Starbucks inspired yarn ball wreath:

Last year, Starbucks decorated their coffee shops with wreaths made of yarn balls. I loved it! How hard could it be? Styrofoam balls wrapped with yarn, a few floral pins and hot glue to stick them together and some cardboard as a base. I've been working on it in my spare time the last couple of days and here's the finished product:

Imagination vs. Reality

I imagine having dinner sitting on the table, the girls sitting patiently, Stephen walking through the door and greeting us and we have a wonderful dinner.
Real life situation: I'm scrambling with dinner, Pear is chanting "I'm hungry", Jovie's rubbing olive oil across the ENTIRE kitchen floor, Stephen walks through the door and greets us only to receive a harry eyeball from me, an "I'm hungry" from Pear and Jovie wants to give daddy a hug with her oiled hands but he's in his nice dress slacks.

During the girls' nap time I clean the kitchen, organize the toys in the family room, fold all of the laundry and am refreshed as the girls awake from their naps and we read a couple of our favorite children's books.
Real life situation: I get the dishes done. I fold most of the clothes Pear and Jovie wake up happy. They then decide that the freshly folded laundry is the perfect pile of leaves to jump in. I frantically try to put them away before they are all messed up only to come back to another pile of scattered "leaves" every trip back from the closet. 1 hour later- done. We didn't get to read those books. I'm not quite feeling completely rejuvenated.

Saturday morning arrives and we sleep until a leisurely hour, perhaps 6:00 am isn't too high of an expectation. We get ready and leave for a morning in Seattle at our favorite bakery, Cafe Besalu. Pear and Jovie enjoy their pastries and allow Stephen and myself to enjoy ours. We sip our coffee and cocoa and leave with a feeling of great satisfaction and there couldn't possibly be a happier family out there!
Real life situation: Jovie sleeps terribly. She decides that 4:00 am is a better hour to wake. We rush to get ready. Leave the house just a few minutes later than estimated and arrive at Besalu just in time to enjoy fresh quiche, pastries and cookies. Upon receiving our goodies, Jovie decides it's time to have a bowel movement. (For those of you who do not know Jovie, this is a HUGE ordeal.) I take my screaming child into the restroom to allow her a little privacy and 20 minutes later, cleaned, changed and much relieved, we return to our cold cocoa and finish our pastries. It could have been worse but let's just say upon leaving, I hardly felt I'd sat down and wasn't feeling ready to face the rest of the day.

I sit down to write a blog post. The girls play and I'm able to complete my writing within 30 minutes. I move on to do other things all while the girls play happily together.
Real life situation: I sat down 2 weeks ago to write this post. Pear and Jovie had a tizzy over a toy that I should have bought 2 of but only bought 1 and within minutes Jovie is crying on my lap. Once she stops crying, she begins banging on the keyboard. I then give up trying to write a post and move on to the next task. This repeats itself over the following days until I finally get the post done. (You'd think I might decide to give up blogging or decide to only do it during nap time. I guess maybe I'm crazy.)

The bottom line is, being married, having kids, serving God, living life- it isn't always a bowl full of cherries. In fact I often feel it's more like poop (you'd be surprised how literal this is for me at this point). But the fact of the matter is, for some strange reason I find satisfaction amongst the chaos. I enjoy these girls. I love my husband. And I revere God. At the end of the day as I'm laying in bed, I don't think of how terrible my day was. What comes to my mind makes me smile; I think about how I called Pear a stinker and in a devastated state she responded, "I'm not a stinker, I'm a pwincess." Or the way that Jovie lit up as I read Animal Sounds (currently her favorite book) and tried to repeat the animal sounds which in all actuality all sounded the same "uh-uh-uh". I think about how Stephen treasures me and saves a kiss for me before he leaves for work, when he comes home for lunch and again in the evening. I serve a great God who blessed me with a beautiful family. I take comfort in James 1:2-4 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Just for laughs...

Friday night, Stephen and I decided to take the girls out to dinner and to do a little grocery shopping. We had a less than relaxing dinner (lets just say Jovie couldn't hold still) but it was still enjoyable and then we headed over to Costco to pick up a few things. As we were standing in line checking out, Stephen began laughing. He then pulled out three coasters from the hood of my sweatshirt. Pear must have decided I needed a laugh and pulled a little prank on me. These coasters were from home. They have cute elephants on them and are brightly colored. They had been in my hoodie all night. Everyone needs some accessorizing, right?

a breath of fresh air...

Hawaiian air that is. My wonderful parents watched our little sweeties while Stephen and I took a trip to Maui, HI. I was so nervous to leave my girls. Well, at least to leave Jovie. I knew that Pear would blend right in with my family. She and Libby (my 4 year old sister) are almost like sisters. Libby is much nicer to Pear than a sister may be but Pear is just as feisty, brutally honest and comfortable with Libby as she would be with any sister! (In all honesty, she can be down right mean towards her. We are working on that.) On the other hand, prior to this Hawaii trip, Jovie had never been left for more than 5 hours with anyone! Not only had I never left her for more than 5 hours, she is still very much a "mama's baby" and hardly even let my parents hold her. But, we spend a lot of time at my parent's house and she is very familiar with the grounds, her sister, my parents and my siblings so I thought it would be okay.

