Hello, It's Me...

...I was wondering if after all these months you'd like to see...

...Two really mediocre pictures from Christmas Eve. (Womp womp.)

I had to pull out my SD card for another project this morning, and found it really funny and sad at the same time that there were only 10 pictures on the card, all from Christmas Eve, which means:

1. I didn't take any pictures of Christmas Day, or Matt's birthday, or Oona's second birthday.

2. I haven't picked up my camera in a really long time.

3. I haven't touched this blog in a really long time.

Life got really busy after Christmas. The biggest change is that I just got a part time job! I'm not quite ready to talk about it on here, but it's an exciting turn of events for me. My life is not at all like I imagined it would be as a kid, and that's something I sometimes get anxious about. However, I have to say I'm kind of enjoying being surprised by each unexpected twist of the road.

I think things will be quiet here for the rest of winter. Matt and I have an exciting trip planned for April which I'm excited to document here, and with the return of spring and summer always comes a renewed interest in taking photos so I don't think this is the end of blogging for me, just a short hiatus as I get adjusted to some big changes in life.

On the Edge of a Decade

9 years ago was our wedding day. We were both so nervous, and so young! (I was 20, he was 25!) We were broke, and there was no Pinterest when we got married, so our wedding was very simple (Wal-Mart wedding cake! No joke...) and not very photo-worthy (in fact, the few pictures we have are really horrible, which still makes me incredibly sad every time I think about it.)

When I listen to friends and family's wedding plans, and see their beautiful photos and how well they plan everything out, I realize how weird in today's culture Matt and I were as we stepped into married life - we were two very poor, shy virgins with zero pizazz and a lot of awkwardness who decided to step forward in faith that God would honor the blessings he promises to two people who honor Him in their relationship. It was so important to Matt to honor God with our relationship from the very beginning. I can not even start to express how thankful I am for that about him. It has meant everything, and has been a rock I have leaned on over and over when times have been tough.

I tease him every so often for how "unromantic" he was in our dating relationship (his proposal consisted of handing me my ring in his old F-150,) and how horribly awkward it was to have our first kiss be in front of all our family and friends at our wedding (I'm cringing thinking about it!) But what he did give me, was the very real assurance that fancy words and stylish weddings meant nothing to him in comparison to how much honoring Jesus in our lives together meant. That's why I chose him. That's why I still choose him! It's why I have every hope and confidence that we'll be together till death separates us. And I can attest, with all sincerity that YES - God does keep his promises. His blessings are real and so much more valuable than any physical or material thing in the world.

(Though I always will be a little sore about my (lack of) wedding pictures...) ;-)

(And if you do decide to wait until your wedding to kiss, and it's HORRIBLE, don't panic too much about it - a little practice and you're golden.) ;-)

The Last Mile's The Hardest

This girl's tenacity and determination never fail to awe me. She's a champion.

"How's it going with Oona?" I get asked this a lot. The answer is: "it's complicated."

I look back on the last 10 weeks with a mixture of pride and shock - "yeah, we did this!" And, "Oh my gosh, how are still we doing this?"

To be honest, we're having an especially hard week as I write this, which may be the reason I feel like I need to write, which conflicts me because I don't want to just write when things are bad. I don't want to give the impression that it's ALL been bad. There's been a lot of grace. There's been a lot of incredibly powerful, wonderful lessons learned. There's been some empowerment, and a lot of being broken and humbled.

But there is some bad. Lately, Oona's been suffering a lot, and it's hard to join her in that while not being able to do anything to really help. She can't sleep. We're woken up several times a night to screams of mighty frustration as an itch or cramp tortures her. Sometimes a little soothing gets her back to sleep. Other times it's so bad her body is rigid and tense, and she won't relax for hours. There's a constant wondering of "could we be doing something different to make it better?" To give her ibuprofen with her tylenol or not? Are we doing her pillows the best way? Should we give her the bottle she's demanding that she really doesn't need? Do we let her cry for an hour, or get her up so everyone else in the house can sleep? Matt and I are extremely exhausted, and it brings out the worst in us.

When I'm REALLY tired, I start getting irrational. I feel it creeping up on me, the way you start to feel icky when a cold or flu is coming on. I get jealous of people I love. I get bitter about how unfair things seem. I get snappy and impatient when I should be gentle and understanding. I get extremely anxious that everything important around me is going to fall apart, and it will all be my fault. I start irrationally feeling like everyone is counting on me to meet their needs, and I don't have enough of myself left to give to anyone, and all is hopeless.

We've got 18 days left with the cast. We're in the last stretch, yet these next two and a half weeks feel insurmountable to me in this moment. So I'm trying to be really intentional about inviting Jesus into this weakness, even as my sinfulness and anxiety rapidly try to erect walls of self-dependence in an attempt to keep Him out. Funny after all these years, and all that my brain knows about needing Jesus when we're weak - it's when I'm weak that I seem to continually shut Him out. "It's my problem. I can fix it myself if I do a,b and c..." My heart has a hard time trusting and believing that He'll walk beside me, that He is who He says He is.

