goodbye 2010

a few of my favorite memories from the past year...

switching it up

i needed a cleaner look

(new look here as well!)

the funny things you say...

alomae,

you are 23 months! that's almost two...

crazy!

you are such a chatterer and always have something funny to say.

some of your phrases are....

"Hold you!"

- you often say this when you want to be held, you are used

to me asking "do you want me to hold you?"

"mina milk"

not so sure why you call chocolate almond milk this, but you do!

you know how to say chocolate, but choose not to when it has to do with milk!

"oh my gosh"

you say it all the time...

"why you do that?"

already questioning everything

"Let go!"

uh oh... this one is scary :)

"hi baby!"

you often say this right before you grab you baby, lift up your dress

and nurse it (with smacking noises and all...)

"Shhhhh daddy sleeping"

we often leave to the gym before he wakes and I say this to you...

now you say it to me all the time...

and those are just a few...

your favorite things to do right now are:

play games on my iphone (woops!)

play with your play kitchen

snuggle

hold and "shhh" your babies

and

slide (you turn everything into a slide)

Alomae- you are SUCH a delight! I cannot believe next month

you, my baby, will be two!

dora & playdate pdx

dora dora dora DORA!

christmas came again for alomae yesterday when my sister dropped by

a gift from her Auntie Sarah and cousins!

before I had alomae, I kinda made a rule in my head of no pink and purple plastic toys

and no over commercialized character accessories from tv shows!

well this christmas, she got both!

and she loves them....

Thanks to 24 hour fitness kids club,

alomae LOVES dora (and can also count to 10 in spanish!)

Just another lesson in motherhood and letting go...

heck, wood just isn't the most exciting all the time!

(plus, not everything they get has to leave the house! he he)

presented in an oh so appealing dora gift bag!

dora sippy and spoon and fork...

dora plate and bowl...

dora campbells soup & silly bandz (not pictured)

and the matching owl lunchbox to go with her backpack!

-------------------------------------

Playdate

The church so graciously gave the pastors a couple extra days off to make this

Christmas truly resting and fun!

So today Andy and I met some friends at a fun new place called

playdate pdx....

This place is crazy... and wonderful!

it's simply a giant play area for kids with tubes and slides and things to climb up and on and through...

Alomae (even being on the young side) had so much fun!

Andy and I were pooped though because we had to run through the whole place with her.

great place for older kids though because you can sit back and have coffee while they play to their hearts content!

In the past month we have been to OMSI, Pump it up, and now Playdate PDX.

OMSI's kids play area is still by far my favorite and the most visually appealing and stimulating...

so excited to us my membership we got and go once a week!

christmas creations

a couple more things I made for sweet baby Huck...

elephant

sweet bird

(alomae's bird!)

see it here

and peeking out on andy's forearm :)

more creative peeks to come...

christmas (in pictures)

what a great christmas...

darling girl opening her gifts...

a few of her favorite things...

chalkboard table

cute wood block puzzle

owl backpack

baby

wood food for her kitchen

dora jammies (courtesy of auntie susie!)

.........

handsome sawyer & huck (with grandma!)

my favorite gift handmade by my talented man!

...and the talented man (with baby huck)

Great dinner with great friends!

(sorry for the darkness... mood lighting...)

thats a baby truman!

Such a fun time with such wonderful family and friends...

I have to say,

with a (almost) 2 year old

in the house...

The MAGIC of Christmas is back!

cow fishing

andy went fishing...

and caught a cow in the ditch?

(ewe)

Huckleberry

tonight

alomae and i got to watch

my sweet nephew

Huck

(short for Huckleberry)

while my sister got her hair done.

(she is in town from seattle)

it was super cute watching alomae play big

sister...

I have to say though, having a 5 month old in the house

did not make me in any hurry for another...

cookie time.

alomae got to make cookies for the first time today...

she was in little girl heaven!

not sure why she still had a bib on, but oh well!

Merry Christmas

I wanted stones.

Have you ever had to go through a time where the Lord has had to reveal some pretty ugly things about yourself? well I am there right now... There are just a couple areas in my life that I have let go of and let grow cold. Personality traits that are less then enduring, that I have let become a part of who I am.

I am finding that typically I am pretty good at denying that these things exist and covering them up until they boil to the surface again. Last night though, I humbly went to an older (much wiser) friend of mine (which is not easy for me) and told her I needed help. That there were parts of my inner personality that I just was not okay with and that I wanted to see change! I was quickly reminded of something so simple, so pure, and so true...

"in every thing I do, I have the choice to either do what brings glory to the Lord and pleases him, or simply do what pleases me". (not to say that often my heart and His don't align, because truly they do more often then not) but to weigh each thought and word that comes into my head and out of my mouth against that word of "does this glorify the Lord, or is this just something echo wants to say?"

Simple: YES! the Lord is not calling me to complex things that are far outside my reach, He just wants All of me and for All of me to want Him and think of Him first...

That said, there are a few things in life right now that I am waiting on the Lord for. Things I feel He clearly gave direction on but have yet to come to pass. In this process there have been a lot of "me" and "I'" involved in the waiting process and simply not enough of Him.

I was just reading moments ago in Isaiah 60 where the Lord says:

"instead of bronze I will bring gold,

and instead of iron I will bring silver,

instead of wood, bronze.

instead of stones iron"

Part of my daily struggles are this right here. I have come to expect and accept things like stones, iron, and bronze... desiring for my own will to come to fruition when in fact the Lord does not want me to settle for elements that are not as beautiful and refined as the ones He longs to give.

Why am I so quick to settle for wood and stones if He wants to give me bronze, or bronze if His heart for me is Gold?

creations.

I bought Andy a sewing machine last year for his birthday

(so he could patch his own jeans- he rips them quite frequently!)

I broke it out a few months ago (Andy had to teach me how to use it!!)

and have fallen in love...

shirts are not the only thing I have been making...