A New Acquisition!

So Dave has been looking for a long time for the perfect house to flip and he has finally found it!  About three weeks or so ago he bought a row home in downtown Baltimore.  It is in a neighborhood called Canton.  It is super close to Canton Square which is a really popular hang out in Baltimore.  So it is in a perfect location!  They(him and his partner Shawn) are hoping to have the house ready to sell by July! Here are some before pics of the house. I will do my best to keep you posted with updates as it is moving quickly and so much has already been done.


Master Bedroom



House with the blue door.

Laundry/Soon to be part 1/2 bath

Master Bath

One of the three bedrooms

Middle Floor Bathroom

Another of the three bedrooms

Kitchen

Living Room

Another pic of the living room

First Dip in the Cove!

We were outside this morning because the weather has been so perfect lately!  We noticed the tide was really high, a few inches above the dock.  Of course we couldn't resist playing in it!  Since the temperature of the water wasn't too cold, Squeeze decided to get all the way in.  Just a little taste of what is to come this summer.  Although there are a few(and I mean only a few) downsides to the weather here in MD, the winter makes you so thankful for the Spring and Summer.  The flowers are amazing!  One of my favorites are the Azaleas.  You feel like one day you wake up and all of a sudden the trees have leaves on them.  It really is a magical time of year.  I am so thankful for Gods unlimited creativity and how he has given us so much here on earth that enhances our lives.

Rainbow Pancakes!!!

This morning we made rainbow pancakes!  Lately I have been doing home-preschool with Sequoia.  I found a couple of amazing websites that have really given me a lot of ideas.  One of the websties, http://www.totallytots.blogspot.com/ has a monthly post that includes fun cooking ideas you can do with your kids.  It usually has a book that goes along with activity.  So today we read Duckie's Rainbow and whipped up our pancakes.  Squeeze helped me mix up the batter and get it to its rainbowy colors.  Here are some pictures from our fun morning.

Job Update!!!

So I realized that I have not posted an update regarding my job situation.  Lets just say that God is amazing!!!!!!!  I got a call about a week before I left for CA from someone at SAIC that needed a part time admin and working from home was an option.  Not a lot of those opportunities come up too often. So I interviewed the day before we left.  I heard while in CA that I got the job.  I was technically only unemployed by SAIC for about three weeks!  It is hard to believe how blessed I am with this job!  I go into the office one day a week and the rest of my hours are from home.  When I was layed off, I really doubted that I would be able to find another job that was so perfect for me, one that I could be with my girls most of the time and still help out the family by bringing in some income.  I have been working at this job for about three weeks now.  And so far it has been going really well.  My boss is very easy going and easy to work with. 

So thanks so much to all of you who were praying for me and really having more faith than I that God would take care of me.  I needed the encouragment!

God is faithful!

Father Daughter Dance

This past weekend, Dave took Squeeze to a Father Daughter dance at our church.  It was precious!  I got Squeeze all gussied up and Dave put on his suit and tie.  The theme was "Under the Sea".  They had a great time together.  There was dancing, food, entertainment, and more.  And if that wasn't enough, Dave took her to Friendlies afterwards for an ice cream sundae.  Here are some photos of the night.

The Rule of Three's

So my last blog I admitted to being a little bit down.  Life continues to bring challenges.  This has been a tough past week for me and my family.  1. On Monday I was laid off from work, 2. On Tuesday my Grandmother Helen passed away, and 3. On Saturday Dave's Grandma Ruby passed away.

I had a heads up about the possibility of lay offs at work but is still did not completely prepare me for when it did happen.  I have one more week on paid time left and then some more time after that with my benefits but then that is it.  There are so many worries that come along with this event.  All benefits are through me.  And for the past year and a half, I have been the steady income for our household.  Dave of course has been working on and off and is thankfully on a job right now, but that will soon be over.  So what will happen?  Something I have been hearing myself say over and over again is "I don't know".  I am usually not too much of a worrier, but I am finding it hard not to in this situation.  It is taking me a while to get to bed at night (something that I am not used to).  I am feeling nautious, getting a lot of headaches, having trouble taking deep breaths.  So obvioulsy it is taking a toll on me physically and emotionally.  As much as I KNOW that God is in control and has a plan for my life, it is hard to really feel that way sometimes.  Through this all though, I know there is hope.  God is not done with me or Dave yet.  Out of this tough situation I am hoping to learn all that God has for me.  I am hoping to learn more about myself and to come out of this tough spot stronger in my faith in God.  But as for now, I am right in the middle of it.  And probably will be for a while.  I pray that I really learn all that God has for me in the midst of this tough time.

