Last Days...

Right after we had signed our agreement for the new home, Jake came down with two strands of the big, bad flu. It was no joking matter and involved one ambulance ride and several days of the girls being shipped off to the grandparents to keep them away from the virus raging in our home.  So while I stayed home to make sure Jake stayed alive and do my best to keep our home as sterile and sanitized as feasible, I put a fresh coat of paint on our breakfast table and attempted to strip and repaint the chest below.  This chest was Jake's dresser growing up, Abby Jane's changing table and dresser as a baby in LA, and has served as my "buffet" for the last few years.

 I loved the result. However, I did not properly strip the wood, because the stain is coming through the paint now and likely we'll need to re-do the job. But you get the idea.

After Jake recovered, we got our kids back and went about the business of packing up the house and making closure happen for the girls. Here is their last evening to play in their old playroom before I packed it up. The twins were only crawling when Jake created that space for them- we spent a lot of life on that remnant of carpet !!

 

The hardest part of moving for our girlies was leaving the sweet neighbors that the girls had spent their whole remembered lives playing with. This sweet friend, Jordan, was like a big sister to them, and we have spent countless days playing with her over the years. In those last days, we soaked up all the opportunities we could have enjoying those sweet friendships!

 Practicing leaps...

One last bike ride for Abby Jane and her shadow.

The cul de sac kids. Truly probably 90% of our afternoons were spent with these sweet children, and I'm thankful for the big brother/ big sis relationships these big-hearted kids have had with our girls over the years.

 Even on moving day, the big girls came over in the rain to ask if they could help load the truck. We sure love these kids and pray God's blessing on them and their families.

Faithfulness

 NO, we didn't die and YES we're still here. The spring has just been a bit busy, and it's finally time to catch the blog up on WHY! In March, we had THIS...

 and then we had THIS! 

And now I'm going to tell you how God brought those two days to pass. Then in later blogs, I'll catch you up on life surrounding this and the rest of our spring... because it's been a doozie of a good one. But if you're only in it for the pictures, just wait for later blogs, because the rest of this is a long lovely story of God's fabulous provision and faithfulness.

Almost immediately after we returned from California and Jake's graduation, Jake and I entered into an intense phase of seeking God's plan for our family and waiting to see how He was going to provide for some pretty specific needs in our eyes, one of them being a home in a different school district.

The bottom line was that we had X amount to spend on a different home, and the area we so longed to move into cost Y.  We had friends in the area keeping their eyes out for possibilities and in the meantime I was attending orientations at the school we hoped to send Abby Jane to in faith that if the Lord wanted us there, He would make it happen in His perfect timing. However, place after place that Jake inquired about as potential homes were decidedly closed doors.

I should mention that I prayed during this time for God to provide a believer who wanted to have mercy on our little family and work with us. I also wanted a lovely fenced in back yard and a fireplace, the latter of which we hadn't had since our Auburn home.

In faith that this particular area was where we would eventually be moving, even if it wasn't in time for Abby Jane to begin kindergarten in the fall, we went ahead and toured the preschool where the twins would attend if we were to live over there. That was hard to do, because we couldn't have asked for a better experience where Abby Jane has attended preschool and have been so blessed and grateful for our time there. But it seemed that it made more sense for us to invest the twins' relationships in the geographical area where we were headed, once again, Lord-willing.

So of all the balls that were in the air, and all the unknowns and things outside of our control, enrolling the twins in this particular preschool seemed like the easiest step of all and the thing we COULD move on without any particular act of God to allow it to happen.

Not so much.

The Thursday we strolled inside to drop off our registration papers, the director told me the girls were going to be on a waiting list that they hadn't anticipated needing. There seemed only a dim chance that one spot might open up, and of course we needed two.

At that point, we felt like God wanted to remind us that there was not going to be anything about any of this that we could just walk in and do on our own accord. It was all going to have to be His choice and His direction.

The next morning, Jake was taking some time off work to go drive around and look for signs in yards maybe not listed online. Right before he and I left for the day, I got a call from the director saying that there had been so many kids on the waiting list that they had opened up a whole new class, so both the girls were in!! YEAAA!

I had called a friend who lived in the area and told her of the wait list the day before, so I called her back to tell her the good news. In the meantime, she had happened to hear of the home of a friend's sister that was going to be becoming available pretty immediately. It's basically across the street from the school that we so wanted for Abby Jane. So, we made a few phone calls and were able to go view the home that Sunday.