We arrived in Maui on Friday afternoon and after getting our car and groceries, we headed straight to the beach! Ahhh. How therapeutic. The beach is endless, the water warm, the air clean and blue skies rested above us. We went on a Lava/Snorkeling tour with Blue Water Rafting and I would have to say it was probably the highlight of our trip. The captain was a little on the daring side and he drifted the boat into a lava cave, took us snorkeling on the backside of Molokini (known to be an "expert only" snorkeling spot), and let us snorkel to the edge of the reef on Molokini (I wasn't energetic enough to make it that far but Stephen did and he said it was extremely scary and amazing). We spent a lot of time relaxing on different beaches, reading, eating, snorkeling and walking. It was a wonderful time and I'd like to go again next week! If only money grew on trees, eh?

I missed the girls terribly by our 3rd day. I asked to talk to Pear on the phone several times but she was always too busy. One time I did get to talk to Jovie on the phone and I can still hear the little "eh, uh, eh," that she nearly wrenched my heart out with. I teared up and couldn't talk to her again the entire trip because I missed her so badly. We arrived home around 2am on Wednesday morning, got a couple hours of sleep and then went to pick up the girls. Upon walking through my parent's door, Jovie was very excited to see me and just snuggled with me for a good 5 minutes. Then I got a big hug from Pear and it was as if we never left them! They weren't mad, they weren't upset, they weren't even cranky! They were simply happy to see us.

What a great vacation.

A year gone by...

Jovie's a year old. We've had so much fun with her this past year. The wonderful day she was born I ate an enormous piece of cake throughout the night. The weeks to follow were a little rough. For the first 6 weeks of her life she thought that between 1 am and 5am was the perfect time to be awake and cry. I remember walking out in the family room, sitting on the exercise ball bouncing, pacing the creaky bedroom floors, yeah, that was rough. Then we moved on to constantly spitting up. I changed my clothes at least 2 or 3 times a day. Jovie's were changed even more than that. But then came her adorable smile with those chubby cheeks that nobody could resist. Her cheeks caught eyes a mile away. Her big blue eyes seem to grow bigger and bluer by the day. Since she was a couple of months old, she loved to talk. She is so noisy! Usually a good noisy. She is constantly chiming in her two cents. She's not quite as noisy as she used to be, now she usually nods her head with an "eh" and that means something however I don't always know what. Food. Jovie LOVES food. She always has and probably always will. If you want to make her happy, just lead her to the food. Jovie is adventurous and enjoys trying to be just as big as her big sister. She loves to go down her slide, climb up and down stairs and would probably jump off the couch if she could figure out how to jump. She dances like nobody else and I will often look in the rear-view mirror in the van and see a carseat rocking side by side as Jovie is wrapped up in the beat of the music.

What a joy and a blessing our little Jovie is.

"...Happy Birthday to you!"

"Oh, don't touch it!"

"Ouch. Are you okay?" (Yes, she put it out with her fingers.)

Yum! Now this is a birthday.

Not too messy.

Hugging her new baby doll from Mammy, Pappy and kids.

Knife Skills

For years, Stephen has been lecturing me on how to properly use a knife. I usually shrug off his advice with knives as overly cautious which is simply not my style. That is, until three weeks ago when I was preparing a wonderful chili dinner. I was so excited. Stephen was going to love it (he normally doesn't care too much for chili). I was taking advantage of the girls' nap-time. I chopped the onions and moved on to green peppers. This is where I went just a smidge too far and chopped my thumb instead of the pepper. That put a little damper on the chili dinner, actually, it put a stop to it. No chili dinner. Luckily, I didn't have to get stitches. It bled and throbbed for hours but a good bandage job was all it needed. Just this week the feeling returned to my thumb and I'm as good as new.

All this to say: take heed to your husband's advice. Proper knife skills are a must.

Amazing Life

I Just read a few facts about the baby in my tummy and I am left in awe of my creator. This baby has been in my womb for barely 13 weeks and yet his (I do not know that he is a he I am just going to refer to him/her as a he for now) little heart is beating strong, the fingernails are growing, his veins and organs are developed, the unique fingerprint that separates each of us have been created and all of this in a little body that is a mere 3 inches long and weighs little under an ounce. Yes. I am left in awe of such a wonderful creator.
Psalm 139

1O Lord, you have searched me

and you know me.

2You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

4Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O Lord.

5You hem me in—behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.

6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

7Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

8If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths,a you are there.

9If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

11If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

12even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

13For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake,

I am still with you.

19If only you would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

20They speak of you with evil intent;

your adversaries misuse your name.

21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord,

and abhor those who rise up against you?

22I have nothing but hatred for them;

I count them my enemies.

23Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.