2010 Recap!

I thought it would be fun to do a little recap of 2010! What a crazy/fun year! I can't believe how different our life looks at the end of every year! So! Without further ado...

January: We brought in the New Year with a trip to Springfield and Mountain Grove to visit Nick's family and welcome 2010 with our dear Springfield friends, The Jordan's and the Jenkins'. We also made a trip at the end of January to visit Nick's sister and celebrate our nephew Blake's birthday.

February: Gotta love February! I got to start off the month with a fun girl's weekend celebrating my friend Christina's birthday! We also of course celebrated my birthday! And of course enjoyed playing in the snow and time with family and friends.

March: Sophie got her new pink room in March! I had a few chances to get out with some girls for girl's nights! The kids and I got to go to the zoo on a warm day and the fun of being a little R continued!

April: April was a GREAT month! We had our big ultrasound and found out that our newest little R was going to be a boy!! We were beyond thrilled! We also celebrated Easter, Nick's birthday and spent time with friends. 

May: Playdates, Mom's Day Out, and all that fun continued! Nick and I got to go to a Cardinal's game and sit in the Centene box. Nick and I also got to go see Young Frankenstein at the Fox! My sister graduated from college (which we had to miss because I was sick, boo!) and we celebrated Mother's Day!

June: The fun continued! We tried to squeeze in as much as possible before going into "baby mode". I got a "day off" courtesy of my mom taking the kids for the day, we went to the Chris Tomlin and Toby Mac concert, saw Wicked at the Fox, and I got to go to the Beth Moore conference with some friends!

July: More time with friends! Emily and Simon had their birthdays! My sister and I went and saw Cats at the Muny! My wonderful girlfriends threw me a "Sprinkle" to get ready for Jack and my freind Christina suprised me with a visit and a day of shopping and talking!

August: Jack barely waited until August before making his grand enterance! He was 10 days early and pure perfection! We also got to celebrate our 5 year anniversary (4 days after having our 3rd baby!!) and our sweet Sophie's 2nd birthday! August is a BIG deal around our house!  

September: We adjusted to being  a family of 5! Got back into Friend2Friend, and we got to intoduce our precious new son to more of our family members!

October: Our sweet Max turned 4! We made a quick trip down to Mountain Grove so that Jack could meet his great grandparents. We also celebrated Halloween with 2 dinosaurs and a monkey!!

November: The playdates continued! We celebrated Thanksgiving with our dear friends, the Yevoli family, and we started getting ready for Christmas!

December: Was packed of course! We got to go to the Josh Wilson concert with our fabulous friends, The Luitjohans, I co-hosted a table for the Ladies' Dessert Gala at church, we went to a holiday coctail party at Nick's boss' home, celebrated Christmas with the Moore family, had a cookie baking day with my mom, went to Christmas Eve service at church and celebrated Chistmas Eve and Christmas day with my wonderful family. And of course... had playdates!! And tonight we will ring in the new year with our freinds The Scott's!

It was a wonderful year and I am eager to see what God has in store for all of us crazy R's. I am beyind thankful for the amazing opportunities God has blessed us with in 2010 and Nick and I absolutely give Him the glory for it all. Thank you for reading "Life With the Little R's" in 2010. See you next year!!



Master Bedroom Painted!

I am SO excited! We finally painted our master bedroom after living here for over a year. If you have known me for 5 minutes you know that one thing that I deem totally unacceptable is a white wall in my home! Well, mine were off white but still NOT okay! So, I had been eager to do this project for quite awhile but had a hard time deciding on a color. My mom painted her room a beautiful blue color that I just loved. Then when she ended up having an entire gallon of the paint left over that sealed the deal!

I used to decorate totally in warm bold colors; reds, golds, dark greens browns, etc. But, since moving into this house my style has started changing and I am finding myself totally drawn to cool/soft colors with lots of white accents! I am obsessed! So, without further ado, here is the before and after of my master bedroom paint job.

(Disclaimer: These are old before pics and the room was totally just put together with what I had while I was trying to decide what look I was going for. I know that yellow sheets, zebra throw pillows, and a floral print above the bed is not an acceptable combination!These were also before my mom generously donated her old headboard to a fabulous cause... me! Ha.)

