A Glance Back Through 2015

I used to write newsletters at Christmas time. I liked the opportunity to look back at the year. I blog instead. Let's see if I can do this in a reasonable sized post.

January: I chose the word FIGHT for the year. Fight for what is right, fight towards the Lord, fight for Abigail. We settled into routines of a new year. I began Documented Faith! We started to ride a roller coaster of highs and lows with our Abigail. I began a year long string of unsolicited commissioned sewing work (so honored and blessed by your support!).

February: Our church went through "Forty Days of Faith" - I really enjoyed the daily devotionals that went along with that! We decided that we couldn't help Abigail on our own and began seeing a family psychologist. Our faith in God's provision was tested heavily as many of our physical things were breaking down. Of course, He proved Himself to be faithful and generous! We had a fun family Valentines with a dance party and little treats. We trudged through cold and flu season, but with the addition of essential oils (thanks to my mom and sister) our quality of life during sickness was much improved.

March: For the first time since moving to Winnipeg, we walked on the frozen river and explored the Forks in the winter. I remember thinking "this is by far the coolest thing about our city!". We are looking forward to more river exploration this winter! We attended our second family retreat weekend at which David and I hosted couple's game night. It was such a great weekend but slightly touched with frustration and sadness with Abigail and her anger our family.

April: I love April. It was a busy month and not without it's challenges! David and I worked most evenings creating for a craft sale fundraiser in May. Abigail's behavior issues caused every outing to feel like a gamble. I witnessed a domestic violent act and wept and struggled for quite some time over it. We started Theraplay with Abigail at the psychologist appointments and honestly, David and I both struggled with the method of "help" we were getting. I had a great birthday with a family date and a date with my David and a party with my girlfriends! Spoiled!

May: Things escalated with Abigail and we called upon our pastors for help. Something was terribly wrong and we were battle weary and scared for our baby. Our pastor and an elder came over and prayed for and with us. We were so encouraged and relieved because that was a turning point for us all. Abigail was tormented and we prayed for her release. We are still learning and growing, but that was a game changer in our family. The results of which we wouldn't fully recognize until the summer.

June: We began what I call "Happy Abby Days". I took Abigail on a mother daughter weekend along with friends of ours. We went on many mini adventures and started to savor family times together.

July: Summer vacation kicked off with Canada Day (my favourite holiday) and our VANiversary. We went on several outings and began our summer long goal of dating each of our littles.  We got lots of use out of our backyard pool. Abigail got baptized!

August: we went camping with the use of a friend's trailer. We went on day trips and chased storms. David and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. Our church began to focus on how to hear God. I loved this focus and learned a lot. THE BEST summer since moving to Winnipeg!!! David finished building my gorgeous kitchen table.

September: a new school year feels fresh and with two in school on some days we all fell into a nice rhythm. My Dad got to go home from the hospital after almost 11 months time. I celebrated in my heart from afar. My goal for the month was survive the adjustment and it was so much easier than I had anticipated. I ended the month with a doozy of a cold, but we made it!

October: I was struggling with the mundane and repetitive life of domesticity. I cried out to the Lord for an attitude adjustment and a sense of purpose. My moms' group began a study on GRACE. Much needed and difficult to receive. I hosted an art gathering for local artists participating in Documented Faith and Illustrated Faith. Spent a lot of time choosing to TRUST in God and studying what that meant. We had a federal election, the results of which caused a lot of stir. Again, trusting God and His plan.

November: We saw a lot of cloudy days and I struggled with some depression - nothing went wrong, really. Just couldn't shake the heaviness. The world was rocked by terrorist attacks, though my own struggle was the imbalance of reaction based on where the attacks occurred. Terrorism, regardless of location, is tragic. We celebrated Christmas early with our friends and I worked through my large list of projects for Christmas and ministry.

December: We had several events to keep us busy early in the month and with my depression lifted, I began to really enjoy the preparation for Christmas. Our church proceeded with our 10th year of Bethlehem LIVE! and I participated on behalf of our family as a woman at the town well. David was sick through the entire weekend (plus before and after) and sadly missed participating. We carried out several mini traditions as a family that we love. We were intentional to make plans with friends throughout the holidays so as to not feel so lonely away from family. I think we found a nice balance (though, of course, we still missed our families). We were blessed by God's generosity to us through many friends and family and even anonymous givers. We spent New Year's Eve at a prayer meeting and I think that is my favourite way to end the old year and enter into a new one.

