Ramblings of a Crowded Mind & Full Heart: December 2011

Another year has come and gone so quickly, I swear time is speeding up! Although I didn't spend much time blogging (at least the second half of the year) I wanted to recap some highlights from each month and share them with you. 2011 was a really good year, not a lot of big things happened but really it's the little things that make up our lives. Milestones are great markers but if we can enjoy the day to day, we really will relish our time here on earth. So here are a few of my photos taken, marking a few bigger events but mostly just capturing a bit of the joy we shared throughout our year...

January

My little brother's first baby, a sweet girl named Emily, was born! It made me feel a little old when he became a dad, but I've gotten over it :).

February

This month started out rough for us, David, Isaiah and I all got strep throat, while Josh got infantigo. By the time we were all recovered our family had been "out of commission" for 2 weeks! Here are my boys after they were starting to feel (not look haha) better. They were playing ninja worms :).

The month ended better with a sleepover with cousins and SLEDDING!

March

Isaiah turned 5 in style with a big bash at a local bounce house. We are so blessed by the friends and family who came from near (& far, Kenya & Co:) to celebrate with us!

April

This was a fantastic month, with half of it spent in Oregon visiting friends and family. Here we are with our best friends the Eastburns during a weekend spent on the coast.

We also got to visit with David's Grandpa, who came up from Texas, here are three generation of Petty men (& Petty ears!:).

It is always fun to hang out with David's brother James, Jodie, Sophia and Bethany.

I took the boys by my alma mater, I think they were more interested in the candy we got at the store than seeing any of mommies college campus :).

Again, we are so blessed by our friends! Here we are in front of Mom and Dad P's house with our best friends the Pattees.

May

Our baby turned 3 and celebrated with friends and the giant cookie he wanted instead of cake :)

FISHING! We had no luck catching (or even finding) fish but it was a great day nonetheless.

June

Family camp!!! It was our first year attending and we very much enjoyed it. Here are my nieces getting ready to run the "Amazing Race".

As we do every year, we went on our "Girls Camping Trip" this year re-dubbed the "Mom & kids" camping trip by Isaiah cause "he's not a girl" :). Here my boy's and I are on the banks of Montana Creek.

Here's a small group of the kiddos we took on the walking bridge over the river- too cute!

July

My nephews and I hiked a mountain in Hatcher's Pass. Made me feel pretty good to beat the 14 year old up the mountain! I did not, however, feel good the next ~~week~~ day!

The end of the month we made a trip south to Soldotna to visit friends. Here are Isaiah and Koen (aren't they cute?!) at the Founders Day (I think:S) Parade. It is pretty neat to see my son and my old high school bestie's (still a bestie:) son be such good buddies themselves.

While the guys decided to avoid the CHAOS that was dip-netting on the Peninsula this year, they did do some bank fishing and brought home some reds.

We did a lot of walking around the property this spring/summer/fall. Here is my favorite picture, taken the end of July, of Isaiah, Josh and their cousins, Zion, Levi and Hadassah.

August

We tried our hand at picking wild Alaskan blueberries in Hatcher's Pass this year. The boys did a little more wrestling than picking haha.

My hubby surprised me with a visit from my best friend! It was a total shock, but SO GREAT!

David and I celebrated 11 years, I didn't have a good recent picture of the two of us so I just used this one I took of him that I love. I am so in love with this man, I adore him and am so thankful for the 11 years I have been lucky to call him mine :).

My baby started school this year! It was pretty tough on mommy but thank the Lord he LOVES it!

Trip to the fair, it was a fun day AND I got a great pic of all the kids LOOKING.

September

My boys and I went to a fall festival at a local u-pick farm (you can read more about it here). It was WAY too crowded but we did enjoy the hayride :)

October

In October I was SO blessed to get the chance to travel to Oregon to help my best friend Julia after the birth of her daughter. I got to see Karey again too while I was there too! This is us, with Julia's newest little one. I am so blessed by these women, my close friends for over a decade now.

Me and Uriah, Julia's oldest. He's my buddy :)

November

Thanksgiving was it's usual fun insanity with our annual large gathering held at our church. Here are Isaiah, Zion, Joshua and Joseph paused in the middle of ~~destroying~~ playing in the nursery.

Me and my lovely (growing so fast!) niece Emily on Thanksgiving.

December

My boys with our traditional gingerbread house. I love these kids!

Christmas day, in the midst of all their loot. As always, watching them open gifts is hilarious.

December 31st marks my dad's 60th year. In December we also learned his liver is severely damaged by cirrhosis. The doctors are in the process of trying to determine just how damaged and what it will mean for his future years. The news, while shocking and alarming at first, has settled in a little. Whatever the future holds, he is in God's hands. We are praying for full healing, we would love you to join us in that. He is a good man, my daddy, one of integrity, honor, pride, love, he is hardworking, fun, intelligent, and my hero in many many ways. Happy birthday dad, may God bless you (& us!) with many more years!

Finally, I will end my photographic trip down memory lane with this beautiful one taken just the other day on our road.

So there you have it, 2011 in a nutshell ("look at me, I'm in a nutshell":). It seems funny to catalog the year in this way, because there are so many things between the lines (or pictures:) that cannot be fully expressed in a blog. Guess those things will have to remain tucked away in my heart. Looking ahead to what 2012 may hold, expecting great things and truly thankful for what I have. May your next year be blessed!

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

Ok, so I keep intending to return to blogging more frequently, blog ideas float around in my head often, and still somehow I do not post them. That being said, I do enjoy blogging so here is one that I've been thinking about since last weekend....

Living out of town has it's advantages, plenty of room to run, no need for shades to keep your neighbors from peeking in your windows (accidentally or on purpose), wildlife viewing, lots of quiet...I love it. Up until now I have mostly blogged about the positives, it does, however, also has it's disadvantages. Take last weekend as an example, we went without power for a solid 16 hours. Maybe not such a big deal to many of you, but less than a week away from solstice in Alaska meant we *literally* spent most of the day in the dark. The lack of water, use of a refrigerator, cooler temperatures, cold food I can handle, even the toilets being un-flushable (while gross) doesn't send me over the edge, but a day spent in near darkness is tough to handle. You would think we were prepared for such an occurrence, knowing we live in an area prone to outages (although up to this point we have had only one other outage lasting this long) but, as it turns out, we are not. One lantern, a few candles and a flashlight was all we had to keep myself and four kids (I was plus two) from tripping all over and illuminate some kind of entertainment for us all (my poor husband spent several hours working by headlamp on our new heating system in our shop).
The kids were pretty good and we held up ok, even had some laughs together. We spent hours coloring, playing board games, the kids played in their tent with the lantern, sat together playing a new iPad game all about words and imagination, had dinner by candlelight....all in all not a bad day. I confess though, when the lights came back on (right after David enjoyed a "yummy" freeze dried dinner haha) I danced around the house in excitement. Despite being a decent day, perpetual darkness can really start to weigh you down, I hadn't even fully realized how much until the lights lit up my dark home.

There really is something about light over darkness that brings life to your heart. I suppose that is why Jesus used light when talking about himself. We wander in the darkness of this world, thinking we are living well, making due with what we have but when the light shines into our life suddenly our hearts are lighter and we see what we have truly been missing.

"Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, 'I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.' "-John 8:12 (NLT)