5 years ago...

...I married my best friend!!  I can hardly believe we're already at the 5 year mark!  These 5 years have flown by so fast.  Seems just like yesterday that we were in high school and met while counselors at CRC day camp, then got to know each other better on Travel Camp and the rest, well that's history.  I was a young 19 years old when I said "I do" and both of us were still in college but I wouldn't change a thing.  That first year of marriage we were truly "livin' on love" because we were so poor!  We were lucky enough to get to live in The Neill's basement apartment and have truly been blessed as we got to know them and became great friends.  It only seems fit that we get to stay in that same basement apartment this weekend when we visit them and all our friends in Wichita!  We get to relive the good ole days, only this time with a 1 1/2 year old!

So I asked Tyler if he would like to make his first "guest appearance" on the blog and write a post about our 5th Anniversary and he said he couldn't because it would be too much pressure to make a first appearance for that special of a post so instead I copied my friend Kendra's idea that she did for their 5th anniversary and asked him questions like she asked her husband, Rick, to see what he would say.   We'll see how he does being put on the spot:

M: How would you describe the last 5 years?
T: Stupendous! :)

M:Where do you see us 5 years from now after 10 years of marriage?
T: Well I reckon we'll be back in the Midwest, we'll have 3.4 children, since that's the national average.
M: I don't think that's the national average I think it's closer to 1.2
T: well....look it up....ok maybe you're right
M: (smiling)
T: The .4 could also be a cool dog like Kona and we'll be going on an anniversary trip to someplace warm and relaxing and you will probably get the majority say in where that'll be.

M:What's one of your favorite things about our five years together?
T: (He was distracted by a fight on tv)  Having someone to come home to and Lincoln's dance he does when I come home from work

M:What do you miss about our life together before we were parents?
T:Freedom
M: to do what
T:or I guess more like flexibility with schedules etc.


M:What have you learned after being married to me for 5 whole years?
T: That you don't like scarasm and I hate hanging curtain rods (I have two ready to go for him to hang up in our bedroom, they've been sitting there for over a month now, I'm being good and not nagging him to do it :)

M: What do you remember about our wedding day?
T: Being in a daze, I don't really remember a whole lot except how beautiful you looked walking down the aisle...
M: awww

M:What do you remember about proposing?
T: Being nervous and excited
M: that's a pretty generic answer
T: Well actually I was tired from running up the stupid hill (said defensively) and you laughing instead of saying yes right away
M: What can I say, I was giddy :) and it didn't take long at all for me to say yes!

M: Are you sick of these questions?
T: No (said sarcastically)
M: Was that sarcastic?
T: No (said even more sarcastically)
M: You sure?
T: yeah :)


Here are some pictures from our wedding day....

We LOVE Deanna!  She owns Dream Designs in Aurora, NE where I got my dress, bridesmaid dresses, flower girl dresses, candle lighter dresses, veil, unity candle and holders, etc. and I was honored that she was able to attend our wedding and even when Hope had trouble bustling my dress before the reception, Deanna walked in just in time and we recruited her help!  She definitely goes above and beyond your normal bridal shop owner!

Some of our awesome friends from Wichita that drove the 4 hours to our wedding!  We were so blessed to have them all there!

Some of my awesome Volleyball team from Hastings College that were able to come to the wedding!  Miss you all!

Here is the slideshow of Tyler and I as we grew up and then us together while we were dating.  We played it at our wedding.....warning it's over 11 minutes long! :)  Brings back so many memories!

Our year in numbers

Well 2010 has been a full year for us. We figured the best way to tell you about it was in numbers. So here is our year in numbers...

4 trips Lincoln and I took to the DC area to visit Tyler and stay with friends both in Maryland and Virginia

1,825 diapers we went through this year (approx. but probably more, I just guessimated 5 diaper changes a day depending on how many times the Linkster makes a little present for me.  Lately it's been more than 5 but that's probably information you could do without I'm sure!)

