The Most Wonderful Break Of The Year

Since Caleb is a teacher, Christmas break is always his longest break of the year (he's works full time painting during the summer). We always look forward to 2 full weeks together.

We sure stayed busy and got a lot out of these past two weeks! We celebrated two birthdays (Elliana's and mine), Christmas, New Years, we got away for 3 one night mini-vacations, and we spent lots of time with close family and friends.

The break started out with Ellie's 5th birthday party. She loves to swim, so we went swimming with family and then headed back to our house for pizza and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The strawberry shortcake was her idea and it made things easier for me. Score!

I feel like a terrible mom, but I was juggling so much for Ellie's birthday that I don't have one picture from her party. Not one. Oh well, hopefully I can steal a few photos from my MIL later on. ;)

The next day we were treated to lunch and The Nutcracker by My MIL. This is a fun annual tradition that started last year. All of the ladies in the Howard family ages 4 and up get to enjoy a girly day. So much fun!

The next several days were a whirlwind of finishing Christmas shopping and wrapping gifts.

I should mention in the midst of these crazy first few days of break we were nursing our little Emsley back to health. She was on breathing treatments due to having the flu and developing bronchiolitis. It was a long, scary week but she bounced back even faster than the Dr.'s expected her to.

Then, on the 23rd Caleb's brother Nate and his wife Amanda came into town for Christmas. They stayed with us for the first night. They live in Kansas City and we always enjoy spending time with them. We so wish we could see them more!

Here they are hanging out with our kids when they came to visit us after Emsley was born.

While they stayed with us they agreed to photograph Emsley for her 6 month pics. When they visited us last summer, they took some newborn/family shots of Emsley and I adore them! I so love Nate and Amanda's unique talent! Any time they post their most recent photo shoot or video, I check it out and I'm always impressed. I'm so happy for them for making their dream come true. I can't wait to see how Em's most recent photos turned out!

The next 3 several days were kind of a blur. You know how Christmas Eve and Christmas festivities go. Christmas Eve we visited our old church with Caleb's family and then enjoyed a fun, casual dinner back at his parent's place.

Early Christmas morning Ellie ran into our room right at 7:00 AM and announced "It's Christmas! Merry Christmas!" I just love celebrating Christmas with young children. :) We waited and waited for Ethan to wake up on his own, but after an hour of waiting we decided to wake him up ourselves. The kids opened their stockings and then we read the Christmas story to them from their children's Bible. After reading to them we continued on with opening gifts with just our little family of five.

About mid-morning we headed to my parent's house for Christmas brunch with my sisters and their husbands and families.

Here's my baby sister Courtney and my BIL Jeremy piled under all of the nieces and nephews that make up my side of the family. Can you find my 3 kids? ;)

After brunch we had a marathon of opening gifts to and from each other that seemed to last FOREVER! I guess that's what happens when your family grows from 6 to 18 in 12 years.

Still, it was a wonderful morning/ early afternoon.

These 2 cuties gave us a little Christmas gift by sitting up on their own for the first time! It's going to be fun watching them grow up together.

After we finished opening all of the gifts, some of the family went on a long walk to a nearby park (it was exceptionally warm this Christmas). After the walk our family headed home for some naps and for me to make some food for Christmas dinner with my cousins and Aunts and Uncles. We're a huge group!

We played our annual gift exchange "game" after dinner and Caleb and I ended up leaving with one of the gifts we brought. Ha! We didn't mind too much though, because we left with the board game Apples to Apples, and we already enjoyed playing that game on New Year's Eve. More on that later...

The next day we headed to the Howard family cabin to celebrate Christmas with Caleb's side of the family. His side of the family is somewhat large too, but not quite as large as mine. The highlights from the cabin were celebrating Christmas, eating yummy food, spending more time with Caleb's family, and definitely at the top of the list is sledding at Beaver Meadows. SO much fun, I think we could have gone sledding all day!

After 24 hours at the cabin we headed home for 1 night and that brings me to my 32nd birthday and the second half of Christmas break. I'll post more on that later though...

