week 52 in pictures

this week is super-funky. we have christmas eve, day, etc. and then a repeat with dave’s parents, once we got to cali. lots of days with multiple events or multiple pictures of each event… ugh. such a pain to weed through! not that there’s anything wrong with having lots of pictures, it just takes some time to edit and choose and all that.

monday: christmas eve. we always take a family picture by one of the trees in the church after the christmas eve service.

tuesday: christmas morning. just before everyone came downstairs. (the pile of presents on the mantel are what won’t fit in micah’s super-skinny stocking. this happens every year. layla only had one this year that didn’t fit. and shane’s stocking is HUGE, so it’s not usually an issue.)

wednesday: dave, layla, and shane, all playing with micah’s pirate ship before heading out on our long drive to california. where’s micah? no idea.

thursday: christmas morning all over again in gramma and papa’s living room!

friday: 7 or so hours in the way back seat of the van, sandwiched between shane and layla (who bickered the WHOLE time)so we could go see the iowa dapelos, who were in SOCAL.

also friday: having pizza for dinner after we all finally arrived. notice, the 3 girls together at one end and micah and jacob together at the other end. poor matthew was a little antisocial – given that he was asleep!

saturday: papa, gramma, and 2 families’ worth of grandkids at our hotel room.

and some skinnies: 1. giving ginger treats in my infamous christmas jammies (I wear these ONLY on christmas!). 2. micah enjoying one of the complimentary cookies at our hotel.

and several big collages from christmas, etc…

christmas morning:

playing with new toys:

christmas day with grandma and grandpa:

christmas with gramma and papa:

our visit with the iowa dapelos. brief, but fun.

saturday, at the mall in socal:

{book shots will be added later}

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playgroup aftermath

we had playgroup here today. lots of fun, lots of MOMS, lots of kids, lots of mess! micah got up this morning before 6 and powered right on through until everyone left at 3. and then at… we had this: sleepy guy. we had to go pick up shane from the y, so i put him in the car and he napped until we were almost back home. a perfect little nap!

a tribute to layla

i love my daughter. i really do. if i had only 3 words with which to describe her, it would be “full of life”. and she really, really is. she is someone who wants to experience all that life has to offer. i love the age she is too. her excitement about things is always contagious and her ideas hilarious and creative. she’s one of those kids who can’t just paint the paper, and whatever the rules for the game happen to be, they’re too boring and she’s going to play it her own way, darnit! there are a few things that come with this fabulous age, however, that i could easily do without. the screaming fit she had today, for example, over a graham cracker. she had the intention of giving it to micah, and broke it in half, even though, the whole time she was doing it, i was telling her NOT to give one to micah because he was having his lunch. i...

THAT’S NOT FOOD!

my friend, stephanie , has inspired me with her most recent post. apparently this was a topic on oprah today, i don’t watch her show, but it’s a good topic. my comment on her post (which is great – read it. the post, not my comment.), was quickly turning into a post of it’s own, so i decided to continue my vent here. it probably won’t be as eloquent as hers, but i’m climbing up on the soapbox she just got off of. we eat CRAP! LOTS and LOTS of CRAP!!! as a nation, it astounds me how much non-food we consume. i’ve wondered about this for a long time, but it used to be inspired from an environmental standpoint rather than a nutritional standpoint. i wondered about all the garbage we throw out. it bothered me that you couldn’t go to the store and buy granola bars without also buying a box and 6 wrappers, that would then be thrown away. i wondered why, every time you buy salad dressing or ketchup, you have to buy a new bottle, which would then be thrown away. i wondered why, every tim...

i love bees!

so, i took pictures for this post yesterday and then, upon checking some other favorite blogs, i discovered this on angie’s blog. she totally beat me to it! oh well, i guess it’s a common thing right now. but not to be outdone, here is my post: the bees are just crazy right now. especially on the raspberries, which makes me super duper happy because it means we’ll have a TON of wonderful raspberries this year! as you can see, we have a LOT of them… my patch keeps on growing! and the whole thing is literally alive with bees. you can watch it and it’s constantly moving and buzzing… just a whir of activity! it’s really something to see! i just love bumblebees! i always say i want them for pets. maybe it’s because they’re so fuzzy! i could watch them for hours. my rhodies are finally blooming! i love that purple one.

sourdough – installment 2!

well, i guess i did it right! today was day 4 since i made my starter. it had bubbled, grown, shrunk, and bubbled some more and was starting to smell more like wine than yeast. my experienced sourdough-making friend angie assured me that this meant that it had ‘soured’ and i could now use it. so i did. i decided to use my bread machine to do the mixing and kneading for me, but i wanted to bake it in the oven. i used the recipe for sourdough in my bread machine instruction book, and then used the baking instructions in a cookbook i have. at any rate, we have success!!! i was afraid they were a little too done, but actually, the bread and even the crust is still soft, even though it looks kind of dark. we dove right in and holy yumness! i think it could be a little more ‘sour’, so i’m going to leave my replenished starter out a day or two before i ‘put it to sleep’ in the fridge. but as it was, it was wonderful. i tried to take a picture of shane enjoying it, because his piece was big...

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