1 birthday party for a little guy who turned ONE on July 6th

6 toddler teeth that get brushed each night

0 times a day this mama can get work done in the kitchen without a little boy pulling at her pantlegs :)

16 hours between our new home and both Grandma's houses.

15 months is how old Lincoln was when he started walking

5 times a week Lincoln does his special dance for when daddy gets home, jumping up and down and laughing the whole time.

27 and 24 are the number of years Tyler and I turned this year (Tyler is officially in his “upper” twenties, hehe)

17months is how old our little boy is now!

5 year anniversary on December 30^th

10 glasses broken during our move

5 months that Lincoln and I lived with my parents

1 cute ring bearer (Lincoln) walked down the aisle at Aunt Hope and Uncle Derek's Wedding June 12^th

12,290 miles of travel both flying and driving

30 days we lived out of our suitcases in a guest suite while waiting for our townhouse to be available for us to move in.

11 pacifiers found behind the crib

6 different types of sippy cups we went through before we found “the one”

50 times a day my heart melts while I receive slobbery kisses, hugs, rock Lincoln before bed or when watching Lincoln enjoy reading books so much

and

365 days this year that we were thankful for the little guy God has blessed us with!

And that concludes another year in our household! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior. Merry Christmas!

am I brave enough...

...to post a picture of myself with bedhead hair, no makeup and in my jammies?  Well I guess so because for {embrace} the camera Thursday that's just what I am doing!




This picture was taken a couple days ago right before I posted "so far today..." about that morning.  We had quite the morning.  But it did begin with some awesome cuddle time with this little man and so I just had to get it on camera to prove that he still cuddles every once in awhile! 

I love how he's pointing at the camera.  :)

Notice how small the picture is?  That was on purpose.

framed earrings holder

 Remember the Christmas card display I posted about last week?  Well I told you a little about these jewelry display frames that Pottery Barn also makes.  They make a couple different kinds but I really like the one designed for earrings. 

Pottery Barn Framed Jewelry Displays

Photos from Pottery Barn Website

Aren't they just to die for?  Ok maybe not to DIE for but I really, really like them....a LOT.  So for my version of this I picked up a frame from a garage sale a couple years ago.

Since our room decor is black I bought some black spray paint from walmart ($0.96) and painted it.  Let it dry and then added the strands of cord behind it, and VOILA!

I have me a Jewelry Display Frame that is perfect for our room!  And for only $2!!  The earrings holder from Pottery Barn was listed at $29 so I saved myself $27!  Not as great as $146 like I saved on the card holder but good enough for me! :)

I tried to pull the cord as tight as I could but it still sags....I think I'm just going to put a nail underneath each cord to hold it up and see if that helps?  Any ideas?  Other than that I love it!

So that's as far as my crafting is going to go for now......but eventually I want to try and make the frame for necklaces.

so far today....

...I have teared up as Lincoln was sobbing when Tyler left for work this morning.  It was so precious, I think Tyler was on the verge of a tear as well (shhh....don't tell him I told you that!)

...I have cuddled with Lincoln on the couch, huddled underneath a thick blanket, with the scent of Johnson's baby wash still lingering in his hair from his bath last night. I soaked in every single minute of those 7 minutes.

....I have tried to coax Lincoln into eating all of the banana for his breakfast (2 bites isn't enough for a breakfast!) and failed.

...I have rescued my son from the chip clip that magically got clamped onto his little finger (wonder who did that?) and after unclamping it I witness a little boy who was then upset that he couldn't keep playing with it.

...I have searched all over our apartment looking for the pink pick that I use in my hair everyday but for some reason that's the one thing Lincoln likes to play with while I get ready in the mornings and it's a daily event to go and try to find where he hid it the day before.

...I have tried and failed at deciphering what Lincoln is saying....he realized how dumb his mom is that that she needed a huge clue as to what he wanted....so what did he do...went and pulled on the fridge door. hmmm maybe he should've finished that banana?

