Deck the halls...

Ok, so my posts are not really in sequential order, but I felt like I had to write about Thanksgiving before I could talk about decorating the tree...even though we did this last weekend. I wanted the house to be decorated before my family came to town. Benny had a blast, as usual, helping us decorate the tree and house. He is a great little helper and wanted to put out EVERY single Christmas item we had. With a 10 month old in the house this year, I wanted to stick to the basics, as I was envisioning her being a little terror. :) She has, surprisingly, been pretty good about not bothering the tree. Hmm...maybe it has something to do with the fact that everytime she goes near the tree Ben tells her "No, no, Nattie!" and pulls her halfway across the living room?!

Tonight, Ben helped Daddy finish up the lights on a few of the trees out front. We used big colored lights this year and Ben loves it. I think my bud looks so cute in his new winter coat and hat. :)

Nattie stayed warm inside with me and decided to terrorize Santa by pulling his beard and eating it.

Finally, a few random pictures my mom took when she was here. Please don't judge me for my LOVELY attire in these photos. I have to admit, however, that this is how I look about 90% of the time when I'm home with my kids...no shower...ugly pj bottoms and one of Mike's t-shirts. I really love snuggly mornings with my family. :)

Turkey time!

My Mom, Dad and little brother, Eric, came for a visit this past week for Thanksgiving. We had fun just relaxing with them at the house and spending Turkey Day at Papa and Nana's with all of Mike's family. Benny and Nattie enjoyed getting to spend so much time with family. Poor Nattie had a terrible cold for most of the week, but she is on the mend now ( it seems I got it!). Here are some pictures from our time together...

I LOVE the bottom right picture of Nattie looking up at Eric. He was doing some studying for his finals this upcoming week and I guess she was interested. :)

Just a few shots from Thanksgiving Day. We ate like pigs, as usual.

Finally, some Grammy and Pops shots...

Hope each of you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

A blessed life...

I don't always have a thankful heart. This past Sunday in church I was reminded that I am, as a Christian, to be thankful to God in every life circumstance. Is it just me, or is that really hard? It is so easy for me to dwell on the one thing that feels stressful or overwhelming in life at the moment and let that consume me. How foolish is that? Why do I ignore God when I know He is the only answer? What a sinner I am! I spent the better part of the Sunday service (and this week) thinking of all of the things in my life that I have to be thankful for…and let me tell you, the list is long.

Things I thank God for...

The beauty of His creation….from the intricate design on a monarch butterfly, to smoke covered mountains, to changing leaves on trees. I feel so happy when I’m able to spend a day outside hiking or playing at the park with my kids. There are so many tiny, intricate details in nature that fill my heart with happiness and peace and remind me that I serve a pretty powerful and creative God.

Our ability to provide for our family…Mike and I both have great jobs that fit our personalities and talents (aside from our #1 priority of being mom and dad). We have a place we call home in a great neighborhood and city. We can afford to put food on the table and clothes on our backs. All of these things are easy to take for granted, but today I am so thankful for the basics in life.

The blessing of Godly parents…two sets who have each been married for over 30 years and who have taught me (and Mike) so much about relationships, parenting, and life through their example…but more importantly they've taught us about the importance of having a personal relationship with God.

The blessing of giving and loving grandparents…what a gift they are to us in so many ways…from caring and loving on our children while we work, to making us meals or doing our laundry just because they love to help...sending us cards with special notes about why they love us…and the list goes on.

The love of siblings (and their spouses and kids)…Adam, Jenny (and Emma!) , Eric, Brad and Christina fill our lives with lots of love and fun. We love spending time with them…whether it’s hanging out watching a football game, sending goofy text messages, going on vacations together, singing dumb songs, or just making each other laugh. They aren’t just family…they are friends.

The extra special gift of extended family….and boy do we have a lot! We have 31 aunts and uncles between us (that’s crazy…I know!) and I can’t even begin to calculate all of our cousins. All I know is that some of my most valued friendships are family. We don’t see all of them as often as we’d like, but they hold a special place in our hearts and have contributed in such a huge way to who we are. (I love each of you..sorry I can't include every one of your faces here!)

The blessing of friends…how thankful I am for friends who know me…don’t fault me for my weaknesses…pray for me when I’m struggling…encourage me and love me.

