{ Celebrating Easter }

We didn't really make any plans for Easter this year.  After all, we could very well have been having a baby.  Wret's actual due date was today, April 1.  I am very, very glad he came early, but with recuperating and adjusting to life with a new baby, the festivities kind of took a back seat.  Despite our lack of plans, however, the weekend turned out really nice and I am pretty sure we made some lifelong memories.

 We spent the weekend as our little family.  It was a BEAUTIFUL weekend of warm sunshine.  Saturday morning we took the kids to the Easter egg hunt with our church.  I was feeling pretty sick, having come down with a sore throat/cold the day before, but I didn't want to miss it, and thankfully I felt better after being in the fresh air and sunshine.  The kids had a lot of fun!  It is such a blessing to have gotten to know all of these families at our church over the past year.  We are so thankful for the relationships that have been built during this time and look forward to them growing more over time.

Sunday morning we went to church.  It was pretty crazy getting everyone ready on time, but we made it!!!! Tim and I worked together on our dinner.  We kept it simple, spiral ham, scalloped potatoes and asparagus, with carrot cake for dessert...... from a box!  NOT as good as one from scratch, but it was what I could manage :)

{ Our littlest Easter Egg }

When the kids woke up from their naps we did an egg hunt in the front yard and then took them to the park.  It was a wonderful weekend of celebrating our Risen Saviour!  Happy Easter!

{ A Very Merry Christmas }

It seems a little odd to do a Christmas post at this point, but unless I had posted Christmas night, I guess I had to run into this problem! So, here goes one more look back at 2012!

Tim and I both agree that this Christmas season was the best we have ever spent in our lives thus far. That is a bold statement, I know, but it is true! It was truly very rich and fulfilling. I think what I loved most was that we stayed busy with Christmasy things. We were doing something every weekend up until the weekend before Christmas, but it didn't feel busy or hectic, just festive.  Another element that contributed a lot to the richness was having our two little children really beginning to appreciate all that Christmas includes.  There is something truly magical about children at Christmas!

{ this picture is a little fuzzy, but I love it because I think it captures that wonder }

The first weekend of December we spent getting our Christmas tree and decorating.  We also attended our first Christmas party. 

 ~

The following weekend we spent a family Christmas day in the city {here}.

 ~

Tim and I read "A Christmas Carol" together, the first time for both of us.

We watched lots of Christmas movies.

~

The following weekend was Katy Grace's first birthday party and our annual Christmas party.  Tim and I were also thrilled to see Handel's Messiah live for the first time!  It was spectacular.  We attended a performance at an historic Catholic church.  It was the perfect setting for such an event.... other than the very hard, wooden benches we sat on for three hours!  We had dinner out together before picking up our littles.  A wonderful Christmas date!

~

The Friday before Christmas we invited our long-time family friends over for an early Christmas dinner and presents.  Tim lived with this family for over 10 years in his bachelor days and is Uncle Tim to their kids.  Kurtis and Karli are pretty much the closest thing our kids have to cousins, so they're very special!  We also watched "A Christmas Story".  A must-watch Christmas movie for us.  I mean, we even own "the lamp"!

Then came Christmas!

December 23 will always be a very sweet memory for us.  We spent the evening as a family.  Fire blazing, listening to Bing Crosby on the Victrola, playing carols on my violin, snuggling on the couch, watching the kids play contentedly together.  It was a good old-fashioned feeling.  To top it all off, when we looked outside, it had begun to snow.  It was almost too good to be true!  We went to bed with it still falling and woke up on Christmas Eve to a white winter wonderland!  Truly storybook.

Christmas Eve day, my family came and spent the day with us, including my sister Bethany (Auntie B) who had flown in the night before.  I made brunch: baked omelet, cinnamon rolls, bacon, fresh pineapple and tangerines and of course coffee with plenty of egg nog.  

 Tim was happily able to use his new snow blower for the first time.

Yes, I dressed the kids up as elves on Christmas Eve... just because I could!  They loved it!

Then of course there was snowman building.

The guys started first, while sister watched eagerly from the window.  I love this picture of the little face in the window.  It looks just like last year when Oliver was watching from inside.

Before long, Katy Grace and I joined in the fun.  It was her first time to experience snow.  She thought it was pretty amazing.

{ Then there were naps and snuggles with Auntie B }

{ Snuggles with Daddy }

My family left in the early evening and we all went to our own churches for Christmas Eve Services and then spent Christmas morning at our own houses before joining up again Christmas day.

{ Christmas Eve, our neighbor's house all lit up }

{ Our house "

{ Christmas morning }

{ The day dawned beautifully with very cold but brilliant sunshine }

We drove down to my parent's house in the early afternoon.  We decided to take the long, scenic route.  Tim and I had driven it the very first Christmas we spent together.  That was five Christmases ago.  It hardly seems possible we have been together that long.  What a lot has happened since then!  That drive, five years ago, was when we had our "we are in a serious/exclusive relationship talk", when we knew that if everything kept going ahead, we were headed toward marriage.  That day was also brilliantly sunny.  Such a happy drive down memory lane and pretty special as we remembered it and kept looking in the backseat at our two little blessings with one on the way!  Wow!

