Valentine's Day Scavenger Hunt

For Valentine's Day, Janel and I created a scavenger hunt for the girls, complete with loving affirmations along with the clues to find the next clue ... until the final surprise gift at the end. It was fun!

Faith & Julia's New Year's Resolutions

Faith and Julia decided to make a video to share with everyone their New Year's Resolutions for 2010. Enjoy!

Julia is 1!

I can't believe it has been a year since I birthed my sweet little Julianna Ruth. She has been such a joy to our lives. I remember thinking...how can I possibly love any child as much as I love Faith? Well, it is possible and amazing to see how deep love can just multiply. I love my two little girls with all my heart and am so thankful for both of them.

We had a party for Julia when my parents were in town. Uncle Aaron was and my parents were there, and Granddaddy and Nonna checked in on Skype. We had a delightful dinner and I was happy to see that she dug in to the super duper healthy cake I made for her, topped with kiwi and strawberries (some of her favorite foods).

Nonnie and Papa and the grand girls.



Birthday party crafts--making placemats


Julia and her cake


Here is some video footage of the happy 1 year old at her party. Disclaimer: My singing is meant for sillyness and Julia is perfectly fine after the "incident."



For Julia's actual birthday (1 day later), after work, Jason and I took the girls on a bike ride on the Boise Greenbelt. They loved it. I think they liked being able to go fast!


To finish up the evening of Julia's birthday, we all went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. It was a fun few days and I hope to remember it all! We love you Julia!

Faith singing baby Julia to sleep

We went on vacation last week to the great state of California. I am going to blog about it later, but wanted to put this video up of Faith singing to Julia. Julia was having a hard time on our hike. She was really tired and wouldn't stop crying. So, I stopped on the side of the trail and started rocking her. Faith started singing this song on her own. Sweet sisters!

Sweet times

I am writing this to keep some of these memories alive because they are so precious and because they may be forgotten over time. A few Sundays ago, I was helping lead worship at our church, the Boise Vineyard. While I was up there singing, Jason was holding Julia out in the congregation, and she saw me and started signing the sign for "milk". So sweet that she was able to see that her mama was up there and that she wanted me. After the service, Jason went to pick Faith up from Sunday school. I was singing at the end of the service too and right when it was over, Faith ran up on stage with the biggest smile on her face, saying, "Mommy, I want to sing with you!" Times like these bring me such joy and remind me of how impressionable these little girls that were given to me are! Sometimes it is really hard being a Mommy, but it is good to keep things in perspective and good to be reminded that I have the ABSOLUTE best job in the world! I love being a Mommy and love my little girls so much.

Our Garden

Ok, this is the year of the garden. Last year, while great with child (Julia) and after giving birth to her, I had my first garden, consisting of tomatoes and basil. And I would say it did pretty well. I had so many tomatoes that we had pizza sauce for the next 6 months! This year, I decided I had a little more time and energy to more stuff. I planted 12 strawberry plants and have prepared a bed for some herbs. And the biggest thing is my square foot garden! I have already started mesclun lettuce, bibb lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, and onions in it. Broccoli, tomatoes, basil, and peppers that I have started inside are waiting until the last frost date to be planted outside! In addition to the above, I plan on growing swiss chard, zucchini and possibly sugar peas.

Here are a few pics of what we have been up to with our garden! Here Faith is raking the area we are going to put the raised beds that Jason built.



And here, Faith is initiating the beautiful 4 x 4 boxes Jason built for our garden.



Me, mixing the soil to put in the beds...



Mixing more dirt



The finished product



Faith and Julia working in the garden






over a week later...sprouts...!

Faith's first snowman

Have we mentioned that we LOVE it here in Boise? Even though I (Janel) love warmth, I can't complain too much, because we have had a pretty mild fall and winter so far. The sun pretty much shines every day, and I have never experienced so much sun anywhere else I have lived. It rocks! And now that it is getting colder, we have some snow! How fun! Here Faith is building her first snowman.





What is cute is that today, when Faith and I went to get the mail, we discovered that the snowman's rock eye had fallen out. I told Faith we could put it back on. So, as I tried to put it back on, the snowman's head fell off. You should have seen the look of horror on Faith's face. She was so sad and frightened about it. It was cute. I had to hug her and tell her that I could fix the snowman. So I put his head back on, and everything was much better:)

Julia' s first haircut and 6 month pictures

Julia was born with a good bit of hair, not as much as Faith, but she did have some. It was also all different lengths. Now that she is 6 months old, I decided it was time to rid her of her mullet. I cut about 2 inches off of random strands that she had growing in the back.



Julia had some professional pics taken of her, but we don't have them back yet. So, I took some of my own. Here she is at 6 months old! We love to see how her little personality is emerging. She has lots of toothless smiles, lots of kicking and playing and high pitched squeals...what a little girl baby! I can't believe how fast this time has gone with her! I love you sweetie!

Silly, love dove girls

Here are my two super silly girls. We had friends over the other night, and Camille (our friend) made this hat for Faith out of our napkins. Faith loved it and had to wear it for breakfast the next morning. I put it on Julia and she seemed to like it too.



