so much fun!

 And for the first time in a long time, L was totally willing to be cute for the camera. I love this boy.

 LE was not really of the same mindset. She was just focused on moving!

 This is the only smiling one I caught of her, and thankfully that long hair was out of her face. :)

I love it when something changes your plans, and you end up having way more fun than you expected. 

Sometimes the key to happiness is to have low expectations. :)

simple life

Life is ordinary these days.  I consider that a good thing. 

This little girl is obsessed with helmets. If L even mentions riding his bike, Lady-LE takes off running to go get both helmets and demands that they be fastened immediately. And even though we do have tulips already in bloom in our front flower beds, we have had a few cold spells -- see the gloves? I fear that I have completely acclimated and have definitely gotten soft to any sort of 'winter' weather. When it's 45 degrees outside I just want to do nothing and drink hot chocolate. And those are the cold days! Sheesh I'm pathetic.

Speaking of staying inside ... we figured it was time to get Lady-LE her own chair. Definitely not one of those 'needed' purchases, but whatever purchase at Ikea is actually categorized by a "need?" Oh well. They love it, and thankfully don't fight over chairs anymore.

Lady-LE cried for the first couple weeks every time we dropped L off at preschool. I think she has adjusted, and really enjoys her alone time now. However, she is determined to be like other big kids, and loves to wear L's backpack around the house. And sitting at my desk is a new favorite while she colors and draws. This girl is crazy about letters and coloring, more so than I remember L at this age. 

L's first dental exam! He watched me throughout my exam/cleaning, and then it was his turn. He was surprising very calm and comfortable with the whole deal, and impressed everyone in the office with how well he behaved {me included!}. Oh goodness he's getting big!

While R was out of town for a conference, Mr. R across the street helped us fix L's bike so the chain wouldn't keep coming off {incredibly annoying, let me tell you}. 

Immediately L and his best buddy {son of Mr. R} jumped at the chance of using tools. They were so fun to watch as they helped and twisted and turned those wrenches. We just laughed watching them be so excited! 

Tools for the big boys.

And of course some for Lady-LE who wanted to join the party.

We love this "man of steel" - a major blessing to live across {and down} the street to such wonderful people. 

updates

I seem to have a feast/famine relationship with this blog as of late (trying to fix that, promise!).

This means that there is a whole slew of new posts I just published to catch us up from September thru December. However, I back-dated them. Which means that those of you who don't follow this blog through google reader will have to manually scroll back and find the new(ish) posts among the older ones. {this mostly applies to grandparents} Just read and scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the button that says "Older Posts" - do that as many times as you'd like. :)

New posts to come including Christmas celebrations and pictures of the new preschooler.

first day of preschool

This kid needs to stop growing!

 The balloon was actually from Lady-LE's first day in nursery yesterday in church. But I kind of like it - maybe I'll use a balloon in each 'first day of school' picture while the kids are younger? Either way, I think this little boy is my favorite. :)

 {those poor chapped cheeks and chin! That dry colorado air gets to him}

 He is ready for this change, and we are all looking forward to it. We have great friends who go to this school (none in our class though), and feel really good about the teachers/classroom/schedule/etc. 

It was R's first day off in a long time, and definitely fun to have him with us! 

Way to go L! You're such a big boy! 

christmas in colorado

We flew out to Colorado for Christmas this year, and loved being with family. It has continued to be challenging in some ways to live so far from family, and we really tried to treasure these days all together. 

 We exchanged cousin's gifts on Christmas Eve, to keep it a little special and separate from the mass of chaos that comes on Christmas day with 15 people's gifts. It was so fun to see the cousins be excited about what they got one another. Our gift this year was homemade PJ's (totally stole it from my own sister who did that for my side of the family last year - it's another feeble attempt to become more like her). They were a hit! All the kids loved them, and I especially loved seeing them all matching throughout our entire stay there. What a fun way to share something! 

We acted out the Nativity Story, and I think this really helped L fall in love with it. Don't mind our little scandalous-looking angel Lady-LE - she's not intentionally giving you shoulder, the dress just kept falling. :) 

 Another Christmas Eve tradition of reading a children's Christmas book with Nonnie. I think this is actually a tradition everyday to sit on the couch and reach books with Nonnie, and I am grateful for it.

