Crib Notes

I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that you haven't been losing any sleep over my crib skirt in Carter's room.  However, in case you have lost sleep (ha ha ha) I would love to ease your mind and show you the finished product.  Because I forgot to do that, 3 months ago when it came :)

To jog your memory, here is the view into Carter's closet Room.   

 After I purchased Carter's crib bumper, I found the perfect fabric for a matching crib skirt.  It was chocolate colored silk with blue, green, and tan embroidered polka dots.  Perfect.   THEN, I hit the jackpot of all jackpots when I discovered an almost identical silk drape at Pier One to use for Carter's closet.  Two separate sources and almost identical fabrics.  Are you with me people???  It was like a nursery miracle :) 

Anyway, when I last showed you Carter's crib, it was slightly naked.  

Sans crib skirt.  

But not anymore..

 Here is the final product!  You know, 3 months after I got it and put it on the crib.  

 But isn't it beautiful???  

And oh so chocolate??  And you know, IDENTICAL to the silk drape???  

Oh how I love it :) 

 But as much as I love it, I love these two little peanuts who occupy it more!  

 Ever the big sister, Ava begged me to climb in Carter's crib with him yesterday and she proceeded to read him a story from her Bible storybook :) 

 And as you can see, he listened intently.

 She double checked. 

Because she's the big sister and big sisters do that.  

In case there is any "bossing around" that needs to take place.

 "Mom, I am not bossing him around!" -Ava

 "Yeah Mom, we're just hanging out" -Carter

 "Besides, she's got her own baby to boss around" -Carter

 Ok Carter, but you just let me know when she starts bossing you around, because she's the big sister and you're the little brother...it's bound to happen buddy.

-Mom :) 

P.S.-Hope you're enjoying that crib as much as I am.  

I'm kind of in love with it. 

But don't worry Carter, not more than I'm in love with you.

Not even close little guy...

New Year's Eve 2010

New Year's Eve was a completely different experience for us this year.  For the last 4 years, we've spent NYE racing around like crazy people, putting on a student ministry event for 400 teenagers.  Wild, crazy and fun, but also stressful, exhausting, and a major interruption in our own Christmas break.  This year, Trav and the staff decided to try something new, much smaller and generally easier to pull off (I think??).  They hosted a 12 hour drop in worship/prayer thing at our Church for all ages.  It was still a bummer for the kids and I because Travis had to leave Iowa early to go back and work, but I'm so thankful that it was much easier on him this year.  I think he actually got to enjoy the whole break without having to worry about a huge event to come back to!  And he enjoyed ringing in the new year with people from our Church of all ages, worshipping, reflecting and praying for 2011.  Still, we missed him :)  

 I did find some solidarity with my sister Jennie and her friend Cady, who were also without their husbands on NYE.  We are wives of a restaurant manager, a youth pastor and a police officer.  All 3 of them working hard while we enjoyed ourselves!  Ha Ha!

 Of course the first thing we thought of in our family, was the food :) What can I tell ya, we are hearty midwesterners and we like to eat!  

 We even roped Jesse in, as the only husband left, to help us!

 My Mom had a migraine, so my sisters and I happily took over for her.  I told my Dad, "This was a serious advantage to having 3 daughters!"  To which he replied, "Yes, but only one of many advantages" :) 

 Meet my Dad. 

His name is Steve and he is addicted to Sparkling Grape Juice :)  

I'm pretty sure he bought at least a dozen bottles for us to drink over the holidays.  

Every time we turned around, he was ready to fill our glasses again!

It's a really good thing we aren't actual alcohol drinkers or we might have a really big problem :) 

 Cady and Carter

 One of our new additions to our appetizer buffet, these little smokies wrapped in bacon...Heaven in a bowl.  I will refrain from telling you just how many I consumed over the course of the evening, but I will share the blog where I snatched the recipe very soon!  

 Yes, there was also a fungus among us :) 

 Some corn chowder and raw veggies...

 Crusty bread with dipping oil and my Mom 's famous grape salad.  

And those were just the appetizers :) 

 Grandpa had Carter grinning from ear to ear while they watched football together

 And as I snapped this picture, I realized just how much Carter's "look" had changed over the course of our visit!  Can you see it??  He is losing some of the roundness in his face and really starting to look so much like Travis.  His features are becoming a little more pronounced.  

Since Daddy was away, Uncle Jesse came to the rescue!  

