Our car is hanging by a thin thread. Too thin for me to be willing to drive it. Quinn still drives it the three miles to and from work, but to do so he has to hand pump the clutch each time he needs to shift and hot wire the tail lights to get them to stay on.
So we're car shopping to get ideas while we wait on our tax refund, but in the mean time my Dad has loaned us his old Ford Windstar minivan that he's used for electrical work for several years. I realized driving it home last night that I am terrible at driving an automatic. 2 years in manual transmissions has ruined me. At one point I used my left foot to brake and nearly went through the windshield. That's not how you're supposed to brake. Darnitall.
Anywho, all that to say, it's gonna take a little practice to get back in the groove, but it's good for me. :D
The tales of love, joy, pain and humor as they are enjoyed by our happy crew!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Merry Christmas!!
I'm feeling so very pampered right now. Quinn took me for a haircut last week, and we re-colored it to take it back to dark, so I'm a brunette again! He also brought home a pre-Christmas present when my little handmixer died, making Christmas baking difficult. I'm now the proud owner of a KitchenAid handmixer. It's beautiful.
Christmas was beautiful for us all as well. We got to have Quinn's little sisters here for Christmas morning, and we had a wonderful time with them. We picked them up at Becca's house the night before where we were celebrating Christmas with his Mom and siblings and brought them home for the night.We watched Despicable Me and ate popcorn and drank hot chocolate then all crashed shortly after midnight.
We slept in a bit the next morning, and woke up to a light sprinkling of snow on the ground. I knew that was supposed to happen, but didn't expect it to.
Christmas was beautiful for us all as well. We got to have Quinn's little sisters here for Christmas morning, and we had a wonderful time with them. We picked them up at Becca's house the night before where we were celebrating Christmas with his Mom and siblings and brought them home for the night.We watched Despicable Me and ate popcorn and drank hot chocolate then all crashed shortly after midnight.
We slept in a bit the next morning, and woke up to a light sprinkling of snow on the ground. I knew that was supposed to happen, but didn't expect it to.
Charity-Christmas Morning
Tabitha-Christmas morning
Gavin's stocking
My stocking stuffer from Quinn *love*
Gavin and his stocking stuffers
Quinn going ape on his stocking
Quinn's Jos. A Banks coat that I got for him.
My Husqvarna Viking that Quinn got for me. Heck yeah.
After our morning together we went out to my family's house for lunch. It was a crazy fun little event that I took no pictures of, so I'll have to pirate them off of my Mom's laptaop.
From there we went back to Becca's for Christmas with Quinn's Dad. Pictures from that:
My boys at Becca's
Grandpa Matt with the two Grandbabies: Gavin and Ella
Becca and I with our babies- best friends for 7 years now. <3
Friday, December 24, 2010
New Year Letter
I can't bear to write a Year-End letter. I hate endings. The song that says "endings always come to fast; they come to fast and they pass too slow" has always struck a chord with me, therefore, this is the New Year Letter. We have a New Year ahead of us. A new year that we pray will be as full of God's grace and mercy, as full of joys, as full of growth and excitement as this past year has been. We're so grateful for all He has done in the last 50some odd weeks.
January brought Quinn's diploma, certifying his Bachelor's in Natural Arts and Sciences, his 25th birthday, as well as massive boxes of hot pockets and stacks of canned soup while we dealt with 8 weeks of morning sickness that was the expected result of the pregnancy we announced on Christmas Day.
In February we combined our birthday budgets that we had for each other and bought our dream from the summer before- a 16 foot Buffalo canoe that we strapped on top of our little 1993 Mazda and drug home to our 1 bedroom apartment until we could take it to the Finley and chain it up. After trying to fit it through the door, then trying to drag it over our balcony rail into our living room, it ended up standing on the ground a floor below us and leaning on our balcony. It was an adventure.
March brought a trip to Rockford to see the Grandparents and a day trip into Chicago to stand in the SkyDeck Ledge in the Sears (now Willis) Tower and eat the biggest, yummiest pizza we'd ever had. My 20th birthday came a few days after we got home and we celebrated by going to an ultrasound where we discovered that our sweet little somebody was a sweet little BOY, then walking to the next building to visit our brand new niece, Ella Kinzy, who was born to Becca and Nathan that morning.