{ Opening gifts at Grammie and Bapa's with Auntie B }

{ We finished the night off with a trip to the train park to see the lights }

{ Tim asked me to dance on the little platform there.  Again such sweet memories of our first time there together five years before when we danced and were falling in love. }

 A good end to a wonderful Christmas season!

Now on to 2013!

{ Disappointment }

On December 15 we hosted our annual Christmas open house. 

Honestly, I have put off posting about it because I have been hoping I could get to the place 

of giving it a glowing review, but I haven't.  

It was a disappointment for me, for the most part. 

It was a lot of work to prepare for and we didn't end up having very many guests. 

 Thankfully Tim feels like it was a success, at least to a large degree. 

I am grateful for that because I have just not gotten past being disappointed. 

 I have dealt with feeling guilty for that perspective. Somehow it doesn't seem "okay" to feel disappointed. 

I think I should be able to put on my happy face. 

Not sure why I expect that of myself all the time. 

In the grand scheme of things, this holiday season has been extremely rich and fulfilling, 

easily one of my favorite Christmas seasons ever, so one event that didn't come off like I would have wanted is not the end of the world. 

We combined Katy Grace's 1st birthday party with this Christmas party since it was her actual birthday. Because of that, I know I had much higher expectations. 

Obviously she isn't old enough to really care about her party so of course she wasn't disappointed. 

1st birthdays are, however, much more for the mom, in all reality, and all I could think was, 

"This is how it's going to be every year because her birthday falls so close to Christmas." 

We ended up having a good amount of people for her party, 

but the first hour of our party no one had showed up 

and the last three hours before the party was supposed to start, we had five families cancel. 

 I was in tears by the time the party started, 

but after praying with Tim that we would be grateful for however the party went, 

I was able to put my disappointment aside enough to focus on Katy's birthday, 

knowing I didn't want to ruin the memory of it. 

I had a smile on by the time people arrived. 

Our guests all came in the same hour and left together, for the most part, 

so it was a shorter party than we were prepared for, 

but it ended up being nice that we could put the kids to sleep at their usual time 

and have time to just relax in the evening. 

It took me a few days to sort out my emotions about my overall perspective. 

I analyzed and re-analyzed the event until I was driving Tim crazy. 

It is good to finally get this post underway. 

It should help to move on.

 I wish I could always have fond memories of this things I do in my life, but that isn't realistic. 

No one ever can. 

I am grateful that our guests seemed to have a good time. 

 I am glad we went to the effort to throw a party. 

I am thankful for the guests who came and for their joy in celebrating Katy's birthday with us. 

I am thankful for the friends who couldn't come, too and sorry that sickness kept so many away. 

I will post another blog soon with details of Katy Grace's birthday, 

but for now here are a few pictures of the party.

{ Christmastime in the City }

 There is something very festive about being in the city at Christmastime.  The year before last we began an unofficial tradition of going to Spokane for a Christmas day.  We missed last year because we were busy with our brand new baby girl!  We decided to give it another try this year.  It is always a little difficult to plan such a long day, wondering how the kids would do, what our timing of events should be and how missing naps would go.  After the day was over, we were amazed by how well the kids did.  There were plenty of fussy times, but they had a great time for the most part.

We started out at the downtown mall.  There is a HUGE Christmas tree in there, which is in the background of the above picture.  We, very wisely, I think, didin't go to the mall with the intention of actually shopping for anything.  We just had fun browsing.  One of our favorite stores is Williams Sonoma.  Katy Grace seemed impressed, too :)

 We had arranged to meet up with one of Tim's friends from college days and enjoyed visiting her as we made our way through the mall.  The kids loved her!  We had lunch together there and then went our separate ways.  Here are my guys being silly as always while we waited for our food!

 At noon the huge train display started up so of course we spent a lot time watching it.  Oliver was pretty intrigued by so many trains. 

 By then the kids really starting losing patience with the whole experience and our parking meter was running out so headed back to the car.  We decided to drive for a while and let the kids sleep.  On our drive, Tim and I spied a very amazing looking antique store so we decided to park and take turns going in while the kids slept.  We loved it.  I'm sure we'll be going back there many times in the future.  Tim bought my Christmas present in there.  I have no idea what it is, but I'm very anxious for Christmas to come, for sure!

When the kids woke up, we made our way back downtown to visit the Davenport Hotel.  We honeymooned there, so it has special significance for us, but it is also just worth going to as often as possible.  That day they had a huge display of Christmas trees that were going to be auctioned off that evening.   There were SO MANY people there.  It was crazy!  We walked around and saw the trees, but it was very stressful trying to carry kids, coats and diaper bags through an elbow-to-elbow crowd so we didn't stay long.  We did find this corner to take this picture in.  As you can see, shooting with a very slow shutter speed, resulted in fuzzy children, but it's still cute, right?  It illustrates how hard it is to get them to sit still!  We both wished we'd had the opportunity to photograph the lobby.  It was breathtaking! 

We had dinner at Frank's Diner, which is inside a train dining car.  I had been wanting to take Oliver there for a really long time so I'm glad we finally were able to.  He seemed to really enjoy it, though he was so tired by then it was hard to tell.

 Tim entertaining the Little Miss while we waited for dinner.

It was a very fun, long day.  We haven't decided if we're going to keep this tradition up, or if we'll transition to making it a day that Tim and I steal away just the two of us.  We'll see, but for this year it was a great family day and great memories were made.