Before

After

The 2 doors are my closet door and bathroom door

I have ordered a vinyl monogram decal to go over our bed and I need to find something to go over that little secretary desk but other than that I really like it!

Christmas Eve

Our family had a WONDERFUL Christmas Eve! The day started with our kids squealing with excitement that it was Christmas Eve and "smowing" (snowing)! The snow was beautiful and we had a great day. The kids got a chance to play in the snow!

Nick shoveling off our driveway so that our family wouldn't slip when they came for the evening! Thanks Baby!

The big kids (or BKs as we call them often!) ready to go to the Christmas Eve service at church.

The Little R's ready to go! Sophie loved her dress (borrowed from her friend Bella) and told everyone all evening that she was a princess. I also loved the boys in their vests! I still can't believe I have boys (plural!).

We went to church and then came back to our house. We had a Mexican theme for the night and it was delish! My mom even made homemade tortillas that were SO good. The kiddos then got to open their Christmas Eve present. They got Pillow Pets and loved those. Then the kiddos went to bed and we stayed up with my parents, and sister and her fiance and played the game "Things". It was fun! That game can easily get a little inappropriate so it was a challenge to keep it clean since we were playing with our parents! Ha! It was a great night!

Celebrating Christmas

Christmas is getting close! 4 days away! I can hardly believe it! I am finding myself in a combination of being head over heals in love with this season and hating it. Ha! I love seeing the Christmas season through the eyes of our children. So exciting! I am loving making our own traditions with the kiddos and also participating in our own favorite traditions. I hate the stress. The fact that there is so much going on can get overwhelming. I also truly believe Satan uses this time of year to steal focus from Jesus so I find myself more sensitive than usual and more prone to getting down about things.

This past weekend was BUSY! In fact, I am still recovering! HA! On Friday night we hung out with our wonderful friends, the Scott's. Then Saturday we spent the day running errands and getting ready to have my mom's side of the family over for a Christmas party. Sunday we went to church and then went straight to my parents house where we hung out and watch the Rams loose to the Chiefs (sad). It was awesome. The perfect weekend leading up to Christmas. But, yesterday was defintily a recovery day!

Today we are going to hang out with some friends for a little bit this morning. Then tomorrow the kids and I are headed out to moms for our first annual cookie making get together! I am super excited! My sister has the day off so it is going to be super fun! I imagine Thursday will be spent getting housework done and getting ready for the holiday. Christmas Eve Nick has the day off work and then we are going to church at 4. Then we are having my parents, sister and fiance, and grandma over. We decided to do Mexican food which will be a fun change of pace! We usually just eat, play games, and spend time together. Then on Christmas we will wake up (in our own house, lots of hearts!!!) and open presents with the kiddies then head out to mom and dads to celebrate with them.

Here are some pictures from our Moore family get together on Saturday night!

Here is our family on Saturday night, the kids didn't really want to take a picture because they wanted to be playing with their grandparents!

I love to "creep" in on pictures of my sister and her fiance. I tease her a lot that I will be doing that for her wedding pictures as well!

I heart my sissy!

Emily and Simon (or Pledge as we like to call him since he isn't an official family member yet)

The Farley Family (Blake, Aunt Teri, Uncle Bill and Lauren)

The Shepard Family (Uncle Ed, Sarah, Aunt Heidi and Jake)

Aunt Heidi, my mom, my Grandma June, Aunt Teri

me, my mom and my sister

Em's turn to be a creeper (actually, Nick and my sister have an awesome brother/sister relationship, I love it!)

my mom, sister, me, and my dad! It is so fun to see this picture since it is what all of our family pictures used to look like!

Grandma with her girls again

My parents!

It was a great time. And looking at the pictures makes me super excited for the Christmas fun over the next few days!!

Sleep finally!

So, the last two nights I have gotten lots of sleep and it has been AWESOME! My sweet little Jack has fallen into a routine of going to bed around 7:30 and then waking up once in the middle of the night at 3 and then sleeping until morning. I know some moms would be less than impressed with a baby who is 4 months old and not sleeping through the night. But, I am happy!

I did the Babywise method with Max and it honestly made me not enjoy being a mother. But, thinking it was the "only way" I tried it again with my second and when I realized it wasn't working for her and it was making me miserable yet again I threw it out the window and I have loved being a mommy to babies ever since! I don't have a problem with it really, it just wasn't for me!