To say we loved it was an understatement.

By Monday, Jake was on the phone with the homeowner and because God answers prayers and nothing is too hard for Him, she was a strong believer. She said she had been blessed and wanted to bless us, and to say the very least, she absolutely did. We moved in about a month later, and that very moving-in weekend, she was in town and came by the house with a couple of friends to stand in our kitchen and pray over our house with us.

After a season of waiting on God, needing to trust him with big details of our lives, and absolutely only being able to move a step if He allowed it, we were blown away by how He blessed us with "immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine" (Eph 2:9).

And, of course, not only does our house have a lovely fenced in back yard, we have not one, but TWO fireplaces! HA! God hears us and God sees us, and He cares about the smallest desires of our hearts! We have been so humbled and our faith so strengthened by how He moved on behalf of our family.

Now stay tuned for pictures and stories from the rest of our spring!

Valentine's

I love Valentine's Day because of it's proximity to Abby Jane's birthday- the celebrating and partying just goes on and on! Here are a few "place cards" and centerpieces we took to Abby Jane's school party!

Thank you, Pinterest, for showing me heart-shaped pepperonis that I could use to accessorize the pizza our teacher requested! Didn't have time for the after-baking shot, but here's the before!

For those of you on facebook, this was right after Joy told me she didn't want to make Valentines or show her love to people on Valentine's, but that she wanted "to show my badness."

My three sweetest of sweets on Valentine's morning enjoying their spoils with their heart pancakes! Actually, four of my sweets- Jake's reflection is in them mirror. Shout-out to Magic Jacket.

After Daddy went to work, we went to work on strawberry dipping for our fancy dinner that night. It turns out that was one of the easiest, low-stress, kid-involved treat-making activities ever. Even Joy was really good at it. We called the stem the hair and said, "Hold the hair back, then dip the strawberry up to its shoulders!" They thought that was really funny.

Some curly-headed individuals may or may not have dipped a few strawberries, then swiped a tiny angel finger in the chocolate before it could set. She's a sneaky one on things like that. You're so busy handling Joy that you don't see Stealth Child move in.

There are benefits to being a twin!

Unpictured here after strawberry dipping was meeting a friend who missed the ballet party for a little playdate, then going to Jake's office for lunch with our favorite Valentine! This was some sister love after naptime that afternoon.

Blythe helped me set the table for our fancy dinner that night, complete with my good silver and napkin ring usage. We all also took a step up in dishes- Jake and I were on fine china and the girls had three courses, one of which was on my everyday china. Blythe is the only three year old I would hand my china to with no hesitation.

The girls were fascinated by the concept of courses, and loved Jake and I formally waiting on them. This funny face is code for I'm hungry, stop taking pictures please!

Leftover ballet party pink lemonade with leftover class party cute straws, but no one's the wiser!

Enjoying the "fruit" of her labor!

Then after the girls sugar bombed and went to sleep, we had a lovely dinner and evening accompanied with this serendipitous bottle of wine. It was a graduation gift from a dear friend of ours who had no idea that it is our absolute favorite wine from a vineyard in Central CA that we visited once several years ago. What are the chances you just pick that out at the store without knowing the significance??

Love celebrating love with my precious family and thinking of Him Who loved us first!!!

The tutu much fun ballet party!

One week after last year's family princess party, Abby Jane started talking about wanting a ballet birthday party for her 5th birthday. We alternate friend birthday party years with family birthday party years, so her plan sounded perfect to me. We started with an invitation...

we added some cupcakes...

a little ballerina artwork...

more pink treats...

and lastly, we threw in some ecstatic, sparkly little girls at a studio, and we have ourselves a ballerina birthday party ready to go!

We had butterfly masks to color as the little ballerinas came in. Some three-year-old sisters don't focus on their coloring like the bigger girls can.

Grandparents and great-grandparents dressed for the event. Bop Bop is always so game for our themed parties- after last year's royal family affair, he arrived for this ballet extravaganza dressed to the T!

This is not a glamor shot of Abby Jane, but I had to show this precious little girl who did an exquisite job of making all the little ladies feel special, while simultaneously mesmerizing them with her beautiful attire and amazing talent! She was truly so kind and sweet with all the girls- we were incredibly thankful for how special she made the party!