Home Sweet Home!

March went by so fast that it's almost a blur. If you read my previous post, you know why. We were gone more weekends than we were home, and I learned that there actually IS such a thing as too much vacation.

Don't hear me wrong, we had a wonderful time everywhere we went and we made some great memories, but after a while you get tired of living out of suitcases and sleeping in beds that aren't your own.

I won't try and put all of our mini-vacations from the past month into one post (that would not only get long, but boring) so I'm just going to try and catch up on this ol' blog of ours and recap 1 or 2 at a time.

The first weekend we spent away from home was in San Francisco from March 8-10. The reason for the trip was to visit with Caleb's Grandma Jeannette and family. The family is going through his grandparents house and to get it ready to sell since Caleb's grandma recently moved into an assisted living home. Caleb's parents flew and spent the weekend with us.

Since this trip was meant to be mostly working on the home, we decided it would be best to leave Ellie and Ethan behind with my sister and brother-in-law. No matter how much I know how important it is for young moms (and dads) to get away, and no matter how much I crave a break, it's still hard for me to leave my little ones behind. The moment I'm away from them, I miss them and while I'm away almost everything reminds me of them. It did help to know they were in good hands.

We left Colorado very early in the morning and arrived in San Francisco about mid-morning. Friday morning/ early afternoon was our only time for "playing" that weekend so we tried to make the most of it.

We headed to Fisherman's Wharf via good old fashioned cable cars and enjoyed a really nice lunch right by the ocean. It was wonderful!

I'd never had a salmon club sandwich before, so when I saw that on the menu I simply had to try it. I love salmon, and I love a good club sandwich. It sounded like the perfect combination to me. It was every bit as delicious as I had hoped! Just look how beautiful it was!

After lunch we headed to Ghirardelli for the best hot fudge sundaes you have ever had. Simply heavenly!

After Ghirardelli we spent some time window shopping and walking around Fisherman's Wharf before meeting up with Caleb's Aunt and Uncle for dinner. We enjoyed a small walk on the beach and taking in the beautiful views too.

 After dinner, we went to Caleb's grandma's house where we spent that evening and the next day helping to sort through the house and pack up what we wanted from the house.

That evening we picked up Grandma Jeannette from her home and had dinner at his Aunt and Uncle's gorgeous home. It was wonderful to spend time with his grandma!

The next morning we woke up, went to church and flew home to see our babies. It was SO good to see them! San Francisco was a short, but necessary trip with a little fun mixed in. :)

I'm going to try and recap the other 3 mini-trips soon.

In other unrelated news,  I'm really excited about this marriage series that my sister and several other bloggers are doing. I think it's going to be a great series and I really enjoyed reading yesterday's posts. Obviously I'm a big fan and dedicated follower of Jenn's blog (I have been since the very beginning), but I'm also a new, big fan of Shay's blog. Shay is Sean Lowe's (last season of The Bachelor) sister. I already knew I liked Sean, but I may like his sister even more! I love that they are outspoken Christians!

Check out the marriage series if you haven't already.



And in other totally unrelated news, while we were at the family cabin a few weeks ago, Nate and Amanda (Caleb's brother and sister-in-law) captured a few maternity shots of me. Nate and Amanda started a photography business a little over a year ago called The Shalom Imaginative and I think they are quite talented. :) It's a great perk to have photographers in the family! Here are just a few of my favorite shots:

Happy Spring everyone! I'm hoping to not be so absent from the blog this month. :)

March Madness

It's March 1st! That means the two longest and coldest months of the year are over-YAY!!

Our March is going to be crazy busy. For all of you basketball lovers, I'm afraid that I will not be referring to basketball's March madness in this post. Sorry.

First and foremost, I can't go on without sharing the amazing, wonderful news that Jenn and Courtney already shared on their blogs.

