Jonah turned four!!!!

Four years ago, when our little Samuel Jonah entered the world I knew that he was something special. All babies are special, of course, but this one was different. He captured my heart from the moment I first saw him and we've always shared a sweet bond. This child arrived on his due date, seems to always have time to snuggle with his mommy, has love for everyone he knows and is maybe the funniest kid I've ever met. Most of our parenting stories revolve around the antics of this little guy and the things that come out of his mouth. :)

Last Saturday we had the pleasure of throwing a birthday party for Jonah. Jonah has a MAJOR sweet tooth, so we indulged him by starting the day out with donuts served on his special birthday plate. As you can see, he was thrilled.

Jonah's very favorite book is "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," so we themed the party around that. Sam took all the teddy bears we own (and we own a surprising amount!) and 'hid' them out in our forest. The kids all sat on the trampoline and listened to the story, then went out on their own bear hunt. Here is most of the crew with what they found:

After that we roasted hotdogs over the bonfire and then made s'mores. Even though we had chairs set up all over the place, Jonah preferred to sit here to enjoy his lunch and s'more:

After lunch we served the Spiderman cake that Jonah had asked for. I had trouble getting the candles to light, but Jonah patiently waited and then blew them all out!
Jonah opened all his gifts on the trampoline--that was fun!

Bridget slept through most of the party, but she joined us near the end. She spent some time on the trampoline and then found her favorite person in the world for some quality time. Here is Bridget with Granddad.

And last, but certainly not least, here is Jonah with his 'birthday buddy' Hailie. We met her at the library a few months ago, and Hailie shares Jonah's exact birthday. She was out of town that day, so she came over the day before to exchange gifts and play. This is Jonah's best friend!

A fun Valentine's giveaway...

Sarah's giving away a great chocolate-themed package for Valentine's Day. Head over to her blog and leave a comment for your chance to win too!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Ten years ago today, life as I knew it changed in a dramatic way.

Sam and I were dating at the time. We had met almost six months prior to that day and what began as friendship had grown into something much more.

On that day, Sam had invited me to go skiing. We were living in Bozeman, MT and the local ski hill was only about 15 minutes away. I met him at his house and we headed out. It was a beautiful day for skiing. There was fresh powder from the night before and the sun was shining, but I remember being so irritated with Sam because he was acting so funny. I couldn't quite figure out what was going on with him (and he certainly wasn't telling me), but he was at times quiet and other times almost snappy with me. Not the jovial Sam that I was used to being around, for sure! We ended up leaving early and not skiing quite the full day, which was unusual for us.

We got back to Sam's house and sat on the couch together. I think Sam might have turned the tv on to a basketball game or something. I was getting ready to leave since there was clearly something bothering Sam. He asked me to stay a while longer and I reluctantly agreed. (I never could say no to the guy--still can't!) We talked a few minutes more and then Sam got kind of serious. He started talking about how long we had known each other (which was not long) so I thought he was probably breaking up with me. My panic quickly changed to joy when he went into how he realized how much he loved me and then asked if I wanted to marry him!

I couldn't believe my ears! He wasn't holding a ring, but he said, "If you say yes, there is a ring upstairs waiting for you!"

That whole day, what I had thought was irritation was actually nerves. It is one of the VERY few times I have actually seen Sam truly nervous about anything at all.

He told me later that he had planned on proposing while we were on the ski hill. Different scenarios had played out in his mind, including asking me while we were on a lift, but he was worried that I would be so excited that I would drop the ring and we'd never see it again. I'm honestly surprised that he knew me so well already at that point in our relationship, because I do tend to be clumsy like that!

We were married in July of that year, so we'll celebrate our 10th anniversary this summer. Our little family has changed a lot since that day!

the fireplace debacle

When we moved in to our new house in July, we had a fireplace installed with an extra thing called a heatilator and blowers to push the warm air into the room. When cooler weather finally rolled in, Sam realized that the fireplace was not exactly what he had hoped it would be. He contacted our builder, who put us in touch with the sub-contractor that installed the fireplace. After much back-and-forth calling and leaving messages, meetings with the sub and meetings with our builder, it was decided that they would take out all the extra vents and heatilator and install a wood-burning insert (at no charge to us).

We waited and waited and waited, and finally the week before Christmas our wood-burning stove arrived. The installer came and removed all the vents and heatilator and then realized that he didn't have a certain part that he would need. So this is what our fireplace looked like on Christmas day:

He didn't replace the vents on the bottom because we weren't going to need them anymore and he assumed the part he needed would come quickly. It didn't. He actually just came last week and was able to put in the wood-burning insert. So after a month of a fireplace with missing vents, we finally had a fireplace. This is what it looked like:

Not too bad, right? Certainly unfinished still, but not bad. Oh, the only problem was that we couldn't use it. The guy who had ordered it initially had ordered the wrong vent pipe and had to go back and reorder it. That would take another week. So finally that part came in and the fireplace was now functional. Now the only problem was that where they had set the insert was too close to the brick and we couldn't open or close the damper to the fireplace. Kind of an important thing, so our builder brought in the bricker and had him TEAR DOWN THE HEARTH, brick by brick. It was so sad to watch! So now, our fireplace looks like this:

Lovely, eh? Now we just have to wait until the bricker can come back out, but I'm sure that can't happen for a while as we are in the midst of an ice-storm. At least we can have fires in our fireplace again.

I will say that after all of this, the new insert is SO NICE! We didn't use the heater all day yesterday and the wood-burning stove kept our house at a lovely 70 degrees which is warmer than we set our heater thermostat for!


On a completely unrelated note, Henry is going through a 'cowboy' phase. He insists on wearing a button-up shirt every day, along with jeans, a belt, his boots and hat. He's also trying really hard not to smile too much since he feels that cowboys are serious and they don't smile a lot. The knee pads I can't explain. For some reason they always go with his cowboy outfit--as soon as he comes home from school in the afternoons he puts them on.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

I guess she thought upstairs needed some cleaning....

Link Love

Fun new recipes HERE.

Also I think there is a new post HERE and Sam would love to hear your sarcasm thoughts, as usual if you have a minute to pop over there.

Oh, and an update on Jonah? I broke the news to him yesterday. He's doing okay with it so far; however, I don't think he really gets that he won't be allowed to play in the games. The coach is a great guy and LOVES to have Jonah practice, so I think it's going to be alright. Just a little reminder to my kids that their mommy is a sinner, saved by grace! It's good for them to see me mess up and have to apologize too--makes me more 'human' to them. :)