celebrating eight

This week in 2005, a humongous ice storm hit Kansas.  It was a bad one, and I can't remember one that bad since.  People were without power for a handful of days.

The storm hit on Tuesday, and on Saturday, January 8, Dave and I were getting married.

I wasn't worried about the weather one bit.  I love winter anyway, and we chose to have a winter wedding, which we definitely got.  (I was only worried about people driving to our wedding)

We wondered if anyone would even come.  But if it was going to be just us and our immediate family, which we honestly thought it could possibly be, I knew it would still be perfect.

 I shared our wedding day "as it happened" on Instagram today.  It was definitely an excessive number of pictures to post in one day, and quite possibly annoyed someone.  But it was fun to remember what we were doing throughout the day, on this day in 2005.

So I'll share a little bit of our story here too, for those of you who don't follow on Instagram.

Maybe you've heard how we met.  But just in case, I'll back you up to that.

We met at the K-State Student Union, over lunch time.  I sat down in a semi-empty area of the Union to eat my Chinese food, and when I cut into my first bite my plastic fork broke, with a pretty loud snap.  It was loud enough for others to hear, so I looked up and around to see if anyone witnessed it, before I slowly got up to go get a new fork. As I stood up, I heard a voice teasingly say,
"I heard that."

And that was the beginning.  My fork broke.  The stranger next to me heard it and decided to actually comment on it.  And a year later he asked me to marry him.

January 8, 2005...

I'll start with a picture from the rehearsal dinner the night before, because it's one of the better ones I have of me and the girls, without having to scan something like I did a lot of the rest.  And yes, I know my hair is very blonde. Way too blonde for me.

 And then we said goodbye.

On our wedding day, a wonderful friend hosted a bridal party luncheon in her home for all of us.  We staggered it so the guys would be out of there before the girls showed up.
 These are all of our groomsmen and ushers.

 The ice was really bad and the church maintenance people told us there was no way they could get the front steps to the main entrance of the church cleaned off.  So they cleaned a side/back door, leaving guests having to walk through the basement of the back of the church and then up some stairs into the lobby to come into the sanctuary.  It was quite the detour.  A few of the ushers went out and tried their hardest to clear the steps so we could try to use them, but they had no luck.  It would have taken them hours and hours.  I had really really wanted to walk down these stairs and have pictures coming out of this beautiful entrance to drive away.  But it wasn't happening.  I think that's the only thing that didn't go as planned (that I know of), so in the end, no big deal.

My favorite moment of the day was seeing each other before the ceremony. I walked down the isle, in the empty sanctuary to meet him. It was just us and the photographer.  It was such a sweet sweet moment.

We had the cutest little ringbearers ever. 

 Dave knew that along with my dream of a winter wedding, I wanted to ride off in a sleigh. Me and my crazy ideas.  But it's hard to book a sleigh in advance in a place you can't predict whether there will be snow.  So I was settled on riding away in Dave's 1970 Cuda.
 Before we walked out, I even made sure to ask Dave to make sure I was able to get into the Cuda okay without falling and that my dress didn't get stuck in the door.
He gave me his assurance, and then we headed out through the candlelit crowd.

I was mostly focused on the ground, making sure to not slip on ice and hold my dress up. So when I finally did look up, I saw a horse drawn carriage waiting. It was such a fun surprise from Dave and his family, and still had the same feel that a sleigh would.
It was a 35 degree ride.  But I think the adrenaline kept us warm.  I didn't think about the cold one time.

And then we celebrated.  It's so fun thinking about all of our friends and family that were there with us that night.   Our reception was a beautiful mix of greenery, snow, ice, and white lights. With the perfect backdrop of real snow and ice out the wall of windows along one edge of the reception.

  I'm thankful to be so richly blessed with a husband who loves me beyond all of my faults.  The past 8 years I have learned so much about unconditional love.  Marriage is wonderful and hard and sweet and frustrating and so many other things, all wrapped into one relationship.  But I'm thankful that God put us together, to walk this life together, learning all along the way to not only love and serve each other, but to ultimately learn how to love and serve Him.

And to think it all began with a broken fork.  

last of the 2012 pictures {family time}

And just a little bit more from 2012... 

 

Our kids counted down all month for the day that their Michigan cousins would be here. Just about every waking hour they were here, we spent time at Nana and Papa's with them.

It took Gavin a few days to warm up to them. He definitely didn't just let them hold him and carry him around like he did last year and this summer.  But he got there slowly.

Had we had another week with them, they would have gotten to be best buds again like they were before.

