9 things i am looking forward to in 2009...

1. spending time and energy strengthening our marriage
2. gaining new effective and creative ways to raise up our children
3. lots of playtime outside- at the park, in the backyard, on bicycles, etc.
4. riding in the tour de tucson with henry ( only the short part)
5. a vacation to somewhere...anywhere!!
6. reading books for my own enjoyment
7. painting pottery with daphne
8. figuring out how to keep some kind of handle on all this laundry
9. following Jesus more nearly, loving Him more dearly and seeing Him more clearly (ok so that was three in one but i couldn't leave any one of them out)

2008 was a long and very hard year for me, for our family. i know that it is in times like those that i tend to grow most so i will look back and be thankful for this past year but oh how i look forward to the year ahead. i am looking ahead in hopes for a year of jubilee.

i often time feel like what i would imagine the israelites felt like...a wandering fool in hopes of the land flowing with milk and honey. i am ready for a milk and honey kind of year!! that's right, bring it on!!

i write all this coming off a day that particularly difficult. the kids were hard, i am still dog pedalling under a pile of dirty clothes (almost done), i feel like i am fighting fires non stop. i find myself daydreaming of curling up with the kids (all getting along mind you) with a huge pile of books and just reading or laying on our bellies on the floor and coloring with them. i dream of long bike rides with them or just searching out bugs to learn about. i feel like i am missing some great moments with the kids but i can't just let the house fall down around us either. i am struggling with balancing time with the kids and house chores. i resent the housework because it is keeping me from the kids and i get frustrated with the kids because i can't get the housework done. ugh! pray for me- what specifically you might ask- i don't know but pray for me.

on another note- i want to share a few pics from our christmas this year. we had a nice time and it was very low key which was nice. i think my favorite moment was on christmas day when the two little girls were down for naps and henry & daphne & i sat at the table, still in pjs, and we did perler beads and they painted by number. i cooked a couple a quick dishes to take with us to our family christmas celebration but really we did what my heart longs to be doing with them everyday.




here are just a few cute pics from our celebrations...this is from christmas eve. they all looked at the camera for about five different pictures!!

these next few are from christmas morning. daph got a bike and anna got a helmet. henry got superman and batman. all seemed right on christmas morning!


so there you have it...then end of one year and the beginning to the next! 3 out of 4 kids are asleep now so i think i will read a book...or maybe do more laundry...no read a book!

happy new year!

school christmas programs...

you have to love school christmas programs. henry's school does a very nice program and this year was no exception!! the music teacher created a program that was so incredibly worshipful. here is henry's portion of the program. these kids are precious!! enjoy!

busy days...

things have been crazy busy around here lately. too much so i must add!! i am ready for life to find a rhythm and stick with it. wishful thinking- i know.

we had originally planned to spend our thanksgiving at disneyland but with the five month layoff period we ended up staying here. there are a few things in life that i tend to hold sacred and i must say that the thanksgiving meal is one of them. it was so hard to "settle" for other people's food this year. don't get me wrong the food tasted fine- it just wasn't how my family does things. for instance i grew up with cornbread dressing and giblet gravy. none of that this year. i grew up with asparagus. not this year. again, i will say that the food was good just different. the kids and i did however get to make the pecan pie which turned out fabulous!
something else about not hosting thanksgiving is we didn't have any leftovers. i totally missed the late evening sliced turkey on white bread. because we didn't have turkey leftovers i cooked a turkey for our family. i can remember loving the leg of a turkey when i was a kid and sure enough our kids totally loved the legs. even anna needed something with a bone in it so she could be like the big kids.

it doesn't rain here too terribly often but when it does come it can be almost as exciting as snow in houston. the kids have always enjoyed playing in the rain and so this time they again asked and i said yes. i grabbed the camera so i could capture the fun.




if you cannot understand what daphne says in the beginning of the video she says, "thank you God for the rain!" i just love that she was praising Him in the midst of her play. oh how i pray she would praise Him in all things all her days.

my "no no no" at the end of the video was because they started knocking on the neighbors garage door rather loudly!

let's see...once thanksgiving was over we got out the Christmas decorations and got right to it. the kids once again made decorating the tree tons of fun! i loved listening to them try to tell the stories of each of the ornaments. our sweet family tree is looking exactly as i had once hoped- full of handmade angels with class picture faces, hand prints and glitter everywhere. i think next year will need a bigger tree so we can fit all these little treasures on the branches!


we've already made lots of Christmas candy, a yearly tradition. we made chocolate covered cherries, caramels, peanut butter & marshmallow fudge, peanut brittle and i think i will make some divinity today.
now that all of those things were done we celebrated henry's 7th birthday. i cannot believe that he is seven. i have been so thankful for this little boy God blessed us with who gave us the names, Mom and Dad.

for his birthday party we had a "messy" party! we had pizza, the kids made their own ice cream sundaes with whip cream and tons of toppings. but the grand finale of the party was the 72 cans of silly string that those kids went nuts with!! it was a blast!!
**note the ground covered in silly string behind henry!

miss ramey has finally weighed in at 13lbs!! she is doing fabulous and even started eating some cereal in the last couple of weeks. she is sleeping through the night, talking up a storm and working so hard to strengthen her little leg muscles. i am sure that in no time she will be crawling all over the place and we will be in for it!!
i guess that is the quick update as of late. like i said- life has been crazy busy!

at this time of year i can quickly loose sight of what we are celebrating. this year however it is my prayer for myself and for my family that we would not get caught up in the hustle and bustle of commercialized Christmas but rather have a growing excitement as we approach the birthday celebration of Jesus!

