Colorado Family Christmas

We spent Christmas in Michigan this year, but before we left we enjoyed an early celebration with Brett's family.

It was hard to tell if Truett liked the car or the box better!

Aunt Tiffany got Maren her very own microphone, which was a huge hit! We're still enjoying concerts and performances on a daily basis.

Maren loves spending time with Aunt Tiffany, Papa and Gigi. We missed having Brett's brother's family with us this year. {Hi Derick and Shannon!}

Truett was his usual happy self!
We are blessed to have some of our family close to home. Our Colorado Christmas was a great way to start our week of celebrations!

Truett at seven months

Truett is seven months old! According to our visit to the cardiologist last week, his little heart is functioning normally, and we won't be needing to return for an entire year. I felt like skipping out of the office, and I might have had I not been carrying a growing baby in a car seat and holding the hand of one wiggly 3-year-old. *wink* While we waited for the elevator, I couldn't help but think of a very different feeling I had while leaving the office just about 6 months ago. I was sobbing, holding tightly to my tiny baby boy while Brett held his arm around us both. I have learned a great deal about the Lord's mercy and grace in these past 6 months. I rejoice in God's presence on that difficult day when we first learned of Truett's heart condition, and I rejoice in God's presence while I carried my 'fixed' baby away from the heart-testing machines, doctor and technicians last week. I pray that I remember the consistency and goodness of my God in the days and months to come, whatever they may bring.

Truett is a content, active, curious growing boy! He is gobbling up his doses of solid food...sweet potatoes, carrots, and pears are his early favorites. Occasionally he gets to experience puffs and a sippy-cup of water, and he thoroughly enjoys both. He's recently learned to army crawl, and is beginning to figure out 'regular' crawling, too. He can sit up unassisted now, but he prefers to be on his tummy. I expect this next month will come with many adjustments as we make way for our mobile boy. It's not uncommon now for him to make his way across an entire room in a matter of minutes. Oye...my life is about to get significantly more interesting! Maren has taken well to Truett's recent growth, and has begun to gently wrestle with him. I am thankful he is such an easy-going kid, because his big sister has some big plans for how he is to spend his time. I just love that they get along so well, and love each other so dearly.


Judging by the amount of drool he is producing, we expect to see Truett's first tooth any time now.





I'm pretty much in love with this boy and his sweet smiles. Time to go read some books and soak up some afternoon post-nap-snuggles with my kids!

Everybody's doing it...the tacky sweater Christmas party

It does seem like tacky sweater parties are all the rage right now, doesn't it? Apparently there are people making lots of money selling tacky Christmas sweaters on Ebay...who would've thought!? Brett and I hosted our first one way back in 2005. I like to think we were on the cutting edge of the trend. If you know us in real life, you might find this humorous, since we're rarely on the cutting edge of anything. We actually hosted our first tacky sweater party before we ever had internet access in our home, if that tells you anything.

But, on to the fun! Our friends did not disappoint this year...they showed up adorned in their festive holiday ware. We ate some great food, swapped tacky white-elephant gifts, and played Christmas minute-to-win-it games.



Our tacky party continues to be one of my favorite traditions of the season. We're blessed to have such fun friends!

Meeting Santa in 2011

I told you I was going to do some Christmas posting...

We enjoyed seeing Santa at the bank (where Brett works) again this year. This Santa is the real deal...the beard isn't even fake, as Truett quickly found out.

Maren was very interested in telling Santa about her one wish (a chicken bag...I'll explain later), but she didn't want to get much closer than this. And she definitely wasn't going to sit on his lap. {Do you like her shirt? I made it, and she finally likes to wear it. Thank goodness!}

Our boy, Truett, is very tactile, and so he made quick friends of our white-haired Santa man. Thankfully, Santa was kind enough to endure a few tugs and twists of his very real beard.



August made it into the picture again this year...Santa brought her a new outfit for Christmas, which was thoughtful of him, seeing as how she lost one set of clothes during the great debacle of 2011.
Tomorrow I'll share more about Maren's chicken bag. You won't want to miss it, trust me.

Working on it...Monday morning thoughts

Good morning!

I've obviously been missing around here for quite some time. Something happens to me during the Christmas season. And, I don't think it's all bad. I tend to abandon my time on the computer in favor of soaking up every last minute of holiday cheer. Our family took a 2-week vacation to Michigan, and I only opened my computer once. It was wonderful. I may just make a yearly tradition of taking the last 2 weeks of December 'off'. It really was great to be unplugged for a while. Truthfully, I didn't miss much, either!