 

 He found Jeremy's shoes and was trying to put them on himself.  When Jeremy sat down to help him, he was mesmorized by the big shoes that were on his feet.

 

 

There have been many hours of Legos.  Thanks Aunt Rebekah for the awesome race car set!

 And we spent an afternoon bowling.

(ha, ignore the fact that my settings were all over the place)

 

Mason was beating all the kids until the end.  I think he was throwing it harder than anyone.  He ran and threw with all his might, every time.

 

I about deleted this next one, because he's obviously out of focus.  But then I realized that it was when he got a strike, and it just made me smile, remembering how excited he was.

 

Poor Gavin wasn't feeling well at all.  So he just chilled most of the time of Papa's lap.

And this little neice of ours was quite entertaining to watch.  She had a different position, dance or jump that she ended every single throw with.

 

The kids had 3 slumber party nights in a row.  I think that may be a lot for any kid, but for sure a lot for a 4 and 6 year old.  And attitudes and behaviors were definitely hurting because of it.  But the cousin time and memories made are worth it.

 

We celebrated 2 Christmases, New Years Eve, and a birthday party, all in the few days that we got with our Michigan crew.

It sure has made this first week of January feel awful lonely and boring.

 

InstaFriday {December recap}

 

It feels like I just turned the calendar to December.  And now it's already a few days into January.

I've had the laziest, yuckiest start to the new year that I can ever remember. We got hit by sickness, the Christmas decorations are still up  (usually they go down the day after Christmas). I have work I've put off for weeks that I need to get to now.  And we are having a super hard time getting back into routine.  Can.not.get.out.of.bed.  No one. Maybe that's our fault for not staying on a good routine over the break. 

But the calendar is forcing us to get back to our normal.  The kids are back in school.  I start jewelry shows again soon.  And next week all of our activities start back again too.

I haven't thought one minute about goals or resolutions or desires for the year. Usually I am very reflective at the new year.

It is what it is though.

2013 is here whether I am ready or not.

 

So even though the calendar has flipped, here's a little of what our December looked like via Instagram.

 

 1. cutting down our tree  2. yummy pepper steak  3. christmas craft

4. mason rides the bus  5. school christmas program  6. best mail ever

7. light 'em up project  8. late night walmart escape in my slippers  9.  my morning buddy

 1. taylor washes the dishes   2. christmas bunting   3. love my kitchen with no walls

4.  my boys   5.  winter baby  6.  christmas card helpers

7.  more christmas bunting  8. chillin on mom's bed  9. family date night to sumo

 



 1. prayer partner gift exchange  2. caroling at the nursing home  3.  our caroling team

4. blessing bags for the homeless shelter  5.  kindergarten party treats  6.  polar express night with cousins

7.  rock paper scissors tournament  8.  sleeping under the christmas tree  9.  christmas day nap by the fire



1. christmas morning joys  2. legos and worship music  3. first time with a spoon

4. hours of hockey in the hall  5. their first OU shirts  6.  sweet airport homecoming

7.  new years eve buffet  8. celebratory drinks  9. happy new year

 

 

 

 

Hope you have a great weekend!  Mine will be GREAT - I'm off for a night away with a handsome man to celebrate 8 years together!  (I think this is our first night away together with no kids since Gavin was born!)

 



a year of instagrams {instagram book}

I hope you are having a great start to 2013. 

Our last week was spent with family, nearly every day.  I love being able to shut off nearly every other aspect of my life, and just spend a week doing nothing but hanging out.

The busiest thing for me is the food.  I'm in the kitchen a lot during the holidays, mostly by choice, so I'm not complaining at all. It can be a lot of work, and I really do enjoy it at the time.  But then it gets to be Jan. 2, our first day back into a normal routine, and I want nothing to do with the kitchen.  So Pizza Hut will be delivering our dinner tonight.

 

 

I started my first project of the year on New Year's Day.

I spent a lot of the day organizing 2012 pictures and creating a Blurb book of our Instagram pictures.

I think I'll wait to see if a good deal comes along from Blurb.com before I order it.  But it's done at least.

 

 

My goal is to keep my Instagram pictures organized in their own file, instead of mixed in with all my other phone pics.  So I now will have a folder each month for IG pictures only.  Then next year's book will go much faster!  And maybe, just maybe, I'll do the collages throughout the year.

