Lately

We've been a little busy. But here's a few pictures to show we're mostly alive and well. 

I am thankful

Nov. 2009

Nov. 2010

Nov. 2011

Oct. 2012

I love the holidays because it always reminds me to look back and see how much our family has grown. Over the last year and a half, to help me I've kept a pretty good gratitude journal. (This is a huge deal. I STINK at journal keeping.) In light of it being Thanksgiving I was reading it again. And I think I'll share a few...or more. I am so glad I kept this journal. I sure hope I can still continue doing it next year. I've already slacked off the last month or so. 

4. I am thankful I have two beautiful and healthy girls who love me.
5. I am thankful Nathan married me and loves me despite my craziness.

11. I am thankful we live next to a cheap bread store. 

12. I am thankful the girls like bread.

22. I am thankful our t.v. still works after Kendyl sprayed Febreeze in the buttons.

24. I am thankful we can live in families and be able to support each person. I am thankful for mine. I love them so much.

29. I am thankful I found some money to buy Kendyl some cookies--she's been staring at the baking soda box in the fridge with a cookie pic on it.

35. I am thankful the air came on right now!!!! Never been more grateful for power.

43. I am thankful that I was able to feel motivated to clean up a big mess in our house.

50. I am thankful we own mostly junk so when things get ruined its not such a big deal

66. I am thankful I can be surrounded by my family. I've been reading a blog of a girl who lost her husband and son. Even though it's hard for me to feel like I'm just a mom, I can't even imagine how terrible it would be to have that taken.

91. I am thankful Josie started breathing yesterday after she fell down. I've never been more scared even though its happened before.  

114. I am thankful I have friends who think of me... I feel blessed to have good friends even though some days I forget I do because they aren't close, I am usually quickly reminded I have people who care about me.

125. I am thankful for Kendyl. Today she told me out of the blue, "Mom I love you." That was the first time she's said it on her own without me telling her I love her first. I made me so happy. 

128. I am thankful NATHAN GOT A JOB TODAY!

166. I am thankful yesterday the girls didn't scratch each other or hardly fight at all.

167. I am thankful yesterday dinner was very calm and Nate and I sat down to eat.

178. I am thankful for the times I can enjoy being a mom. Lately its been really hard. Josie is at a hard stage and so is Kendyl. But they still make me laugh. We were at a store and Kendyl put on different hats and started dancing and shaking her bum in the mirror when she thought no one was watching.

196. I am thankful the girls go to bed at night...even though it is at 10!

203. I am thankful for my family. Its been tough at times lately for all of us but I am so glad we are together. I wouldn't want to be with any other people more than Nate and our girlies.

239. I am thankful for Josie's curly hair. It makes me smile.

251. I am thankful we could have movie night, pizza, and ice cream with the girls. Little things like that that we used to not be able to do make me so happy.

255. I am thankful for my body and everything I can do with it. I just finished reading Heaven is Here and it made me cry. I should be thankful for my body more often.

267. I am thankful for our new phones. Its amazing to be able to call/text Nathan anytime. (if I remember to carry mine)

268. I am thankful for a ton of little things: privacy, bath, stove, oven, kitchen, living room I want to be in, closets, bigger bedrooms, playground, sunlight, feeling at home.

289. I am thankful we are happy and content with how life is going right now. I hope we feel like this for a very long time.

315. I am thankful winter is winding down. (hopefully)

346. I am thankful God is my partner in parenting. Especially on days that I don't do well.

353. I am thankful Nathan gets to go to South Africa for work. He's worked there less than a year and already is doing what he wants. We are very blessed.

357. I am thankful Nathan makes me food. I really don't think he understands how awesome I think he is for that

388. I am thankful my foot feels better. I hurt it running with Nathan and I'm glad that even though my feet drive me crazy when I run at least I have them.

418. I am thankful my girls are so forgiving. I can take a lesson from them. If they can forgive me for the awful way I sometimes react to them I should certainly be able to forgive others for much lesser annoyances

423. I am thankful for this journal. Our home teachers talked about keeping a gratitude one, just like I am doing. It made me glad I have kept it up. Besides my blog it's the longest I've ever kept up a journal and I love typing in the number each time and being reminded just how many hundreds of ways I've been blessed in the last year.

445. I am thankful for the experience we went through moving here so I could learn to be more grateful.

457. I am thankful Duck Dynasty is on Amazon Prime. 

Oct. 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Halloween

This year I once again managed to avoid trick-or-treating on Halloween. Ba ha ha. And the girls don't even realize what they've missed! But don't feel bad, for a whole week we had more than enough candy.

#1. Trick-or-treating at Nate's work. This is more like trick-or-treating on steroids. Everyone has a bowl of candy sitting right outside their door. You only have to walk like 4 feet before you get a piece of candy. The girls just managed two floors before they could barely drag their stash. Plus there was a Halloween party with pizza and more treats.

#2. Trunk-or-treating at the church. Lots of candy. Lots of games. We had fun,  Nate's running friend and his family came, and then went out to dinner after. You know just in case the girls hadn't filled up enough on the cupcake walk and donuts. 

#3. Halloween party at Kendyl's preschool. More candy. 

