Life Lately {Goodbye 2014!}

I was talking with a friend the other day about how we go through experiences that are confusing and painful and we don't understand WHY. Time passes and things change and sometimes there's a big OH!! A lightbulb moment of clarity as to why the first things had to happen so you could deal with the now. We decided, as painful as it is at the time to wonder and be confused, it's great to not know some things ahead of time.

Washing windows for Grandma

Ok, that was really wordy and I'm not sure it makes sense.

Let me try again. 2014 was one of those years that I'm glad I didn't know about when it started.

Enjoying Trees & Trains in Salem, MO.

If you had sat me down last January and told me the two biggest things that would happen during the year, I wouldn't have believed you and I wouldn't have liked you very much.

So since I try to see God working in everything in my life, I am glad He doesn't tell us everything up front. Aren't you? We're just asked to trust. One day at a time. And when the days are overwhelming, break it down into hours or tasks. Or breaths.

It's the little things that make me cry. Like Grandpa teaching my son about constellations, chores that used to be his now being done by Grandma, seeing his shoes waiting by the door. Saying goodbye is hard.

I want to run through this year, just to get it all in one place. For me. For posterity.

Last January I expanded my day care to four fairly regular children. Plus my three. It was nuts! Let me just admit that now, and while we needed and appreciated the money, Mommy was crazy. I was lonely, frustrated, unhealthy and zero fun. There were time--I think they're on record here on the blog or at least on Instagram--when I had all seven children at once. At that time, my oldest was 6, so I had seven under 7.

Loving on Grandma

Spring came and a couple clients dropped out and the rest could be outside sometimes, but I was still crazy busy, just feeling like I was fighting all the time. With me, with my kids, with my perspective, with finding balance.

Our last communion with Grandpa.

Meanwhile we were still missionary candidates with no donations. My husband worked for hours on his presentations and we went nowhere. We know we were the slowest grossing missionary team, if you can call it that. We worked hard, called hard, talked hard, presented hard for a year and still had less than 10% of our budget! Most missionary couples are able to raise at least 70% in that amount of time.

The boys made a fort with their older cousins today. Tonight they're trying to sleep in it. Ha!

We really struggled with our decision but we finally withdrew as candidates in July. It made us cry. We felt so discouraged, so let down, so disappointed we wouldn't be going to live in the British Isles! We were so bummed out that we had had to quit! We wondered what we did wrong, what we could have done differently, why did it seem that God opened that door only to shut it a year later?

It's almost embarrassing. I mean, I don't know if that's how people see us, but I'm embarrassed by it. We're the couple who couldn't be missionaries. We're the failed missionaries. We're the people who wanted to go but no one had enough faith in us to back our mission...

I'm embarrassed about our kind supporters. The 9% who gave and now have nothing. They believed in us and we couldn't do it. We failed them.

Story time with Uncle Glenn

But the weight was off our shoulders! The stress was out of our lives. We have been doing much better as a family without that constant pressure of fundraising.

That's a good thing, because July was the month that the other shoe dropped: Gary's dad was diagnosed with cancer.

At my father-in-law's memorial. Sad sad day.

It was sudden and awful and terrible and if you've been around at all you know we said goodbye to him less than three weeks ago.

Cancer. It's so mean! Six months ago, Jon was a healthy, vibrant, active man, a pillar in his church and the patriarch of the family. He battled cancer with everything he had. Five rounds of chemo, plus juicing, essential oils, and other remedies. And lost.

Putting up the tree before unpacking our suitcases. #priorities

We know we'll see him again. But it doesn't make it better.

In the background, our little family has been doing really well, honestly. I feel that right now we're interacting and helping each other thrive better than we have done for years! We're friends, we like to hang out, our kids are fun, Gary and I have a really great relationship.

Our tree is a little bottom heavy!

In August, Gary started school to finish a degree he was working on about 15 years ago. We conveniently live less than half a mile from Union College. He's finished his first semester and should graduated in May with a degree in Theology. He will be able to pastor a church after that, and we're hopeful of getting hired in the next few months.

I feel that 2014 has a been a good year in some ways. It's taught us to be content with less. We don't need a bunch of money to go out and have fun. We much rather stay home and cook something, though eating out sometimes is nice. Homeschool is working for us, and our cut-back day care schedule make it much more feasible. We eat well, very healthful for the most part.

Peppermint hot chocolate and a Christmas movie!

We like living in Lincoln. Well, winter stinks, but it is what it is. Lincoln is small enough to be friendly and seem safe and big enough to have all the stores you want within an easy drive. We have a Children's Museum and the zoo in Omaha is awesome! We have lots of friends at our church who have kids that are friends with our kids. We love the parks, bike paths, local lake, and our own backyard.

