Happy Birthday Sweetie Girl!!

Quiet on the Home Front

It was one of those weeks where I kept my schedule very free on purpose. Three projects were needing attention and I knew I had to start into them.

Cleaning out the garage

Making Celene's two year picture book (before the coupon expired!)

Christmas projects

It was nice to have some quiet, at home days.  Lots of reading aloud to the girls in between projects and nap times.

I say they were quiet days but, that sure means something different these days with a mischief maker (or two) on the loose.

This was after she painted herself and the walls with peanut butter. 

NYC

Last year for Christmas Natalie and Evan gave us a weekend away in New York City.  The weather forecast was predicting a cold, windy and rainy weekend.  Normally, I would have opted for comfort and warmth.  Nice sensible walking shoes, winter coat, use my pockets instead of a purse, etc.  Maybe my fashionable sister is wearing off on me, I opted for style instead. But then I realized I didn't particularly have anything stylish in my closet that would work for the weekend. Dum-dee-dum-dum! My mom and sister to the rescue.  They let me raid their closets and gave me a few early birthday presents.

 

So by the end of the day I was slightly chilly, my feet were a bit sore from walking around the city in high heels and my shoulder was nearly dislocated from carrying an adorable purse that was the size of a small suitcase.

But what's a girl to do?  The only other option was comfort-

The Ellis Island museum was wonderful!! We spent 3 1/2 hours there and definitely could have stayed longer. 

After the museum we headed over to the Statue of Liberty and we would have gone inside if we hadn't been 8 minutes late. Arrgh.

Central Park was so beautiful! It would have been fun to take more pictures there, but we were in danger of turning into ice statues if we stood still for too long.

We summed up our New York experience like this- what was good was really good, the rest of the time we were just confused. But we would still go back. Lots of "oops we just walked five miles away from the train station. Why did people send us to the ferry when it's closed on Saturday? I don't have a clue where we are, do we even remember the name of our hotel?" (Ok maybe it wasn't quite that bad ;)

The food was part of what was really good!   We had Japanese the first night and then went to an Italian restaurant in Little Italy the next evening.  We were some of the only  non-Italian speaking people in the room, which made our pasta taste more authentic :)

The most fascinating sight of the weekend - egg prices.  We went into a grocery store off of Times Square and the eggs ranged from $3.30 - $6.50 a dozen.  There wouldn't be any quiche or custard in our house, that's for sure!

Thanks to all family members involved in watching the kiddos and running the business!

Food for Thought

Recently, we heard a Christian counselor say that the majority of people they see, deal with the same root sin. * Although it manifests itself in different ways, usually anger or hurt, the issue most likely is rooted in unforgiveness.  For the next day or so after I heard that I thought of all the "big" conflicts that I know about. I decided that yes, I could see how  unforgiveness was a key factor in many of them.  But then a still small voices reminded me to look at my own heart. 

Am I walking in forgiveness in  "little" ways on an everyday basis?

Am I quick to take offense, sure that the other person intended to say something hurtful?

Do I keep a record of wrongs?

Do I truly forgive in the same way that I would like God to forgive me?

On close examination I see that I have a lot more growing to do in this area than I would have thought at first.  It's rather hypocritical to even think of telling others to forgive if I'm not willing to put it into practice in small, everyday ways.

* Of course, this statement is taken out of context.  He wasn't saying  everyone who comes for counseling or every situation is due to unforgiveness.

Five years + a few days..

I think one of the things I most appreciate about my husband is that five years ago he thought I was perfect and treated me like a queen.  Today he knows that I am full of flaws yet he still treats me like a queen :)  On our anniversary I came home to a trail of flowers and cards through our house! Sweet.

We are thankful for five happy years of marriage, knowing truly that it is a gift from God's hand.

Girl Time

A few weeks ago an aunt and cousin were in town so all the girls got together for a sleep over at our house.  The guys kindly made themselves scarce and went to play pool. Celene couldn't figure out why she couldn't go swimming with the guys ;)

Of course all manner of silliness combined with chocolate occurred at the slumber party.  We decided at midnight to walk off some of our Chinese food.  Shelby was asleep in the room that had all my extra shoes and sweaters so we had to make do.  I think we all agreed that I was allowed to post this picture, although this does make us look better than we actually did that night. Mom definitely took the prize with Evan's black work boots and her PJ's.

Next morning we headed off to Longwood Gardens to celebrate Mom-Mom's birthday.  One brave guy came along too and was kind enough to let a small blond girl monopolize the attention of the person he was with :)

Celene thinks she is supposed to pose whenever the camera is out!

Lots of helping hands meant an easy day for me.

The cousins

Celene found a friend.

Just for fun

Thanks for being the official photographer D. glad to see you got to be in a picture!

Dancing lessons in the formal ball room

Shelby tears her hair out at the thought of all this formal stuff

The birthday girl, still going strong at 79!

Happy day! The rain kindly held off until we were in the car!!

  This is such a mommy post, I think this face is so adorable. My unbiased opinion, of course ;)