Party time!

Valentine's Day has come and gone, and we celebrated in style one week after the big day. I wasn't feeling well on V-day so we postponed our little party until this week. I tried to get a few pictures of the girls in their attire, unfortunately couldn't get them both looking and smiling!






We had a fun lunch of heart-shaped PB & J, fruit salad, and a few other things for the grown ups. Of course there were games- you can see them on their heart hunt and playing pass the heart balloon. And of course, we frosted our own sugar cookies!







And here are a few other pictures from around the house lately- as you can see the girls love their daddy!

Iced in!

I have been so bad about updating our blog lately. I don't know if it's been that we've been busy or that nothing really exciting has been happening. As most of you have heard, Dallas has been under ice for the past 4 days- and today we are under snow! I'd take snow any day over ice! We have not left the house in 4 days and literally can't! They have no way of removing the ice here- there are hardly such thing as plows. Thankfully we've had enough food and entertainment to get us through. We did run out of milk today so one of us will have to brave the elements!

Here's a few pictures of our big girl lately- she has started her first dance class and loves it! She has also been working on writing her letters, and you can see she's teaching her teddy how to write as well!






And here's little girl, always into something!






Check out this homemade birthday gift I made for Halle's friend, Violet. Just hot glue , scissors, and some felt!

So thankful for friends

This past weekend, two of my favorite people made the trek down to Dallas. My friends, Kristin and Diana, whom I met 11 years ago, paid me a visit! My wonderful husband was so amazing and had a Daddy-daughter weekend with his girls while us "big" girls headed to Dallas. We spend one night in Dallas and one night in Ft. Worth. We had the perfect combination of doing activities and a perfect amount of just hanging out. Then we spent a day with Brian and the kiddos and they got to see what my life is really like here. Our highlight would probably be the Stockyards in Ft. Worth. We experienced our first rodeo and lots and lots of cowboys! I'm so thankful for such wonderful friends who have been through the best times of life with me and the worst over the past 11 years. Even though there are many miles between where we all live, California-Michigan, we have remained like sisters. Love you girls!

Back to life...

Oh my- life has been crazy these past few weeks. After the craziness of Christmas, we were all hit with the stomach flu which was passed on to Brian's whole family and mine, minus my brother! It was the worst! Then Brian and I had an out of town trip, so we are just returning to our normal life! Despite the sickness of death, we enjoyed seeing both of our families over the holidays. The time went so fast! Here's a quick update on the past few weeks.

Lily turned 1!!



My sweet girl is 1, and I can't believe it! She's such a sweetie and so different from Halle. We call her the destroyer! She is into everything and is such a busy girl. She is in the second percentile for her weight and is most definitely a peanut! She is such a joy and I love watching her learn new things each day. We had a low key birthday celebration with my family and that girl loved her birthday cake! We love you Lils!





Brian and I traveled to The Gathering, which was a conference in Jacksonville, FL for all Wesleyan pastors and their spouses. This was such a great time for us to get away. It was just too much fun seeing people that we've knows from Spring Lake and Marion, plus lots of friends from IWU. It was fun for me to see Brian reunite with so many friends from college and for me to catch up with some friends. It was a great time for us to be poured into and for us to have a break. I was so thankful that my parents were able to stay with our girls while we went away. Thanks Mom and Dad! Here we are with some of Brian's friends from college and their wives.




The day after my parents left, our church hosted a Winter Women's Tea. I'm on the leadership team for our women's ministry and we planned a rocking tea. We had people sign up to decorate their own table with a theme and bring their own tea set. It was fun to see how different every one was decorated. My favorite part was the game we played where each table had to perform, "I'm a Little Teapot," to a different genre of music. The opera group won- I really enjoyed the rap group and the jazz group. Here's me and my leadership team- I love these ladies!




It snowed! Yes, people believe I've brought the snow, bc it apparently never snows here, but has since we've lived here. I love it, so the girls can experience the fun of snow. We did not waste any time getting out in it and building our snowman!

