It SNOWED in San Antonio!!

On February 4, 2011 - the city of San Antonio was shut down.  Really, it was just a dusting BUT....it shut down the city for an entire day!  No work, no school and all major highways closed.  The kids were so excited to see snow - sadly, it was gone by noon and about a week later we were playing at the park in shorts & t-shirts.

Here are some pics of the "snow":

Kids in front of snow dusted car! (Stop laughing people....)

Abbie excited about the snow!

Britta wanting to get down and crawl in the white dust

Best part about the snow?! Daddy got to be home for a whole DAY!!

Valentine's Day

Post affectionately dedicated to sweet Cara...."Happy Birthday" dear friend and thanks for the nudge to get something on the blog again! Here it is:


A beautiful thing about the move to San Antonio has been the wonderful community of fellow homeschoolers! Not only does this group provide additional educational opportunities for our family but also a chance to have some great fellowship time with other sweet homeschoolers.

As part of joining the group, each family is responsible to “sign up” for a committee. Being that we just had a baby and moved across TX, I decided last fall to sign up for a seemingly easy/harmless event:
The Valentine’s Party. Sadly, my plans for "easy" were foiled when I discovered that over 125 kids had RSVP’d and we needed to coordinate an activity, decorations, snacks, a craft and a Valentine’s exchange!

Multiple trips to Wal-Mart & the Party Store, an order to Oriental Trading Co., a crazy number of phone calls and 4 dozen homemade cupcakes later….my commitment was complete & we were off and celebrating Valentine’s Day in style!

Pics from Valentine Roller Skating Party: 

Libby & her friend Joy at the refreshments table.

Abbie doing coloring & sticker art craft

Emily making Valentine inch worm craft with friend Abigail

Libby & Emily decorated boxes for the Valentine exchange

Libby and her friend Mya taking a break from Roller Skating

Reflecting on life in the desert

I'll never forget where I was when Paul called with the news that our new assignment letter arrived.  We had submitted our list of "choices" and were eagerly waiting to hear what location held new adventures for our growing family.  I was in WalMart.  My phone rang in the diaper aisle. 

"The letter came....should I open it now?". 

I couldn't decide....did I really want to learn the fate of my future in WalMart? I could tell Paul was eager to know. He was willing to wait for me to get home but I could hear that he would rather not. 

Deep breathe: "OK...let's open it now". 

I push the cart out of the diaper section and make my way to the cleaning supplies while he opens the envelope.  He begins reading with nervous excitement:

"OK, looks like we are moving to....." (noticeably long pause)

"El Paso?" (spoken with forced enthusiasm). 

Hmmmm not so much our first choice.  Let's be honest, it wasn't even our 4th choice....Nope it was #5 on the list.  El Paso, TX land of sand, scorpions, and scorching sun.  Really?! We slowly digest the news - both silently glad the letter was opened in WalMart where shocked faces remain hidden from the other.  Yes, God even works the timing of open letters for good!

It is true that I did not look back when we left El Paso.  After five years, I was ready to be out of the desert.  Both the real physical desert and the metaphorical desert that El Paso had become.  I longed for green.  It took a few months of living in San Antonio for me not to gasp while driving..."Look at the GREEN....look at all the TREES!".  But my kids, who have really known nothing else, get lonesome.  OK...so do I.  Not so much lonesome for El Paso but lonesome for that sweet fellowship with God in the desert dry.  There is nothing like a desert to help one appreciate the Stream.  Though the location was dry God flowed like a river.  We drank and drank and He quenched and quenched.  And I will forever be grateful for my time in the desert dry because it was there that I learned to drink.

As part of  the New Year, I've joined a dare to live fully right where I am.  To mark a list of 1000 ways I am Thankful and beyond.  To form the habit of giving Thanks for moments because All is Grace.  Join the dare: 



#31-39
kids waving on front porch
quiet trip to post office
eaten spinach
phones
crawling and tirelessly exploring
2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th chances at patience!!!
messy kitchen - evidence we ate well
sweetly sleeping girls
deserts

Look who came to visit!

We just finished a wonderful week of having Nana & Papa for a visit!  The time went way too fast and the list of things we wanted to do is still too long BUT it was a glorious time!

The week started with taking the girls to ballet (note how hair gets done when there are extra helping hands around!)

Of course no trip to San Antonio is complete without the Alamo and time on the Riverwalk.  We went to a Children's theatre production while downtown as well.  Beautiful sunny weather ~ a good day for exploring.  We stopped for lunch on the Riverwalk and ate outside.  All was going well until a pigeon decided to land on Abigail's shoulder in an attempt to share food.  I sat across from the table and was rendered speechless other than to cry out "mom!".  Poor Abbie was rather frightened by the experience but recovered quickly once we actually got the bird off her chair.  So much for a quiet time on the Riverwalk :)



Outside Children's Theatre



Lunch on the Riverwalk (minus the pigeon)



Yes - that's us in front of half the Alamo (don't worry...it is the better half)

Really, I shouldn't be joking about the quality of these photos as over 1/2 these pictures would not even be here if it were not for Papa!! (**THANKS**)

In addition to exploring the city - we also had some nice quiet days around the house.  It was so nice to have extra helping hands and truly amazing at how much MORE I was able to accomplish?! Best of all was just being able to share quality time together and have Nana & Papa be part of our everyday lives.  Papa had fun helping Libby with a couple of math lessons and building towers with Emily.  Nana & Abbie were quite the cleaning team and Britta loved playing baby games with both Nana & Papa.  She now is great at "So Big" and loves waving.   