18 days left, and I'm trying to embrace them with hope and faith in the promises of God, instead of wishing them away.

Baby W.

Last weekend I was given a rather spur-of-the-moment opportunity to try my hand at newborn photography! (Yikes!) This was something totally new for me, and going into it I felt overwhelmed with pressure. Luckily the subject was the son of one of my closest girlfriends, and it ended up being a fun (sometimes hilarious) afternoon. Baby W. is such a handsome little sweetheart!

I was surprised how good it was for me to dust off my camera last weekend and remember my old love and fascination of it. Taking pictures for people I love is, I'm finding, one of my favorite ways of expressing love for them. I think I had forgotten that. I think I've also been forgetting how much I enjoy photography as a creative outlet. Taking pictures for others quickly demonstrates to me how very little I know, and how much more I'd like to know about my camera.

In a season where I have to choose very carefully what to invest time in (as time is in such limited supply,) these are good things for me to realize and think about.

Covent Garden

On my last day wandering around London on my own, (before Matt was free for the weekend,) I took the Tube to Covent Garden. It was a weird morning...

For one thing, when I got to the market area, I got this weird deja-vu feeling, like I had been there before - which I hadn't of course. But it looked familiar. Then it hit me! My Fair Lady was a family favorite movie when I was a kid - I probably still have the whole thing memorized. The opening scene where Eliza Doolittle meets Professor Higgins for the first time takes place right in this market square. So nerdy, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever!

There was a Shake Shack of all things in Covent Garden, and as I hadn't had breakfast that morning, I decided to eat there. I'm 100% positive the people working there knew thought I was insane eating a burger and custard at 11:30am. I was definitely the only one!

While I was eating there alone someone started singing opera in the lower court yard near my table and it started to rain outside, and as I was sitting there looking out towards St. Paul's church, I had the strangest feeling wash over me - what the heck was I doing here, thousands of miles from my kids, in a foreign country, eating Shake Shack at the scene of one of my favorite childhood movies, all by myself? 

While it felt so weird, it also felt kind of wistfully, achingly wonderful, and I'll definitely never forget that morning.

Looking Back

In  January the big event of course was the arrival of sweet little Oona Caroline. Oona's birthday was one of the best days of my life. All the birth days of my kids are memorable and special in their own ways, but Oona's delivery was so peaceful and sacred. The calm before the storm! While the delivery was easy and peaceful, the settling in period was anything but. We struggled, and thankfully we persevered all the better for it. 

In  February we attempted a little Valentine's day photo shoot for Matt. It was one of the few, short + sweet distractions we enjoyed during a very hard month. It was bitterly cold and we were frantically searching for a house as our landlords needed us to move out of our rental. Nursing Oona and figuring out how to manage three children was proving to be a bigger challenge than I had expected and I started feeling really overwhelmed.

Oh  March, you beast of a month. We finally found and purchased a house, and though it needed considerable work it was love at first sight during our very first walk through. God provided a house that met nearly every single unique need our family had - what a tremendous blessing! In early March we took a break from packing and flew down to visit my parents and sister in North Carolina. It was good for us all to spend time relaxing at home with Mom and Dad, and I'll treasure those sweet memories of them meeting Oona for the first time for the rest of my life. Then it was back home and time to move. Moving with a 4 year old, a 1 year old and an infant was just awful. There's just no way to sugar coat it! On top of the stress of moving out of our rental in the middle of winter, we decided to paint as much of the house as we could before moving into the new house which meant many late late nights working until the wee hours of the morning. The day after we finally moved in, Matt had to fly to NYC for work, and left at home with the babies in our unpacked house feeling totally exhausted from the move, I came down with the worst post-partum depression I have ever experienced. 

Things started getting a lot better in  April with the arrival of my wonderful mother-in-law. Sharon's week long visit was just what I needed. We celebrated Olive and Silas' birthdays and the weather finally started warming up enough to start spending time outside. Tulips started peeking through the dirt, and I finally started coming out of the post-partum depression fog. Spring was the light at the end of a dark tunnel for our whole family.

May was gorgeous and warm. We enjoyed our second Tulip Time, watched the parades march past our new front yard, and took lots of walks in our new neighborhood. Mothers Day was extra special this year, hands + heart full with my three beautiful, rambunctious little ones. I finished out the month with a really big bang and got braces! (Yikes!)

Summer really arrived in  June and it was such a fun, busy month. We celebrated Matt on Fathers Day. I only freaked out a little about turning 28. My Dad drove up to Michigan for his very first visit - we had SUCH a blast, hiking and kayaking and exploring Holland with him. We enjoyed every second of his visit with us.