5 years!

Along with the oh so exciting debut of Halle's singing extrordinaire, this weekend marked another exciting event with Brian and I celebrating our 5 year Anniversary! We both can't believe it's been that long already! Someone joked and said, "haven't you had like 5 addresses!" Well yes, we've had many travels in these past 5 years. At our anniversary dinner- at Lawry's- amazing!- we talked about some of our favorite memories. I went back through all of the places we've lived and just had such fondness of each of them- even though they may have been hard at first. I've just really seen how God has grown us both and has provided for us and taught us so much. We also have 2 very special accomplishments in the past 5 years that we are reminded of every day! One not like the other- but both amazingly unique and special. I don't think 5 years ago, when I said, "I do," I'd have written our story the way it's played out, but it's much more perfect because God has written it so perfectly. Happy 5 years Hunny- I love you!




Here we are at dinner- and afterwards at the ice rink in Dallas!

Halle's stage debut

Here's our little girl singing at our Christmas Program today!

Outtakes

I did a photo shoot the other day to capture the perfect picture for this year's Christmas card. I think I shot over 150 pictures and the one I got isn't exactly perfect. It's rather challenging getting a 3 year old and an almost one year old to look at the camera at the same time, let alone to have them both smiling. Especially when the little one wants nothing to do with sitting or standing still. But I think I managed to select a pretty good one for our Christmas card. Here are a few cute ones that did not make the cut.

Thankful

It seems to cliche to even list all of the things I'm thankful for. I hate that Thanksgiving seems to be the one time where we express our thankfulness. I hope that a thankful heart is something that I can practice and exercise on a daily basis. There are a few things, as I look back on this year that I truly, truly, thank God for. One is our Lily Faye. It's hard to imagine life without her. A year ago, I was hugely pregnant and uncomfortable and could not wait to meet my sweet girl. Now, she's a constant source of joy and a ball of energy. I love how she's completed our family. She's nothing like her sister and it's so much fun watching her grow each day. Our families. Although they are mostly far away, we could not be more blessed to have parents and siblings who support us and love us so much. Being far away makes you realize even more how amazing they are. Answered prayer. Our life in TX has been nothing short of a challenge in many regards. But, God has truly been faithful and will continue to be. We've begun on our second year at our church and I feel like we are constantly battling issues, and constantly seeing God provide. I think He's taught us great patience and perseverance. And when He answers- we have no choice but to say, it's all because of God! So, on that note, here are a few pics of how we spent Thanksgiving with Brian's family in good ole' Louisiana!

Crafting

Just call me crafty, or thrifty, or just call me cheap! I've been busy making various things for the house lately. One reason is that I can't afford expensive decor- 2 is because I've found some cute ideas that I thought I'd try, and 3 is because I can't afford expensive decor! Here's a look at what I've made:



First, is a wreath hung in my hallway- this is made out of an old paperback novel.



Here are the girls silhouette's. I thought these were so cute. They are kind of hard to do, bc it was challenging to take great profile pictures of my squirmy girls, but I think you can see Halle on the top and Lily on the bottom.



Here's a view of my hallway, that not too long ago was completely empty. Now it's complete with console table from IKEA and wall hangings. I just have to spruce up what's on top of the table, I'm thinking a lamp would be good. But this is it for now.



Here are bow hangers in the girls bathrooms where we can clip on the many bows we've collected over the years. Halle painted these with me, so it was a fun project for us.




I recovered my dining room chairs- these used to have an off white cover on them- yuck!



And my last one is this cornice board. (Sorry it's a little dark) This is a large window in our kitchen. This was my hardest project- I went to Lowe's and got all of the wood cut and measured, used the drill and screwed together the pieces, then covered it with a curtain that I cut apart to match the other curtains hanging at our back door.

And a few other things I've made- with a little help! :)