Whats with our hot parents?

5 favorite moments of my day ~Timarie

1) A LARGE cup of black coffee- just screams comfort! I go downstairs, or recently- mom brings it up after hearing my alarm go off a thousand times, and I simply sit right down in my purple chair and sip it, savoring each sip! SO GOOD!!!

2) My devo. I'm in a season of my life where I am SO BLESSED to have the opportunity to have long morning reading times! I have many open mornings this semester, I don't have kids and wife-duties to attend to, and I enjoy/prioritize my times with God... which all play into the ability to enjoy long devotional times most mornings!!! I feel extremely privileged for this in this season of my life and thoroughly enjoy when I get to have them!

3) Going running! Surprise surprise I know... but it's delightful, invigorating, a feeling of accomplishment, and just a time to be by myself and pound the pavement :)

4) Driving. To school, work, the hospital, church, wherev... I just like to be by myself... Most often I'm rocking out to country music, but sometimes I just enjoy the quiet and think. I sometimes try to use it as prayer time, or at least seize the moment before an event to ask for help from my Savior in how to encounter it, or after an event to thank Him for it. On long drives (especially to Phoenix) I like to listen to messages. Car time also = phone call time! It's probably my favorite time to talk to my sisters or anyone really cause I feel the least distracted (which I know only makes half sense, but really I AM focused on the road) and feel like I'm actually using the time instead of wasting it! I also thoroughly enjoy reporting to my sister's the ridiculous or random or rememberable events of my current day's activities.

5) Reading right before I go to sleep, horizontally, in bed. I LOVE my bed, and although it's usually only for about 5 minutes cause I'm so tired..I like it. I read either a runner's world article, a book I'm currently in, or our family night book I'm trying to get read before Monday night :) and it's just my laying in bed, winding down time, before I role over and review the day and hit the hay!

~Timarie

5 Favorite Moments of My Day--Nicole

1. Coffee, coffee coffee. Especially in this phase of multiple night wakings, and early Georgia wakings, having my husband bring me coffee in bed each morning is about the only way of convincing me life is worth living. Okay so I'm being a little dramatic, but let's just say that the quote from Ocean's 11 "Are you suicidal? Only in the morning." is often quoted to me by Jonathan. Drinking that cup of coffee from the comfort of my bed before my feet hit the ground and I see all that I need to do for the day is a great way to begin. (Thanks honey!)

2. Playing with my girls. After breakfast before Georgia's nap, I always sit down and play with the girls. Lately we've been cooking oatmeal and macaroni and cheese in Lyla's kitchen, but sometimes we read books, or build towers or wrap babies in blankets. (in each activity Georgia contributes by putting the said items in her mouth.) It's a nice way to start off the day, before chores, before we're dressed, while everyone is well rested and fed.

3. Afternoon chats. By the time I get the kids down for a nap my house is pretty messy, dinner needs prepped and I'm ready for a nap. Having my afternoon chat with Becky helps me get past the after lunch drowsiness into the kicking domestic booty part of my day. Being able to chat takes my mind off the billions of dishes, gross food chunks on the ground and the loads of laundry. Plus she's such a godly fun woman to chat with, not to mention my BFF!

4. Girls Bedtime. I get to feed Georgia and rock her to sleep without fear that Lyla is baptizing her baby in the toilet or some other favorite toddler pastime. I can just sit and hold her for awhile. Usually I do that while I hear Lyla giggling while her daddy is reading her some stories (more tickling that stories most of the time!). After Georgia is down I get to snuggle with Lyla (the only time she's still all day) and depending on who puts her down I get to pray with her and tickle her back. Once the girls are down, I get to hang out with my favorite person: we always talk about how cute our kids are and the rest of our life, mostly in that order.

5. Laying down once I'm ready for bed. Need I say more?

My 5 fav moments of the day - becky*

Coffee in the dark - doesn't always happen now that I'm requiring a bit more sleep but sitting alone on my couch while its still dark and everyone is asleep savoring the first few sips of especially hot coffee while reading, browsing the web,or just staring at the wall, ahh the best.

Quiet time - now that naps have gone out of style around here, quiet time is slowly working its way up to 1&1/2 hours of kids on their beds, doing something quiet. That leaves me talking on the phone with Nicole while we do our housework and dinner prep. Well, that is, most of the time :) I have to admit sometimes its tanning in the backyard or writing on the blog, haha, I need to get to work around here.