July was packed with almost too much fun to handle. We spent a wonderful week in gorgeous Glen Arbor, MI with Matt's whole family. It was so good to see his brother Chris again, who traveled from Colorado to join us. Soon afterwards MY whole family (all the siblings included) came and spent a week with us in Holland! 

Olive started kindergarten in  August and has loved it ever since. During this month we got a lot of work done on our house, and it really started to feel like home.

Things started cooling down in  September. We had some fun little adventures, exploring a dahlia farm and spending a fun day in lovely little Rockford. 

Matt and I attended Art Prize in October which is becoming one of my favorite parts of autumn in west Michigan. We also took a quick trip to Ohio to celebrate our nephew's 16th birthday.  

The holiday season officially began in November. We celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving at home, got our first blizzard of the season, took a couple of trips to IKEA, and got our Christmas cards finished in record breaking time! 

How is it already the very end of December? I took an unplanned break from blogging this month because I just couldn't catch a breath - lots of church and social activities, Matt had a week long business trip, then we decided last minute to spend Christmas in WV with Matt's parents! We only just got back last night and I'm feeling happy, content and a bit overwhelmed at what a crazy-wonderful whirlwind 2014 has been. Thank you for taking the time to follow our simple story through this little blog. Those of you who have reached out and connected through the "blogosphere" have truly made this year sweeter to me. An extra special shout out to the lovely Veronika for helping me give "The Sweetness" a much needed face lift this year. She did such a beautiful job!

Happy Happy 2015!

It's going to be a great year, I can just feel it!

Because My Teeth Hurt...

...I haven't been able to think straight this week. I had the worst orthodontist adjustment recently, and have been having having a grand old pity party with me, myself and I ever since. Most of the time I forget I even have braces, (it's actually been, overall, a positive experience) and I know the discomfort will fade in the next few days - but for NOW, pass the ibuprofen and let the binge watching of Thomas the Tank Engine commence as I hide my head under a pillow and curse my crooked teeth genes.

And because this already sad post needs some pictures, here are some very random snapshots from the last couple of weeks. Back soon!

^ Our local power plant is feeling festive! ^ 

^ Enjoying trying new recipes through our Plated subscription! ^ 

^ Olive the other reindeer... ^

^ Wish I was here. ^

#winningatlife

Yesterday was a doozy. (Why does the word doozy sound so weird to me right now. Am I using it properly? Is it even a word??)

Quick backstory to defend myself: we have been majorly busy the last week (month really,) and Oona has been going through one of her notorious sleeping strikes and we are exhausted. 

So with that in mind, yesterday was all kinds of cray-cray from the very start, with Matt having an appointment out of town in the morning. He got back just in time for me to run out to an orthodontist appointment. Then I had another appointment in the next town over right after my adjustment. Run run run. I'm hungry, I'm tired and my teeth are flippin' killin' me.

I finish my last appointment and start rummaging through my purse for my keys...

Yup, locked them in the van. SMH. (I think that means "smacks my head" but I'm old, so I could be waaay-embarrassingly off course...)

I also locked my coat in the van, so of course I immediately felt like I was freezing. And I suddenly had to pee. And I started to hyperventilate that I would be late getting Olive from school. And then I started wheezing realizing that Matt couldn't pick me up because I had the car seats. (I'm only over-dramatizing slightly.)

After a long, long and I do mean long time, I was able to get in touch with my sister who hadn't left for work yet and she agreed to pick me up under the condition that I buy her a coffee. (Good thing I hadn't locked my wallet in the car, geesh.)

Time seems to go by incredibly slowly when you're cold and locked out of your minivan, so I started wandering around downtown Zeeland (trying to look cool and collected and instead looking suspicious and crazy.) I stood and studied this giant pumpkin for an awkwardly long time.

And then I sent about a 100 extremely melodramatic video snapchats to my sister in NC, which I'm sure looked totally normal to passersby.

Then I found a coffee shop. It shares a door with a neighboring store, which took me way too long to realize and I am sure I looked totally normal walking past the storefront 5 times before I figured out the door situation. (SMH again. Unless it doesn't mean what I think it means...)

It was a very nice coffee shop and I decided to treat myself to a cafe miel (latte with cinnamon and honey) but when I asked the sweet barista if she could use soy and not make it as sweet as normal, she looked at me suspiciously and said "is this your first time here?" So of course I related the WHOLE story to her, expecting sympathy and understanding but all I got was an "oh." (I'm pretty sure she was relieved when I finally left. Especially since I remembered just as I was about to walk out that I needed a coffee for Grace too, and ordered another latte.) 

^ Feeling the joy of winning at life. ^

FINALLY Grace came (she got lost on her way over. I kid you not.)

Luckily she cheered up when I gave her the coffee and all was finally well again.