He played with Ava in her little tent for a long time :) 

 Deb, with my "not so little" Carter :) 

Needless to say, he wasn't looking like a good candidate for staying up til midnight with me!

 The boys :) 

 Happy new year from Jesse and Stacie!

And Jennie and Dave!  

(Dave made it just before midnight after the restaurant closed)

And finally, Happy New Year from 3/4 of the Armstrongs :) 

If I couldn't ring in the new year with my man, I was grateful to still be ringing it in with my babies.  

Ava was happily sleeping in her bed while Carter was dozing in my arms...Not a bad way to greet another year!  

Christmas Break Wrap Up

Oh, so many pictures to share!  We had such a great time over Christmas, just spending time with my side of the family.  We're in a great season of life with everyone married and 2 grandkids.  These are fun years to be at my parents house, making memories and just enjoying time together.  I hate that we live so far apart, but I'm so grateful for this time we get each Christmas.  Anyway, you can guess that Ava and Carter had the time of their little lives with all those people to love on them all day long!  Here are some funny pictures from our great time away...

 On the night after Christmas, my brother-in-law's parents invited us all over for dinner and some hot tub action!  Gotta love a hot tub, next to a roaring fire, while looking out on loads of snow!  

 My crazy brother in law just had to do it!  Had to get in the snow before he got in the water :) 

I believe he regretted that a few seconds later when his feet were burning from the cold!

 Ava had a great time playing in the water.

 We had a delicious meal and then roasted marshmallows over the fire.  

Travis loved that as much as Ava :) 

 Aunt Stacie and Carter

Mom, Jennie and Jesse's Mom, Deb

 New cups were one of Ava's stocking stuffers...

 And she loved it!  

She also got those slippers and I could not get enough of her in them :) 

 Love my little girl!  At any given time this year, she had 1 if not 2 babies that she carried around with her.  She's definitely watching everything I do with Carter and then acting the same things out with her dolls.  So funny to watch her :) 

 Ava's giggles could be heard all over the house, all week!

Mostly because someone was always up for acting crazy to get this girl to smile!

We all got dressed up one night and went to our favorite restaurant...

 My parents...Love them!

 Stacie and Jesse...Love them too!

 Jennie and Dave...yep, you guessed it.  Love them also!

 Mom and the new love of her life, Oliver.

Me with the 3 loves of my life :) 

Still throws me when I see a picture of us and realize that we're a family of FOUR now!!  

 One of our absolute BEST memories of the whole break was this.  

I bought the Michael Jackson Experience wii game for Travis and it took us no time to realize that we LOVED it!  It's so hard to copy his dance moves, but so fun too.  And who doesn't love to sing along to all of his classics??

 However, it totally surprised us to realize how quickly Ava LOVED it too!!  

She broke out into spontaneous dancing every time the music came on.  

***Please ignore my rear end in all these pictures and enjoy our little dancer!***

 Thriller anyone???

 Throw em up Ava!  

MJ would be proud :) 

 This year we were addicted to the game, "Ticket to Ride."  Poor Ava always wanted to play with us, so we humored her for a little while and let her play too :) 

 She was very proud of herself.

 Have you played this game??  It's a fun one, especially if you like games that involve strategy.

 And while Ava was wild and crazy all week, Carter was quiet and snuggly.

 Aunt Stacie did her best to put him to sleep more times than not!

One of the best things we got to do, was to surprise my Aunt Kay at her prosthesis appt.  Shortly after Carter was born, Kay had to have a partial amputation due to infection following a prior surgery.  She has been in rehab ever since and over the break, she was fitted for her new prosthetic leg.  We got to watch her take her first steps and we were all very proud of her!  It's been a long, sad road for her and she's handled it very well.  We got to surprise her and have a little impromptu Christmas party.  The facility where she's rehabbing is full of the flu, so we couldn't take a chance and go see her.  But her appt. was just a few blocks from my parents house, so it worked out for us to visit her there.  It was a very special surprise and fun to watch her do better than anyone expected!  

Most of our days were spent eating, playing with the kids, playing games or laughing hysterically!  I enjoyed it so much, I'm having a really hard time getting back to some kind of schedule again.  There is something really wonderful about days on end of doing nothing...

Finding Rest...

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; 

My hope comes from Him."