Christmas Eve

So there you go, 2014. You weren't the best year and I'm ready to move on. Thanks for the lessons, thanks for the moments of realization that this normal, messy, boring life is precious and special and beautiful, just the way it is!

Christmas 2014

Well, I think we pulled off Christmas. We got back to our home after a month away on Sunday night. That left us three days to get ready for Christmas. We had no decorations up, no gifts purchased, and hadn't done many of our favorite Christmas activities.

We did have an inexpensive pre-lit tree, so the boys and I set it up first thing on Monday morning. They were very involved and had lots of fun! The ornaments needed a little redistributing, but that's part of the fun of having kids at Christmas! I'm going to remember next time I set this tree up that it shouldn't go in front of a window. It makes the branches look super thin!

I went Christmas shopping every day--once by myself where I got 90% of the shopping done, once with the boys for groceries and one more gift not available at the first place, then a last quick trip for a couple more stocking stuffers. Husbands are so hard to buy for, aren't they?

We've had time for a couple crafts, I wrapped everything, and the boys enjoyed peppermint hot chocolate while watching a Christmas movie. Our Christmas card will be a New Year's card this year, and grandparent gifts will be late, but we'll have a fun Christmas Day!

Wishing you all the best this Christmas, even if you're in a place of grief or sadness (we just lost Gary's dad less than two weeks ago), or if you're in a less-than-abundant time financially (Gary's going to school part time and working part time so we can relate). We're choosing to focus on our blessings and hope you are able to see how God is taking care of you, even in difficult circumstances.

Merry Christmas friends!

Christmas Past

Wow, it feels good to blog again! Somehow it's easier to write more when I write more. Sounds redundant, but whatever it is, it works for me.

So today I wanted to share the rest of our Christmas pictures, you know, for the record. I know no one cares about Christmas anymore, but I want to be able to look back and remember that one Christmas in Lincoln.

Note: The pictures stink. It's true, they do. Whatever excuses I might have, it doesn't really matter. And my apologies in advance to my family for the awful pictures of you, and for hiding behind the camera and ending up not being in any said awful pictures.

(For the rest of the pictures of our Christmas 2013, go here. And here. And here.)

We stayed put at Christmas. We had a little tree and kids big enough to enjoy decorating and getting into crafts and super excited to open presents! We kept Christmas really simple and low-budget. The boys got fun stuff from all their grandparents and two boxes of books from my cousin who had out-grown them. We love books!

My brother, Luke, his wife, Lisa, and their kiddo, Declan, came for Christmas!!! That was an awesome gift to me! Lisa has been my bff since my freshman year of college, and I've only met my nephew once. And of course Luke is super fun too.

Lisa and I got to sneak away for coffee/chats twice! Pure bliss, lemme tell ya, except we were kinda stressed and actually able to open up to each other and ended up crying... You know, just life stuff. And the opening up thing isn't new for us--hello, we've been friends for almost *choke* 20 years! It was just being around a close friend and having the opportunity to really share about stuff. You know? Completely therapeutic and worth much more than a $4 coffee!

Anyway, Luke read and talked to Jonathan for hours at a time! What a trooper! Jonathan reminds me a lot of my brother when we were kids. He wants to know everything about everything, but unlike Luke, Jonathan can really talk your leg off! Jared and Josiah got read to a lot too, and had fun following Declan (age 1) around. The group pictures didn't work out too well, but we also didn't want to fuss about it.

All in all, my memories of Christmas 2013 are good ones! Thanks for taking the trip down memory lane with me. And yay! I have it written down for posterity!

Christmas Chronicles {Instagram}

I lost my Christmas spirit this week, somewhere between expectations and reality. Or maybe it's just perspective.

The month started on a great note. I was super-excited to start decorating, creating memories with the boys and crafting my way through the month. But I under-slept, over-worked, neglected my health and had too many deadlines. My blessings turned into obligations and my opportunities became just another demand for my attention.

Why is it with Christmas, to have a memorable season, to celebrate to the fullest, we expect so much of ourselves? This weekend I'm going to quietly remember the reason we celebrate, soak in the love and wonder of our three little boys, and remember the big picture.

Join me?

Countdown to Christmas

Ok, so this post might not be named correctly if you're hyper-analytical like I am. It's not technically a countdown because I arranged these cute little cards in numerical order from least to greatest. I thought it would be easier to just check the day's date and read that card for a fun activity with my kids.
 

So in that regard it's much more like an Advent Calendar. But it's just for an activity, no scriptures or candies or gifts like so many Advent Calendars include.

