I am dreaming of... Christmas

So here I am craving not just a white Christmas, but Christmas. It has been a while since a new post, because I've just been a little gloomy that it hasn't felt like Christmas yet. I think the big problem is that Scott has been out of town for FOREVER (seriously when I am home alone with the girls all day it really really feels that long) and we haven't been able to do much celebrating. So one night last week when the lonliness was too suffocating for this time of year, I decided to decorate the tree, alone, just so it could start feeling like Christmas.

It worked.

The newest member of our family...

Minnie is officially a member of the family.
She does everything with us, eats, sleeps, takes baths, goes potty,
you get the idea.
Leah is in love with her - and all her dolls.
I sometimes find her in her room talking to her them, kissing them,
and saying "I yov you".

Birthday Girl

Everything was perfect...



The Cake (handmade by Aunt Lisa...perfection as usual)



The gifts (wrapped in Mickey Mouse paper...perfect)



The pure childhood joy!

My Recovery Center...

For the past 2 years I have,
as most of you know,
been running around
(quite literally)
doing grad school
AND motherhood.

And now I have been given a sanctuary,
a recovery center...


a beach cottage




Here are a few glimpses of my little haven








How grateful I am for these moments of calm I've been given after the storm.
It has given me time to recognize how the Lord
was constantly steadying the ship.

Halloween at our place

Meeting Mickey for the first time..

Our Little Nemo

...and our little pumpkin

I thought this was supposed to be really hard...

Last week I bought all of our
Potty Training Supplies
and settled in for a
long
hard
week or two
of cleaning up messes

but then...

she was perfect!


Thanks to these:

A very bad idea

Yesterday, for some reason, I decided that it would be

a good idea to take the girls to a studio to get their pictures taken.

We had a gift card, they seemed even-tempered enough, and I was feeling adventurous.

This is how it went:

Leah was done, completely finished,

after she said "cheese" once.

Great.

Jenna was only slightly pleasant,

and that was IF she was sucking her binki.

But binki's don't look great in pictures now do they...

The photographer was new

and, I swear,

has never really worked with kids before.

The candy, toys, anything-you-want bribes

went totally unnoticed

after the first 3 mins.

Leah interpreted my statement:

"can you put your arms around Jenna...yeah, that's right,

give her a hug,"

as squish her so tight her eyes bulge.

Jenna just felt like crying, loud and long, instead of smiling.

We didn't get one usable picture of the two of them...

I think we can safely say my good idea was

utterly,

completely,

un-believably

a very bad idea

So much for the new "picture taking" outfits...

and they were so cute.

Look what I spent the morning doing...

I love
being a mom
of
girls
and using all my
crafty capacity
to
accessorize!!

An afternoon moment with Jenna

Saying YES! to Proposition 8

Why I am saying YES! to Prop 8:
(41 sec.)

Why it effects me (and all of us):
(2:22 min)

The best discussion of the issue that I've seen:
(8 min)

From this great website:
www.preservingmarriage.org

What Ever Happened to 9am-5pm?

Perhaps somewhere in the great wide world, there exists a job where people wake up, play with the kids, eat breakfast with the mom, and then dash off to be at work by 9am.

Then by 5pm they hop in the car and are home by 5:30pm to help get dinner on the table. I believe these jobs exist, but I don't believe we will EVER know what that feels like...

This is Scott:


This is Scott's life:

Working Full-time
MBA School Part-time (nights/weekends)
Dad of a up-at-night newborn

Up at 5:30ish... out the door before 7am.



Home by 10ish...2-3 nights a week...7ish the other nights

Seriously!!
Whatever happened to 9am-5pm?

It's turned into more like 5am-9pm

First but not Forgotten

Being first is fun...until the second child gets more attention.
So here's a few pics of our little Leah
and the big girl she is becoming.

Baby Jenna's up-dated Slideshow