Julia has been into kicking a lot while on her back. Faith wanted to do it with Julia and at the same time as Julia.



They just adore each other. Faith is a complete cuddle bug and loves to cuddle and kiss Julia. One day I let her get in Julia's crib with her.




One more picture of silly Julia with Strawberry Shortcake glasses on.

Faith's first video

Faith got sick today, so I decided to cheer her up by watching videos. Then we decided to make our own. There's one portion of the video where Faith begins giggling and can't stop. Please make your guesses in the comments section and I'll let you know the answer ...

Julia can sit up!

So, Julia just turned 5 months, and I am amazed that she can balance and sit up for 10 seconds or so. Here is a video clip of one of her first times sitting up unassisted. Next time, I will put some pillows around her!

Pumpkin fun!

There are so many interesting things you can do to a pumpkin. I realized how cool they were just recently. I mean, you have all the pumpkin flavored food in the fall and for Thanksgiving...pumpkin pie, pumpkin banana bread (my own recipe...pretty good!), pumpkin lattes, etc. We decorate or carve pumpkins for the fall. And of course, it is an event in and of itself to visit the pumpkin patch. They usually have mazes, hayrides or wagons and we get to pick out our own pumpkin.

Faith and I decided to make some fun out of a pumpkin we had picked from the "punk patch". First we cut the pumpkin open and took out all of the seeds. Faith thought it was a little slimy and would talk about it being "dirty". Here she is picking seeds out.



So, we took the seeds, cleaned them off and roasted them in the oven. Did you know pumpkin seed are also known as pepitas? You can put all sorts of flavors on the pumpkin seeds. Here are just a few types.

Italian Style Pumpkin Seeds -- Italian Seasoning Blend, Parmesan Cheese, Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper

Pumpkin Pie Pumpkin Seeds -- Cinnamon, Ground Ginger and Pinch of Nutmeg, Butter

Greek Style -- Lemon Pepper Seasoning Blend, Oregano, Salt, Olive Oil

Buffalo Wings Pumpkin Seeds -- Butter, Tabasco Sauce, Salt

We did the Italian style. Faith loved them, as you can tell from the picture.



Then we took the pumpkin and put it in the oven and made some homemade macaroni and cheese and served it inside the pumpkin. Apparently you can put many things in the pumpkin...soup, stew, meatloaf, etc. The mac and cheese was good, but next time I probably will put something else in the pumpkin....Jason thought it looked like the pumpkin had worms in it!:) Here is Faith ready to eat one of her favorite foods!

The pumpkin thumb sucker!

When tragedy strikes, what do you do? Well, for this little pumpkin, her thumb came to the rescue. She was sitting up in the leaves and all of a sudden, she tumbled over into the leaves. No crying, no screaming...everything was ok, because she had her thumb!

Kisses

Faith is such a sweet girl. Yesterday she asked me to close my eyes. So, I did, trusting that nothing bad would happen. When I did, I got a big kiss right on the lips from her. I opened my eyes and she squealed with delight. Here are some kissing pics of Faith.





Julia knows Faith is coming in for the big kiss...when they are sick, it is so hard to keep Faith from kissing Julia! She loves her little sissy so much!

Our Anniversary--6 years!!!

Jason and I celebrated 6 years of marriage with a wonderful day exploring Idaho. Jason got a babysitter for Faith all day on Saturday, while Jason and I and Julia took off on a fun exploration day of hiking! It was almost like when we didn't have kids, except Julia was there:) She was a trooper! Such a good baby. We love getting to do stuff like this, but it has been difficult since we started having kids. So this was a real treat for me! Thanks, Jason, for the idea and for organizing it! As you can see from this first picture, we started out on a trail that, well, wasn't quite a trail. What you don't see are the two guys "guarding" the entrance to this hike with their high-powered rifles sitting on their 4-wheelers. After hiking on an extreme uphill grade with underbrush and fallen trees, we couldn't find the trail. We decided this adventure was best done without an infant in tow (it was slightly dangerous)!


We all had burrs all over our clothes and socks...even baby Julia had burrs on her socks!




We decided that we would head to the Sawtooth Mountains. We heard they were breathtaking. On the way, we stopped to take some pictures of the clear blue water of the south fork of the Payette River.




And, wow! Here are the Sawtooth mountains! Isn't God creative?





We had heard so much about a city called Stanley, ID, and were really excited to see it. I thought it might be like the north Georgia town of Helen. We were surprised to find out that it had a population of 100 and very few stores ... and no paved roads except the state highway running through it. Why more people don't live here is beyond me though. It was awesome. Here is a picture of one of the stores. In these parts, stores aren't "closed"; they are "shut".


We stopped for at a pizza restaurant for a snack and then headed on our way to do a "quick" 4-mile hike (before sunset).




Here is a collection of baby Julia pictures. She is a wonderful hiking partner!





















































































Our hike was beautiful and easy...here is the end of the hike (it could go on for a few more miles, but the sun was setting very quickly, so we needed to hustle back.



A mountain lake...and reflection.


Driving home...