...I have broken up a "fight" between my son, the spiderman car and the Christmas tree....well at least Lincoln must've thought it was a fight because he was grunting in frustration somehow stuck between the car and the tree, not sure how that happened

...I almost caused Lincoln to fall backwards over said spiderman car while he was standing on it to reach things off of my shelf in the closet, when I tried to get his attention

...I also found, in above spiderman car under the seat that lifts up, a sippy cup from over a week ago with milk still in it!  I think Lincoln was trying to make his own cottage cheese or something....opening that sippy cup was SO GROSS....

...I have put my slightly crabby boy back to bed for a nap, maybe he will wake up and the world will be a little nicer to him....poor guy.

What am I going to do when we have 2, 3, 4 kids? I think my life is crazy now, just wait.
Oh and have I mentioned that I have the best job in the world?  I love it.  And now that it's 9am, lets start our day!

Christmas Card Display

If you're anything like me, you love to hang up all the Christmas cards friends and family send you this time of year.  Well usually I don't do anything creative with it (just because I haven't found something that I really like) but this year I saw Pottery Barn's Gilt Frame Card Holder and loved the idea!  So what did I do?  Well it's on sale for a mere $149 so I went ahead and ordered it! (NOT!)

I decided to could make it myself.  Over the years I've collected my fair share of wooden frames from garage sales and had the perfect one for this project.  I'm pretty sure I only paid $1 for the frame.  The only other things I needed were some type of string/wire/or cord whichever you prefer (I picked up some black cord from Michael's for about $2), and something to hang your cards with, I just chose something I had on hand; oversized, green paperclips (but I really wish I had some of those tiny, cute clothespins but that'll have to wait until next year. 

This is Pottery Barn's Card Holder...

 and this is how mine turned out!

Thanks to these three cards I don't feel like quite a loser

 I just used my handy, dandy stapler to attach the cords to the back of the frame

Is the the cord I bought

So for a total of $3 I got a really cute card holder!  LOTS better than paying $149!!!  Oh and I really wanted to spray paint the frame black but I didn't have any on hand, and I was too impatient to wait any longer to make this, so that'll just have to wait until next Christmas. 

Pottery Barn also has something very similar that they sell to hang your earrings from and guess what?!  I have the PERFECT frame for that project too.....stay tuned to see how my earring holder turns out (THAT one will definitely be painted black before it use it to match my bedroom decor. 

{embrace} the camera.....week 2

Here we go with another {embrace} the camera Thursday!  So I totally failed this week and didn't get a picture of Lincoln and I so I pulled one from this fall when we went to the zoo!  That still counts right?! :)

Lincoln and I in the petting zoo area at the Zoo.  He wasn't so sure about these goats....

I just love being a mommy!  Now I've got to go clean my house and start packing for our Christmas travels!!  Yippee!!!

just a few, small ways God has taken care of us...

Let's say that for the past 8 months or so you've gone about your business and everyday living thinking that if anything happened you would have insurance to cover you if you needed anything, dental and vision INCLUDED.  Well let's just say that 2 weeks ago you start to feel a little throbbing on the top left side of your mouth that would come and go.  You think, "eh it's probably nothing, I'll just wait until after we get back from visiting family for Christmas and see how it is then."  Well in the next couple days the pain just keeps getting worse and worse.  You can't work out because with each step pounding to the ground you feel the pain stabbing through your gums.  Ok so finally you say something to your husband about it and he tells you to start looking for a new dentist to go see.  So I do.

Meanwhile, it's this time of year where we can evaluate our insurance plan and see if we want to change it to a different plan.  Come to find out...dun, dun, dun...we didn't have dental or vision included in our plan!  For some reason it got mixed up between Tyler and the HR rep way back in April when he started his new job and thankfully we haven't had any need for it so it went unnoticed.  UNTIL of course I get a toothache but even though we caught the fact that we didn't have dental insurance a couple weeks ago.....it won't be effective until Jan. 1.

Also this month we decided to finally get back on track with our budgeting and really strap down and writing down everything we spend again.  We did this really faithfully before Tyler started his new job in April but then I got lazy and haven't really been doing a good job since then.  So when I got started on it again (I usually take this over, rather than Tyler just since I have more time to do it than he does) and got in the "DON'T SPEND UNNECESSARY MONEY" mode.  So I was convinced that I was going to wait out this toothache until January because why pay for this dental visit and x-rays when I don't have to?  Well after hearing horror story after horror story I decided to call some dental offices and get some price quotes.

