Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Just Keeps Getting Better

Today Peter and I celebrate 9 years of marriage.  It feels impossible that it has been that long, but we've sure lived a lot and been on an adventure since that day.

We really were just two kids in love, with pretty much nothing!  Peter was still in school and we were just so young!  But our hearts were full of love and our heads full of dreams. We were prepared for it to be hard, for it to even feel like work. But I could have never imagined how great it would be!  Silly me, I kind of thought our wedding day was the peak of our love, but boy was I wrong.  It was just the beginning!  



As I've thought about or 9th year together, I often find myself thinking about this song:


Link: It Did

We've been on quite the journey.  It seems we always have a new adventure in life, but things have remained somewhat calm lately. And it has been good!  We've grown so much as a couple over this last year and I can honestly say, things are better than ever! We've grown a lot in vulnerability and communication. I think a lot of that can be attributed to Peter and his willingness to forgive me often, communicate honestly, and listen intently even if I am babbling in the middle of the night and he has to get up for work in just a couple hours.  He is a good man.  


We've had so much fun this year.  We probably had our smoothest transition yet to the addition of a new family member.  We've been on lots of fun short trips and even a trip to Disney World and the absolute highlight of this past year, 10 days in Ireland together!  We find fun and laughter in the chaos of everyday life with 4 young children and we enjoy and always prioritize time together in the midst of it all.  Marriage has never ever felt like work for us and I consider that a blessing!  We've built ourselves a strong foundation from the beginning and now those roots seem to be digging in deeper and growing bigger and stronger as each year passes.


A year ago at a marriage class I was a part of, the speaker mentioned how her and her husband read through the chapter in psalms each year that correlates with their anniversary year.  We started this last year and last night as we were reminiscing wedding memories (the few we still remember!)  we read through Psalms 9 and picked our theme verse for this year.  I might have had a different verse in mind but my husband our leader picked Psalms 9:1 and has declared this year a year of praise for our marriage.

Psalms 9:1 "I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will tell of all your marvelous works."

God has guided us and helped us grow all these years, and our marriage is good!  I think it is awesome to get to spend this year marveling and praising over what He has done through our marriage. And how fitting that we are already thinking and dreaming of the celebration we will go on for our 10 year anniversary so why not celebrate this whole year through!    


 We are going to have a wonderful day of celebration as my husband whisks me away for the night.  A night away seriously sounds so refreshing at this moment and just what I need!  So here's to us at 9 years!  I love you Peter more than you can even know.  I am so lucky to have you as a husband.  You support us, you lead us, you work harder than you should have to, and you always at least consider all the crazy adventures I want to embark on!  I couldn't ever ask for a better, more loving father for our children.  You show our boys chivalry daily and teach our daughters what a tenderly loving, and devoted father is. You love others and have a Biblical passion for the orphans and widows in this world.  You work 55 hour weeks consistently and yet never complain and still devote yourself fully to us in every spare moment.  You embody love in everything you do.  I feel so lucky that you chose to spend your life with me.  You are a great man!  Here's to loving you for all our remaining years together!


Friday, July 24, 2015

I Love TaeKwonDo

The boys have a new hobby that they just love and has been so good for them. We found a smokin hot deal on summer taekwondo lessons and since it was something we had discussed before for the kids, we decided to jump on the deal.  The boys took to it quickly and love it!  It is a great outlet for all their energy and it has taught them a lot of respect and discipline already. It has been so fun to watch them too!  Here's a few pictures of their first 3 weeks of lessons! 

Bowing in respect to the flags:


                                                                             Punching:


Blocking:


More punching:



Lots of kicking: 


And even a little bit of pushing and shoving sumo style:








Eli even told his master he could jump really high, so his master showed him how high he could jump. Pretty cool! 




Monday, July 13, 2015

4th of July Weekend!

Warning, picture overload is to follow:  

After a very hot few weeks here, we decided a weekend to the coast was much needed.  But first a trip to Great-Grandma Keyser's for our traditional 4th of July BBQ.  

Little miss was very excited to celebrate her very first 4th of July! 




                                                               I love these little girlies!

                                                              LB LOVES giving kisses!

Then it was off to the river!



Our drive down to Coos Bay to Great Grandma Goodman's house was gorgeous!  The kids were actually the ones who pointed out how beautiful the sunset was! 



It was quite late when we pulled into Great Grandma's, The kids were real troopers on that long drive! 


The next morning we were off to the tide pools in Great Grandma's backyard. The kids had a great time exploring all the little creatures out there! 










                              Both mornings were spent eating yummy sour dough pancakes!


We had a really nice time, but it was quickly time to head on home.  On the way, we stopped at another beach.  It is always an extra special treat to get to be at the beach on a warm day!







Even LB LOVED the water, it was much warmer than usual! 




She's a lil beach bum for sure!  This was her very first trip to the ocean and she loved it! 


                                              It was a really fun family oriented weekend! We are blessed!


Sunday, July 12, 2015

New School Year!

Yep, we started another school year in July!  We love this school schedule and the kids have been begging to get started again!  It has also been nice to get some school done on these really hot summer days when the kids can't be outside anyway.  

One thing I have noticed this year already is that I am much more organized and relaxed about it!  So it is nice to have one full year under our belts.

This year Mr Eli is in K4 preschool.  He is excited to get to the reading and writing and in the few short weeks since we began I am really proud of how well he has taken to it!  He's always begging to do even more school work so he's getting that love of learning!


Princess Bina is in her 3 year old preschool year.  She loves anything that includes painting or gluing or stickers!  It's a good thing that preschool includes a lot of those things!



And Mr Malachi is now starting his Kindergarten year. I am so glad that we are homeschooling because I can't imagine sending him off to school each and every day. I would miss him a lot!  He also has a great love of learning and he makes school time feel easy because he is so smart and catches on to new things with ease.  Looking forward to his mind growing even more this year!  


Well we are on our way and excited for what this year holds!