In April Quinn was on his bicycle, riding to MSU for some classes while I was in Branson shopping with my Mom, Gramma and sisters/sisters-in-law, when an SUV decided to take a turn into his path. He made a pretty good impression on their door, took a ride in the ambulance, and now, after 7 months of constant back pain, has finally been released from physical therapy and the chiropractor and we might actually get an insurance settlement. It was also an adventure, though one that we could have skipped.
May brought a rather odd, and spontaneous adventure that we got to add to our list. It was insane, but one afternoon we decided that we should take a 22 mile float trip, just the two of us, with nothing but a one man tent, a blanket, enough food for 4 meals and some sunscreen. We had the time of our lives. We lost a pile of stuff when we swamped the canoe trying to get under a log, and I didn't hardly sleep at all (6 months pregnant on the ground isn't as easy as it seemed like it was going to be) but that's a memory that we will laugh at for the rest of time.
In June we got to go on another float- this one as an addition to the bachelor party camping trip of Quinn's best friend, Rann. The guys finished hanging out and most of them headed home, but Rann and Quinn decided another night would be fun, so they called Jenn and I and we headed out to spend the night on a gravel bar. The end of the month brought their beautiful wedding, with Quinn as a groomsman and marked our 1st wedding anniversary and we celebrated with a trip to Eureka Springs, AR and yet another short float.
July was a bit of a blur as we packed up everything in our first apartment and storage unit moved into our newer, twice as big, 2 bedroom apartment. My Sister-In-Law Becca threw a beautiful baby shower for Gavin and we were hugely blessed by all the wonderful gifts from family and friends.
August brought the most precious gift imaginable. Our beautiful Gavin was born on the 17th at 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 22.5 inches long. He was a big boy and it took a lot of work to get him here, but every day brings a new reason to be grateful that we chose to let the Lord bless us with our little person. We spent Quinn's 2 weeks of maternity leave soaking up every single detail about his little self. He's four months old now and so very grown up. It's hard to believe it's already been that long...
September sent Quinn back to work, and found us spending a couple of nights in N AR at my Gramma's house for Labor Day. My Mom also hosted a beautiful baby blessing where many of the women and girls that I've known all my life came together to fellowship and pray over our baby boy. We topped the month off by finding a retired school piano that we had delivered to our house and spent a week sanding, painting and polyurethaning so that I could start teaching.
October sent us to Dallas so that I could be a bridesmaid in the wedding of dear friends Ashley and Daniel. It was the first real roadtrip for Gavin and he did beautifully. After the pre-wedding festivities in Dallas, we caravanned up to the SE corner of OK for the actual ceremony at a bead and breakfast.
November brought Thanksgiving and all the family events that tend to go along with it. We got our tree that weekend and we've been delighted to watch it slowly grow heavier with special ornaments from family and friends, as well as all the dear decorations from last year's tree.
This month has been a bit of a marathon, but we've enjoyed every bit of it. We've had endless events, including a 3 day roadtrip back to Rockford to let Gavin meet his great grandparents and three Christmas parties so far. As a result of the crazyness, this letter and the cards it will accompany are actually a bit late, but we hope you can forgive us and enjoy it as much as if it had arrived at your homes a couple weeks ago. We're looking forward to the next two days of festivities with our families and are so grateful that the Lord has given us such a precious year of fellowship and blessing.
May you find this coming year to be as full of the grace and love of the Lord as the past has been! Please remember us in your prayers as we continue to live our lives for the glory of Christ Jesus.
God bless and keep you all.
-Quinn, Joanna and Gavin
December, 2010
January brought Quinn's diploma, certifying his Bachelor's in Natural Arts and Sciences, his 25th birthday, as well as massive boxes of hot pockets and stacks of canned soup while we dealt with 8 weeks of morning sickness that was the expected result of the pregnancy we announced on Christmas Day.
In February we combined our birthday budgets that we had for each other and bought our dream from the summer before- a 16 foot Buffalo canoe that we strapped on top of our little 1993 Mazda and drug home to our 1 bedroom apartment until we could take it to the Finley and chain it up. After trying to fit it through the door, then trying to drag it over our balcony rail into our living room, it ended up standing on the ground a floor below us and leaning on our balcony. It was an adventure.