The five o'clock hour - since I'm only home at this time three or four nights a week I especially love this hour. Usually the kids are running around the back or riding bikes, the house is actually cleaned up a bit, I'm finishing up dinner and Matt is working on some project. All the doors and windows are open, Uncle Jon is driving by honking, the neighbor comes over to chat with Matt, the hose is on in the garden, buddy is running away, cheese and chips are out for snacks. Now that I type this, it sounds a little wild. Guess that's the way I like it.

Family time - out by the fire, playing a game, listening to daddy read "how to eat fried worms", bike rides, library movies, wrestling. Whatever it is, its SO much fun hanging out as a family now that the kids are getting bigger, love it.

Hanging out with Matt - the kids are in bed, everything is cleaned up, Matt and I can read, talk, watch movies, work on projects, just be together. Now that the kids go to bed earlier, I especially look forward to the extended time of hanging out with my cute husband.

b*

Five Favorite Moments of the Day-MOM

First is my quiet time, after I get up get my coffee I love sitting in my chair in my room surrounded by my books and now days a few pairs of reading glasses. I love the quiet and watching the sun rise this time of year. Best of all is reading my bible and other books for a whole hour, this is such a luxury as you girls know in your busy seasons of life.
My second favorite time of day is walking especially seeing the mountains and desert scenery listening to music and praying!
Third I do like preparing our home and dinner before everyone gets home!
Fourth is when everyone starts trickling in especially daddy we catch up on the day have a glass of wine.
Number 5 would be crawling into bed AWE praying with daddy and thanking God for the gift of sleep!
Very simple moments of the day but these moments make each daily very special to me!

Valentine's Day! ~Timarie

Kinda anti-climatic when you are single :) BUT did receive flowers that are lovely, and (I know this sounds boring, lonely, and dumb) but spent the day studying... WHICH TODAY totally paid off BECAUSE I got a 96% on my Nursing Exam and got an "A" for this unit which totally rocks!!! So I'm glad I did!

But the weekend as a whole was quite enjoyable as our wonderful, manly, thoughtful, handsome, kind, precious, amazing CG guys showed up at girls CG friday night and brought us over to my house for a delightful evening of well prepared desserts, entertainment, a fire and fellowship with them which blessed us girls very much! They were so cute and it was so well thought through and truly a blessing that single guys would go to the effort to bless the single girls in this way!

I of course, dressed in pink Sunday and wore a pink with hearts on it headband to church! I have to say... was pretty subtle but pretty adorable! And then went to lunch with the singles which was fun too!

So much grace this year, just being able to enjoy the day, the parts of it I am blessed with, in the little things (dressing up, flowers, being with friends) and really didn't have to deal with the 'why me'/'why don't I have someone' discontentment! Our CG girls dialogued about the possible struggle on this holiday earlier in the week and that helped to know where everyone was at, but altogether it was just a really enjoyable chill holiday for me this year, so yay!

~T

Mom's Valentines & Anniversary

My Valentines is always special because I get to celebrate another year of marriage with my best friend best friend and the love of my life. This year we celebrated 29 years! Daddy bought roses and made a crab dinner. We spent the next day together hiking in Madera Canyon and had a lovely picnic at a nearby creek. We didn't go out of town this year but it doesn't matter where we are as long as we are together! Reminds me of that Jack Johnson song Every thing is better when we're together!

Valentine's Day--Nicole

It's amazing how much Valentine's Day doesn't matter when you're happily married. Seriously. I totally remember being single and feeling like it should be titled "Single Awareness Day" instead of Valentine's. And then I remember my first year of being married how it was kind of a big deal with all these expectations for Jonathan that of course ended in a fight. Ha! And here we are celebrating our 6th Valentine's together and it's so different. Someone asked me what we were doing for me for Valentine's and I was like, "Nothing really, I mean when you have an awesome husband all year long, this day is kind of like every other." Jonathan does so many things to show me he loves me all year long, I'm such a blessed gal to be married to him!

Not to say getting flowers and going out on a hot date for Valentine's isn't super fun. And not to say the fact that we're going on a weekend getaway this weekend isn't amazing! It's just that when we didn't do anything valentiney on the actual day I wasn't disappointed. I was still married to the most amazing guy ever!

