February 2015

 I looooooove valentines.  but i don't love how much candy my kids come home from school with.  so to at least not add to the problem I came up with this greatest idea for valentines.  We got a bunch of rocks from the driveway and painted little hearts on them.  Glue em to a piece of cardstock that says "you rock" and whishy woosh, done.  And Clara and Grady thought that sounded great, until Grady decided that his really really needed to have a treat.  And Clara decided that hers needed to all be different and unique and those 55 little heart rocks i painted didn't even get used:(  ahhh man. it was kind of a lame idea anyway. but their valentines were still just about the cutest things I've ever seen.   who doesn't want to be told "you rock like fire!"?

And then a couple weeks later it was my birthday.  I went on a hike and watched the most beautifulsunset and then we got food from costa vida, and the kids stuck some candles in my salad.  what more could i want? really though, on my hike that day i climbed up on this big rock with my heart pounding in my chest from exertion to see something so beautiful and i don't think i've ever felt so grateful for another birthday in my whole life. Having a body that can climb me up mountains, then going home to a family and a home with people i love and good food to eat...sometimes, even when life is hard, it feels so incredibly good.  I feel so grateful to have had another year. side note - we didn't get leah anything, figuring she could share, and she  totally took over brandons burrito.  poor dad!

this is a little random, but leah is really pushin me these days.  she is so in charge of things.  she opened up a box of little clothes one day and came up with this outfit.  that's a shirt on her legs. and she wore it to the store like that.  that's just how we roll, cause getting her to change her mind once it's made up is impossible.  this is there favorite game when i fold laundry, it sure helps out a lot. 

and one last one, ahhh it spiwwed....

Christmas Day 2014 and a little January

 December used to be my favorite month.  What happened?  But I still love Christmas day.  We stay home with each other, in our pajamas and I finally take a breath.  Christmas movies and walks in the snow and a fun Bethlehem themed dinner and lots of toy playing.  So good for us.

 They FINALLY got kendamas! Life has begun.

 After a month without snow we woke up Christmas morning to a foot of it!  We were outside in the falling snow when we looked behind us and saw the cutest little miniature horse looking at us from out neighbors pasture!  My kids were soooo enchanted with him!  They were hoping he was for us, but nope, Greg and Jody must have been a little bit nicer than us last year.

 We had a Bethlehem dinner that night.  Fun to talk about how Mary and Joseph must have felt that night after the baby Jesus had been born.  We had flat bread with olives and hummus, cheese and fruit on the floor by the fire.  An awesome way to end Christmas day

 In January we invited/begged Brandon's friend from work to come teach us how to make sri lankan food.  I gotta admit, when they showed up i thought there was no way they could make good stuff, they were waaay to skinny.  But I was wrong.  Prasat and Gaya were awesome and if i could have captured the smell in my kitchen that night I would have.  It was amazing!!!  And the coolest part about it - Gaya left a whole bunch of awesome spices and herbs with me that her mom brings back for her when she visits them.  Oh what a fun night and so fun to get to know some really really kind people.  Prasat's stories of being taken to a boarding school at the age of 5 blew my mind.  Such cool people, and their little girl Maya is adorable.

 And to round out this really cohesive post - Brandon showed the kids a bunch of parkour videos and for the month of January things looked like this a lot....kinda cool, kinda scary:)