After calling a couple places that were recommended to me I decided on one and just came to terms with the fact that I was going to be spending $100 (that WASN'T in our budget) on this visit and just to suck it up and go.

Well not kidding you, 10 minutes later Tyler shows up with the mail and as I'm going through it, we received a packet with coupons for local businesses here and wouldn't ya know there was a $50 gift certificate included in there for a dentist that was right down the road from us!  I called them and they said with the certificate I wouldn't pay more than $43 out of pocket!  WOW.

So I went and after x-rays and everything else the Dentist believes I have a Sinus Infection that is causing the pain so I got put on an antibiotic.  Hopefully that's all that's wrong and I won't need a crown or root canal or anything.

I'm just amazed at the ways that God just provides, especially financially lately.  Along with that gift certificate we also had an outstanding medical bill from Lincoln's RSV shots last January for $2,300!  Yikes!  I just found out about that a couple weeks ago too.  After a couple days of freaking out about having to use our emergency fund (thanks Dave Ramsey!) to foot the big bill, we find out that again (we had overlooked) $2,000 that was left over in our HSA account.  What an amazing God we serve.

I just wish that through all this I had my husband's amazing faith.  When we found out about the extra $2000 in the HSA account I was jumping up and down with excitement and then looked over and Tyler was excited but I could tell it just wasn't as big of a deal to him and I ask, " why aren't you just bursting with excitement?!" and he answered, "well I was never really worried about it like you were, I knew God would provide one way or another."  Wow.  Then that got me thinking, why am I always so amazed when God provides or works things out?  I should have the type of faith that just knows he will provide.  I want faith like that.

Lastly, but definitely not the least, God has provided a way out of my mom's old job and has provided (in PERFECT timing none the less) a new job for her with better hours.  Our God is Good. 

finger painting fun!

Last week we were finally able to do the finger painting project that I had seen at "No Time for Flash Cards" for a baby's first Christmas but I figured even though it's Lincoln's second Christmas, in a lot of ways it feels like it's his first, just because he's so much more aware of what's going on.  This was his first try at finger painting and I think it went pretty well!  He was a little unsure at first, of what it was and why his hands were all green but he quickly got used to the idea and started clapping (which sprayed the painting everywhere!) and having fun with it.

For our project, first you start by cutting out a side of a paper bag (or use any kind of heavy paper)

Draw a Christmas tree on the paper bag and tape it to the table (I used NTFFC's idea and taped it sideways so he could reach most of it) and some green finger paint.

Here is another view of the taped Christmas tree all ready to go!

I started by just putting a glob of paint in the middle and watched to see what Lincoln would do....

....and he knew EXACTLY what to do with it, you just make a mess right? 

After a little while of painting I think he finally realized something weird was on his hands and so he inspected them...

...and what better thing to do with paint all over you hands, then CLAP!

The happy artist with his masterpiece! (I helped him get all the spots on the tree covered but he did a pretty good job on his own!)

When he was done making a mess.....right to the bath tub he went! He thought that was great....two fun things right in a row?!

Waiting for the paint to dry....it didn't take too long.

I didn't get a picture of us doing it but then I traced his painted clean hand onto red and yellow paper, cut out the hands and glued them to the tree!

Here is our his finished project!  He didn't get the privilege of holding the tree for very long, as you can see the star was being ripped off as I took the picture!

Now it hangs beautifully on our fridge!  His first artwork to hang on the fridge....*tear*...he's just growing up so fast.

I also let Lincoln try to color on the hand ornaments and he did a little but you can't really tell a whole lot.  Not sure who had more fun doing this project Lincoln or mommy! :)

Yay for me!

