{Gracias a Dios}: 2010

Still here

It has been quite a busy month for our little family. Aaron has started his new job at Harry and David and is loving it. The only major requirement was that we moved four hours South to take the position. We left that sweet little house that we loved (and had just moved into), boxes boxes boxes again. The company paid for our move and we even had movers to lift, pack, and drive all of our stuff. What a blessing that was!

We are slowly getting settled into a new community. Change is not easy, but we are excited to see what this new chapter brings. We miss our friends, church, house, community- the familiar. At the same time we are so happy to live near our family.

This past week I took all four kids to Arizona to visit family and oh- the lovely sunshine! Two airplane rides each way and lots of time spent at the Seattle airport; we came away with some pretty funny stories of our adventures. A LOT of people stopped me to say how crazy I was for traveling with four kiddos by myself, but even more stopped me to say that the kids were so good and well behaved. I don't know if those people really know how much those comments meant at just that time. Our village grew ten fold on that trip. :-)

I have pictures to share and even more stories to tell of this past month, but for now, just a quick hello on this little blog- about the only familiar piece of my day right now.

xo, Jolene

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Our home December 2010

(I'm wanting to capture the little nooks of this house we love, moving day is coming quickly. T-5 days)

Sweet Independence

While daddy was packing...

Aiden got into some cupcakes- he plated them on our finest china all by himself, one for each of the kids and licked the frosting off of each of them. He is so cute! Such a busy little boy, and through all of his curiosity he included his brothers and sister.

And as you can imagine, chocolate buttercream makes quite a mess. To the bathtub for this little cutie.

As independent as my littlest is, he still loves to snuggle his mama.xoxo (and daddy too :)

{this moment}

Thankful

-For my God who loves me unconditionally

-For my healthy, beautiful family

-For a husband that values and respects me, makes me laugh, and loves our children

-For Aaron's new job that begins in a week

-For a warm place to sleep, food to eat, water to drink

-For the freedoms of our country. To pray, worship, live, teach, vote, and play without restriction

-For this breath, for this life, for this moment

Happy Thanksgiving my friends. Celebrate this day! xo

{this moment}

Blue and White

Last night, Anna Banana and I had a girls night in the city to cheer on my cousin Elizabeth (Miss Bee).

She is a senior in highschool this year, oh I can't believe it. She used to be my tiny little cousin that would shove herself into Barbie boxes at Christmas and endure countless hours of me french braiding her hair to practice.

Now she is one stunningly groovy chick that is about to be out on her own. Her volleyball team made it into the state playoffs and lucky for me, it was held in Portland. It was so fun to squeeze out of town family and watch that beauty kill the ball.

Anna slept on the way home and I thought about what she would be like at 17. It comes fast..I am cherishing each day with these precious babies of mine. xo

Trick or Treat!

We had such a fun Halloween this year! We went trick-or-treating at Bridgeport to start off with the madness, it was SO busy, but so fun hanging out with our friends Kitty and Darth (aka Dan and Sarah)and their cute kiddos. After that, we went to our first Halloween costume party. There were so many people and so many great costumes, and...Aaron won best costume! He was Clark Kent/Superman and I have to say, it fit him well. His prize was a lovely bag of potpourri, so really, we both won.

Our kids were skeletons this year, I loved having them all dressed alike. Their little costumes (which were pj's) glowed in the dark which they loved.

After lots of trick or treating, candy, and fun, we headed home to sort the candy- the best part!

And now we begin the sugar detox..;-)

Happy November!

Pumpkins

Pumkin hunting and carving. We didn't take as many pictures of this as I thought, we have a lot of photos from trick-or-treating and a Halloween party, those will come soon. Happy Monday!

In The Oven

Cupcakes, oh delicious cupcakes. This is what I do. I wake up at 4 in the morning to bake these little beauties. Red Velvet, Chocolate, Peanut Butter Cup, Cookie Monster, Chocolate Pumpkin, Prailines and Cream, Maple Bacon...the list goes on.

Though this transition from homeschooling my babies to baking outside of the home has not been an easy one, I am thankful that the work that is providing for our family, is work that I enjoy.

There is so much to be thankful for; this job, the way God has uniquely equiped me for this work, the opportunity for Aaron to teach our sweeties, the means to provide for our family, this day, this breath, this life, and most of all , for a God who already has a plan, a design, and a path for each of our lives.

Come on in and have a cupcake or two! :-)

{this moment}

Happy Birthday Aaron, I am so blessed by you. I love you . xo

Project: Complete!

Ta daaa! Here is our black and white picture wall. I still need to fill the frames, but they are up! Over the next couple of weeks I will be collecting old family photos from both Aaron's and my family, to mix with new ones of our growing babies.

