more pictures from the holidays.

playing in the crack between the fridge and the pantry! first discovery of this new little hiding spot :) 

 Nan and Kieran

he was enthralled with the Christmas tree. 

 Marmee and Kaden

this was at Rebekah's Christmas dessert night party. this is their tree...beautiful! 

Grammy, Nan (Brian's Mom and Grandma), Fiona and Kieran

trying to figure out Mr. Potato Head! 

eating a peppermint stick :) "CHEESE!!" 

pretty girl! 

This is at Howie's 1st birthday party!!  

These are from Christmas day at my parents house! stole some of these from Rachy :) 

conspiring to see what kind of trouble to get into next =) love these two sweet baby boys.

desperate.

As the page has turned from one year to the next and I sit eagerly with my pen in hand and smooth out the clean, white, new piece of paper, ready to begin from the top I step back...hesitate...wanting to get it just right. Isn't that how you feel at the start of a new, fresh year?

It's Tuesday, January fourth of the new year Twenty Eleven. It's now that I want to begin scribbling away, filling up my new, clean page with ideas, accomplishments, responsibilities, to-do's, don'ts....all those resolutions that come along with the feeling of a fresh start. I love this quote (first read on another blog that I love to read) by Mary Oliver,

"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" 

There are so many things I would like to do, would like to be. Changes I long to make, goals I want to meet. The Lord keeps bringing me back to something that was shared from the pulpit at church on Sunday. 

He is looking for empty cups that he can fill. 

Empty Cups....do I want to be an empty cup? There is nothing that sounds comfortable or satisfying in being an empty cup...but it is when I am empty, and not scurrying around trying to fill up my own cup, that I am desperate and ready to be filled by God. I want to be desperate. He wants me to be desperate. 

I want to be filled with his Spirit. I want to be filled with faith in his love, his grace, his sweet mercy. I want to know his whisper in my ear. I want to see the little ways he's working all around me...in my husband, my family, friends, church. I want eyes that see lost and hurting people like he does. 

I want more of Jesus this year, friends. I'm so glad that He is eager to fill an empty, desperate heart with his love, a truly satisfying love. 

Let's not keep ourselves so busy or be so consumed with our agendas that we aren't leaving room for him to fill us. Let's be eagerly expecting and longing for Christ to fill us this year!

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Romans 15:13

:::first snow of 2010:::

He loved it for about 10 minutes til his hands froze...then he'd had enough! didn't have any mittens for him!

Thanksgiving '10

Our trip to Arkansas for Thanksgiving and my Grandmir's 80th birthday was such a special time as a family! I'm so glad we made the trip...Steve said it was one of the his favorite Thanksgivings yet! 

aRmoiRe

Steve and Brian built this clothes armoire/storage piece this past Saturday. The inside top has shelves and the bottom half is drawers. It's so functional and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the look of it. Exactly what I was imagining :) Steve is wanting to start a little side business making furniture out of reclaimed building materials and selling it...I think it could totally work.

Just had to brag on my guy a little ;) and thanks for helping him out Bri! 

pictures from Oct and Nov....catching up

 We carved pumpkins and ate lots of yummy "fall" snacks as a caregroup girls' group.

 Bekah's owl

 Mayra and Anja's pumpkin face. It was a team effort :)

 my bird...which kind of wilted after 1 day! I was so sad.

 Jen's face

 YUM

Coleman's lovely design 

At the zoo checkin' out the animals! so serious :)

my beautiful mom! 

the lions...

a turkey roaming free

We went to Williamsburg as a little family the last Saturday

in October. We ate at Pierce's BBQ and visited the winery...so beautiful!  

favorite pic of the day <3 

Our little Indian on Halloween!

 Oh I could just eat him up!!

I have a 9 month old!

So wow. I can't believe how time has flown, and to look where we are now...a family of three...just blows my mind. My little man is already nine months old! This is THE CUTEST AGE. It never gets old to hear his little laugh and watch all his funny little shenanigans....bobbin' his head (head bangin' :), blowing raspberries, sticking out his tongue, throwing his ball and crawling after it and throwing it again and crawling after it over and over again, trying to blow kisses....all his funny noises. He provides endless entertainment for us =) He has been crawling around pretty well since about 6.5 months old and he started pulling up on things at like 7 months! He cruises around the furniture really well and even lets go at times. I've seen him stand up without holding on to anything a couple times now, so I have a feeling walking isn't too far around the corner! Yikes! I guess I'm both excited about that milestone and sort of not looking forward to it...I mean he's growing and changing so fast before I know it he will be running around and no longer a baby. I'm not in a hurry! He can just keep crawling for as long as he wants :) He has the cutest little one leg/one knee crawl....Steve calls him gimpy haha. I put him in the nursery at church and also the child watch area at OneLife Fitness. He does well. Sometimes he doesn't make it the whole hour at church, but I don't blame him since it's right during nap time and the poor kid needs his morning nap! He's always been a really good napper - I'm so glad! He takes two a day right now and needs both of them for a while still I think. He wakes in the morning around 8am and I've been putting him down for a nap around 9:30 or 10 and he sleeps till 11:30 or 12. Then he naps again from like 2:30 til 4:30ish. His bedtime is generally around 7:30 but flexible depending on what we're doing that night. Most of you probably don't really care about all these details but I want to remember them so I write them down!

Our fall has been wonderful so far! Lots of cozy evenings at home and Saturdays spent together. Lovin' it. I have two loaves of pumpkin bread in the oven almost done now. Looking forward to eating a warm piece with my cup of chai. Steve's asleep on the couch with a football game on, his hand still on the remote. He's snoring, but I don't mind since I'm not trying to sleep as well hehe. We went antiquing earlier today. Discovered Country Boy Antiques on Church Street and can I just say I fell in love! It's this cramped, dirty little shop but it's packed full of REAL antiques. Not just overpriced junk but old pieces of furniture and windows and doors and mirrors and bed frames that the guy finds in old buildings and houses throughout Norfolk. We found two really sweet old windows with lots of small panes and chipping paint that we're going to turn into doors for an armoire in our bedroom. Also some little wooden blocks that will be the feet on it. Steve is going to build it either tomorrow or next weekend. Can't wait! It will be taller and not as wide or deep as the clunky one we have now which means more space. But then we'll probably have to put a small desk type of thing in there to put the filing cabinet under and house the printer and Steve's business laptop and paperwork.

Speaking of business, things are going well with real estate investment! Steve got his business license and named the business Hartley Home Investments. Hartley is his middle name. Pretty catchy :) He sold his second house and is going to buy his third here in a couple weeks. We feel so blessed that things have gone so well. It's exciting!

We're looking forward to a visit to our family in Arkansas for Thanksgiving. I LOVE big family get-togethers for this holiday especially. Something so special about everyone being together. And this year we're going to celebrate my Grandmer's 80th birthday! She is an amazingly wonderful woman and it will be such a fun time of honoring her and blessing her on her birthday.

We had some pictures taken of Kaden in October and I'm CRAZY about them...probably because I'm crazy about my little man, but the photographer is our friend Ondria Jones and she did an awesome job! You can check them out HERE. There are also some family shots HERE. I'm thrilled I got some of the prints in the mail today and I'm going to frame one of the family pics and lots of Kaden :) I'll work on that this week...