March brought a trip to Rockford to see the Grandparents and a day trip into Chicago to stand in the SkyDeck Ledge in the Sears (now Willis) Tower and eat the biggest, yummiest pizza we'd ever had. My 20th birthday came a few days after we got home and we celebrated by going to an ultrasound where we discovered that our sweet little somebody was a sweet little BOY, then walking to the next building to visit our brand new niece, Ella Kinzy, who was born to Becca and Nathan that morning.
In April Quinn was on his bicycle, riding to MSU for some classes while I was in Branson shopping with my Mom, Gramma and sisters/sisters-in-law, when an SUV decided to take a turn into his path. He made a pretty good impression on their door, took a ride in the ambulance, and now, after 7 months of constant back pain, has finally been released from physical therapy and the chiropractor and we might actually get an insurance settlement. It was also an adventure, though one that we could have skipped.
May brought a rather odd, and spontaneous adventure that we got to add to our list. It was insane, but one afternoon we decided that we should take a 22 mile float trip, just the two of us, with nothing but a one man tent, a blanket, enough food for 4 meals and some sunscreen. We had the time of our lives. We lost a pile of stuff when we swamped the canoe trying to get under a log, and I didn't hardly sleep at all (6 months pregnant on the ground isn't as easy as it seemed like it was going to be) but that's a memory that we will laugh at for the rest of time.
In June we got to go on another float- this one as an addition to the bachelor party camping trip of Quinn's best friend, Rann. The guys finished hanging out and most of them headed home, but Rann and Quinn decided another night would be fun, so they called Jenn and I and we headed out to spend the night on a gravel bar. The end of the month brought their beautiful wedding, with Quinn as a groomsman and marked our 1st wedding anniversary and we celebrated with a trip to Eureka Springs, AR and yet another short float.
July was a bit of a blur as we packed up everything in our first apartment and storage unit moved into our newer, twice as big, 2 bedroom apartment. My Sister-In-Law Becca threw a beautiful baby shower for Gavin and we were hugely blessed by all the wonderful gifts from family and friends.
August brought the most precious gift imaginable. Our beautiful Gavin was born on the 17th at 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 22.5 inches long. He was a big boy and it took a lot of work to get him here, but every day brings a new reason to be grateful that we chose to let the Lord bless us with our little person. We spent Quinn's 2 weeks of maternity leave soaking up every single detail about his little self. He's four months old now and so very grown up. It's hard to believe it's already been that long...
September sent Quinn back to work, and found us spending a couple of nights in N AR at my Gramma's house for Labor Day. My Mom also hosted a beautiful baby blessing where many of the women and girls that I've known all my life came together to fellowship and pray over our baby boy. We topped the month off by finding a retired school piano that we had delivered to our house and spent a week sanding, painting and polyurethaning so that I could start teaching.
October sent us to Dallas so that I could be a bridesmaid in the wedding of dear friends Ashley and Daniel. It was the first real roadtrip for Gavin and he did beautifully. After the pre-wedding festivities in Dallas, we caravanned up to the SE corner of OK for the actual ceremony at a bead and breakfast.
November brought Thanksgiving and all the family events that tend to go along with it. We got our tree that weekend and we've been delighted to watch it slowly grow heavier with special ornaments from family and friends, as well as all the dear decorations from last year's tree.
This month has been a bit of a marathon, but we've enjoyed every bit of it. We've had endless events, including a 3 day roadtrip back to Rockford to let Gavin meet his great grandparents and three Christmas parties so far. As a result of the crazyness, this letter and the cards it will accompany are actually a bit late, but we hope you can forgive us and enjoy it as much as if it had arrived at your homes a couple weeks ago. We're looking forward to the next two days of festivities with our families and are so grateful that the Lord has given us such a precious year of fellowship and blessing.
May you find this coming year to be as full of the grace and love of the Lord as the past has been! Please remember us in your prayers as we continue to live our lives for the glory of Christ Jesus.
God bless and keep you all.
