Lamentations 3:21-23 (New International Version)

21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the LORD's great love
we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Greatest songs of the 90s...

So I was watching The 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s on VH1 last night... it was awesome. So many great songs that totally defined my generation and my youth. But I have to contest the #1 song of my generation. While VH1 was pretty sure it was Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, I am sure they had just overlooked the actual best song, written in 1990...by my sister Liane, age 6.

Now you have to imagine her with a guitar in hand, holding it and strumming, just strumming, the whole time. And as a point of reference, the song was written about our dog, Smokey. I think it's pretty obvious what the song is about.

Here goes:

strum
strum
Smokey's gonna get
His ball-hangies off,
La laaaaaaa,
strum
La laaaaaaaaa...
strum
Smokey's gonna get
His ball-hangies off,
La laaaaaaaaaaa,
strum
La laaaaaaaaaaaaa...
strum
He is so excited
He just cannot hide it,
La laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,
strum
La laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
strum
And when they are gone
He'll be nice and calm...
La laaaaaaaaaaa
strum
La laaaaaaaaaaa!
strum

See what I mean? Pure poetry. Poetry.
Nirvana had nothing on Liane.
strum
strum

A conversation between my kids...

Riley: Why did Jesus make bad people?
(insert momentary slight panic as mom tries to come up with a good answer that is age appropriate for a 5 year old)

Violet: Well, Riley, Jesus actually made everybody. Just some people choose to be bad.
(wow - good answer indeed! insert audible sigh and lump in mom's throat here)

Riley: Okay. So - do aliens really eat people's brains?
(HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA)

And finally... the update.

Here it is. The long-awaited update to our lives.
December...

It was a busy month, as Decembers usually are, but with my business really taking off and the kids highly involved in their activities, it was unusually busy.

Aside from softball three times a week and drill team twice a week, Violet was cast as Mrs. Claus in the school production of "The Elves' Impersonator," a story of a little elf who thinks he's Elvis. Mama Lali made her amazing costume. Everyone loved it and we decided to donate it to the school so that it can be used for years to come.


Then of course there were the class parties... our favorite was the gingerbread house making in Violet's class...

Riley had his friend party... his request was a sledding day in the mountains. It was a huge hit!

And then, it was Christmas. Christmas morning at our house is awesome. Everyone comes over for breakfast and brings all their gifts. Our entire living room floor was covered in presents!

Nothing gets opened until after breakfast and the reading of the Bible...

Breakfast was yummy waffles and champagne and fresh fruit and OJ and homemade whipped cream... mmmmm! We covered the ping pong table with tablecloths and it worked out great. Easily seats up to 16 people comfortably around one big table. Awesome :)

This was the Lego Star Wars Christmas for Riley. Funny thing was, by the end of the morning, Papa was assembling a ship by himself and Rick was assembling another ship by himself while Riley was playing Lego Star Wars for the Wii. It was very cute that all the boys were doing their own biy things.

The favorite gifts were, of course, the ones from Tinty and Luke. They always find the most interesting things for us from Korea. Liane and I got cool bracelets and little turtle jewelry boxes, mom and dad got this incredible detailed wood carving, the kids got a rad Wii game, and Rick... Rick got a samurai sword letter opener.

It's not Christmas without Party #2 at Tish's house... Tish gathered all the little ones around her for a Happy Birthday Jesus party, complete with singing and cake :)
Then, on the 28th, we celebrated Riley's actual birthday! He requested a waffle breakfast with "Kids' Wine" (sparkling cider), which we all enjoyed. After breakfast, Violet left with Papa & Mama Lali on her very first ski trip - they went to Pagosa, Colorado to go skiing with some family friends. She had a wonderful time, but Riley and Violet definitely missed each other while she was gone. I love that they have such a special bond.

And, since I didn't share before, the reaction to Riley's Star Wars room...