So, my method with Jack-Jack basically followed my doctor's advice and my own intutution. Basically, for the first 4 months Jack was the boss. He decided when he ate, slept, etc. And although he wasn't the best sleeper he wasn't the worst either. Now I have been working on putting him on a routine/schedule and it has been working well. He is getting into the groove and it is working out well for both of us. I am finding it much easier to get a 4 month old into a routine than to try to do it with a newborn!

The only downside of this new routine is that it has gotten Jack sleeping wonderfully in his crib... but not really in his carseat or out and about. So, we are kind of stuck at home most of the time. But, honestly, with three little ones 4 years old and under staying home is easier anyway! So, we try to get out for playdates every once in awhile and once Friend2Friend starts up again next year we will do that. But, for now, if you are wondering where we are I can pretty much gurantee that the answer is, "at home"!

Menu Monday on Tuesday!

So, with the weather being SO cold I am having a very hard time venturing out of the house. I mean, by the time I get 3 kiddos bundled up and in their carseats it is hardly worth it. Plus, the last thing I need is a sick baby! So, our time out of the house is limited these days! And, when we do get out of the house I hardly want to spend that time at the grocery store! My sweet husband has made a few grocery runs for me, mostly for milk and produce! But, I am trying to use up what we have. So, here is our menu for the rest of the week...

Tonight- tacos with ground turkey (I really don't like ground turkey in much but we have it and I need to use it!)
Wednesday- Tortellini soup with fresh baked bread
Thursay- blackbeans and rice
Friday- kung pao chicken with chinese veggies over rice
Saturday- Moore Christmas Party, I am making a salad, cake balls, and spinach dip to contribute!

Joy

Last Sunday at church our wonderful pastor did a sermon on joy. It spoke to me so much! He talked about how the joy of the Lord is not dependent on our circumstances. Totally what I needed to hear! I am one of those people that REALLY lets things get to me. I often let little things (and big things) steal my joy and put me in a grumpy mood and take over my life. I want everything to always be peaceful and happy. But, we live in a fallen world and that is just not going to happen all that often! We will have trouble, in fact, God guarantees it!

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33


But, after learning all this I feel like I was really put to the test this week! I feel like situation after situation has come up and I have let things start to steal my joy. I let myself get down. But, I feel like because of this sermon I handled things better than I would have before! I have reminded myself of Truth and am really feeling joyful despite a really hard week.

I am so thankful that God met me in church last week and made sure that I received the lesson I would need for the coming week.

Speaking of having joy... my joy comes from knowing Jesus Christ as Lord... but, these little people make me feel pretty joyful too, even on hard days!

Wordless Wednesday

Night out!

Last night Nick and I had our first night out with no kids since Jack was born!! We have gotten out a few times with just Jack which is great too but this was just fabulous! Our good friends Heather and Brian ended up having extra tickets to the Josh Wilson concert and invited us to go. I had planned on taking Jack with us but when he had been really good the past few days I decided to leave him at home. The concert was awesome! Josh Wilson played lots of his songs that I knew from the radio and lots of Christmas songs. He is a very talented musician and the concert really got me into the Christmas spirit! And the kids did GREAT while we were gone which was even better. Thank you to my sweet Mom and Grandma June for watching the kiddos!

Today has been a good Saturday so far! Nick and Soph just ran to the store and Max and I are hanging out watching Veggie Tales while Jack is napping. I think in store for today is a little housework, making gingerbread cookies, watching Elf, and enjoying some good family time! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Pastor Mark on marriage

I am a huge fan of Mark Driscoll the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Nick and I have listened to lots of his sermons and love reading his blog. We especially loved his "Song of Solomon" series. Good stuff! Even though Nick and I are not in full time ministry I really enjoyed listening to Pastor Mark's talk for church planters. I love his call to make marriage a priority and for men in the church to stand up and be leaders. I love how he isn't afraid to be politically incorrect and speak truth into people's lives. Here is his talk if you are interested in listening to it. It is long but I really enjoyed it!

http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2010/12/02/pastor-mark-on-marriage-ministry-and-mistakes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mhcvision+%28The+Mars+Hill+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader