Photography and Friendship

The Lord has truly blessed me with an easy, fast, and fun friendship here in Montrose, CO. He knew I needed it and thanks for our mutual friend in Dallas, Katie, we connected before we even moved here. She has two precious little girlies about a year younger each then ours and I believe I have seen her ever week since we moved. :) She is my favorite type of person, very real, down-to-earth and loves the Lord. She is also super creative and has begun making jewelry to sell. She let me be creative and photograph some of her jewelry for her new Etsy.com shop Forme Designs. Hop on over and take a look... I love her work and she will be making more soon. :) 

Forme Designs

Just having fun...

 

Hi! :)

My baby is 4 today!

Happy 4th birthday little one! Even though you cried this morning because you couldn't reach the kitchen counters... which clearly means your not 4 yet. And you haven't had your cake yet as of 9am this morning... so again clearly, mom is wrong and you are not 4 yet. ;-) Oh, the sweet and dramatic mind of a 4 year old!

I am looking forward to what this years brings, and yet a little sad that this is my last year to have you all to myself every single day. Letting you grow up is and will be quite possibly the largest obstacle in my life, and yet I love watching you grow and change and become your own little (very opinionated) person.

I will love you - forever and ever, to pieces and pieces! xoxoxo 

More

I battle myself on a daily basis. More, an hourly basis - minute by minute. I know I want more of Him. More of the One who can fill me and who gives me life. More of the One who saves, the One who restores, the One who opens doors, the One who knows me, who created me. I want my children and my husband to see that in me.

And yet, so often - more often then not - I choose self. I choose my way. I choose to abandon truth and let my anger out. Let my tongue do the talking. Let me heart wonder from His. Let my mind drift and settle on matters only pleasing for the moment.

I am full of excuses, full of reasons.

But what beauty am I missing. When my heart lingers with His. When my soul fills with His mercies. When the truth opens and sets free the ugly, deeply horrifying parts of me.

Let my heart linger there. Let your heart linger there. Choose Him. Choose to walk away and abandon self. Drink of the deep, heavy waters. Eat of the riches in His word. Not because it's a new year, but because you want more of Him.

Enjoying the Sunshine and the Lord's Creation

Just about everyday we play outside. The girls love to be outside and I love getting a good dose of vitamin D. They play really well together and they fight just like sisters do.

And everyday, several times a day, geese fly over head. They are very loud and the girls love to watch them. I have no idea how long they will be here, if they fly south when the winter gets heavy or if the climate here is easy enough for them. But it's a beautiful sound to hear them honk at one another. Speaking of sounds, it is SO quite here!!! I had no idea how loud the city was when we lived there... but now that we live here the outdoors are silent... the nosiest thing all day long are the geese (and probably my laughing/screaming/crying kids playing). It has taken me several weeks to get used to the quite and actually sleep well at night.

Then there is this guy... he got a brand new life when we moved here. Since about two years ago he was relegated to being strictly an outside dog. I couldn't handle to small children and a hyper active dog in 1000 sq ft of living space, so he got the boot to the back yard. But, since moving here in winter he had no time to develop a winter coat (not that he ever even has in Dallas). So, we decided to let him back into our lives and live inside. He is actually doing wonderfully! He's like a whole new dog... it's like he knows what might happen to him again and therefore acts in a completely different way then the dog I used to know. I am totally in love with him and love getting to know him all over again. The two issues we have are taking food from the girls and getting too hyper when guest come over... but I can handle those issues. :)

Ryland-Rue (or Ry-Toasty)

I can't believe she will be turning 4 in January! It seems like such a short time ago we were freaking out at the fact that we were having a baby and everything in our life was changing. I was quitting work, Kyle was stopping seminary to start working full-time and we were becoming a family of 3. Now, I can't imagine life without her.

She is such a sweet spirit. She is gentle, playful, loving, thoughtful, and imaginative all wrapped up in one. Although, don't let her fool you... she is very smart and very manipulative... she keeps me on my toes and always catches me when I slip-up or forget to hold her accountable. She is also moody, but most of the time she is just wrapped up in her imagination world that she forgets the rest of us aren't always playing.

She really has the sweetest disposition... several times a day she tells me she loves me, just because. She is always in tune to me and how I am feeling... which I never expected from my 3 year old. I can imagine her as a teacher, a counselor, a nurse (she has always said she wants to be a doctor), or some sort of caregiver because of how she is so in-tune to others.

She is also a rule-follower which makes her the quintessential big sister... something I'm sure we will work on for the rest of her childhood. ;)

I am totally in love with this little one!  

Brenley-Boo

Someone decided to not take a nap today. Not only did she not want to nap, she was extremely hyper. So... after two hours of trying to get her to sleep, I gave up and we went outside while Ryland napped peacefully. This little bugger is really the joke-ster of our house. She is constantly cracking jokes and making all of us laugh. She is strong-willed and tests every boundary, but then makes me laugh so hard that she usually gets off pretty easy. Kyle and I have so much fun talking about what she will be like when she gets older, there are so many wonderful qualities about her personality, I almost can't wait. 

She played outside for a good 45 minutes before I got out the camera and her favorite thing of all to play with... rocks. She collects them, makes them her babies or eggs and hides them everywhere.   

The cold/dry air of Colorado is drying all of us out, but her face is getting it the worst and putting any kind of cream on it makes her scream. :( So... we will just hope it heals before winters end I guess.   

She is saying "cheese" here in her LOUDest voice possible. This girl has only one volume, LOUD. All the time and with ever emotion, she is loud! 

Our dog just pooped across the yard and she proceeded to tell me how stinky it was. ;)

Saturday Morning.

Playing in the backyard in our PJs. :)

Day trip.

Today we decided to see a little more of the Western Slope. We traveled south about 45 minutes to the beautiful town of Ouray, CO. It really is picture perfect, nestled between two mountains and has the cutest storybook type houses. I'm sure this will become one of our many favorite day adventures, but today we just spent the morning walking around and then headed home for the girls naps. Here are some pictures of the day:

This scene is just about 10 minutes south of Montrose... I still can't believe I live this close to some of the most beautiful mountains in the country!

We stopped at Box Canyon Falls to get a peak at the water falls coming down the mountain. The park was closed to cars, and I didn't feel up to walking/hiking in the snow so we settled for the bridge just in front of the park.

To give you a little perspective we were VERY high above the water and I could not get myself to walk out where my entire family is... yes... I was a complete chicken!  

I couldn't even take the pictures anymore... so Kyle took some. ;)

We stopped for lunch at a cute little sandwich shop.

The wind was quite chilly, but don't worry Nini... they were just about to jump in the warm car. :)

Our fun morning... come visit us and I promise to take you here!

BIG move and SNOW!!!

Last week we moved, we had very short notice to get out here... but could not pass up the opportunity. After much prayer, we felt this was the best option for our family and we moved to Montrose, CO. It's a small town (19,000 people) and Kyle has been hired to manage the Wells Fargo on Main Street. One week in and I'm really liking it... I can see so many good things for our family here. At minimum Kyle will be home 12+ hours more a week, which is such a blessing for us! 

I will use this blog again, so keep all our loved ones updated on the happenings of our growing family, so I'm sure I will post more about the move later. For now, I wanted to share a few pictures from yesterday... our first Colorado snow!!! The girls had such fun playing!