New Year's Eve was a rockin awesome non-party. We planned on just chilling alone, and then Liane & Carl had no plans so we invited them over for games, and then Kris & Mel had no plans so they came over too... everyone had to bring their own snacks and alcohol and there was a LOT of it. :) Mo & Jo even stopped by for awhile and we had a great time playing games (I will never EVER forget Mo playing Taboo!)... so much, in fact, that we almost missed the countdown! We turned on the TV with about 20 seconds to spare. I barely got the champagne opened in time. I made all our friends take part in the annual "throw water across the street" tradition where everyone takes a pan of water, representing last year, and dumps it across the street because it's a new year and the pan needs to be empty for all our new adventures! They were good sports, especially considering it was seriously cold out there.

So a few weeks ago I had realized that I had accumulated 15 of the 16 Southwest credits I needed to get a free flight. The only problem? I had to get my 16th credit before January 13, 2008. So I contacted Val and scheduled a trip up to Portland for the 10-12th. It was a short but sweet trip and of course Val kept the days packed with adventure! We went to cool breweries, a play (we even volunteered at the theater!), visited my cousin and her new baby, and stopped by the beach, even!

Since getting back from Portland, it's been busy. Still. At least all our decorations are finally down (don't you hate when you think you've put everything away and then you find something you missed???) and we have done a little rearranging of furniture. Big plans for 2008 in our house... wood floors (hopefully) on the ground floor, new front door (or at least doorknob and locks... ours keeps sticking), new front landscaping, and a totally cleaned out and rearranged garage with workshop for Rick. Well, that's the plan anyway. This weekend we were supposed to start the garage organization, and both the kids are sick. I took them to the doc (my friend Costa from kindergarten... talk about weird to have your friend since age 5 be your doctor!)... Violet and Riley have strep throat. I have a sinus infection. We are all on antibiotics now. And Rick just called... his throat is scratchy. haha!

Matilda

I know a few of you have been patiently waiting for these photos, so here they are! My cousin's daughter, Baby Matilda, is such a cutie pie! I am so glad i got to spend a little time with her when I was in Portland! :)

And of course, big sister Simone. I seriously wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home with me. I just loved her little voice and her creative spirit :)

Lots more photos of lots more things still to share... but I wanted to be sure these went up first :)

Stay tuned!

Okay.

I realize I haven't been posting much. And I also realize that the "busy" excuse is played out, even if it's true.

The sad thing is that I have so many photos to share...
Christmas,
Riley's sledding party,
New Years (well, thankfully there are no photos of *that* night, Melissa),
Portland,

and just so many updates and... things.
Really. I want to get to it all.

This long weekend is my weekend to get caught up. On everything. Laundry, the perpetual January house organization, garage reorg, misc photo editing, scrapbook projects (believe it or not, I actually have a few scrapbook assignments I am working on! And here I thought I was a has-been in the industry!!), the yard, the kids' rooms... all of it.

Too much to take on? Probably.
But it's me. And I am insane.

Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars...

Riley's room was never painted when we moved into the house, and we thought it was about time we did something fun for him. He spent two nights with his cousin Michael and we took that time to design his dream painted room.

We took out all the furniture and painted two colors on the walls - one was a very light grey-green and another a beautiful deep blue-green. Then we primed the back wall and began our mural...

And the room, finally done! You can't see the blue-green walls (they are behind me)... but at least you can see the finished mural. Carl and Liane were awesome artists. I could not have done it without them. And the black on this wall is actually a deep blue-black (called "Galaxy Black" - it's one of the Behr Disney colors). It is so cool cause you can see the blue-ish-ness at certain angles. Rick hung a couple of his ships from the ceiling and still has two more to hang (the Milennium Falcon and Slave 1) but otherwise it's pretty much done.

When Riley came into the room for the first time, he was totally speechless. It was so awesome! The best part was that he insisted that Violet spend the night in the room with him that night, so the two of them can have Star Wars dreams :)