This month flew by

 Sister play=Chloe sticking her finger up Genevieve's nose. Hahaha!

 Just chilling out, reading books on Genevieve's bed after school. That was a fabulous afternoon.

 Chloe got her own bed this week and she loves it! She rolls off some nights, but mostly she's doing great. Naptimes are interesting because she has to be really tired before she'll fall asleep, and that usually overlaps with school pickup. So there's been a lot of walking into a sweet baby sleeping and waking her up to strap her in and go pick up the biggies. Poor younger siblings. They get woken up more than the older two ever did.

She woke up crusty and I wrapped her up on my lap and she fell back asleep! That's unheard of! Cutie little girl. I'll take the sweet napsoccasionally.

Gushy Marriage Post

I woke up this morning to an out of the blue snow day because it is for real and good snowing! I completely missed that in the forecast. I love snow! Happy anniversary to us! Nine years, folks!

I took advantage of my kids not needing to be up at 6:40 to scan through my photos for this date back through the years and it was a lovely tour down memory lane. This life I life is pretty fabulous. Marrying Bill is by far the best decision I've made of my adult life. I wouldn't change a thing. It's complete chaos here now that my four littles are up, but I'm so, so grateful we decided to bring them into this world, and really that we had them so fast. It's chaotic at this stage, but so fun to see them be close enough to be friends and playmates. We've got a good thing going and I see so much good in the years to come. So happy nine years and an eternity to enjoy.

 Here are some of my favorite photos as I was looking this morning from our wedding, reception, and anniversaries since. I'm amused that as more kids came along we have less pictures of anniversary celebrations and more of them doing whatever they happen to be doing. That's life! We're going out to dinner tonight alone, but otherwise today is a play in the snow day, a read books, maybe drink hot chocolate, and just do the normal thing. It's simple and beautiful and such a good life.

So much joy in our faces.

 All my brothers and brother-in-laws at that point except one.

All my sisters and sister-in-laws.

Bill and his sisters

Bill and his brother

Oh how I loved my wedding cake. And our rings! Bill and I made that cake together. It was so fun. 

I love to dance. We never have a chance to do that anymore, but it sure is fun. 

Oh Dad, I love pictures with you. He taught me how to dance to begin with. How I miss him. 

The Jeep! It's been with us from day one. Still a great car. 

 2010: Eating our frozen cake top a year later. It wasn't good, lol. But we had fun.

 2013: we made a fabulous anniversary dinner and ate in.

 2014: Genevieve looking not pleased, but actually very pleased to be sitting on the toybox.

2015: We had just moved into our house and didn't even have a rug in the living room yet, so we had a blanket on the floor for Aaron to roll around on. 

 2016: Aaron happily sitting with no pants, his favorite way to be, even now.

Mid January

This month is flying by. January is a fun one for us. Anniversary, two birthdays. So this week is going to be lovely. Bill and I celebrate nine years on Wednesday. Love him! Can't believe it's been that long and yet it feels like no time at all! We started dating a decade ago next month. Wow! Best decade of my life hands down. Then next Sunday is Spencer's and my birthday. There is something special about sharing your birthday with a child, and especially my oldest. It's fun. He's an easy one to please this year. He wants to go to IKEA for his birthday and have chocolate cake and we'll see what else he comes up with this week. We're taking advantage of today's holiday to make that IKEA trip a bit early. It's two hours away down in Atlanta or Charlotte if we want to go the other way. 

And as for this last week, it's been a fun one. 

 Genevieve was gifted a hand me down leotard and skirt from a friend. She's dying to start ballet. She's been wearing it ever since they got home from church yesterday. I really need to get on the ball making that happen.

 I tried to get a picture of my newfound way curlier hair. I tried not combing it after I got out of the shower and the results were fabulous. Wild, riotous curls. I tried to get a shot, but  my hair isn't that curly right by my face, so you can't see the curls going crazy in the back. But I like the picture, so success anyway! Apparently I've been forgoing super curls for years because I ran a wide-toothed comb through them before scrunching. One less thing to worry about in the morning, ha!

 Oh Chloe. You are always on the kitchen table. She loves apples, but only if they aren't cut up. She'll eat a goodly portion of an entire apple, which impresses me from an 18 month-old.