This past Wednesday my Dad was officially declared CANCER FREE! I can't even tell you how much joy this brings to m! I've actually had moments when I've been crying tears of joy over this wonderful news. God is so good! I couldn't help but think of this quote when I was thinking of the journey our family has been on this year;

Okay, so maybe it's a bit of a stretch to use that quote with this situation, but I LOVE this quote from Lord of the Rings. I couldn't help but post the whole quote below. :)

"It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer!"

Now I'm getting off topic. All I can say is, Dad, you're my hero and I'm so thankful that we get to have you around for many, many more years (Lord willing). :)

Now, back to the insanity that is this month. Caleb and I have so much planned that my head is spinning a bit. We're going from trying to fill weekends that are wide open to having so much going on I don't know how we'll manage it all. 

Next weekend I have to leave my babies for 3 days and Caleb and I are flying with his parents to San Francisco to visit his Grandma Janette, aunts, uncles and cousins. It's been a while since we've been to California to visit his family and it's past time considering our grandmothers are getting well into their 90s and we don't know how much time we have left with them. It will be a fun time.

It's always so bittersweet leaving my babes behind. On one hand, I know I could use a break and enjoy some time alone(ish) with the hubby and enjoy some adult time. On the other hand, I always miss them terribly and almost everything, EVERYTHING makes me think of them and what they're doing.  In this case the statement of "absence makes the heart grow fonder" completely applies to me. It helps to know they'll be in good hands with my sister Alli and my mom.

Then, after we return home from that trip, Caleb will have 1 week of work and then it's his spring break. On Sunday the 17th we'll be going to my sister Alli's house for a gender reveal party. Alli and Brian are expecting their first baby just weeks after our little one is born. It should be a lot of fun!

We always try to do something fun with the kids during spring break even if it's not a huge vacation. Last year we got a hotel and spent a couple days and nights in Denver.

We can't go too far this year due to my pregnancy, and we didn't want to do Denver again, so we are surprising the kids with a couple of days and nights in Colorado Springs.

We plan on going to see Focus on the Family (they have some great play rooms, a huge slide, and an old fashioned soda shoppe),

And we want to check out this indoor play area called Monkey Bizness. It's supposed to be a lot like the Cool Beans play place that I blogged about last month only even bigger and better.

 

In between doing those activities I'm sure we'll spend some time at the hotel, swimming in the pool. :)

After we get home from that mini-vacation we'll be heading up to the family cabin for the weekend to see Caleb's brother and SIL. Or as the kids call them "Uncle Nate and Aunt Amanda". Nate and Amanda live out of state and we only get to see them about 3-4 times a year. When they're in town, they love to spend time at the cabin and we enjoy an excuse to get up there too. :) Ellie's had a special bond with them ever since she was a flower girl in their wedding almost 2 years ago so she's really excited to see them. :)

Then, once spring break is over Caleb returns to work for 4 days and then we're off to Breckenridge for a vacation with my side of the family. We'll be gone over the Easter weekend. 

That's 4 sisters and their husbands, my parents, my 3 nieces and 1 nephew, and our 2 kids all staying in the same home. If you counted that's 16 people all under one roof!

It helps that the house we're staying in is large and beautiful (although I hope it's not so beautiful that we destroy it-ha!). 

My family never, I mean NEVER takes a vacation together so I'm REALLY hoping it goes well and that we still like each other when the weekend is over. 

On top of all of the traveling and having fun, we have SIX birthdays to celebrate in March. We have my sister Alli's, then my nephew Nehemiah, then my BIL Jon, then Ethan's 2nd birthday, then my FIL Duncan and my BIL Brian share a birthday at the end of the month. Oy vey!

And then, when it's all said and done it will be April. Whew! I'm exhausted just from writing this post. It's a lot of fun, but a lot of craziness. And a lot of spending. I hope we survive it all. ;)

I'm Baaack! (With Randomness)

I think this is a new record for how long I've gone without blogging. I had every intention of blogging sooner (I even wanted to do the 2012 Year In Review that my sister Courtney did) but any free time I had (which was very little) was spent passing out from exhaustion or relaxing with Caleb.

Although I do wish I had more documented from the past month or so, I don't regret letting myself rest when I needed to. I apologize in advance, this post could get long as I recap the last 4-6 weeks.

