a christmas tour

christmas cards from the mail go right to the refrigerator
our favorite christmas fruits (matt loves the clementines and i am eating my weight in ruby red sweet grapefruit!) and candles (mulled spices, christmas treats, and christmas cookie are what's burning now)
our old christmas tree is now in micah's nursery with tiny ornaments. every morning, he sits in his little chair and we turn on the tree and look at the ornaments
our nativity snow globe and handmade christmas card from amy (the snow globe is covering a corner that has a bite out of it...dobby got a little zealous for the christmas story one night while we were gone!
this is my morning when i'm not going in to curves. coffee (gingerbread or pumpkin spice creamer!), lit candles and stories to read to micah in his bouncer
our once beautiful christmas wreath (the sun is mercilessly baking it every day) that i try to revive with constant misting. it still smells so woodsy, so i am thankful
and our real tree! no presents under it because of a certain dobby, but i love turning this on in the morning and sitting by it in the evening.
i wanted to have him be our angel tree-topper!
at the staff christmas party...

it has been fun to decorate for christmas this year, and start little traditions - having youth over for christmas tea and cookies the night our decorations go up, making christmas biscotti and taking it to our neighbors, and having a real tree and wreath that smells amazing (the wreath is fresh from oregon, but hasn't stood up to our florida sun so well....the browning makes me mildly depressed)

since not many out of town readers will get to be in our house over the holidays, i thought i would take you for a little tour, and show you what december has been like in the girden house. (and would LOVE to see pictures of your christmas cozy places - hint, hint!)

some firsts...

first poinsetta
first christmas tree
first thanksgiving
first college tour!
first swing at ballard park
first fish - he helped catch it!

and this morning is the first saturday morning in a long time that it's been just micah and i! i love the feeling of a cozy rainy day with the whole morning ahead. time for gingerbread coffee and reading his new favorite book - little beauty (thanks em!)

our pea in a pod

that feeling

the house is clean, the mulled spice candle is lit, the coffee is perking and waiting for my new caramel macchiato creamer, and for breakfast there are two homemade guava pastries calling my name that our friends wrapped up for us last night!

now...to sit in the sunny living room with my coffee and think about the day ahead. oh i love saturday mornings like this!!

a photo catch up (of micah of course!)

that worried face!

weekend to weekend

this week had the pleasant feeling of being sandwiched between two very fun weekends....using up the last of the coffee we flew through when emily was here, and looking forward to a labor day off and plans for a mini 'stay-cation' this weekend.

it was so fun to have emily here, and to have a lot of face-to-face hours to represent the hundreds of phone hours we rack up during the year. it felt like a stretched-out weekend, with lots of time to have chicken salad beachside in vero, watch a midnight shuttle launch over the water, go through pots and pots of coffee with italian sweet cream, walk on the beach, go for a swim, get ice cream at dells two nights in a row, and spend hours perusing facebook and laughing our heads off. micah loved his auntie emily, and tried his best to charm her!

on sunday, matt was ordained as youth pastor at the church. it was such an honor, and so fun to have emily out for the time. matt's parents were also in town for the weekend and my parents came out for the ordination, so it was a really celebratory time.

so now...some pictures from the weekend (the one is of the shuttle launch over our heads!) and then i am off to get a haircut. depending how it turns out, i may not be posting pictures for awhile! yea for labor day weekend!

an hour of micah's life...

reading from his favorite bible...(thanks uncle mark and auntie lauren!)


trying to nap (is it a surprise that these wide eyes didn't want to close?)


hitting dobby in the face. dobby then licked his hand - a great example of turning the other cheek!


playing on his 'farm' micah's feet don't touch the ground yet, so he's suspended like an angel. it is so cute to see his chunky thighs dangling in the air...


helping me with the laundry. whichever piece he would grab i would fold! as you can see, i've never gotten the hang of separating your dark clothes from whites!


sitting in the swing, preparing to cry - it was a busy hour, and no one likes having a camera flash in their face all the time!

birthday weekend!

had a wonderful weekend to celebrate my birthday. the day started with matt bringing me coffee and a bagel in bed. then i had a lot of time to putter around the house in my pj's and get stuff ready for scott, holly and cora's arrival that night! we had a great time with them...dulce de leche birthday cake, going to the brevard zoo saturday night, a bbq picnic at ballard park sunday afternoon, and a lot of fun times watching cora and micah play together around the house. it is so nice to have family close! they were so sweet to watch micah on saturday while matt and i went to mike and ashley's wedding - a great time celebrating with them and being with our youth kids without always worrying about micah! some pictures from the weekend...

wedding pictures!

some of the wedding pictures are done! check them out at http://blog.emilyjohnstonanderson.com/
they are just beautiful....