Christina helped facilitate the girls doing various dances and exercises.

This party was one of Blythe and Joy's life highlights to date. They were besides themselves getting to dance and try to keep up with all of Abby Jane's big girl friends!

At the end of her time with the girls, Christina did a short demonstration for the girls. The grown-ups were as impressed as the girls were! She did a beautiful job.

Each little girl got to put in a request for what they wanted her to show them. Look at Joy squirming in the one-on-one attention of such a fancy princess ballerina!

Sweet fancy little girls!! Love this.

Then it was cupcake time!

Partied out but so satisfied.

Abby Jane with the other three people of her other biggest fans. Love sharing days like this with grandparents and always so thankful for their help. We really like to throw a party, and our parents usually end up being a big part of helping to make it happen!

Another sweet moment after the party was discovering that the cost of the studio ended up being half of what we thought we were quoted. In this particular season of our lives, that felt like an extraordinarily kind provision of the Lord that we were truly grateful for. Loved our precious day of celebrating our precious girl. More to come on Abby Jane at 5 soon!!

Abby Jane's 5th birthday!

Abby Jane's birthday celebrating spanned three days, so get excited for lots of pictures of us celebrating our very favorite five-year-old in the whole wide world. We're big fans of this kid. Since she was going to have a ballerina birthday party (post to follow), we had over some of our guy friends earlier in the week who wouldn't be as excited about the tutus as my girls were. We loved kicking off the partying with these sweet friends!

On her birthday morning, barely after the sun was up, Abby Jane received her traditional birthday rose, a  tradition Jake carries on from my dad.

Abby Jane with her favorite guy and biggest hero.

The birthday girl invited her little sisters and I to join her and Daddy on a birthday breakfast date, so here we are at Panera before school.

A couple of hours later, Blythe and Joy got to sit with the big kids right next to their favorite girl when we brought cupcakes to Abby Jane's classroom.

After the classroom visit, Mimi took the twins so I could do birthday prep. When they returned the twins, Abby Jane got to open a few birthday gifts and love on her sweet Mimi and Bop Bop.

That night just our family had Abby Jane's birthday dinner of choice: Daddy's burgers (that we now call lemon burgers because Abby Jane discovered that a flavorful burger is enhanced by a squirt of lemon on the burger- it's true, folks), lemon broccoli, and mac 'n cheese, followed by candles in ice cream!

After dinner, Abby Jane was thrilled to receive a craft table for her to do big girl crafting in her room. She loved it!

Technology amazes us all the time. In the span of four hours on that afternoon and evening, Abby Jane talked to three different sets of aunts and cousins on three different continents!  A perfect way to end a FULL day!

Magic Jacket

Athleta calls it their Interval Jacket in turquoise. I call it Magic Jacket. It was an amazing and humbling gift from a dear friend last September, and it has revolutionized my winter running this year. (Obviously my ability to keep my mirror angel-finger-smudge-free is not as magical or revolutionized, but back to the jacket.)

It gets it own post because though this jacket may appear light-weight, it makes me invincible in winter temperatures. 30 degrees with 15 mph wind? No problemo. I'll wear a long sleeve shirt under my jacket and call it a day. No more claustrophobic-four-layer-mornings that take a while to get all straightened out and still feel a wind cut through. It's one, maximum two light layers and Magic Jacket, and I'm toasty and comfortable.
Jake gets a lot of mileage out of this. For instance, "Are you really going running tomorrow morning? It's going to be really cold. Oh wait, you have Magic Jacket, never mind." The down-side of Magic Jacket is that unless it's really raining (because it's water-resistant, too), I don't have a great excuse to not run based on something objective like the weather.
Coming from a typical nickel-and-dimer, if you want to make a winter run not something you dread or have to just get through, go get your own Magic Jacket! Who knows- it might even go on sale soon and you'll be all set for next year!

End It

The End It Movement officially launched today. Run, do not walk, to their site to see how to join. You don't want to miss this. Here's the mission:

Slavery is Wrong.

You know it. We know it. As a country, we've officially known it since 1863. But here's something you might not know -- Slavery still exists. We want every man, woman and child to know that there are 27 million men, women and children, just like them, living in the shadows. In brothels. In factories. In Quarries. Working as slaves. In 161 countries. Including our own. We are here to shine a light on slavery. No more bondage. No more sex trafficking. No more child laborers. No more, starting now.