It sounds, in some ways, that it was a bad year. I don't remember it that way. We had challenges and triumphs and growth. To me, that's a good year. I'm looking forward to what 2016 holds and pray for the grace to handle each situation as it comes.  Happy New Year, everyone!

Checking In

It's the middle of December?!?!?! When did that happen? I can hardly believe how fast the last few weeks have gone. I have a lot to catch up on, so let's get to it!

• Before IKEA, we celebrated Malachi's 2nd birthday. He loves hats, so we had a hat party. I made myself a mini top hat to wear. It's a bit rough, but maybe someday I'll have reason to make another and to make it better.

• With much help from my David (he did some serious rescuing) we made a two layer checkerboard cake. Malachi practised blowing out candles for days before his party. He walked around the house singing "Birthday" (blow) and "yay!" It was super cute.

• Micah turned 6 months old! I am blown away!

• We've decorated for Christmas. We only have a little three foot tree and I find that a little too small, but thankfully we were able to borrow a nice tree and so this Mama got to decorate a tree and the littles got to decorate a tree. It's hard to get a nice picture of a Christmas tree, isn't it?

• We gave the children Christmas pajamas on the first of December. We're starting a new tradition to do this. They were so excited. You may have seen this on Facebook, but it's worth showing you again...

• We made an advent calendar this year. I've been wanting to do this for some time and finally was able to do it. My David found these cute boxes at Walmart. I printed off the numbers from here. We hung them on the garland we bought from IKEA. Inside the boxes are chocolates (hooray for the free swag from IKEA), a Bible reference to look up and read together, an activity (thanks to our Sunday School ministry team) and a flavour of tea for David and I to drink. My pictures aren't great, but you get the idea.

• I made roman blinds for my living room window. I like them. Not bad for a first try. I measured the windows, but didn't account for the beveled frames, so I had to tweak the first one with a trim. I ended up re-cutting the other two panels. They are much better than those awful plastic vertical blinds that we'd been using.

• I finally can show you my fun pin cushions that I made awhile back. One was a gift, so I didn't want to give away the surprise. Aren't they cute? Tutorial here.

• David and I participated in Bethlehem LIVE! for the fourth year. David was a tour guide and Micah and I were townsfolk at the well. We had a great time. You can read about BL! here. Micah, by the way, got to be a stand in for baby Jesus. That means that all three of my children have played the honoured roll at BL! We are so blessed. On one of the tours that we were in the stable scene, a lady came back after her tour group had moved on to whisper "Thank you" as tears rolled down her cheeks. I am so glad that she was so moved.

• Working on Christmas projects now. May or may not be showing you some before Christmas, but will definitely have lots to show you sooner or later.

Checkin' In

I've felt buried this month under all the things I'd committed myself to. It's been a crazy month and I'll be glad to see April... even more than I was glad to see March. Don't get me wrong there was some great stuff that happened this month, but I don't plan on being that busy again for some time. Here's our general rundown:

• David and I along with another couple facilitated another Love and Respect DVD seminar at our church. That was every Tuesday for five weeks. We had an average attendance of 13 and I think it was a great time.
• Planning, planning and more planning for the weekend's Ladies Retreat! Phew! I'm glad that I didn't have to plan it alone, but it sure was a busy month with meetings and computer administrating.

• By the way, the fundraiser went extremely well. My product didn't sell as well as I would've hoped, but there were (I think) about 7 women who needed financial support and in the end we helped 10! My friend Donna is a bake sale queen!!!!
• I did sell a total of 5 notebook covers and I bartered for one more and even arranged a custom sewing project which will also be done in barter. I've already received my payment (a whole mess load of rice krispie squares- my request) and all I can say is that it better be some awesome sewing!
• This month has also played host to relational issues which I think are finally on the mend - this alone was such an exhausting experience that this month felt like three months long.
• Add to all this my weekly commitments of Bible study, mom's group, sewing with the lovely Sophia and two weeks in the church nursery.
• Ladies Retreat is THIS WEEKEND! I can hardly wait. I am soooo looking forward to this! I am almost finished my assigned tasks and I'm feeling ready. Packing will begin soon as there are extras that I need to bring this year.
• I've been completely dissatisfied with baby books this season. I usually have one purchased and partially filled out by now, but haven't found one I liked. I decided to go a different route this time. I purchased one of these memory boxes as a starting point to do my own baby book. It was inspired by the scrapbooking trend "project life". I don't scrapbook anymore, but I've taken the inspiration of this along with the memory box and have a plan that I'm pretty happy with. I'll show you as I go along. I've started an inspiration board on Pinterest if you're curious.
• I've designed a few cards to fill out. They're 4x6 and I will print them on cardstock to insert in Micah's album. Here's a couple to give you an idea:

• I sewed a new diaper bag/going away bag. I need to get some pics, but I'll try to post soon. 
• We've had incredible weather this month. At the beginning of the month we had days and days of snow and by now it's completely gone and we've swung in temperatures all over the place. I'll be glad for spring to truly come!

Checkin' In

It's the end of February and we are now getting winter. Honestly, I'm thoroughly enjoying the days upon days of beautiful falling snow. I think it's been almost all week where we've had snowfall. The view out my living room window is just getting prettier and prettier. Let's get into what's new:

(my view - lovely winter snow, my dolly looking for her friend to visit, a warm cup of tea... barefoot and pregnant)

• Our lives got suddenly insanely busy this week. This is unusual for us. We typically like time margin in our lives to make room for the unexpected and often those times are the sweetest. I also tend to not handle constant busyness very well. Having said all that, we felt like we needed to add a five week commitment to our schedule. David and I are facilitating the Love & Respect DVD conference again at our church. We feel so strongly about this marriage course that when we were invited to participate, we didn't want to say no. We're very blessed that one of David's co-workers and his girlfriend are attending along with half a dozen couples from church and even a young single lady. We are expecting God to do great things again!
• I hosted a tea tasting this week. I am not a tea expert, by any stretch, but I have a fairly large tea collection that often intimidates people and thought I'd share my love of tea. We steeped four types of teas for the "official" tasting then each lady was invited to select any tea from my collection to try. It was a late night, as I felt I needed to put the children to bed first and start a little later to let other mothers do the same, but I enjoyed the company immensely! Two ladies brought me lovely gifts, which was incredibly thoughtful, unexpected and thoroughly enjoyed. Patty~Jean brought me a lovely fruit and chocolate basket and included some of her amazing home-made deodorant.... love, love, love! Kelly brought me a stunning glass tea infuser thermos with a sample of her current favourite tea. I'll have to get that name for you, because I have forgotten it's name. I do know that she got it from the local David's Tea shop, which she has highly recommended. Jenni, graciously came early to help me set-up, she even took out my garbage... now that's true friendship! Love you, ladies and all the ladies who came!

• Here's the little rating card I made for the tasting. Nothing complicated or formal, just a fun little thing to rate the teas.

• I am continually blessed by the community of people we've been blessed with here in Winnipeg. I love seeing God's love in action! Our Ladies Morning Out group hosted a mini shower/blessing for the newest baby in our group. Our Housegroup (Bible study group) went bowling together last week and we had a blast. I can hardly wait for church on Sunday mornings and ladies retreat next month... these beautiful people have become very dear to me.
• And speaking of Winnipeg.... have you seen this video? Love it!

• Slowly getting settled into our new home. Here's some pictures of Abigail's room which is finally set up, though not completely decorated. I want to make her some matching curtains and bedding and possibly even a canopy for her bed. She's very proud of her new room, though.

(it seemed a shame to use the balloons for a party then get rid of them, so we moved them into her bedroom)

• Malachi is still surrounded by boxes in his room, but we're getting there.
• 25 weeks pregnant and I've already gained half of the recommended weight gain. Yikes! I need to be careful with my sugars again. Feeling pretty good, aside from tired (though that's a very familiar feeling).
• All of my creative efforts are currently going into the fundraiser for ladies retreat. I'm not sure I'll get to any sewing today as I have a mountain of laundry to get to, but we'll see how it goes. Thankful that David and I have tonight to spend together. It's been a busy and long week. Hope you have a great weekend plans and enjoy them!
• I'll leave you with a snapshot into my days....