Like I said, it was a doozy (doozie? Doozay??) of a day.

The end.

Come, Let Us Reason Together

"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:

though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow;

though they are red like crimson they shall become like wool.

If you are willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the land;

but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword;

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.'

Isaiah 1:18-20

I have had these verses in the forefront of my thoughts for a week now. I find it strengthening and intimate and curious, this invitation from the Lord to "reason" with Him.

 I have found it very difficult to be "reasonable" in many situations this year. Postpartum depression has been an ever present loud, deceitful, bullying voice in my head since January. It's something I've had to deal with minute by minute, day by day for 9 months, but something that I constantly try to hide and pretend isn't there. It's pushed me around and left bruises on my relationships, my confidence and my heart. I worry that when it's finally gone, the person that remains will never be quite the same, if that makes any sense.

Each day presents itself with variations of the same choice: give in to overwhelming emotions and anger or obey God. I fail at this so often, but I'm trying to stop and remember the precious invitation He has given to reason with Him - to lean on Him and not my own understanding when I face these daily choices.

But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you

and guard you from the evil one.

And we have confidence in the Lord concerning you,

both that you do and will do the things we command you.

2 Thessalonians 3:3-4

Welp...I've Really Done It Now.

Why am I posting this?? 

It's done. My crooked teeth are all wired up for the next 18 months. Oh God, 18 months?! 

24 hours after getting them on, how am I feeling?

Not only are they really ugly - they really hurt. Everything feels weird - talking, smiling and most of all: eating! 

I actually had the bright idea this morning that maybe I should go back in to the office today and have them take them off. I mean, I'm almost 28. I've been married for 7 years. I've had three kids. I did all that with my crooked teeth, my family still loves me with those crooked teeth - I mean, are the next painfully awkward 18 months of my life going to actually be worth it in the end? Is it too late to change my mind??

Matt just basically rolled his eyes at me and told me to toughen up and take my ibuprofen. 

I'm laughing now because those pictures and really this whole situation is pretty ridiculous. Oh dear dear dear...

The Random, Rambling Post

^^ Cute little boats docked at the park. ^^

^^ Always dancing. ^^

^^ Sweet husband. ^^

^^ These two love to wrestle. Aaaand someone always ends up in tears. ^^

^^ Those chairs were the BEST Craigslist find ever! I have to stop myself from squealing each time I walk by them. ^^

^^ Can never get enough of the tulips. ^^

I am tired. But what else is new?

Last night we were out until almost 9PM cleaning at church with our small group. We cleaned every single surface of the nursery, (and I mean down to every single toy.) This morning I put off getting out of bed until I absolutely had to, with both my girls snuggled under the covers with me. It was nice.

Today I got spacers put in my teeth. They'll be in a for a week, and then next Thursday I'll get the actual braces put in. 18 months. It didn't sound like that long of a treatment time, but then I realized in 18 months Oona will be practically 2 years old! Finishing out my 20s with a mouth full of metal makes me wince a bit. I know it will be worth it, though. It's finally time. My crooked teeth have been such a major source of insecurity for me, through all my awkward teenage years and through all the major events life brought me in my twenties - college, wedding, babies... I've grown so accustomed to smiling with my mouth closed that to smile with my teeth showing feels totally unnatural. I am so grateful to finally have the opportunity to change that! 

Yoga. I recently jumped into a 6 week beginners series at the studio down the street from me and I love it. In just three weeks my body is moving easier, my mind is clearer and I'm sleeping better. Growing and birthing three babies changes everything, and I mean everything, but yoga is teaching me how wonderfully strong and adaptable our bodies are. My favorite part of class: the 10 minute meditation at the beginning where we work on calming our thoughts and emptying our minds. It has been so good for me. 

Olive and I are studying the gospel of Matthew together. It's such a precious time to me. I would like to say we do it every single day, but that doesn't always happen. We try to make the opportunities when Silas and Oona are napping (at the same time - hah, there's the rub!) count. She has so many questions. How DO you explain the trinity and baptism to a precocious 5 year old? She challenges me in good ways.

Matt had a meeting this morning and brought me back an iced coffee. I got halfway through it and had to go tend to the baby's diaper. Came back and iced coffee was missing. Seconds later I realize Silas is also missing (of course.) He was under the table chugging my unsweetened iced coffee like there was no tomorrow! Such a weirdo!

Oona is a roller. She seriously can (and will) roll across the room. She had her 4 month appointment yesterday and now weighs in at 17.2 lbs. All muscle. ;)

I have such a to do list. It starts at basic things that really need to be done (like laundry, and cleaning the bathroom,) to other things like, learn to weave and painting the office and hanging pictures up and reading an actual book again for the first time in I can't remember how long. I'll feel really accomplished if I get half of that laundry done before the weekend. The rest is going to have to wait. And I'm ok with that.