-Quinn, Joanna and Gavin
December, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
November 7th
A blurb I wrote for a different blog back in November. I'm shutting that blog down, so I'm pasting it here to save it.
He calls me “Darling.” Sometimes “the Darling.” His family still refers to me as that, since for almost 5 years that was my title when he was with them. They ask him “how’s the Darling?” or “is the Darling coming with you?”
So that’s who I am. I’m the Darling.
I do lots of things. The most important things have to do with being a wife and being a mommy. Those consume the greater part of my time. The lesser part of my time is spent teaching music lessons, (piano and cello) playing in a string quartet and trying to keep up with our 2 bedroom apartment that gets a daily showering of bird feathers from Snarky, the yellow parakeet. We generate more laundry and dishes than I ever thought three people could generate…
So that’s what I do. And I watch Bones.
—-
I call him Mr.
Really. I do. Not as often as I call him Sweetie, Sweetheart, Baby, Honey, Dearest or a whole host of other terms of endearment, but I call him Mr.. That’s who he is. The Mr.. The head of the house. The provider. The fun loving, passionate, adorkable, goal oriented, hard working, driven Mr. Man.
He does lots of things. He gets paid to answer phones and provide customer service for credit card users, but that’s not what he really does. He does study. He’s a bookworm. He’s absolutely addicted to learning. He has his bachelors in biology and is currently pursuing computer programing. He brings home massive fat books from the library and sits at his computer editing code for hours on end. That’s what he does.
He also watches NCIS. He loves NCIS.
And he takes me to the Nature Center for long walks. And he takes me out canoeing. And hiking. And for long drives on country roads that nobody else knows about, but that he knows about because he spent several years as a cyclist and pedaled down almost every road in the county.
He drives an 80′s Chevy Silverado and listens to country music and classic rock.
He’s the love of my life.
——–
We call him the Little Man. The Beautiful Boy. Son. Sweetheart. Precious. Sweet Darling. Babyest. Precious One.
He’s our whole world. We sit on the couch and stare at him and caress his tiny fingers. We take turns walking him when he’s fussy. We kiss him a thousand times a day. We laugh at him and make absolute fools of ourselves trying to convince him to laugh with us. We adjust every event, every schedule, every breath to meet his needs and make him happy. He’s our firstborn. He’s our most precious gift from our most wonderful Savior.
——-
We have beautiful moments every day wherein I thank Jesus for giving me this life to live. Last night that moment was when I was standing in the dining room holding my sleepy baby and my husband walked up behind me I felt his breath on the back of my neck. He kissed me. First at the base of my neck, then the side of my neck, then just below my ear. He kissed away every ache and worry and frustration from a long day and I felt myself relax and my heart felt happy. I had everything I loved and needed in this life and it was all embodied in the two precious bodies that were against mine.
I thanked Jesus.
Jesus is who makes our love so deep. Jesus is who lets us love on our sweet boy without worrying about the future. Jesus is who gave the Mr a steady job, who provided a beautiful home for us, who helps us forgive, who helps us love deeper.
Jesus is who we long to be like, who we long to emulate, who we long to be near.
Jesus is our world.
So that’s who I am. I’m the Darling.
I do lots of things. The most important things have to do with being a wife and being a mommy. Those consume the greater part of my time. The lesser part of my time is spent teaching music lessons, (piano and cello) playing in a string quartet and trying to keep up with our 2 bedroom apartment that gets a daily showering of bird feathers from Snarky, the yellow parakeet. We generate more laundry and dishes than I ever thought three people could generate…
So that’s what I do. And I watch Bones.
—-
I call him Mr.
Really. I do. Not as often as I call him Sweetie, Sweetheart, Baby, Honey, Dearest or a whole host of other terms of endearment, but I call him Mr.. That’s who he is. The Mr.. The head of the house. The provider. The fun loving, passionate, adorkable, goal oriented, hard working, driven Mr. Man.
He does lots of things. He gets paid to answer phones and provide customer service for credit card users, but that’s not what he really does. He does study. He’s a bookworm. He’s absolutely addicted to learning. He has his bachelors in biology and is currently pursuing computer programing. He brings home massive fat books from the library and sits at his computer editing code for hours on end. That’s what he does.
He also watches NCIS. He loves NCIS.