Psalm 62:5

One of the things I wanted to do in this new year, was to join the Scripture memory team from Beth Moore's blog and commit to a year of intentionally memorizing scripture, with accountability. Two years ago, they did this and memorized 2 verses a month, on the 1st and 15th of each month.  I regretted not doing it that first year and when she said they would do it again this year, I jumped at the chance.  And by the way, you can do it too!  Anyone can join and you can read all about it here if you're interested.  I'll probably share most of my verses with you, but maybe not.  I've found that often I need God's word to speak to me in such a personal way, about very personal struggles and I don't always need to share that with the world.  But more often, I love to share what the Lord is teaching me, because I think my struggles are very common and hopefully there is mutual benefit in being honest and open before both you and the Lord.  So in light of that, here goes...

I'm not sure how January 1st strikes you, but in the face of a new year, I already feel so "behind."  The perfectionist in me loves to start a new year with a fresh dose of reflection, a new calendar, new sharpie pens, and goals.  I know I don't need to elaborate on that, because by now, you could have predicted that about me :) But as I sit here, on the 3rd day of January, without my new calendar, pens that are drying up and not much time to reflect on anything but who ate last and who needs a new diaper, I find that familiar feeling of failure already creeping up.  And I hate that.  Because I'm a clean slate kind of girl, who loves a blank piece of paper more than a lined one.  But if I'm honest, this year I don't even have the paper yet, and that is such a perfect reflection of this particular season in my life.  

It's wonderful, chaotic, incredibly intense and I'm always feeling behind.

I don't say that lightly, as if to complain about the hand I've been dealt.  It's a great hand and one that I am very thankful for.  But organized and well played, it's not.  And so, while I want to put more expectation on myself and implement a plan to "get it together" I'm sensing that the Lord may just have me in this season to teach me a lesson I need to learn.  If I began this year, organized and on top of things, I know that my tendency is to then believe that I have it together, and that I can do this because I am a good mom/wife/daughter, etc.  But with so much room for I in my life, there is not much room for Him.  So while I want to be in control, there is beauty in my state of chaos.  Beauty because my soul is weary of myself and there is room for my Savior to come in a take over.  This year, my hands are tied and my heart is longing to surrender.  

So as I have been contemplating which verse I would start this new year with, I realized while standing in front of my kitchen sink today, that it's been staring me in the face for months.  This summer, I added some scripture to our walls when I went through my "crafty" phase, weeks before Carter was born.  I wrote out several verses from Psalm 62 and this morning, I locked in on verse 5.  It spoke to me and gave me a perfect answer for how I want to start my new year.  

"Find REST, O my SOUL, in God ALONE..."

In this season of my life, rest does not come easy.  The very legitimate demands of 2 little ones eat up 90% of my day and as I'm discovering, while physical rest is necessary, it still isn't cutting it when it comes to my soul's needs.  On the days that are the hardest for me, my body may be still, but my heart is often downcast, my mind is cluttered and overwhelmed and my soul is weary.  As this verse reminded me, I feel all of those things because I'm desperately seeking rest everywhere but in God ALONE.  I'm looking to my husband, to my family, to my friends or even to my kids to give me the "break" I need.  And yet, while they might attempt to help me, they just can't give me what I'm really seeking.  Only God can.  When I seek my fulfillment in Him first and alone, everyone else in my life is freed up to be the blessing that they are.  Oh how I want to get rid of the expectations I've created for the people I love the most and look to Jesus first and foremost for my needs.  He is our peace and He gives rest to those who are weary and heavy-laden.  His yoke is easy and His burdens are light and I'm delighting in that truth today as I look around and see the clutter that can often drag me down.  The endless loads of laundry, the mess that never goes away, the grind of another meal prep and the cries from hungry tummies, dirty bottoms or lonely hearts.  I'm pulled in a thousand directions and yet, my soul CAN find REST from God alone, because...

"My hope comes from Him."  

As only He can, He gives strength to the weary and He invites us to cast our cares on Him.  So as this new year begins, I'm dwelling on the truth of His word.  I want to know Him more this year and love Him while I do.  I want to preach the Gospel to myself, everyday, reminding my soul who my Redeemer is and how He has rescued me from sin and death through the cross.  My hope cannot be anchored on anything else but my Savior or it will fail me time and time again.  He is worthy of my devotion and capable of giving me everything I need for life and godliness.  

I hope this is a new year of JOY for you and one that doesn't have defeat and failure fighting for victory over you.  But if you're like me and your January didn't start on the perfect note, with the perfect set of circumstances, then drink deeply from God's word with me today and...

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;

My hope comes from Him."

Psalm 62:5