little boy photographer

 I found these pictures August took last month around Christmas time :)

It was like taking a tour of our home through his eyes, haha. 

2023

 Oh my gosh, I went to review my goals from last year and there weren't any! Geez.

So anyway, another year behind us and a fresh new year on the horizon. 

Goals for 2023:

- Complete the Love & Respect workbook with Doug, there are 52 chapters so should be able to do 1/wk (I have seriously had this book back from Andrew days, never did it, and think it could only benefit us)

- Complete a Parenting from Surviving to Thriving workbook together, 12 chapters, so 1/month

- Date nights 12x a year, finish our dance lessons CD together, and attend a marriage conference

- Purchase a new rental property

- Use my harp lessons gift certificate Doug got me when I turned 40

- Make a school decision for our son, keep him in school or move to a hybrid/homeschool option

- Complete the 10 minute plan (I did her 12 week postnatal plan pretty much on repeat all of 2022 so I'm ready to move to the next level)

- Read through the pile of books that has been on my nightstand for years now

- Complete this prayer journal (I like it's weekly and not daily, seems more attainable)

- Transition the girls into sharing a room (after 15+ months, we need the baby out of our room!)

- Get Jeanie potty trained

- Think about a job/career switch

- Find some way to streamline cooking/cleaning/laundry???

Pretty much my overall goal is to draw nearer to the Lord. Grow closer to Doug and strengthen our marriage. And be more intentional, loving, and purposeful in my relationships with my children. (and then expanding that to other family and friends.) It feels like such a busy season of life, but when will it not be? I want to be more at peace with the craziness and not let it swirl me away into chaos, and I want to find joy in the everyday drudgery of feed/clean/laundry/repeat. I heard this song the other day and I just was crying thinking about it, yes!! one day I won't be able to take any chances or spend that time, so the time is now. Looking forward to a new year, new growth, and new surprises along the way.

Nativity

 I'd been eyeing some Nativity sets on Etsy. The cutest little handpainted peg sets. However, I started to think they'd be too chewed on and $50 was more than I wanted to spend. 

Then I stumbled upon this set at Walmart when I was getting wrapping paper. 

The girls, especially Jeanie, played with it for hours the first day. "Mom, mom, it's Mary and Jo-fess!!!" For $16 I guess I didn't really notice the wise men were like several heads taller than Mary and Joseph. And who cares the sheep really looks more like a dog. And that baby Jesus has a little hot dog body when he gets pulled from his swaddling cloths. 

But this part does make me laugh:

It's more like Abraham and Sarai instead of Mary and Joseph :) 

You guys couldn't find anymore brown yarn, had to use gray!?!

Weeks of sickness

 

A mystery bug has been going thru our family. 

One night I found August asleep on the bathroom floor. The next day he told me his stomach didn't feel good, but he had no fever and no other symptoms so I sent him off to school.

Only to get a call an hour later that he threw up on the bus and to come get him, :( poor guy!

He never did throw up again, but he developed a mild fever later in the day and spent most of the day sleeping on the couch. Which if you know August, you KNOW that means he was sick because this boy is all energy.

He spent a total of 3 days off school since the school has a no fever in 24 hours policy and the fever went, but returned again the next afternoon.

He got better and then Doug and I both ended up with coughs and cold symptoms for the next week. Jeanie escaped the sickness somehow! And poor booger-nose Lucy is still suffering, she had a couple nights low-grade fever, but mostly the booger nose plagues her. 

This was her bed this morning, a fun time pulling out all the kleenex was had by her while I slept next to her blissfully unaware. All that kleenex, but did she bother to use one to wipe her nose faucet?!? 😆

The Evolution of a Smashed Thumb

 

July 19th. 

Stupidly stupidly stupidly tried to "slow the close" of my car door somehow and it just slowly crushed on my thumb. All to catch the mailtruck in my neighborhood on the way to swim class. 

Drove to swim, rushed into the next door Hibachi place for a cup of ice, and my thumb was in there for the next hour. 

It swelled like crazy and hurt for days.

August 17th

A month later and so much uglier.

September 15th

As it grew out I noticed it had actually cracked while it was behind the quick and it grew out like a shattered windshield area. I was worried after all these months it was finally going to chip off

September 24th, people finally started to stop commenting on it.

And some of the old blood must have seeped out from the nailbed crack because it very quickly lightened up.

September 29th

Pieces of the top of the nail started to flake and peel off.

October 10th

Still flaking and peeling off the top of the nail.

October 27th

The ratty part finally grew off only to catch on a glove at work and rip half of it off. Ouch! Very short on that one side for awhile.

Today, December 5th. 

The chipped/gouged part has like 3-4mm's left to go before all the evidence will be gone. 

Wow, 5 months to get over one little accident!

Jill's quilt and shower

 My friend Jill is adopting, I couldn't be more excited for her. Her friend was planning her shower so I wanted to help. I was going to be in charge of decorations, gift baskets, advice cards. And on top of that I decided to make her a quilt. There wasn't a ton of notice as how adoptions go, so on our anniversary getaway, we spent a little of it at JoAnn's picking out fabric! I was inspired by this quilt blog pattern I found online. 

Fabric purchased and washed:

Probably my least favorite part is the cutting:

 

Squares ready to sew:

Sewed them alternating white and grey and navy and grey strips

Next sewed the strips to each other

laying it on the batting and backing fabric, no matter how much I measure it never is quite right!

sewing all 3 layers together

Putting on the binding

As careful as I was, this wrinkle still got sewed through several columns, sigh

Overall I was really pleased with it. 

She was thinking it was going to be a baby boy, but now she is unsure so we'll see! It was a very stressful week for me with late nights staying up to finish the quilt and then the shower assisting. I did all the gift basket shopping, that was fun. The advice cards were ordered. But I had planned on one of those balloon arches and little did I know that was going to be so stressful. As it was, I borrowed the balloon blower upper and the arch from co-workers, but the night before the shower I spent hours in the half bathroom blowing up the balloons (the pump was too loud and waking up the baby if I did it in the kitchen!) and part of the arch frame was missing so had to engineer some missing parts with toilet paper tubes! Anyway, with my faithful assistant Doug we got all the balloons blown up and partially assembled. The next day I had borrowed my dad's van and good thing because it was stuffed with balloons, two of which popped while I was driving which was very nerve wracking! 

(kitchen covered with balloons)

We had only about 15 mins to set up, it was held in a very nice restaurant, but the other girls helped me and it got assembled and ended up looking pretty good.

(the "boy" balloon part fell down... was it a sign?!? lol)

It was actually one of the nicest showers I'd been to. It was small and intimate, the food was so amazing and such a nice treat. Flatbread appetizers, I chose the salmon with green beans and dill potatoes for my lunch, and there were dessert shot glasses. Mmmmm. Jill has really kind loving friends and we went around the table talking about how we each knew her and some words of wisdom, and then they did a little "game" about adoption which was informative and interesting. It was a really wonderful shower and so good to celebrate her. I can't wait to meet baby!

Election results

Lately I've been having so many things that I've actually wanted to blog about, but still of course, so little time to do so. I found out I could start a blog post on my phone, but then couldn't add photos, sooo ultimately not helpful. Anyway, this was weeks ago now, but still gonna post:

Wow, I feel so sad about the election results in Michigan. I read this today posted by a local pregnancy center we support financially and it just really hits home. I will have to keep reading that to remind myself over and over because in it - it just feels so hopeless. But this is not His ending. And He is still on His throne. 

This was posted by a local pregnancy center we support the morning after the election and it gave such peace. 

Crossroads Care Center

  · 

Throughout Scripture God tells us that He is in charge. In fact He tells us that He knows the end from the beginning. Last night He was neither surprised nor defeated. Today we will go on serving our Lord, just like yesterday. tim

Praying for the future of our state and country!