#4. Halloween night. Opened package from Grandma Julie with lots of treats, made Halloween pizza (frozen pizza with olive faces), and watched Hotel Transylvania while the rest of the world froze outside. :)

So don't feel  too bad for them. They did alright and next year maybe I'll let them in on the secret of what everyone else does on Halloween night....maybe.

Summer's Farm

At the end of October we went to a farm with Nate's coworker and his new wife. Later was the ward trunk-or-treat. Nate and I agreed that it was probably the best day of the fall. Just a few of the things we did...

Oct. Trip to Seattle

Blah! I fell into the blogging trap of not wanting to update because I was behind on posting about prior events. Here's my effort to remedy that so I can start posting about the day to day stuff...and not just the big trips, though they were terribly fun. 

I'm going to quickly bust out this post. Just know that even though it isn't too detailed or funny, we all had fun!

While Nate traveled to the DRC for the first half of October we flew to Seattle where my parents recently moved. I'd never been there before. I was pretty nervous to fly with the girls across the country. We left the house at 3:45am. The worst part of flying alone with the girls has been security but leaving so early that wasn't much of a problem. Long flight was ok. Short flight was much harder. We got through it and arrived a million hours later at like 11:00am thanks to a different time zone. So strange. Glad it was over.

First day was fun seeing my parent's home and reacquiring the girls to the family. They loved every second. 

Next day we went to an awesome farm. Girls were in heaven. Gunny sack slides, mazes, duck races, dried corn pits, jumping pillows, and more. So fun and it was only a short drive away from my parents' town. Phone died so I didn't get any other pictures. :(

Another day trip out to a local produce market.

We sent lots of pictures to Nate. This trip I was able to talk to him a lot more on the phone through Skype.

Kendyl's one request was footy pajamas. We found Josie a pair of elephant ones but they weren't in K's size. Next morning Kendyl told us about her dream of finding elephant ones with pink, blue and red on them. After 3 stores, Grandma delivered. Thank goodness.

Another fun trip was to a children's museum. Best I've ever seen. Awesome, awesome, awesome. 

Loving the attention from their uncle Alec. And I'm betting he loved the attention from them. 

Josie's "practice" birthday.

Good thing we had one because mommy never ended up making her a cake on her real birthday. Oops. 

Other things we did (positive I'm missing a lot):

Swam! Parents' pool was heated to a nice 90 degrees. Seriously! Perfect for the cold Seattle weather. Kendyl and Grandma swam most mornings. 

Decorated house for Halloween

Watched Conference 

Some shopping. Got my very first pair of boots!! (huge feat. my feet and shoes don't do well together.)

Ordered some shakes from Alec in the McDonald's drive through. Boy looked spiffy in his red uniform.

Walked through downtown Snohomish. Super cute small town. I would love to go back to buy fun things for my home someday.

Hanging out with Laurel. One of the girls' favorite people in the world. She taught them all kinds of important things to say like, "What does the fox say?" "What day is it? "HUMP DAY!"

Slept in. The girls slept so well there. And even sharing a double bed! 7pm-8am. A phenomenon. Wish it would have lasted. They consistently wake up before 6:30 here. 

Layover in Denver. The flight home was the same. Short flight a disaster. Long one much easier. We finally got home at 9pm after leaving that morning at around 6am. Long day, especially if you take into account the time zones.

A picture of Nate from his fancy room in Kinshasa. Other than driving to the office he wasn't allowed to leave the hotel. He had a long, lonely 2 weeks. 

Best part of the trip was coming home to him! He got in a few hours before us. So glad to be back together.

Maybe his next trip we'll stow away. 

Sept. Assateague Island

When Nate came home from Rwanda we planned to go camping at Assateague Island also known as the "wild horse beach." Every beach is about 3 hours from our house. That was the hardest part of the trip. Simply put, our girls don't do well in the car for long periods of time. Which is anything more than 5 minutes. 

It was a really pretty drive though Maryland.
We took a break about an hour away at this cool park we drove past.

As soon as we got there, after being assigned our campsite and lectured on the dangers of getting too close to the wild horse, we set up the tent walked a few hundred feet to the beach. 

The sun was behind the clouds so it was way too cold for me. 

That didn't stop these three. 

Our campsite was visited by a wild horse or as the girls called them a "stranger horse." The girlies hid in the car and Josie cried as she watched the horse eat something off our table.

Throwing an even bigger fit after she surveyed the aftermath of the horse's visit. I think it maybe moved my hat.

They had fun just getting sandy.

Who says boy scout dropouts can't be prepared and resourceful? Nathan's expertly started the fire.

The evening was pretty uneventful. Had hot dogs, s'mores, and went to bed.

The next morning we packed up, had another stranger horse visit, watched it eat our neighbors entire breakfast while his back was turned (the guy was ticked), and headed for a beach a little further up.

Nathan tried to convince one of the girls to get in the water.

Then Nate and I swam for a while as the girls colored. We tried body surfing. The waves were okay but there was a big drop off so it was a little tricky getting far enough out. For us that was probably the best part of the day. We should have brought a babysitter and then could have enjoyed it more. :)

It was a lot warmer which made the whole afternoon better.

The girls loved playing in the sand and kept busy while we relaxed and read.

After we left in the late afternoon the girls napped for a little bit until we found somewhere to have dinner, and then the rest was an awful ride home. But overall, it was great and I can't wait to do more camping next summer.