So what do you do when you come to this realization in your marriage? Go to Disneyland, duh! And though I managed to get my girls dressed cute for church and take a picture, I didn't get any at Disneyland, oh well, next time!

Valentines Day! - becky*

Okay, so I'm a little obsessed with holidays....it gets a little out of control. What can I say? I got it from mom. Now its so cute that Drewby has followed suit and of course, whenever food is involved, you can count on Bella to get involved.

We started the day with good morning surprises. Bat man underwear for Drew, princess lipgloss for Bella, homemade aftershave for matt (his request, haha) and roses from my darling husband!


























































We had a little brunch at AJ's before church, don't they look cute?!




















Then off to church to hand out our valentines, I mean worship/listen to the preached word, haha. Last week the kids made these adorable flowers out of foam hearts and lolipops for their friends at church, although Drew brought his Spiderman valentines to school since the flowers are "only for my girlfriends, not for the boys" he says.



















And since I think I'm still 16, of course I had to make Valentines for my girlfriends, although I think my gift was QUITE grown up as it involved using vodka, haha. Homemade all natural vanilla extract.


















We had lunch with Greg and Lynn for MORE valentine treats for the kids, my husband gave me a nap, woo hoo, then he went out while the kids and I got things ready for our big family Valentines dinner.

I copied Hayley's lovely mother and made heart-shaped meat loaf and my own new creation: hot pink mashed potatoes, the kids were quite impressed, haha. The only thing I couldn't make red or pink was the zucchini. I got french-berry sparkling lemonade and I think Drew and Bell had five glasses each out of their real champagne glass which of course, Drew broke at the end of the night, hehe. I told Bell it was call "champagne" and she kept chugging hers and remarking loudly "mmmmmm, I LOVE champagne!".























After dinner we sat out by the fire and had candy and cookies and after a through tooth brush, put the kids to bed and enjoyed our own little valentines! :)

A Precious moment-MOM

Before I forget but I hope I won't I want to share a precious moment that happened on New Years Eve. I was at the hospital with Jon in the pre-op holding room awaiting his appendectomy and Jon ask me to read him Romans 8. I said the whole chapter he said yes. I began and as I did he closed his eyes I continued reading until the end of the chapter and he was sound asleep. As I sat watching my 6"2 180 lbs son with his feet hanging off the end of the stretcher sleeping peacefully I was very aware of my heart being at peace. I realized reading God's word which is perfect and addresses every situation that comes to us us in life was more for my heart at this moment than for Jon's. So thankful God meets us wherever we are and His word is Truth and peace for my heart.

What do you do when you've watched every episode of Gilmore Girls 15 times?

For someone who doesn't own a tv, I still manage to waste my time watching ridiculous shows that my husband loves to mock. My new favorite: "Monarch of the Glen" - Even more embarrassing, its a BBC special from 1999! haha, I found it on Netflix as I had a gigantic pile of laundry awaiting folding and a night to my self.

Its about a family who owns an estate in Scotland and have run out of family money. Their son leaves his life in London to come home and save the estate by turning it into a B&B. The main characters include his crazy parents, the lovely schoolteacher who lives down the way and the hilarious staff who works on the estate.

Okay, so the best part are the accents and the fact that they still run around in kilts but there's some drama as well :)

Since Matt was out of town this weekend, I have to admit that while working on his valentine gift (making an album of his first mom's old pictures) I watched six episodes (cringe) haha!

becky*

Hello, I'm pursuing a career!!! ~Timarie

Come on do you really think I have time for the kitchen aid experience...

Just Kidding!!! I was the one who requested we blog about this! I love the kitchen aid... thanks Gram for getting us one!!! It makes making things SO easy!!! and SO fast!!! My first epiphany was when my pizza dough recipe said "knead for 15 minutes" and i just turned the thing on and set the timer! So great! Then, I had a girls baking night at Jenice's new house (we gave her an old fashion "pounding") for her housewarming party! And I brought the kitchen aid over and it was fabulous! It pretty much transforms baking... COMPLETELY!!! When you remove having to stir, you really do save a whole heck of a lot of time... something I would have never thought about till now that I'm thoroughly enjoying ours! And who would have thought we'd all be so blessed to have one... we are blessed!!! So... I should probably start saving NOW because they are so expensive, and if I have a kitchen of my own one day I'm definitely going to have to invest in one!

Not going to lie though... I think I'd buy a vitamix first,

~Timarie