The gift of being a wife and mother….my little family is at the very top of my list of things to be thankful for. God has blessed me with a life partner who loves God, loves me and loves our kids. Four and a half years ago God changed me forever when he entrusted me with a funny, smart, sensitive and loving little man, Ben. He blessed me, yet again, when he gave me a sweet, snuggly baby girl, Natalie, just 10 months ago. I can not thank Him enough for these two precious little people. They have filled my life with more joy than I can adequately put into words.

My life is filled to the brim with blessings…more than I can list here…blessings I don’t deserve. I have a Savior who loves me, even when I forget that I need Him…even when I forget to thank him. He is the reason for everything good in my life.

“Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:19b-20

Just an ordinary day...or week...

I've been in a blogging slump (yes, I consider a week without blogging a slump). I keep thinking that maybe one of these days I'll have something really interesting to say, but for now it's just another everyday life post. I love my life...even it is ordinary.

Mike ran ANOTHER trail marathon last Sunday (along with his brother, Brad). If you're keeping track, that's three marathons (one road, two trail) in five weeks. Is the human body supposed to do that?? I said he was crazy before and I'd like to reiterate that now. It was a VERY hilly race and really difficult. He got sick with one mile to go...but he stuck it out. He's taking a nice long break now...thank goodness! His basketball coaching responsibilities have started up, so running will take a bit of a backseat for awhile (his body deserves it!). He's already talking about a 50K race (31miles) for next summer though...whoa!

This is the kind of extracurricular activity I spend many of my days participating in...wrestling small children. It might look easy, but it's almost as hard as running a marathon...kind of. :)

Apparently I didn't take a picture of Ben this past week...sorry buddy! So, here's Nattie in all her glory. She is a full-blown crawler now and is pulling up to/walking around everything. It's almost like overnight she figured the whole mobility thing out. I really wish she would take a break from teething for awhile though. She's chewing our whole house...shoes, furniture, magazines...it's like having a puppy. :)

Finally, a little video clip of Nattie from this weekend. I've only posted one video of her ever, so I thought it was time for another. She's such a happy-go-lucky little thing. :)

Art by Ben

Just wanted to share some of the "artwork" that Ben came home from preschool with today. Here he is in his turkey hat. We were pulling into the garage after preschool and realized that we had accidentally left his hat at school. He was so upset. I had to turn around and go all the way back to get it. Luckily, it's not that far...plus, he was super cute posing for me in it!

The piece below really made me laugh. I wrote captions next to each of the items in his house as he explained them to me at lunch today. He started off by telling me that he had an invisible puppy and kitty in his house along with his sister (who apparently wasn't invisible...or recognizable...ha ha). You'll have to click on the drawing to read the captions. I can't explain why he felt the need to write his name twice...guess he just wanted to make sure we knew it was HIS house?? :)

Finally, a picture of my baby girl. Ben brought up some of his stuffed animals in a bin from the basement. I stuck Nattie in the bin to be silly, but I thought she looked cute smooshed in with her furry friends. :)

My sunshine...

Sweet

Little

Girl

Gosh I love her!

9 months, wild thing, and more Halloween...

Nattie turned nine months old this past week. I can hardly believe that in three short months she will be a year old. Crazy! At her check-up we found that she is growing taller, but is thinning out a little. She's in the 97th percentile for height (29 1/2 inches), but has moved down to the 50th-75th for weight (19 lbs 7 oz). She's learned all kinds of things over the last month or so. She's doing the army crawl thing everywhere now and is starting to figure out how to do the real thing here and there too. She is still eating and sleeping like a champ and is generally a happy little thing. She loves mimicking her big brother, screaming really loud, and saying "da, da ,da ,da" over and over again. :) Here she is in her new winter hat. I just love that little face...cold nose and pretty blue eyes. :)

On Friday night we took Benny to see the movie "Where the Wild Things Are." He has always loved the book and I always kind of thought his imagination reminded me of Max's. The storyline was more complicated than his four and a half year old brain could understand, but he was intrigued by the "wild things" and really enjoyed it. He asked a billion questions throughout the whole movie and I kept having to remind him to whisper. I can only imagine how many people we annoyed. There was probably about 30 minutes left of the movie when he decided he REALLY wanted popcorn. :) Of course, his Daddy got him some. It was a fun evening with our little guy.

Here he is after the movie...he was "out" as soon as we got in the car.

Finally, here are a few shots from our trick-or-treating adventures last night. Ben ran into his preschool friend, Sophia, while we were out. He LOVES her. He told us that he wanted us to have another baby girl and name her Sophia. As cute as that sounds...I think we'll wait a bit, buddy.