love notes

I love February! (who doesn't?)

conversation hearts, doilies, and m&m's in pinks and reds.

LoVeLy!

I found these mailboxes in the $1 section of Target and thought it would be fun to put love notes in them every night for my boys.

I plan on telling them what I love about them specifically each day.

Hopefully, the fact that the mailboxes are filled with notes {and not candy} will not disappoint.

On a different note, after I had such an encouraging get together with the pastor's wives last Saturday, our head pastor's wife sent out an email about our next breakfast and she wrote:

"in this upcoming month of love, meditate on how much the Father loves you."

That statement resonated with me.

Yes, me.

The one who decorates mid-January with an 'i love you' banner... and plans fun treats for my kids... and cute valentine's to send in the mail... can get a little carried away in the cutsie-ness of it all. This month is so much fun, but I want to keep the focus on God's love and spend time in the Bible so that my understanding of His love for me deepens.

Perhaps there's a love note in His Word for me that I have yet to read.

instagram discovery

I just discovered this app for my phone that takes pictures in a new-ish way.

You can choose a color option that makes it more hazy or bright and it frames them.

Here's a few of my latest favorites:

at your {nanny} service

I am surrounded by nanny's.

I take the kids to our neighborhood park in hopes to meet other mom's and they ask me when I started my new position.

On the upside, the nanny's usually bring some sort of fun activity to the park such as bubble-mania, a hundred bouncy balls, or paint for the sidewalk, and they let us join in on their oodles of fun.

[they should have figured out I was the mom when I showed up empty-handed...]

When I saw this picture of my friend Sarah and I with our stroller full of kids, I totally thought we looked like nanny's!

I love this picture of our boys {who are becoming best friends} because that's how much I love Ethan's new best friend's mom!

To keep up with our 'not the nanny, but the cool mom' status, we let the kids have popsicles after the beach ...in January!

The pay isn't great for this permanent nanny position of mine, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

house vs. home

Our house is starting to feel more like a home.

It helps to have pictures on the walls and a lot of time together {before I start work}. We thought a good family worship night would be to talk with the kids about what makes our house a home and how it doesn't matter what walls are around us, because:

where we are as a family is home.

Chris also thought we should read this passage and ask the boys how we can honor God in our new home.

We drew this picture of our new house and wrote down how we can love each other as a family, have fun as a family and honor God:

welcome sunday

This past Sunday, they welcomed us to the church during the worship service. The first service, we had our kids go to their classes and in between services, they had a reception outside (which was a great way to meet people!) Then, after our kids had about 5 donuts each, we thought it would be a good idea to include them in the second service!

Chris said a few words about being excited to be at Voyager's and his passion to make Jesus relevant and interesting to kids.

Then, the elders and pastors prayed for us. At first, our kids were confused with the 'laying of hands', because we normally pray with folded hands, but they joined in. It turned out that our two sugar-filled kids made our time in front of the church both entertaining and exceptionally sweet!

sibling rivalry

Since Charlie is not in preschool right now, and we have moved from our 'regularly scheduled activities', I've noticed some sweet times of them playing so well with each other. (because they only have each other?) Yesterday, Ethan was bumping monsters with an umbrella and then Charlie captured them under a basket. I told Charlie before bed that I loved how well he played with his brother during the monster game. On the other hand, I've noticed that more time together leads to more arguments and bickering over toys. This article came in my inbox today and I thought I'd share:

5 Ways to Stop Sibling Rivalry | iMOM

I pray specifically that my boys will become each other's biggest allies, fans and friends.

love your neighbors

So far, I am pretty impressed with our kids' willingness to meet new people/make new friends.

At the park, Charlie will just go up to a kid and say, "I'm Charlie. I just moved here. What's your name?"

Moving into a town-home community, we have a lot of neighbors...

so, we have been trying to model 'loving our neighbors' {literally} to our boys.

This means:

1. putting your bike back on the front porch so it doesn't block the sidewalk (Charlie!)

2. not screaming because we have a shared wall (Ethan!)

3. making cookies to distribute (me, with 'helper' Charlie)

4. & delivering them door to door with an outgoing personality because your wife really wants you to (Chris!)

moving madness + the reason we've felt 'on vacation'

If it was just Chris & me, we would have probably unpacked all boxes and had pictures hanging on the walls within 24 hours. We don't like living out of boxes. But, we've learned to be flexible. Because these cute faces can only play with paper and boxes for so long. We took many breaks to get out and explore our new neighborhood.

We took a picnic lunch to Laguna one day:

& we went to grab dinner at the Shake Shack near Crystal Cove.

{we can't wait to take visitors here... hint. hint.}

It turns out that the beach trumps unpacking boxes any day!

{our days have been packed with fun, but the boxes are yet to be all unpacked.}

new year, new beginnings...

The first days of January brought a lot of changes.

On January 1, we packed up and said goodbye to a great house in Arizona.

We lived there for 6 years, and it's where both of the boys were brought home from the hospital. I loved the big family room and backyard. We leave the walls, but we take the memories. Charlie said, "I think we should leave some of our favorite things so the next family will have fun in this house too."

We said goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012 with a bang.

We didn't stay up until midnight, but it turns out that moving to another state with two preschoolers brings a whole new element of exhaustion.

Our farewell to Arizona included making a sign for our new church:

Voyagers Bible Church.

We sent them pictures of us and our 'Voyagers or Bust' sign that they are sharing with the whole church at our welcome Sunday.