Aaron sat on the table in this beautiful half lotus pose like it was the most comfortable way to sit. He was happy to recreate it for me so I could get a picture. 

 And last but not least, the amazing results I got from my nightstand redo. This is what it looked like after I had stripped off the last finish it had, an ebony stain that just looked like black paint and had bubbled when I originally did it, but I didn't feel like redoing it. So we've had those for eight years that way. I stripped it months ago and left it in my carport and finally got around to redoing the finish this week after I discovered a new method I wanted to try. It turned out AMAZING! Bill is pining after me finishing his now, which I will do as soon as I can stand standing outside sanding and stripping the finish on his. I only have to strip the top of his, thank goodness. It's kind of a messy process. I only have to sand the base since I paint over the top and it just needs to be smooth. I'm so pleased with how this turned out. This was my second build ever and I always liked the nightstand but the finish was always lackluster. I didn't have the refinishing skills back then, but now that I do I'm delighted to get more use out of these things. They were the first project I made where I thought wow, I could really make beautiful furniture at home for a fraction of the store price, not just passable stuff to get us by. It's probably a big reason I kept building furniture and can do so many cooler things today. As you can tell, I'm just really pleased. It's always fun to find a new finishing method that turns out so awesome. 

Just a few random photos this week

 Just chilling, playing with K'Nex. Her feet fit perfectly under the bookshelf.

 Mom, Mom, what color is my tongue??

 Making "snow".

 Two books are better than one.

 Caught her up on the table drinking everyone's leftover smoothies.

 Making faces for the camera.

 She sticks her tongue out all the time these days.

Hahaha! I'm so funny! This girl knows she's hilarious.

Happy New Year!

I posted about this on Facebook yesterday, but I'll elaborate a bit here. Instagram has been doing the best nine photos of 2017 and I've enjoyed seeing everyone's, but personally I kind of wanted to post the worst nine for my 2017 because wow, this last year was a doozy!

So many health problems. Kidney stone surgery in January, which made me miss celebrating both my birthday and my anniversary. So many crazy colds. Failed IUD attempt in the summer that was a horrible month. Carpal tunnel. Tennis elbow. Neither of those are solved yet.

That being said, I did some great things this year too. I started running again and ran a half marathon in October. I did so much crafting and woodworking. I built bookshelves and two beds and snowflakes for Christmas gifts and some Christmas trees to match and who knows what else. I can't remember. I painted three or four paint-by-numbers, which look amazing. I'm planning on building frames for them this month. We made Christmas ornaments and painted Halloween pumpkins.

We did lots of small things with the kids to just enjoy the days. Took them bowling for the first time, to their first movie in a movie theater, went on some hikes, played for hours and hours in our yard. We went to a zillion Lego story times. Went to the zoo. Went to IKEA in Atlanta, which is a total adventure for them, lol. Just lots of small but fun things.

Overwhelmingly this year was overlaid with the feeling of waiting. We really thought this would be graduation year, and it turned out not. That was hard. Really hard. We just hit the dubious milestone of ten years continuously being in college. Bill has been doing his degrees that entire time and I did my master's degree way back in the beginning of that time. I'm tired. Bill is tired. We want to be done. But that hasn't happened yet. It will, but if you ask us when you'll get a glazed look and a that would sure be nice to know ourselves type of response. I don't know. Bill doesn't know. We both really wish we did.

But 2018 is a new year and it feels like a year of new beginnings. I don't feel like waiting anymore. Graduation will happen when it happens. In the meantime I'm trying to prioritize making life feel like it's moving again. When I packed away Christmas decorations I pulled out other decorations to decorate the top of my piano. Those had been packed for a few months. I'm building frames for my art so I can hang them on my wall instead of storing them in a drawer. I'm shopping for some cube shelves to organize my kids' rooms better so they have as much space as possible to use. I'm looking at dance classes and baseball and soccer and whatever else comes our way. Maybe we can pull of swimming lessons this year if we actually plan for the ridiculous price point. I don't want to wait another year just because it would be cheaper if we were just in a place with more affordable rec center programs. Here's to a better 2018 where some of our dreams and wishes come true and if they don't, we enjoy the journey a bit more than last year.

 And Happy New Year!