Ok I just had to share because I'm just too excited about this.  I totally have lost 6 1/2 pounds in the last couple weeks and am below a weight that I haven't seen since I was pregnant with Lincoln.  I still have 9 1/2 pounds to get to my pre-Lincoln weight but I'm guessing that weight has come and gone and I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I will never be that weight again.  Oh well, I'm celebrating this little accomplishment of weight loss anyway.  Maybe I'll celebrate with Starbucks, or a brownie, or maybe ice cream (can you see why it's so hard for me to lose any weight? haha!)

That's all for now!  Happy Sunday!

{embrace} the camera

I absoluately love this world of blogs....I think I'm addicted, my hubby would agree.  I was told about the anderson crew by my friend Megan and ever since checking it out I've loved all her posts!  Every Thursday she does "embrace the camera" and posts a picture of her with one or more of her children so that when they grow up they'll actually see that mommy was IN some pictures instead of behind the camera of all those pictures!  So even though I kinda mentioned it in an earlier post this is an actual "embrace the camera" Thursday.

I decided to snap a picture as we were going out the door for something....I can't even remember where we were going....hmmm....

As you can tell, Lincoln was a little unsure about what was going on....

Here's to hoping I can keep this up!

pablo candy-finger.....a little boy with a BIG heart

Pablo Candy-Finger is the name of the cards that Calvin makes.  Calvin has been patiently waiting for his new brother or sister for over 3 years now and in the meantime has developed such a sincere heart for orphans.  His mommy and daddy are dear friends of ours who have been in the adoption process now for a VERY long time.  They have been waiting for a little boy or girl from Kyrgyzstan.  Calvin loves to draw and decided to make cards to sell to raise money to help orphans.  He has used some of the money to buy food for orphans (almost 400 meals!), plane tickets for his brother/sister to come home and now for some orphans in Kyrgyzstan to have a nice Christmas.  Now if that doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what will! 

Just this last weekend he did his first craft show with his mom (who makes and sells bows for little girls and all the proceeds go towards orphans as well). Here are some pictures from that craft show....

The sign he made for his table

Little magnets (suggestion $2/item)  He's pretty good, huh?

The handsome boy behind all this work for the orphans

And his famous cards!  This is only a couple of them there are more at his mom's blog. Click HERE

Suggested $2/item.

SOOO if you would like to help a little boy, help orphans by buying some (or ALL!) of his cards or magnets you can go to the Neill's blog:
http://thehappyneills.blogspot.com/2010/12/pablo-candy-finger-at-craft-show-and.html
and order from there.  She has more pictures from the show and an explanation of why it's called "Pablo Candy-Finger Cards."  I'm guessing you've been wondering that the whole time!  :)

If you would like to read up on their adoption process you can read more here:
http://thehappyneills.blogspot.com
http://neilladoption.blogspot.com

or if you would like to purchase bows to help orphans, here is Kendra's website for Sugarplum Boutique:
www.sugarplumorphans.com


There are SO many ways this Christmas that we can buy gifts that give twice.  I challenge all of you out there to check into buying gifts that all or some of the proceeds go towards things like adoption, orphan care, or a charity out there.  Try it out, I dare ya! :) 

a workbench... or a playground?

Tyler was in heaven one Saturday afternoon when Lincoln actually helped him out in the garage.  I'm sure he wasn't initially excited about the idea of watching Lincoln while I got some things done inside since he was needing to get some work done on his bench and figured Lincoln would just be getting into all the things that he shouldn't..  But actually Lincoln was a big helper!  He spent a lot of the time just investigating the garage but just by looking...he didn't try and touch or pull on things that he shouldn't.  He LOVES getting and handing things to Tyler so Tyler would ask for a tool and Lincoln would bring one of them to him (granted Lincoln got the wrong tool almost all the time but it's the thought that counts, right?)  After I was done inside I went out to join them and this is what I found....

...these two working together on the workbench [I think they both had a great time!]

Is it just me or does my little man look so grown up here?

Linc-man being such a great helper

helping daddy turn the rachet

am I doing it right?  [someone please wipe my nose, I'm too busy working]

he was so happy, he could've played helped out there for hours