Lord, i pray that you would captivate my mind and heart in such a way this season that my eyes would be fixed on you. thank you for your Word that has revealed your son, my savior's, coming since the very beginning and thank you Lord for giving a far greater gift than anything we will give or receive this year.

Merry Christmas to all of you!! For any of you who may not have received a Christmas card from us this year please know that you are not the only one...i under ordered by a huge margin this year!! here are some of the pics from our attempts at a Christmas card...enjoy!!

face lift...

i tried putting this really cute background on here but because my last background was custom made by my sweet husband...i am not sure what to do to fix this.

tonight maybe my hubby will get it all fixed up.

life with four...

i often am asked, "what's it like with four kids?" well let me give you a quick idea...
trying to capture a family photo for a christmas card is basically impossible. in fact i think next year while attempting the for mentioned photo needed for a christmas card i will also have someone there video taping the whole ordeal. then instead of a family photo we will send out a dvd of the "adventure" and title it "we tried".

another fun thing about four kids is the fact that real life happens and though i would love to be able to have my eye on all the kids at all times (for safety reasons) i just can't do it. sometimes i have to go upstairs and change a poopy diaper and the others are left downstairs.

yesterday this is exactly what happened. i took ramey caroline upstairs to change her diaper and left the other three in the living room. upon my return i saw anna on the floor in the laundry room. i was not concerned at finding her in this location simply because her other name around here is emelda marcos and the laundry room is where we keep our shoes. i assumed she was putting on some shoes... we all know what happens when we assume! i said to her, "anna, what a you up to?" she turned around and this is what i saw-
don't worry- it is not blood. no it is in fact- my lipstick. for whatever reason she decided to put it on as if it were eye makeup. it actually scared me when i saw her at first but then i realized what it was and so i grabbed the camera and then washed her face.

i am finding that in so many situations where i could totally lose my cool and get mad about something the kids did if i grab my camera then i calm down rather quickly. don't get me wrong she did get corrected for this choice but not with the anger that was there when i realized what she has done to my lipstick.

another fun thing is that i love the stage where ramey caroline is (by the way she has finally reached 12lbs)...she found her feet a while ago and loves to put them in her mouth. this lends itself to seeing serious baby yoga poses!!

well there is just a glimpse of what has been going on with the kids around here.

for any of you who might not have heard- ross is working again. he started a position here in tucson last week. though it is a 3 month contract position it has potential to become permanent after that time. please pray we would trust God to put him right where he needs to be for as long as he needs to be there.

have a wonderful thanksgiving this week. i know our family is so very thankful for this year in many ways. praise the Lord we are able to say thank you!!

video clip is too big...

sorry, everyone, but the video of henry's baptism is too big for it to post. i am including some of the still shots of it for you to see.
allen is talking with henry about his relationship with Jesus.i know allen is blurry but check out all that water...

allen is praying for henry's relationship with Jesus to grow day by day and in all things.

haircuts and baptism...

henry decided to give himself a HAIRCUT on the morning of his baptism. yes- you read that right...he cut his own hair an hour before we had to be at the church. let me just say that our son was blessed with a double cowlick on the back of his head. this allows for an unintentional mohawk when his hair gets too long. the mohawk had been starting to stand out in the last week but i had no time to take him to get a haircut and he never seemed bothered by it. that was until sunday morning.

he came in after having gotten dressed and said, "mom, can you cut this up here? it's standing up." i responded with, "sure, just go get me the scissors." on his return he had a strange and guilty look on his face. then i saw it. there was a patch of hair laying on the front of his little vest. i then brought my eyes up to his hairline and there it was...a chunk taken out of his hair.

i immediately prayed, "Lord, don't let me lose it over something silly like this. help me keep my cool." i took a deep breath, smiled and told him to not cut his hair again. i then said, "henry, i am going to get the camera, take a picture of you and then shave your head." that's what we did.

for many of you who might want to see henry's baptism i have included the video of it here for you. henry prayed to accept God's gift of salvation two and a half years ago and recently began asking about baptism. he was very excited to let his church know that Jesus is his Savior. by the time we got to church and he saw all the people my shy little guy decided to only nod and answer the pastor with a quiet voice. it was precious to actually see what God has already done in his heart and the work that is going on in him daily. i held the tears back until the water poured over his head. what a day!!