winter beauty

Sometimes during the cloudy, gloomy and pre-snow late fall and early winter days, it is hard to find beauty outside.  But I do think winter can be one of the most beautiful seasons.  Sometimes you just have to do a little more searching to find it.  But yesterday morning we woke up to the trees with a frosty layer from the fog that had set the night before.  It was just gorgeous!  Matt and my dad were able to go outside and take a few pictures.

a Goulet Christmas

If you knew my hubby in his college years, you probably know why these pictures are fantastic.  If not, Matt and Robert Goulet wish you a Merry Christmas!

it's your typical church Sunday school Christmas program

I love watching Sunday school Christmas programs.  It's so fun to see kids retell the Christmas story and sing the classic carols.  This year, I was so thrilled to watch Miriam be a part of the program as she sang with her class for two songs.  She went to a rehearsal the day before and had been belting "Away in a Manger" and "Go Tell it on the Mountain" for the past several weeks around our house.  She was definitely ready.  I wasn't sure how she would do at the actual program, but I brought my camera so my family members who couldn't make it could still see her.  It also always seems like there's that one child who forgets what they're doing on stage or simply decides to sit through the entire program while everyone else stands and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any of those moments.  And, in case you didn't figure out that it was our dear Miriam I'm referring to, she is in the front row with a green and red dress and black top.   

 In other news, this little girl had a much better day yesterday.

faces

{picture credit}

I had a rough day with this little girl today.  She's not feeling well in what seems like a million different ways, but I can't seem to pinpoint exactly what it is.  So there was definitely a lot of holding, cuddling, consoling, and fighting through frustration today.  But then I see these faces and am reminded of the beautiful girl that I love no matter how hard my day is with her.  Tomorrow is a new day and I pray that I can continue to have patience when I feel like all my patience is gone and unconditional love when I am so frustrated.  Yes, tomorrow is a new day.  

how diet coke, google and blogging saved me $161.26

Yesterday we got a disc of all the pictures from our photo shoot (I'll show a few more on here soon) and I decided that I best start putting together our holiday cards in order that we get them out relatively close to Christmas (give or take a few days).  I also thought it would be fun that while I was at it, to make up a photo book with a lot of the pictures from our photo shoot in it.  And here's how I went about it and saved a ton of money...

First, Shutterfly offered 50 free holiday cards this year to bloggers and I went to their site and put together our card:

Didn't it turn out great?  I loved having one that could include so many pictures on it.  Then I added it to my cart, entered the promo code they gave me for the 50 free cards and presto!... my total of $119.50 went down to $8.43 (shipping).  Wow!  I couldn't believe how much I saved!  I also tried to enter another code to zero out that shipping cost, but to no avail.  Sometimes sites will allow multiple codes and sometimes not (and sometimes codes can't be combined).  Ah, well.  I still figured my 50 cards for $8.43 wasn't too shabby.

So then next, I thought I should browse through our "my coke rewards" account to see what kind of picture rewards they had to offer (and look for my picture book I was hoping to get).  We started entering in their codes a few years back seeing as I consume massive quantities of diet coke every day.  It's surprising the things you can get from sometimes not too many points!  We have managed to get free 12 packs, photo calendars, free photo prints, restaurant gift cards and much more.  Anyway, as I was browsing through their picture rewards (and they use Snapfish on their site), I saw they were offering 50 prints free for no points at all!  Score!  I was able to print up all the pictures from our photo shoot with that!  Then, I was able to use 300 or so points (which would amount to about 30 12-packs of coke) to create a photo book that is normally $24.99.  Then, I decided to google "snapfish free shipping code" and found the code SHIP30 which cancelled my entire shipping cost altogether!  So, that's how I saved the other $41.76.  Not too bad, huh?  

9-month well check

Yesterday, Abbie had her 9-month well check (I still can't believe she's 9 months already!).  We all braved the -20* windchills and hopped in the car to head to the clinic.  We are thankful she's healthy and growing!  She is 28 1/2" long (75th percentile), 18 lbs. 5 oz. (40th percentile), and her head size is 17 1/4" (50th percentile).  Looks like we have a long and lean little peanut!

snow day!

Right now, I'm supposed to be making my debut playing French horn with the Chippewa Valley Symphony Orchestra.  But, a blizzard has blown through the midwest and has shut down pretty much everything within a one-hundred mile radius.  And my parents made the trek over from southern Minnesota to watch me play in my concert tonight.  Alas.

Despite our change of plans for the evening, we truly have enjoyed our snow day.  It's one of those blizzards that you wished for every winter as a kid, but never got.  There's just something about an epic snowstorm that brings you back to your childhood wishing and hoping school just maybe would be closed for the day.  Maybe that's just me?  Either way, it's just been fun watching piles and piles of snow adorn our sidewalks and driveways (and watch Matt and my dad shovel and snowblow four separate times throughout the day).  We've also been able to bake cookies, listen to Christmas music and spend time together.  It's been wonderful!

And, on an unrelated note... we were blessed to have someone gift us with a Christmas photo shoot for our family and I got three of the pictures in my email today (a mom of triplets from our church did the shoot--check out her blog and photo blog).  There should be more coming soon.  The girls did pretty well for the whole shoot and I'm just so excited to have some great pictures to choose from for our Christmas card now!

and we have a mover!