other fun things this past week...
our first 'core group' meeting at youth. a group of 6 or so that want to be discipled. we will meet for an hour each week for discussion/accountability. so excited for this!
a 'luau' with our youth kids on thursday. pineapple upside-down cake, kebabs and a hula contest followed by a bonfire. so sad i gave up my hula skirt and coconut top after wheaton!
a last-minute invitation to go to longdoggers with the Gonda family. they just had a really cute little girl 2 weeks ago. it was fun to sit outside and just chat on a friday night...

micah is sitting in his bouncy chair watching 'praise baby'. we just realized how much he loves these videos, and it buys us 30 minutes of un-interupted time...although we have a nagging guilty feeling the whole time that our child is in front of the tv being 'babysat' by a screen!

it's been an easy saturday. matt and i played tennis at the park this morning after i made a pancake and egg breakfast, and i just finished making blueberry lemon scones and chicken salad for the week...the laundry is done, and my inbox is cleaned out. it's a great feeling to be ready for the week ahead...

dog days of summer

it was such a sweet time to go the new jersey shore - a welcome break from the heat, but so much more so...an amazing celebration of mark and lauren. the love that they have for each other and the joy that they shared with everyone around them was so refreshing to be around - like taking a long cool splashy drink of water. such an emotional weekend. as matt put it 'you'd have to have a heart of STONE to not cry!' a full weekend of events - a picnic on the lawn of ocean grove overlooking the beach with the bridesmaids, a brunch at the castelli tenthouse, a beach day with the wedding party, a southern bbq rehearsal dinner on the open air porch of the B&B (complete with made-from-scratch guacamole, corn chowder, ribs, blueberry tea and an ice cream bar to top it all off!), and the wedding day! beautiful pictures on the beach with our pool party blue dresses and parasols - they are going to look amazing! the wedding itself was so mark and lauren - second story of a pier house with open windows to see the ocean and hear the waves on the clearest, bluest wedding day imaginable. lauren was radiant, and mark was beaming. hours on the dance floor and an amazing lunch and cupcakes/candy, followed by a sunset after-party on the beach with s'mores, a bonfire, sparklers and games in the sand. such a sweet weekend...so many beautiful details and wonderful memories and being so so happy for mark and lauren and their joyous life ahead.

we were so busy i forgot to take pictures- i'll post a link when they are ready, but here are a few of micah of course, and some scattered wedding weekend pictures!

the 4th of july

for the first time since 2006, we got up to the lake for the 4th. there was so much to celebrate - the first year of having kids around, all being together again, but mainly mark and lauren! we had a shower for lauren, and it was so much fun to have her family out for the weekend. as usual, we ate all day long, grilled at night, long bike rides and walks, sat on the back deck under the leafy trees, swam off the dock and cruised around in the boat. the weekend went too fast, and seemed to go even faster since we were in a different room every night! there were so many sweet moments to the weekend - laughing so hard i wet my pants on two different occasions, our family service on sunday morning with quiche and monkey bread and steaming coffee, the early morning time micah and i spent with holly and cora (and a HUGE cup of coffee!), the feeling of watching sunset from the front porch when everything got quiet, and the first jump in the lake off the dock with matt, and seeing the sparkle between mark and lauren. unforgettable times...

this week in words and pictures

this is the kind of weekend we've been waiting for since micah was born...that saturday morning feeling of no set plans for the day...sleeping in, drinking coffee and getting some things done around the house. matt is mowing the yard and micah just fell asleep beside me on the couch with dobby at his feet. it's a beautiful june sunny saturday, so it seems a shame to still be in my pj's, but i am! last weekend matt's family came out to melbourne, so we spent several days poolside at a beach hotel. it was so relaxing, and fun to be swimming again! i forgot how good it can feel to jump into a cold pool on a scorching day...

i've been going into curves really early lately...finding i can get so much more done in the morning, and it's easier to leave micah with matt when he has a few more hours of sleep left in him! it does get tiring getting up at 5 or 5.30 several days a week, but it pays off when i can come home in the afternoon and still have time to do things at home.

on tuesday, we went up to starke, FL with 12 people from our youth group to put on a carnival for scott and holly's kids camp. it was a long day (3-4 hour drive each way), but so worth it to see the excitement on these kids' faces winning prizes and watching the magic show. scott and holly did an amazing job of pulling this camp together, and giving these kids an unforgettable time.

the days are just flying by now...we're getting into a summer routine of long walks around the neighborhood, iced coffee, and getting excited for mark and lauren's wedding in july! in other news, our plumeria tree in the front has finally bloomed! after 8 months of waiting, we started seeing buds last week, and right now it has 9 beautiful blooms that bring back so many hawaii memories every time we walk by and catch a whiff...here are some pictures of the early blooms, the camp, beach time with matt's family and a few of micah (of course!)