 Christmas day! Sadly, no awesome pictures. At least from my camera. Church was beautiful in the morning, and we had the day pretty much covered with gifts and food and playtime. It was wonderful, and truly a beautiful day to share love throughout our family. 

 The day after Christmas we went out to play in the snow. Lady-LE was in heaven playing around and keeping up (or trying to) with the big kids.

 Oh my heart just melts!

 We ran and jumped and fell into the snow. Quite the turn-around from boy terrified of the snow here. Boy am I glad we're past that stage! 

 Kids with the finished Frosty - too bad you can't see his straw mullet-hair in the back. It was pretty sweet. And we followed this activity by teaching the kids how to have a snowball fight. Oh my goodness so fun!

 Everyone helped take down the ornaments on the tree. (basically an excuse to climb the ladder with permission)

 My kids didn't quite adjust to mountain time until the end of our vacation there. So I got to see beautiful sunrises like this outside. Positively breathtaking.

One thing that I LOVE about CO is that we always seem to get a few great-weather days to play outside in. Swings, slides, and playing chase. Perfect combination.

 L loved climbing up the slides and falling down. 

And we also got in a beautiful day at the zoo! 

 Up close and personal with the giraffes!

 We used to feed them crackers - but I guess they're on a new diet regime because we fed this lettuce this time around. I will never get used to the long tongues. Yuck!

You think the giraffe in the background was having a hard time chewing the lettuce? He doesn't look too happy.

We sure loved out time in CO this year! 

There's lots that I don't have pictures of - specifically the fact that my parents and younger sister K came out to see us while we were there! We got lucky enough to see both grandparents and spend time with both sides of families! Oh it was wonderful, and truly a blessing to have them come out. I'm grateful for G&C who were so accommodating and welcoming toward my family. We had a great time, and I hope to get more pictures from my sister and sister-in-law of the festivities. 

We love and miss you all already, and wish we lived closer and could do things like this more often! Thank you for making Christmas this year unforgettable!

easy love

We are packing and wrapping and cleaning and packing some more to go visit family for the holidays. I have a thousand things to blog about. But as I was cleaning my camera's SD card I saw this one that Ry got of me and my girl on Sunday in our cute pea coats. It made me get all sorts of happiness in my heart, and brought a giddy smile to my face. I love this girl!

last month of the year

December sure came fast! Christmas preparations were in full swing, and R had an awesome schedule for the month that allowed him to be home every night and every weekend. It was my favorite! Although I was just talking to a friend about it, listening to her talk about how hard my life must be practically being a single parent, and I just shook it off saying that it's all I know right now in my life and really it's not that bad. Then I remembered the month of December, and told her that having dinner consistently planned, prepared, and on the table every night was the hard life and that's what everyone does! So it's all about perspective, right? 

In all seriousness, yes there are countless days when we maybe see R for an hour (and when that hour is changes every day), and I do manage the kids and the house practically by myself. And yes I can get caught up in the difficulties of that life if I allow myself to. But take a look at the bigger picture - I have a husband who is out there every single day (and has been for the past nine years) working his tail off training to learn and gain skills that will help him support and provide for our little family. He is the reason why I am able to stay home with my kids, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. He is trying his hardest to become a good doctor, and I am incredibly proud of him for the work he does. Yes the journey is long and hard, but every journey worth having is that way. And I seriously am grateful for it. 

I mean, who could not be grateful for life when they get to see this handsome little boy smiling and living life the way he does?! Yup - my life is pretty dang good. 

 Our neighborhood had a little holiday party, which included hot chocolate and cider and a hayride around the neighborhood to check out the Christmas lights. Both kids are completely in love with the lights, so we knew this was a must! We bundled up and had a great time!

 And gratefully we met up with our immediate neighbors there, which made the night just about perfect for L. It was definitely fun.

 And the next morning we had a church "breakfast with Santa." Logan totally cut his way through the line (without me even noticing!) to sit on Santa's lap. I yelled for R to run over there and take a picture quick while I stayed in line with Lady-LE so I don't even know if he said anything to Santa to not. But either way, he made it happen.

