Nine Years!

Who is this young, fit, well-rested couple?  It's been nine years since I tricked Dan into marrying me our wedding day. 

I'm so grateful that Dan loves me with GOD'S love.  This is a good thing because I'm not always a lovable person!  At the heart of our love is a realization that we could never humanly meet each other's deepest felt need for unconditional love.   We are two imperfect people relying on God, the source of all love.

 

Here are some highlights of this ninth year of marriage:

• moved back to Florida
• bought our first home
• remodeled (still in progress, and probably will be for the next 9 years  ;)  said home
• Dan graduated from seminary
• oh yes, and surviving the above 4 events all while raising 3 small children  :)

Thank you, Lord, for leading us through the last 9 years of marriage and for going before us as we look toward the future.  We love and trust you!

 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.   No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:7-12

Growing

Lately Camille and Graham can't get enough of two things, FOOD and SLEEP...and we all know what that means.  Growing!  I love watching Camille deliberately choose which morsel of food she'll put daintily into her mouth to enjoy.  Some of her favorite foods to eat are small cereal bits, black beans, cooked carrots, tiny diced apple, chicken, cereal bars and yogurt.  The funny part is that when she doesn't want something, she pitches it over the side of her high chair and her personal clean-up crew (Charly) devours it sometimes before  I even notice. 

She nurses about 3 times a day now (we've gone from 6 to three just in the last month!)  and takes two solid naps and ~mostly~ sleeps through the night.  The sleeping through the night part is still hit and miss, but we're getting closer! 

I wish I had my baby book close by to scan a picture my mom has of me with my hiney up in the air like this.  :)  Camille has attached herself to Graham's moose (from when he was a baby!) and of course, blanket is always a necessity at bedtime. 

Camille crosses her ankles like this when she is sleeping, and when she is in the high chair.  It reminds me so much of my Grandma.  I remember her crossing her ankles like this when she would sit down.  I wonder if she would do this because she was so petite that her feet didn't fully touch the ground in their oversized furniture!  :)   I miss her so much.  I often think about how our little people would be a source of delight to her heart, I can almost hear her laughter sometimes when I think of her seeing the cute things that we see every day!  :)  It is so neat to see how traits from those we love carry on in our children.

"I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations."  Psalm 89:1 (NIV)

Survived!

We've been in the new house for almost a YEAR!  I can hardly believe it.  When we moved in with our three little people, one a brand new baby...I was positively overwhelmed.  We moved about 700 miles in a very short time and quickly began the process of gutting-everything.  I can't wait to get my little blogging issue with photo storage resolved because I'm ready to start posting some before/after pics.  There's still so much "finishing" to do.  But I'm happy to report that we have floors in every room and two finished bathrooms and that, my friends,  is a GOOD thing.  :) 

I love to organize.  We've It has been a struggle to organize much of anything (beyond the necessities) for several reasons. 

1. Baby's first year (I like to think of the first year as "survival mode" which leaves little to no time for big organizational projects)
2. Determining designated spaces for things -  trying to find the best function and flow so that I can organize accordingly

Links for some of my favorite organizational "tools":

Weekly Chore Chart  I print one for each child to use on a weekly basis, and 5 for me-one for each week of the month.  I do this  because each week looks a little bit different.  Some chores like laundry and bathrooms remain the same, but chores like dusting the fans and cleaning the glass doors only happen once or twice a month.  I assign tasks to the weekly chore chart based on my master household management checklist.  Here's what mine looks like or you can download one just like the one below-or create your own.

Household Management/Checklist  I assign tasks to the weekly chore chart based on these "master" checklists. 

A Usual Day  This is a great starting point for time management.  Start by printing a copy for each day of the week and fill it in as you go.  This is a great way to see how you spend your day.  Maybe you'll discover that you have more idle time than you realized or maybe you need to look for ways to create margin.  Or, maybe it'll be an encouragement to you as you see all that you actually accomplish in a day!  :)

And here is my favorite most favoritest (not a word, but I'm making a point here!) set of downloads.  Simple Mom rocks.  Here, you can download a master weekly checklist, a preschoolers weekly chore chart, grocery list by category, a daily docket (to do), and many more cool organizational tools.

Looth Tooth

Graham lost his second tooth.  The first one came out very quickly, without a handy video recording device.  What made this tooth loss EXTRA special is that G pulled it out all by himself!  It was very wiggly and he came to me just before bedtime and said, "this tooth needs to come out before I go to sleep."  :) 

So, he wiggled and wiggled and wiggled some more.  I think he worked on the thing for about 30 minutes!

The best part was afterwards, he extended a little hospitality to the tooth fairy.  Momma couldn't resist sharing.  ;) 

"Dear tooth fairy, today I lost a tooth.  I made this bed for you.  Love, Graham"



Lately

This is the time of year that we Floridians look forward to!  Well, we don't look forward to the traffic jams in line to the beach or to "snow birds" on a scenic tour driving 25 in a 55...but we DO love to enjoy this GORGEOUS weather!  We've been frequenting the park where the girls could swing for hours.  It is a treat to open the big sliders to enjoy our "lanai" (that's Florida speak for patio  ;)  The pool's still chilly, but not for long! 

Dan's been tackling the guest bath.  We'd gutted it months ago, but now he's doing some drywall work and preparing to install the vanity and sink.   The current hold-up is ME!  I am struggling to pick a paint color/shower curtain.  Who knows maybe it'll end up being a stark white bathroom.  I do love the simplicity of white bathrooms, they look so clean and fresh.   Speaking of bathrooms, I just finished (finally) unpacking a big box of bathroom/toilitry stuff-only 10 months after the fact.  ;)  I love a good organizing project and it felt good to purge (2 bags in the garbage!) and give the keeps a home.  Now for the playroom/office.....*sigh* that's gonna be a biggie!

Our people are GROWING like crazy! I just finished a major closet overhaul, G's now a solid size 6, C's in 12 mos. and HR is in a 5.  WOW. Here are some recent pics:

Leaving a Legacy "Behind"

One of my main goals is to be a story-keeper.  Not only recording the collective stories of our own little family, but looking for ways to help our children see how their stories "fit" into the legacy left for them.  Recording some of the good and not-so-good, seeing a true picture of the struggles and triumphs of their ancestors is so valuable to me.  These provide opportunities to learn, and grow and have a sense of connection with those who've lived before us.

Graham LOVES history. His Grandpa is a Vietnam Veteran and has many stories to tell.  He worked on planes on a base in eastern Asia.  I have never been much of a history buff but have this growing desire for historical knowledge recently.  This was such a special time.  Grandpa brought over a few of the albums he kept...he even journaled on the pictures!!!!  I was SO excited to see these recorded stories.  What a special gift for all of us to enjoy.  The kids were facinated by the pictures of planes and of their Grandpa in his younger years.  

One of the many qualities we admire so much about Grandpa is that he knows how to work hard and he also knows how to play!   Reminds me a little of Winnie the Pooh stuck in the tree trunk after too much honey, ha!  ;)

procrastination

Sometimes in life there are things you must do, even though they're not your favorite things.  Just smile and who knows, if you see things through, you could have some fun with them too!  
-wise words from Barney the dinosaur