The past 4-6 weeks have been kind of a blur really. December was full of baking, lots and lots of baking, birthdays (both Ellie and Reagan turned 4, and I had 3 other nieces birthdays to celebrate in the month of December), Christmas shopping, wrapping, Christmas parties, preparing a song to sing on Christmas Eve, etc.

Missing Grandma Nancy this Christmas season was hard. I noticed as Christmas drew closer, I became more emotional. With every beautiful memory being made there was a slight sting behind it knowing Grandma should've been here.

BUT, right before Christmas each of the women in our family was given a beautiful gift from Grandma, one of her last wishes, to carry with us. We were each given a beautiful cross necklace designed by Grandma Nancy and her mom "Grammie", years ago. My sister Jenn wrote a beautiful post about that experience.

Aside from the obvious heartaches of missing Grandma and thinking about Dad and his upcoming surgery, our Christmas was a good one. We spent Christmas morning as a family of 4, then packed up and stopped by my parent's house briefly to exchange gifts with my family, then headed to Caleb's family cabin where we spent 3 days in the snowy mountains.

Here's Caleb reading the Christmas story to Ellie and Ethan out of their children's Bible on Christmas morning:

These 3 are my world. I LOVE them!

Ethan wasn't really as grumpy as he looks in this picture.

The highlights from those 3 days included  making a gingerbread house with Ellie, playing on the frozen lake (don't worry, I was very careful), and a sleigh ride with the whole family through the snow with a quick stop for cookies and hot chocolate half way through. It was storybook perfect! Just what we needed to end the crazy Christmas season.

During our stay at the cabin, our camera started acting funny and now we can't get it to work at all. Boo! So, I really hope we can get the camera fixed soon or all of my posts are going to be extra boring. Anyone know how to fix a camera that says "Lens error, restart camera"? I have NO idea how to "restart" my camera!

At the end of 3 days, Caleb stole me away for 48 hours to celebrate my 31st birthday. We stayed at a hotel in Denver and saw The Hobbit and Les Miserables within 14 hours in the movie theater. Before that weekend, we hadn't seen a movie in theaters for almost a year! I guess we really wanted to take advantage of time without the little ones. Ha ha. Les Miserables was SO moving-I highly recommend it!

After my birthday weekend was over, we returned home with the kids and it was New Years Eve. This was one of our less exciting New Years Eve's as we went to a small party for just a couple of hours and then headed home to put the kids to bed. Caleb and I plopped down on the couch, watched a movie and toasted with sparkling cider. I couldn't even stay up until midnight this year. Oh well, I was still more than happy to say goodbye to 2012!

Right after New Years, it was wedding time! My cousin Ryan married his fiance Lorin this past Thursday and the whole week was spent with out of town family and filled with wedding festivities. The rehearsal dinner was a blast and the wedding was beautiful!

Well, that catches us up to now.

I'm going to be 14 weeks pregnant on Tuesday and officially in my second trimester! I can't believe how fast time is flying and how fast this pregnancy is going. We're pretty confident that this will be my last pregnancy so I'm trying to soak it all in and not complain about how "large" I am already. ;)

Caleb returns to work tomorrow and I can't tell you how much this is going to upset the kids (and me too). It's amazing how quickly we get used to being together all day every day over Christmas break. I'm just thankful that we get to spend as much time together as we do.

Whenever January hits, I'm both sad and relieved to have life slow down. As we look on to 2013 and we wonder what it holds, I'm finding that my hopes/prayers for this year are a lot more simple than in past years.   Mostly, I hope and pray for healing. Healing for my Dad as he recovers from his surgery on January 17th, and that we will hear that he is cancer free after his surgery. I would also pray for healing for so many that lost loved ones this past year. Those that lost loved ones to tragic and horrific shootings, and those that lost loved ones in other unexpected ways. I also pray for healing for families that are being torn apart through other circumstances.