 This little lady was so curious and interested in the man with the beard, until it was our turn. I didn't have any expectations, so when she started protested I didn't mind. It's pretty traumatizing, and I get that. :)

 I added a couple new recipes for our goodie-plates this year to give to neighbors, and I must say that this recipe has become a new favorite. Found it here. You definitely need to keep them in the fridge once you make them, and hand-rolling small, sized balls is the key. So good, and really not that difficult. 

Played outside in the rain puddles one day ... and sadly looked completely white trash. Lady-LE's new fashion statement is the headband on the head, and it was a lounging-type day until we put our rain boots on, so don't judge! I love looking at these pictures and laughing at them ... I love those two kids. 

{and yes, those are my bulb tulips and daffodils coming up in the month of December. Crazy how soft and warm the ground still is! The evenings for sure get down to freezing, but the daytime warms up a ton. I'm positive that those mean squirrels ate all my tulips in the front flower bed (I put at least 50 in there), but for some reason left the daffodils and the persian buttercups I planted. I guess I'll find out in a month or so when they start blooming? ha - in the middle of winter! I don't get it!}

We went to a nearby Christmas celebration, which included the live nativity pictured below. R met us after work - hence the shirt and tie. It was beautiful, and a wonderful way to spend time together as a family. (I really am loving this schedule - we did this on a Wednesday night and R could come! YAY!)

I am grateful for the reason of the season: the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

We celebrate not only His birth, but His life, His example, and His love. 

Merry Christmas.

beautiful life

There is definitely something about Christmas that makes me nostalgic about life in general - not just the holidays of years past. I have felt this way every year; and usually it just increases my gratitude and appreciation for the important people in my life. But this year it's getting a little out of hand. Here are just a few examples:

• I specifically wait to read a friend's blog for a week or two (or three), and then gorge myself on reading, remembering, wishing, and commenting. It leaves me with a bitter-sweet feeling, and a very full heart.
• Seeing a picture of a Halloween costume on a younger brother made me tear up because L was best buddies with the older brother and I have a picture of them together years ago
• A box full of hand-me-downs came in the mail the other day from my sister. On top was a boy coat, and literally the instant I picked it up I saw him walking into our town home the day of his birthday, taking his coat off, and his little voice saying "Oh man! My coat still says 4 on it! But I'm 5 now!" and being so disappointed. And then I cried that he's not here walking into our house this year.
• While looking at a picture of my dad with one of his grandkids, I realized just how similar my face is to his - the chin, the cheeks, the nose. I definitely get my complexion, color, and freckles from my mom and think in general I look more like her (which I love). But this particular picture made me lean more towards my dad's face. Never having noticed this so much before, I cried because I am grateful that I look like him, and I miss him and my mom dearly (even though I get to see them in a month). 

Nostalgia is beautiful. Going back through memories, with the larger vision of life really helps you see the beauty in God's plan for us. Sometimes I find myself getting 'stuck' in memories, and sincerely wishing that I could relive those specific days again. 

Like being at Lake Powell the week before our wedding with Ryan's family. My father-in-law just sent us some pictures of that as a "warm memory for the cold winter" e-mail, and it made me stare at those pictures with such fascination. I have memories of that week, but I find myself wondering what my thoughts were, what I filled my days with, and how my dreams and hopes have changed through the years. According to the pictures, R and I were completely wrapped up in one another without a care in the world (as it probably should be for soon-to-be-newly-weds). Sure we knew that life is hard, and that it wouldn't always be that way. But we were enjoying the ease of our responsibilities, and I long for those days again. 

I have learned that there is danger in yearning for that idyllic past however. My memory (much like my father's) seems to naturally weed-out the negative experiences and cast a rose-colored hue to all the positive ones. While that is beautiful, and sometimes I stand in awe at those pictures in my mind, I know that typically it's not the whole truth. And I often allow myself to get carried away in that dreamland of memories more often than I should, and don't focus enough on the today as I need to. 

I know there's balance to everything in life, and I am often better in this than I am right now. Even with the challenges that R and I experience today and in this stage of our life, I find myself casting that rose-colored hue to it all. There is something sweet about the nostalgia of yesterday strengthening today. I am grateful for my memories, my experiences, my dreams of the past. They all add to and deepen my life today. And it's a beautiful life.