Call it what you want to, I had way too much fun making this! It reminded me why I used to scrapbook and made me long for the day when I have a little more free time to spend doing just that.

I knew I wanted to make something like this, but part of the time factor when I actually sat down to put it together on Saturday night was spent figuring out how I wanted it to work and where I would hang it! I love the Advent Calendars that use paper lunch bags, so I found some tags and made some more out of my scrapbooking supplies.

I squirreled away cute ornaments, little craft ideas, glitter glue, gum, playdoh with cookie cutters, etc, planning on putting a clue for the day's activity in the paper bag which we'd take down and open each day.

But then I decided it was just too cute and I couldn't pull it down and rip up more of it each day, even in the name of something fun to do with the boys!

And the question of where to hang it kept coming up... And my crib spring display thingy-ma-bob was looking a little forlorn, even with the burlap banner and snowflakes added to the wreath.

Then I someone went and added cute cards to write the activities on... not sure why, but they're super cute, and I someone spent way too long coordinating them just so...

So my 2-3 hour project turned into 5 hours one night, three hours the next day, another hour or two hanging them...

Sadly, that's all too typical around here. Just ask my husband. No, don't, please!

Did you notice just how cute it all is?! Totally worth the time and effort!

You know that when Christmas is over I'll be storing these together in a box. Cute cards, clothespins, tags, ornaments, embellishments and all. It's actually quite flexible, in that next year I can hang them with the lunch bags if I want, or on a string on the wall, or wherever!

(The two little bunches in the top middle are place holders because my crib springs needed something there.)

The boys are totally thrilled with the little daily activities. These are things I included--on a sticky note so I can mix and match next time, or toss the ideas and do new stuff if I want to and not have to mess up my cute note cards!

• Make coffee filter snowflakes
• Sing carols by the Christmas tree
• Make cinnamon ornaments
• Make cookies and give them to a neighbor
• Enjoy hot chocolate with candy canes
• Decorate paper ornaments with glitter 
• Go to a Christmas concert
• Make an ornament wreath
• Play hide-and-seek with jingle bell ornaments
• Use cookie cutters with play doh

 So there you have it, our Christmas Countdown, or Advent Calendar, or Activity Planner, or Really Cute Christmas Display that took way more time than I planned but I still love it!

How are you looking forward to Christmas every day?

Hot Chocolate Station

I'm super excited about decorating Christmas this year! We were in between homes last year and enjoyed Christmas with our families while the decorations stayed in storage.

This year we're staying home and as soon as December 1st came I wanted to be setting up the tree and pulling out the boxes!

I waited until December 2. That's restraint for ya!

I've never set up a hot chocolate station before. I like hot chocolate, for sure, but I didn't think I needed to tempt myself or my small kids with sugary drinks... But I was putting away groceries and reorganizing a few things in the kitchen and this kinda just happened.

First I decided to put the candy canes and marshmallows in jars. Then the hot chocolate packets went in another jar. I added a small jar of sugar and a jug for cream in case someone's fixing a decaf instead of hot chocolate. I added a couple mugs, put it all on a tray and slapped the picture onto Instagram.

Then I added some Epsom salt snow, red ornaments and a cute tag to an antique jar and some other stuff moved around too and I ended up with this.

It was the unanimous winner of the which-do-you-like-better contest on Facebook, and I love the red!

What about you? Do you set up a place for all the add-ins for your hot drinks? Do you prefer hot chocolate or coffee? Tea? I hope you're staying warm this winter!

Winter Snowglobes {DIY}

Don't you love the little winter snowglobes that are all over blogs and Pinterest? 

When it looks like this outside--or if you wish it would... or are so thankful it's not like that... What I'm trying to say is that Christmas may be over, but these cute little snowglobes are a darling winter display in January!

I found the supplies for these at Walmart. Well, the jars came from my mother-in-law's stash of jars. They're old old mayonnaise jars. Any wide-mouth jar would work, whether it's a salsa jar or a canning jar.  

The trees and figurines were in the Christmas aisle at Walmart, but I'm sure you could find them at Michael's or other places too. The last ingredients you need are hot glue and Epsom salt.

I found it works best to hot glue the scene to the lid of the jar, then pour in Epsom salt over the top. Carefully turn the jar upside-down over the lid and screw it in place. 

Aren't they sweet? I tied twine around the lid to hide the blue of the original mayonnaise jar. You could spray paint the lids (before you assemble the snowglobe), wrap it in ribbon or something else creative.

You could do many variations on this idea, like putting in a pretty ornament, or a matchbox truck with the Christmas tree in the back, or a tiny house... The options are endless!

So there you have it! Have fun creating this winter!