I hope and pray for healthy babies. A healthy 3rd baby for us, healthy babies for my sister Alli and my friends, and most of all I pray for babies for all of those couples that have been dreaming and trying to have a family for many months or years.

I'm really curious to see what this year holds. No matter what, I know God is faithful, and I'm holding on to that truth.

Duck, Duck, DUCK!!

I realized my blog has been reflecting my "Debbie Downer" mood lately and decided it was time to fix that!

I also realized that it's been far too long since I posted about our sweet little Ethan.

Our little man has really been blooming lately. His personality and vocabulary are growing by leaps and bounds. Ethan is quite funny (who knew) and more than anything, he loves to follow and mimic his big sister in anything she is doing.

We noticed that he will watch Ellie intently and try to do exactly what she's doing. He especially loves to try and play the same games Ellie does.

Recently when I was gone from the house one morning, Caleb tried playing Duck, Duck, Goose with the kids, fully expecting Ethan to not understand and just sit there.

To our surprise, Ethan understood the game (for the most part) and had to join in on the fun. He would go around patting our heads saying "Duck, Duck, DUCK!" and then take off running. The BEST part is when he came back to the circle to sit. At full steam and in mid-air he'd throw himself on the ground. I've said this many times before, but he is SUCH a BOY!

Caleb's parents were over this weekend and we decided to capture Ethan playing this game in action. He's too funny! Check it out:

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

In case you haven't noticed, I've been pretty much absent from this blog of mine lately.

Nothing incredibly great or terribly bad has been going on-life's just been kind of ho-hum. I'm not sure if I'm feeling really blah because I'm still grieving the loss of my Grandma Nancy, or if I'm just waiting for something new to happen.

This past week has been especially hard. On Thursday night, Ellie and Ethan came down with high fevers (101 and 102) and went to bed early. Then Friday morning we discovered they had croup.

I was SO disappointed! Not only because this meant a trip to the Dr. for some meds/steroid injections, but I also knew it meant spending the next several days cooped up at home, feeling tired, sick, and well, grumpy.

My disappointment increased when I realized it meant missing out on the event I was REALLY looking forward to---cousin night! I know the word cousin means many things to other people, but my cousins, my sisters and I are tight. We've always been more like siblings and grew up having "cousin nights" often. A few times at Grandma Nancy's house even.

This was the first cousin night we would have since losing Grandma, and we were determined to make it fun. We had planned a night of pumpkin carving, making pizza and just having a good time.

I mean, look at all the fun we missed!

But Ellie and Ethan had croup. Caleb was with the volleyball team. And after a long week already, I would be spending the next several days nursing my babies back to health.

Don't hear me wrong. I love my babies more than anything. And I've even found some joy in having to slow life down over the last few days. We've watched movies, snuggled, read books, colored and rested a lot. And we've gotten plenty of quality time with one another. :)

Now it's Tuesday. 6 days later and I still can't take Ellie and Ethan anywhere we can get others sick. The fevers are gone and I think we're on the mend, but I am going crazy-with a capitol C! SO ready to get back to the land of the living. :)

 

 I want to see my babes wear these great big smiles again:

 

 

And I'm ready to see them playing dress up, running around and playing outside.

 



Ellie cracks me up with her love for hats.

 

That being said, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I have a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks. Caleb has fall break next week and we plan on spending some time at the beautiful family cabin in the mountains near us. Then we're taking the kids to a big fall festival on Halloween and hosting dinner for family at our house. We plan on having dinner with some friends next week too.

The beginning of fall break also marks the beginning of playoff time for Caleb's volleyball season! WOOHOO! I really do enjoy watching and being a part of Caleb's volleyball team, but I don't enjoy the many nights he's away at games or tournaments. The beginning of playoff time marks the end of Christine being a single parent for many fall nights. ;)

Then once volleyball is done, the holiday season will be staring me in the face!

Yes, the holidays this year will be very bittersweet as they will be the first we celebrate without Grandma, but I will still look forward to being with family, having Caleb off and eating delicious food.

 

 

Writing this post lifted my spirits already. I think we're over the worst.