{And, in the course of the last twenty minutes, she has managed to crawl over to the computer and turn it on, over to the stereo and turn it off, over by a stack of diapers on a shelf and pull them all out, and then to the Christmas tree to attempt to take an ornament off.  I think we best start babyproofing.}

an artist in the making

One of my favorite things about Miriam growing up is that she just loves to sit and paint, color, cut or do anything craft-related.  I'm not all that crafty, but I do love art and enjoy doing these activities with her.  It's also fun just to watch her sit and keep herself occupied doing these things by herself!  It sure helps when I'm trying to take care of Abbie or do other things around the house.  It's always fun to see what she comes up with when she colors and paints --we can already see a very creative mind in her!

big sister, little sister

Lord, you are

Over this past year, the Lord has shown me the power of speaking out loud Who He says He is.  So many times throughout my day, I feel weak, in need of direction, helpless, and just in need of my Jesus.  When I recognize that need for Him, I speak the Truth of His character.  When I am weak, I say, "Lord, you are my Strength"  (Psalm 28:7).  When I need help, I say, "Lord, you are my Help" (Heb. 13:6).  When I feel like running away, I say, "Lord, you are my Refuge" (Psalm 91:2).  God shows His character through His Word; the more I study and learn Who He is, the more I can recognize His strength and power in me when I am weak.  And I truly believe there is power in speaking it.

Praise Him for all that He is.    

Shutterfly Christmas cards

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to send out our family Christmas letter and picture card (although I have yet to write up that Christmas letter yet.  I probably should get going soon).  Each year, I browse through many of the online photo sites to find my favorite picture card to use.  This year, Shutterfly is offering 50 free holiday cards to bloggers and I'm so thankful to be able to take advantage of it!  Shutterfly has so many holiday cards to choose from --I'm actually not sure which one I'm going to pick yet because there are so many I love.  I really like that there are cards that can have one, two or more pictures on it.  That way, I can use more than one of my pictures from my attempts at Christmas pictures thus far!

I've used Shutterfly in the past for prints, calendars, and gift mugs.  They have many other gifts to choose from, too and are really reasonably priced.  Plus, I often get email promotions that offer deals on many of their products.  I've used the calendars for gifts (especially for grandparents!) and they always love looking at pictures of their grandkids each month.  They're really easy to make and have many different backgrounds and layouts to choose from.  The mugs also make a great gift for that coffee or hot chocolate drinker you may know!  I think photo gifts make such wonderful gifts because they are personal and unique.

So, I recommend taking a look at Shutterfly when you need to do your next picture order!

musings on moving from montana

My last post about Montana was sort of left "to be continued," so I thought I best continue a bit on our very quick jaunt out to Montana to move Matt's mom back to Wisconsin.  For lack of time to write a completely detailed post about everything that happened while we were there, I am going to make a list of some of the more noteworthy things that happened, or things we noticed and/or discovered along the way:

*Spending hours upon hours in a car calls for a lot of food.  We had every junk food imaginable: chips, cookies, candy, and cupcakes (I guess all of our non-healthy food started with 'c').  We had a few healthy things, too (apples, carrots, and sandwiches).
*iPods, a sermon series, Christmas music, movies and chatting will help pass the time driving.
*Seeing the mountains always makes me so in awe of our Lord and His creation.
*It takes a lot longer on the return trip when you're hauling a massive trailer and driving through a blizzard.
*November in South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota and Wisconsin is cold.
*Gas mileage is cut in having when you're hauling a trailer.  That's important to remember when it's 9* and the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota.  You may be very, very close to running out of gas before you find a gas station and may call 911 because you were really that close to running out.  God provided us with gas when we literally had none.
*It's always good to have friends in Fargo who are willing to house three very tired people at 3:00am so that you can catch just a few hours of sleep before continuing the last five or so hours of the trip.  Thanks, Ryan and Emily!
*God answers prayers.  We know we had so many people praying for us on this trip and we could see how He watched over us the entire time.  We were able to leave early and got ahead of a big snowstorm that we didn't even know was coming (although we did go through part of it).  We were safe through the storm.  We made it back in good timing.  We fit almost everything into our trailer.  And, we did have some fun times together despite a lot of things that were potentially stressful!

a Black Friday find

My mom and I have gone shopping on Black Friday for several years now.  We don't ever get up extreme early for the really big deals, but just shop during the day and see what we can find (or look through whatever is left).  This is all very unlike my brother, sister-in-law and sister who were up at 2:00am standing in line at Target in 8* weather.  From what I hear, my brother sprinted through the store when the doors opened and walked away with a new tv.  If we ever need a new tv, I'll know who to send on a mission on another Black Friday!  So anyway, my mom and I enjoy browsing through a variety of stores and seeing the great deals we can snatch up.  I think after today, I am almost complete with my Christmas shopping!  We also were able to get a lot of fun clothes for the girls.  These pajamas were some of my favorites from the day.

Perhaps another possibility for a Christmas picture?

an attempt at taking just the right Christmas picture

It was all too reminiscent of when I tried just a regular photo shoot this summer.  I shall try again soon.

2500 miles

...is how far Matt and I traveled in the past four days.  I will attempt to write more of a detailed post about our quick turnaround trip to Missoula, Montana sometime soon.  We drove there to move Matt's mom from Missoula to Wisconsin and conquered a blizzard, a vehicle almost running out of gas, climbing three flights of stairs with many, many boxes, lack of sleep, icy roads, and cold temperatures.  But, we are glad to have her back and enjoyed seeing the mountains for a few days!

More to come...

put your money where your mouth is

I guess Abbie has already embraced that.  Literally.