Saturday, December 25, 2010

101225.7

baking cookies, losing teeth, getting braces, presents, pies, trees, rain, tamales and more rain, rain, rain...our awesome Christmas 2010 in a nut shell!






waking up Christmas morning



everyone opening our family present(LA style snowboarding!)


our sweet mess!

getting ready for a yummy mexican feast with our neighbors on Christmas eve!!

making cut out cookies for our neighborhood!



there's a song about this one, right?

hope your day was just as sweet!
love us 6

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Emmanuel...God with us


welcome to our Christmas 2010 family photo attempt...





what the day was really like


loved this one...till i realized we were missing someone!



finally!

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, but are those words accurate?
One snapshot can lure you into imagining the moment was warm, loving, and gentle.
In reality, at least in our reality, surrounding this photo were moments of screaming, laughing, arguing, playing, crying, fighting, and giggling!
Convincing six people to hold still, and look cheerful was not so easy.
I hesitated to use this picture, feeling it was a “misrepresentation” of our life. On further consideration I realized it actually sums us up pretty well.
Times of laughter and love mixed up with moments of turmoil and tantrums.
Tough are the days.
Emotional are the nights.
Many tears are spent.
Endless are the things to be done, cleaned, fixed, put away, thrown away, bought, brought, dropped off or picked up.
Our life can definitely be chaotic.
But it is always sweet, tender, joy-filled and rich!
We are far from perfect and miss our mark often.
But, as each day closes, we rejoice and take heart in the truth that though we are far more sinful that we could ever imagine, we are also far more loved and forgiven than we could ever dare hope.

Feliz Navidad y Prosepero Ano 2011!!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

traditions

we officially celebrated elia after thanksgiving, trying to create some space between our back to back november birthdays...

she picked a purple cake with orange sprinkles(she asked me to buy the sprinkles in october!) and invited her best little pal clark over for pizza

she loved every minute of the day, especially the singing

she loved her great gifts from her Nana, Gram, Papa, Grampy and Gramy...

a totally cool pink bike made especially for her from our sweet friends...

and carrying on a special tradition that aunt anissa started with selah 5 years ago now...

purple earrings!!

selah, elia and i went to get them pierced and then called anissa to tell her all about it, since anissa is a few states away these days!

elia was very tough, and says it only hurt "a lot!" :)

happy rest-of-your-birthday-little!