We took walks to the park and enjoyed a nearby duck pond:

Hanging out at the Park

Zoom down the slide!

Feeding the ducks

Seriously folks - this kid does not stop smiling!

Dancing with Papa

My Cleaning Team!!

All too soon it was time to say "good-bye".  What a blessing to have such a special visit!  Thanks so much Nana & Papa and come again SOON!!

And the gardens grow!

Look at the crop of carrots the girls picked!!

We still have more to harvest....we also have some spinach & lettuce still coming up!  After all the carrots are out we'll let the garden rest until spring.  All in all - it has been a good first go and we've learned some good lessons. 

And now, here's how my little garden of girls are coming along.....I snapped this pic today:

Sweet Abbie was having one of those days where she wasn't big enough to play with the big girls and mommy was busy with the baby.  She laid her little head on my shoulder and I said "Oh Abbie, you need a little extra TLC don't you?" She replied, "yeah mama, I need some XYZ". 

More later.....I'm off to get some ZZZZZZ! 

A day in the life.....

Being blessed with four little girls, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that my Saturday mornings are spent at dance lessons.  What I am never prepared for is the massive amount of energy it takes to get 4 little girls out the door and ready to actually ATTEND the dance lessons. 

This past Saturday started out great!  In fact, I was even hopeful that this may just be the day we have it ALL together:  Kids are up and in a good mood; breakfast completed; there are even clean dance clothes where they belong! Jackets & shoes put on and belongings gathered.  Snacks and books for toddler & toys for baby packed.  Grab the keys, out the door, everyone buckled into their seats.  Uneventful drive to the dance studio; Motherly glance in the rear view mirror to announce our arrival only to find.....HAIR A COMPLETE MESS!!  What?! How on earth did I forget to brush EVERYONE'S hair? 

The parking lot is full of little girls clad in pink and hair done up with bows and buns.  Search car for some sort of hair twisty.  Find crumpled purple hair band on passenger side floor mat.  Rake fingers through Emily's hair and fashion pony tail.  Put on big smile - "It looks great! Now go have fun!".  Open door to dance class and deliver sweet, oblivious happy child.  Think to self...."maybe they'll notice the dance leotard & tights are clean."

Multitude Monday

#8 dancing feet on Saturday mornings

#9 uncombed hair

#10 forgotten twisty on car floor

#11 fingers that comb

#12 baby and toddler content to wait

Happy New Year!

My goal is that THIS (have I said this before???) will be the last of the massive blog updates and, instead, I will have more frequent short blurbs. A girl can dream right?

 

I like to keep this blog for multiple reasons:

1. It is a great way to keep our far away family & friends up to date on our little family
2. It allows me the chance to capture & write about our comings and goings for the kiddos. As (let's be honest) the baby books are getting sparser and sparser to non-existent!
3. While dear friend Lisbet has inspired me with her version of "scrapbooking"...I'm still not good about getting those pictures slapped onto the page AND (this is a shout out to you Lisbet) it just isn't as fun alone!

SO....blogging it is. Plus, I like the chance to just sound off on things – you lucky readers you!

  

This blog IS NOT in any way meant to give the false impression that we have it all together. On the contrary! Laundry (my forever nemesis) piles as I post this and the girls would probably delight in doing a reenactment of my latest “mommy meltdown” this past weekend! This blog is called “In the Palm of His Hand” for a reason! My feet cannot even think about swinging over the side of the bed in the morning and hitting the floor without first placing the mountain of a day before me into God’s hands ~and miraculously (seriously folks it is an EVERYDAY miracle) He pulls me through! Some days are prettier than others. But there is Joy in the Journey and it is this Joy I hope to share in this Blog.

 

So….with all that said….I give you a recap of our Christmas:

 

I don’t think the reality of having 4 kids sunk in until Paul and I went to hang our Christmas stockings. “Um, Honey….these don’t all fit on the mantel”. Thankfully, our rental home came complete with a lovely staircase banister that did the trick! Here they are:

Mantel decorated for Christmas

Christmas Tree

Britta helps to wrap presents :)

Each year we work to create traditions that keep the Reason for the Season always at the forefront of our Advent time. This year we added a Jesse Tree to our Christmas décor to go along with our Jesse Tree devotions. Ann Voskamp (A Holy Experience) gifted a beautiful Jesse Tree devotional this year to her readers.  It came complete with ornaments! The girls looked forward to dinner every night during advent because they really loved the advent devotions (and here I thought it was my cooking?!). We also really enjoyed reading Bartholomew’s Passage by Arnold Ytreeide.  I highly recommend this advent read. We are looking forward to doing Jotham’s Journey next year and Tabitha’s Travels the year after that! Check ‘em out.

 

Here is our Jesse Tree about one week into Advent:

 

After a fun season of preparation, we were excited for Paul to complete his last day of work on the 23rd and be home for 11 straight days over Christmas! Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans. Paul was bedbound with horrible stomach flu all day on the 24th and most of the 25th. A very Merry Christmas!

All dressed up with nowhere to go! :)

I match my big sister Abbie!


Thankfully, he made a speedy recovery and the rest of us avoided or had much milder versions of the illness and we were able to celebrate a fun New Year’s Eve together.

 

As you can imagine…the days passed quickly and all too soon we find ourselves back into “routine”. More to come…..

 

Girls enjoying time with daddy home!

The older girls loved helping to decorate the table

Happy New Year (Abbie didn't quite make it)!!