And he takes me to the Nature Center for long walks. And he takes me out canoeing. And hiking. And for long drives on country roads that nobody else knows about, but that he knows about because he spent several years as a cyclist and pedaled down almost every road in the county.
He drives an 80′s Chevy Silverado and listens to country music and classic rock.
He’s the love of my life.
——–
We call him the Little Man. The Beautiful Boy. Son. Sweetheart. Precious. Sweet Darling. Babyest. Precious One.
He’s our whole world. We sit on the couch and stare at him and caress his tiny fingers. We take turns walking him when he’s fussy. We kiss him a thousand times a day. We laugh at him and make absolute fools of ourselves trying to convince him to laugh with us. We adjust every event, every schedule, every breath to meet his needs and make him happy. He’s our firstborn. He’s our most precious gift from our most wonderful Savior.
——-
We have beautiful moments every day wherein I thank Jesus for giving me this life to live. Last night that moment was when I was standing in the dining room holding my sleepy baby and my husband walked up behind me I felt his breath on the back of my neck. He kissed me. First at the base of my neck, then the side of my neck, then just below my ear. He kissed away every ache and worry and frustration from a long day and I felt myself relax and my heart felt happy. I had everything I loved and needed in this life and it was all embodied in the two precious bodies that were against mine.
I thanked Jesus.
Jesus is who makes our love so deep. Jesus is who lets us love on our sweet boy without worrying about the future. Jesus is who gave the Mr a steady job, who provided a beautiful home for us, who helps us forgive, who helps us love deeper.
Jesus is who we long to be like, who we long to emulate, who we long to be near.
Jesus is our world.
Become.com
Become.com is a shopping site that gives you side by side reviews and lists of retailers who carry the product you're searching for with price differences and so on. It's really a very neat site. Couple of products thatkinda show the vast array of items you might find there:
Side by Side by Side jogging stroller. Yep. A jogger for three. I love love love it.
Commercial Couches. Some pretty cool, heavy duty stuff. Don't look too bad either.
A 3-tiered wrought iron fruit stand. I want one. Absolutely gorgeous. I can totally see it on my bar full of pears, oranges and apples. I love fruit, and have a bad habit of buying more of it than we can eat before it goes bad. In fact, I had to leave a couple of pounds of bananas that were over ripe at my mom's house the other day 'cause I didn't have time to turn them into bread. :P
Console marble tables. Or marble console tables. However you want to say it. Regardless, I would love either a console table or a sofa table for where my bookshelves are, but since the piano stole the bookshelve's spots, they're gonna have to stay where they are and the console table will have to wait 'til we have a library for the bookshelves. darnlitall.
I'm off to continue shopping. Photo post coming soon! Little man is getting so un-little...
Side by Side by Side jogging stroller. Yep. A jogger for three. I love love love it.
Commercial Couches. Some pretty cool, heavy duty stuff. Don't look too bad either.
A 3-tiered wrought iron fruit stand. I want one. Absolutely gorgeous. I can totally see it on my bar full of pears, oranges and apples. I love fruit, and have a bad habit of buying more of it than we can eat before it goes bad. In fact, I had to leave a couple of pounds of bananas that were over ripe at my mom's house the other day 'cause I didn't have time to turn them into bread. :P
Console marble tables. Or marble console tables. However you want to say it. Regardless, I would love either a console table or a sofa table for where my bookshelves are, but since the piano stole the bookshelve's spots, they're gonna have to stay where they are and the console table will have to wait 'til we have a library for the bookshelves. darnlitall.
I'm off to continue shopping. Photo post coming soon! Little man is getting so un-little...
Advertisements
I've picked up an online job posting advertisements to several different blogs, so there may be some odd posts on here over the course of the next couple months, until I can get enough spots going to generate enough assignments. Please put up with me in the mean time, and maybe check out some cool products. ;)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
COOKIES!
Christmas cookies are happening!! I love Christmas cookies.
Here's the first set:
I'm Smitten.
RepairPal.com
dSo this is actually pretty cool. I'm not into cars, I don't know much about mechanics, but we're having some pretty big issues with our little Mazda at the moment, so I used repairpal.com to run an estimate and got part prices and estimated labor. It was actually fun.
