I can't get enough of this!

Well here is my life in a nut-shell!  These 4 little munchkins are so wonderful and fill my life with so much meaning!  I love being able to be home with them to love and teach them.  It is the hardest job on the planet but also nothing could be more fulfilling.  It is constantly amazing to me that it truly is both of those things, such a challenge and so wonderful, all wrapped together.  

We have fun together!  I try so much to appreciate the stages that we are at.  I see them growing up and changing way too fast.  I seriously adore each of them for their own individual selves, and the amazing people that they are.  We have very frustrating, overwhelming days, and then some glimpses into a very bright future, and bits of maturity being gained, those moments bring me so much hope to continue on in this work of mothering.  I love my life and feel so incredibly blessed!  I love so much to look at pictures, you don't remember the fighting, complaining or frustrating moments, only those sweet lovely faces, that I can't get enough of!

Some Normal Life

Here are just a few pictures of some of our day to day life.  

Our regular evening meal together.  The kids love when we can make it a fancy meal, even if it is only Caesar Salad, like this meal.  It is just great to capture these regular moments of our life.  

Marshall ready to get out a play with his sisters in the yard.  We had so much snow this year and he was good at getting all bundled up.

Elliette posing on the quilt that I made for Turner for Christmas.  We tried to go for simple and manly.  I think that it turned out well.

This quilt has been done for a while but we were saving it for a dear baby cousin in Utah.  The girls are always happy to model the quilts for me.

Christmas 2013

I have not given up blogging, life just keeps going by too fast for me to keep up with regularity.  Here is some documentation that we are still around.

We had a marvelous Christmas this year.  It was pretty small, as much of our extended family was away (permanently or temporarily) so our kids were the only ones.  We did have one family of cousins together at the grandparent house for Christmas Eve, but Christmas day at our house was pretty quiet.  Here are a few pictures just to show that we didn't miss Christmas.

Dawsyn is pretty obsessed with gum.  She was with me for picking our some stocking stuffers and picked out her own gum.  She asked for a few weeks when she could have her gum.  She polished off this whole 60 piece pack before the day was up.  She was kind and generous sharing with her sisters but still crazy amount of gum she can go through.  Good thing it doesn't happen very often.

Paul was up surprisingly early on Christmas morning to tinker with his new toy on Christmas morning.  He was doing the Christmas turkey on his Big Green Egg.  We had a miscalculation of the time in which the turkey would take to cook, and so were anticipating 7 hours.  So he was up to have it on his smoker by 7am.  The bird was actually completed cooking before 11am so it had to come off the BBQ and wait for us to be ready for it.  Paul wrapped it in tin-foil and then in towels and it stayed warm until we ate at 4.  It was delicious!

I love Paul's BBQ attire.  I laughed at the pajamas, white socks and dress shoes combo.

The girls in their Christmas jammies.

Marshall with his still favorite guy.  This kid loves his great grandpa!

Paul and Grandpa are a great team.  These guys really work well together.  Paul is easy and of course he can do no wrong in Grandpas eyes as he will always be the "Golden Child".

The process of wrangling a family picture- kids running and playing and being silly.  Pretty normal around here.

Merry Christmas 2013!  The part about this Christmas season that I was glad to get through was the intense morning sickness that followed me through the holidays.  I am very grateful to be past that stage.