So, first we measured out the perimeter of the rectangle we wanted up on the wall and moved frames around and squished them in to fit, starting like a puzzle with the outside edges first. Next, we used a laser level and taped straight lines to form our rectangle on the wall. We took pictures of the arrangement on the floor and used that as a guide to match it on the wall. Aaron started on the wall the same way we did on the floor, first putting up the frames around the outside edges and then filling in the center. It's not perfect, but we love it and hope to add more to it.

Some new projects coming soon:

-filling the frames with pictures from all generations of our families.
-recovering the church pew (just found some pretty cheap fabric at JoAnn's with a 60% of tag!)
-sewing lots of fun/funky pillows for the pew (I have a lot of old fabrics to go through and be inspired by)

I will take some pictures of our progress. I love house projects, it feels so good to get some done and dream about others for this cozy home of ours.

Progress...

I didn't anticipate this project taking SO long. All of these frames are new, well...I bought them several months ago and they have been sitting against this wall, anyway, I bought them all at Ikea. The thing about Ikea products is that while they are cheaper in cost, they do usually take some work to put together.

Each one of these frames requires putting together and mounting the hardware on the back before even hanging them. We worked on them all. day. long.With lots of curious little helpers, and still have some to do. I am hoping that we can hang them on the wall today.

Aaron is...excited to be done with this project. I have made an entire list of projects to do around here. :-)

So..progress. Here is a picture of the frames all laid out, this is how they will hang on the wall, what do you think?

I think this is going to be my new favorite part of the house once it's done. Okay, back to work!

Project: Something Old

We recently purchased an old 12 ft church pew for seating in our house. It needs some work, as does the wall it rests on. We have been living in our new house now since the end of July and I am needing some motivation to complete some projects around here to make this house feel more like our own.

First project: hang all the frames on the wall. There are are roughly 35 to hang and fill. (the filling will be another project later this week, but having blank frames staring at me will be motivation enough to print the photos)

Before:

I will post the after pictures by this same time tomorrow morning. Off to work! :)

this moment

Comfort in Cupcakes

These past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions. I'm realizing that as much as I think I like change, it's not exactly where I am naturally comfortable.

Two weeks ago my husband was laid off from his job. We were completely blindsided by the job loss, you always know it's a possibility, but because Aaron is in finance he usually sees it coming. This time, no warning. This has been a huge change for our family, we have been in this place before, but nothing can fully prepare you for such a hit.

Two weeks before Aaron was laid off, I started working about 9 hours at a cupcake shop. I would go in early in the mornings before my family was awake and bake cupcakes and muffins and scones. Something I have always loved to do. It was a fun way for me to have a small contribution to our savings and indulge my creative side. This job is such a blessing, little did I know that it would be helping us to pay our bills and fill in the gaps that unemployment leaves.

For now, I am the bread winner...cupcake winner? My boss has been so accommodating to our family. I am working half time right now and in one week it will be full time. I am learning that Gods provisions are not always easy, a blessing, but not easy. In a matter of days I went from full time homeschooling, stay at home mama of four to working full time outside of the home. I am so thankful that Aaron has this time with the kids, he has taken over as their teacher and organizer of our household. He does an amazing job juggling this while searching for a job.

I am praying daily for a grateful heart. We have a warm home, beds to sleep in, food to eat, lights on, water to drink...but it's change. It's been a big change and this mama is missing her babies and the normalcy of life that I had just a few weeks ago. God is teaching me so many valuable lessons through this. The obedience of prayer and trust for the unknown; struggles I admit I have. This will be a journey for our family, one that will strengthen our foundation. It will take a little help from this village and our obedience and dependence on our Shepherd. Though it has been difficult, to say the least, I am thankful for the opportunity of absolute dependence on Christ. Shouldn't it be this way all the time?

I will post some pictures of my cupcakes, scones, and muffins...these little gems that bring some comfort to our family.

Alaska Lovin'

Last week I got to fly (all by myself!) to Alaska to see my beautiful sister and niece. My brother in law was out of town for a long weekend, so we got to have some lovely girl time!

We went on hikes, walked around the lake, ate fresh salmon, went out for brunch, had delicious coffee, went to an Asian fish market, searched for Beluga's, laughed, talked, loved, dreamed, planned, listened to bedtime stories in french and my little sister sing my niece to sleep and held that precious baby.

Karyn speaks in French to Ada about 99.9% of the time; so of course, my job as auntie is to translate. Ada heard the French version, then the English version, and then I taught her some Spanish. haha I wonder if she will come up with her own language combining them all. Hmm...

It was such a wonderful visit, my heart is still smiling.