Now I'm running other scenarios. Like, if I lived in San Diego, it has an option to look up San Diego Auto Repair shops. This option doesn't *just* show you the closest auto shop. It talks about commute times, what times of year you need to watch for hazardous road conditions, average repair prices in the city, so on so forth.
That's just nifty.
Now lets say I have a Ford F-150 (I don't. I'm not really a truck kinda gal) and it's check engine light is on. All I would have to do is put in the make, model and year, then when I go to enter a service type there's this awesome little drop down where you can search issues by key word. Type in "check engine" and you get "check engine light diagnosis" highlighted in the list. For our car, I typed in "clutch cylinder" and I got "clutch master cylinder replacement" which is exactly what our car needs.
hehe. Like I recently said somewhere. I'm easily entertained.
-------
Little Man is fussing. He just had a bath, so he smells sweet and his hair is all fuzzy and sticking straight up. I need to find something to eat for breakfast other than DMD. Quinn is at work on his off day, trying to get enough overtime in to save the car. *sigh*. I miss him, but the quiet, happy morning with the baby boy is fun.
I love my life.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Bananagram
My family has, of late, been infatuated with Bananagrams. But they don't actually use the game. They use Scrabble sets so that they can have unlimited pieces. It gets pretty insane. Six people around the table wit hundreds of scrabble pieces and 200-400 points per person. It's almost impossible to keep track of, but it's ridiculously fun. My brother Josh wrote a new set of rules where everyone builds off of the same starter word...that's even crazier.
As such, my head has been thinking in graphs for weeks. It's scary how that happens. Boggle does it to me too. And Sudoku. I dream in letters and numbers. Literally. Dream them. It gets annoying.
-------
I keep wanting to keep a food blog, but I forget to take pictures of my cooking. I took one picture of the process of my Christmas Bark, one picture of my Apple Turnovers, and I never seem to have more than two stages captured of any single project. I'm gonna have to work on that.
See, tonight I baked up a bunch of my Great-Great-Aunt Pearl's Sugar cookies. They're stuffed full of butter and vanilla and are absolutely delicious, but I tried a shortening based frosting to accomplish a pure white base and it tastes like... shortening. *sigh* Frosting is about taste, firstly. I like a butter-based frosting with cream cheese or sour cream, as well as a load of almond or vanilla extract. A frosting that tastes like...well...shortening...kinda defeats the purpose of frosting a cookie. I'm looking forward to trying "Royal Icing" next week, when I've had a chance to pick up some meringue powder and icing bags.
----
Stargate SG-1 is an old habit that we've somehow rekindled in the last couple of weeks. We've started on Season 8 'cause neither of us remembered watching much of it, and it's funny how addictive it is. It's terribly cheesy (though nothing to be compared with Ben Browder and Claudia Black's last show, Farscape, which was too cheesy to watch.) and extremely repetitive, but so very catchy and fun. It's amazing how easy it is to watch 4 episodes straight through. It's less than a long movie, so it's justifiable. Ish.
(Disclaimer; pilot episode has unwatchable material in it. I've only ever seen pieces of it.)
------
In the midst of a sewing project for a cousin of mine. She commissioned matching skirts for her daugher and her daughter's American Girl doll for Christmas. I finished the skirts, except the drawstrings, and I now need to make a quick run to Michael's for the material for those, since my baby boy is asleep for the night and his daddy is home to watch him. (yes. He sleeps through the night. Every night for the last 10 weeks. Too cool, huh?)
More to come later!
Love yas all!
-Joanna
Two young people without a thing
Say some vows and spread their wings
Settle down with just what they need
Livin on love
She dont care 'bout whats in style
She just likes the way he smiles
It takes more than marble and tile
Livin on love
Livin on love, buyin on time
Without somebody nothing aint worth a dime
Just like an old fashioned story book rhyme
Livin on love
Say some vows and spread their wings
Settle down with just what they need
Livin on love
She dont care 'bout whats in style
She just likes the way he smiles
It takes more than marble and tile
Livin on love
Livin on love, buyin on time
Without somebody nothing aint worth a dime
Just like an old fashioned story book rhyme
Livin on love
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