 

Onto number two.  My grandmother, Helen Schreiner passed away on Tuesday.  She was such an amazing woman of God!  And it is ultimately a blessing.  She had dimentia and hadn't really been herself for a few years now.  And we know she is where she wanted to be, with the Lord. There are so many things that come to mind when I think of her.  She was such an amazing woman of prayer and so patient with her requests.  She prayed for my grandfather for years to come to Christ.  And after years of prayting my Grandpa accepted Christ while watching a tele-evangelist.  Because of her I have the father I do.  My brother was telling his children that one of the main reasons we know Christ is because of her.  She raised my Dad to follow Christ and he in turn taught us about Christ and so on.  I am so blessed to have the family heritage that I do.  We would often go to her house for a week or so in the summer.    



Puzzle Earings!

She would always have a craft or something for us to work on.  One that sticks out were these puzzle piece earings.  I looked through all my pictures to see if I could find a picture of these earings and I was successful.  Not the best picture of me, but you can kind of see the earings.   

Last time I was in Grandma's Barstow home

I will be forever grateful for her life and the amazing impact it has had on my own.

And number three.  Dave's grandma Ruby passed away this Saturday.  This one has been a little harder because it all happened so quickly.  During Thansgiving Ruby wasn't feeling well.  She ended up having shingles.  She got them around her eye and they were extremely painful.  Because of the pain medication she needed to control the pain she was admitted to the hospital.  Her health and state of mind continued to deteriorate and before we could really catch our breaths she was gone.  Ruby was an amazing woman.  She loved to cook and always had 20 times more food ready for you than was needed.  She was so generous!  She loved yard sale shopping and was always picking up little things for the girls.  She always gave the girls coins when she saw them.  Sequoia loved this of course.  The girls, Dave and I last saw Ruby on Friday.  She was pretty unresponsive at that point.  Sequoia sat on her bed and held her hand.  It was special to see how Sequoia comforted Ruby throughout the past month when we would visit her.  Ruby's absence will be felt often by all of us. 

Life After Christmas

So I am already missing my weekly goal of one post a week!  I am not too suprised.

 I must admit to being a little bit down after the holiday's.  I really missed being with my family in California.  And then, once Christmas was over, all that I have been thinking about and working on are finished.  We have been on a break from preschool and will start up again in February.  I have really missed the twice a week interaction with the other families.  Of course there are many other factors but I won't go into those on this post.  The result of this mild depression is a dirty house, piles of laundry, lack of discipline, lack of attention to my husband and children, not much time spent with the Lord, and an obvious lack of motivation. 

This is obviously a change in subject, but I wanted to share.  One thing I have been doing a lot of is crochet.  I got back into crocheting a few months ago.  I crocheted hats for my girls and all the kids in preschool.  Then I found this book called Tasty Crochet.  It has all kinds of food items that you can crochet.  So I got this idea to make a bunch of them for Sequoia's birthday (which is just around the corner).  She doesn't have any food play things so I know she will love them.  And they have been so fun to make.  Here are some pics of the things I have finished so far.

 Salami sandwhich on whole weat

Pancakes, Eggs and Bacon

Toaster Studel and toast triangles.

Preschool Christmas Party

So eveyone knows how much I have loved our preschool this year. It has been amazing! God has brought together such an amazing group of women with so many varying talents to add to the mix. Erin and Kate have been the experts regarding curiculum. Lauren and I have been in charge of Bible. LB of course in charge of art (no surprise there). And Melissa who joined us later in the year got stuck with snack (obviously she adds much more to the group than just bringing us food!).