 

I realize that Blurb offers an Instagram book. It connects to your IG account and brings your photos in for you.  It sounded pefect! So I tried it.  There were a few things I didn't like, but maybe I just didn't know how to figure it all out.  #1 - there weren't many layout options, either one large picture on each page - which means my book would be well over 300 pages long, or there was a 2x2 grid.  I really wanted a bigger grid than that, and didn't want this book to be super long like my blog books.  #2.  No matter how I tried to get it to arrange the pictures, my pages started with the end of 2012 and worked backwards.  This annoyed me too. I wanted to look at my book in chronolocial order.  You would think that the "arrange by date, oldest pictures first" would have done the trick, but it didn't. The only option that I could find to fix this was to arrange the pages myself.  But that was going to take forever.

I also started to create my own grids with Photoshop Elements.  I got the grid built, but because I don't have the "convert to frame" tool, my pictures wouldn't just snap into place already sized for each square.  I had to drag each picture down to the size of the square. Again, this was taking forever.

Can someone tell me if a new version of PSE has the "convert to frame" tool, or if my understanding that it only comes with some "designer toolkit" add-on is correct?

Or is there another way to get your photos to snap into place quickly?

 

So I ended up going to PicMonkey.  I created 1 or 2 grids for each month. It went MUCH faster.  The Auto-Fill button was wonderful!

Then I was able to just upload these collages into the BookSmart software where I created my Blurb book.

 There are things that I would change.  I didn't plan out titles for each month.  I couldn't really get each month to have an even number of pictures to fill the grids evenly.  But I got to a point I just wanted to be done with it.  I spent so much time figuring out that best way to even do the book, that I didn't want to go back and re-do all the PicMonkey collages after I realized I would have done them a bit different. 

 

There are so many fun things you can do with your Instagram pictures.  Magnets, stickers, memory boxes - so fun!  This link has a good list of them.

 

Are you on IG?  It's my favorite iPhone app! (I'm abalzer).  And now I'm super excited to have a whole year's worth printed into a book!

christmas day 2012

I didn't take too many pictures on Christmas Day.

 

But the few a got sure do capture our real-life.  :-)

 

 

We always start with stockings and then move on to a yummy pancake breakfast/birthday party for Jesus.

 

Someone wasn't happy about singing "Happy Birthday".  And someone else wasn't happy about taking pictures.

 



 

We always love having my parents join us for Christmas Day, I'm thankful they are willing to make the 5 hour trip every year.

 

 

I have been known to go a bit overboard on the shopping in years past.  And so many of those years after our kids get totally spoiled on Christmas Eve, we go home thinking they would be happy if that was all they got. Kicking myself for my excessiveness.

So this year, in the attempt to simplify, we adopted the "3 gift rule", just as Jesus received 3 gifts from the Wise Men.

It sure made my shopping easier, and when I was done, I was done, whether I saw a good deal on something else, or thought of another good gift idea later or not.

The only thing that was tough was that our kids didn't really have big wishes this year.  They didn't really even give us any ideas.  Until the day before Christmas of course.

That was the first time I heard Mason say anything about wanting a rocket ship lego set.

And Taylor continued her wish of an American Girl doll, but then was pretty satisfied with her Bitty Twin from Nana and Papa (which I knew she would be).

So I had no idea what their reactions would be on Christmas morning, as there wasn't anything that they really wished for waiting on them.

 



 

 But then I was reminded of the true joy that kids get on Christmas and their excitement for just about anything. It was another reminder that simplifying Christmas expectations for myself does not steal the joy of Christmas when our hearts and minds are focused on the right things.

 

My kids taught me a lot this Christmas.  Maybe it was the visit to the nursing home, and the joy they had in singing to so many residents in their rooms.  Maybe it was the evening we spent making "blessing bags" for the homeless shelter and then caroling to them and handing them out.

Maybe it was the conversations that took place in our home this year, and the realization they began to have about other people's needs.

Maybe it was the events in Newtown, CT.

But there was something about this Christmas that was different.

Simpler. More joyful. More about others.

And the words from our oldest that I won't forget...

"I really don't want anything for Christmas, I just am glad we have Jesus."

I don't know how much of those words were just the "sunday school" talk coming out in her, and the knowledge she has about what the right things to say are, or how much was truly from her heart.

But from other things I witnessed from her this year, I am leaning towards believing that she truly truly got it this year.

And just to keep it completely real for you, her words were followed by words from another certain little one who said.

"Not me, I want presents!"

:-)

 



Mason was super pumped about his gift from Mema and Papa.  Especially because it's from the place Papa works.

 

It was a wonderful, pjs all day-game playing-lego building-karaoke machine singing-ham, homemade rolls, garlic mashed potatoes- cozy fire-christmas music playing -facetiming with Aunt Rebekah-kind of day.

 

It's always hard to believe it's all over so fast.