I do have a few holiday things to blog about, so you can either participate in my holiday reminiscing, or you can just ignore those posts and wait another week to hear something new from me. *wink*

I have put together a bit of a plan for my blogging this year, which I've never done before. I like the concept of being more intentional with what I write about. My hope is that I'll have some more meaningful and thoughtful posts tucked in with the usual family updates, funny stories, and crafty projects. You'll find out a little more about what I have planned in early-February. Stay tuned!

a love story

Today my husband and I will celebrate 9 years of marriage. I can hardly believe I am old enough to have been married that long. I am blessed beyond measure to call Brett my husband. I love him dearly and could think of no better companion to share my life with. In honor of these years together, I wanted to share a little bit about our story. Since we'll be celebrating 10 years {!!!} together in 2012, I plan to write a little more each month on the 22nd. I look forward to reminiscing about these past years, and to sharing our story with you.

My husband wrote in a journal every single day of his college life. When I met him, I loved that about him. I like to write, and I found it so surprising that he wrote every. single. day. Wow. We started dating in late-November of 2000. That Christmas, while he was home for Christmas Break, he picked up a very special journal with a very special purpose. Unbeknownst to me, he began to write a journal to me just weeks after we had started dating. {So cool to look back and realize how serious he was about me even in those early days of dating. I often wondered about so many unsaid thoughts and feelings, and I love 'knowing' more of what he was thinking!}

Fast-forward a year and a half to a lovely April evening in 2002. Brett was teaching, and I was about to complete my senior year of college. We lived 45 minutes apart, so I only saw him on weekends. He called about 15 minutes before he was supposed to pick me up and said that he'd gotten an additional paycheck for some extra-curricular activities he'd helped out with at school and wanted to splurge on a nice dinner. I was game, and we decided to go back to the steakhouse where we'd gone on our very first date. While we were waiting to be seated, he suggested that we walk across the street to a jewelry store and look at rings. I was ecstatic...it was the first mention of ring-shopping from Brett. After casually browsing some lovely, expensive rings {the jewelry store was a Tiffany's of all places!} we enjoyed a tasty meal.

After dinner, Brett suggested that we go for a little walk in the same town where we enjoyed a coffee after our first date. {I can't believe I was still so clueless about what was going on at this point! He was re-creating our first date. :)} When we got to our destination, he pulled a blanket out of the trunk and we started off on a nice little walk along the river. At one point, there's a little dock that extends out over the water. We walked to the end of the dock, and he instructed me to be quiet as he stealth-ly pulled three roses and a leather-bound book from in the folds of the blanket. {Sneaky!} At this point I finally figured out what was happening. He handed me a white rose, and told me about the things he was thankful about from our past...then a pink rose, and he talked about our present, and lastly, he read the final pages of the book, which was a proposal, and handed me a red rose with a ring tied to it...signifying our future together. The book was filled with stories from our entire courtship. Brett had kept a journal to me during our entire year-and-a-half of dating. {There is a silence for a few months while we were broken up.} It was such a treat to read through so many of Brett's thoughts and feelings. I love having a chronicle of most of our dates and memories shared. I loved reading about when Brett first thought that he loved me...long before the words ever came out of his mouth. Nine years later, that journal is my favorite earthly possession. There are so many things that I would've long-ago forgotten about had they not been recorded in that book. I still fall more in love with Brett every time I read through the pages of the journal...it was an incredible gift.

Here we are on the evening of our engagement...

Here's our 'formal' engagement picture...

Our Christmas wedding with lots of lights...

Can you believe those flowers? I loved them so much!

We held our reception in a beautiful indoor botanical garden. Christmas trees from around the world decorated the entire venue. It was quite spectacular.

Since we were married so close to Christmas, we spent a couple of evenings in a fancy hotel, and returned to my parents house for Christmas. On the 26th we caught a flight to Mexico. I'm so glad we chose to stick around to celebrate our first Christmas with family in snowy Michigan!

I love you, Brett, and I'm so glad the Lord chose to bring us together. You are an incredible husband and father. Thank you for loving me so well!

*We did get married back in the era of film cameras...so these are pictures of my original pictures. And my wedding video is VHS...ha! I think we'll get that converted to DVD next year sometime.

Shouting Hello

I wanted to take a moment to say hello this morning. We've been busy enjoying all the delights of the season. I can't believe Christmas is less than two weeks away! We have lots of fun parties and celebrations this week, so that's why the posting has slowed down. Here are a couple recent favorite pictures of the kids. They both seem to end up with wide open mouths in pictures. I like to think it's a display of their overall exuberance towards daily life in our home.



Happy Tuesday!