We had our last meeting for 2010 and celebrated Jesus's birth. We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and enjoyed some muffins that Erin made us. Then we went downstairs for the book exchange. We had the books under chairs and had the kids walk around until the music stopped. Wherever they landed determined what book they recieved.

My favorite part was the nativity play. Lauren and I had an idea to use old sheets to make the nativity costumes. My mom happened to be in town when we were planning on making them. She convienently made them all for us. They worked out perfectly! The kids were adorable. Squeeze played Mary, Natalie was our angel, Rory was the wiseman, Jamie was the Shepard and Peyton played Joseph. I really can't explain in words how precious it was. The pictures don't do it justice.

So we are breaking for about a month an a half. I am super sad about that and will miss the weekly interaction with the moms. Looking forward to February!

I'm Back!

So, it has been a long time! But I have been convicted to start blogging again. Life changes so quickly, and I easily forget so many of the little things that happen in my families lives. I want to be able to remember the small, seemingly insignificant things that go on in our everyday lives. And in order for that to happen (since I have such a horrible memory), I need to record them. So let's see how long I last.There is no way I can catch up on the last two years, so I will just give a few highlights.

Obviously, Cheyenne was added to our family! She is so wonderful and so different from Sequoia! She has endless energy and wants our attention pretty much every waking moment. So that has been challenging. She got pretty sick this past summer and went into the hospital for about a week. It was an extremely tough week to say the least. There were many tests and many sleepless nights, but they really couldn't find out what happened. We are still going through some genetic testing so we will see if they can find anything. She is almost 18 months old now. She just finally reached 20lbs! She is still not on the growth charts, but at least we were able to turn her car seat around. She is just starting to really walk which is so exciting. She has taken her time but I think she is really wanting to do it now. She has a smile that lights up her face.

Sequoia is amazing! I cannot believe how much fun I have with her. She can sit for such long periods of time coloring, drawing and doing art things. She is very friendly and so easy going. We started a preschool with a group of families (which I will blog about later) and Sequoia has really been loving it. This past summer she did so amazing in the water. She loved to swim and jump off the back of the boat. She would name each jump. They almost always started with "American". Examples: American boat, American face, and so on.

There have been ups and downs for Dave and I the past few years. But it is amazing to see how God has provided. I feel like lately within in our group of friends, there have been so many hard things going on. It has been overwhelming lately. But I do know that God is faithful and he does have a plan. I have been blessed to be a part of their lives and them in mine. The struggles in life are made so much more bearable when we have others to share them with. As much as I miss my family and friends back home in CA, I have really been blessed with the friends that God has given me here. They have enhanced my life richly.

Hume Lake!

We took our yearly family vacation up to Hume. This time Tim, LB and Abel joined from Maryland. We were able to spend some quality time with the Careys and the Lakes. We had a great time as always.

Sequoia's 1st Birthday

For Sequoia's birthday we had friends and family over for dinner and cake. It was a little packed, but we had a good time. As you can see from the picture to the left, Sequoia got a Kermit the frog from her Aunt Amy in Chicago. Amy had a kermit when she was growing up that she loved, in fact she still has it.

Sequoia loved her chocolate cake. We finally had to pull her away from it before she did too much damage. She didn't get sick after all that sugar, but her diapers were't too fun for the next couple days.

Christmas

This Christmas we were able to go home to Escondido. We had to make a stop in Clovis to visit with Apes and Moners. We got to meet Sophie and hang out with Peter. It was as usual, way too short of a visit.
Of course one of our family traditions is to read the Christmas story before opening presents. This is a picture of my dad reading from the Bible with the boys looking on. We had such a great time with my family. We all went to the beach together to take some family pictures. We also fulfilled a few more family traditions. We went to Tio Leo's together and to Balbo Park to check out the life-sized nativity scene.

Not even being a year old, Sequoia wasn't too excited about opening gifts, but she did love playing with her new presents. We opened presents with the immediate Lewis family on Christmas morning and then that afternoon we had a progressive dinner. It was so good to spend time with the family from out of town. Sequoia especially loved hanging out with her Aunt Amy from Chicago.