Long time no blog!

I feel like every blog starts with that title lately. I would change that, except I never have time for blogging and when I do, I'm so worn out I don't do it. BUT tonight, I'm going to make the wait worth it. ;)

Londyn turned two years and five months last week and I almost had a heart attack realizing this little girl is going to be two and a half next month. I swear she just turned two like three days ago. She's been in speech therapy since August and has made some progress! She's finally trying to talk and I'm pretty sure I'm her own personal translator now, but I'm glad she's trying! I've worked with her and worked with her but I finally called in the troops for help. She's so active and happy. When we call her name she always responds with "what!?" and it always makes us laugh. She follows us around asking "whatya doin?" and has decided its time for me to be called "mama" instead of "baby" (and you know I'm loving it). We're so proud of the little girl she's turning into. She is already so thoughtful and loving. We're crazy about her. :)

Scotlyn turns five months on Tuesday and I cannot believe this is happening. We watch her morph closer and closer to a toddler every day (maybe I'm overreacting a little, but hey, it goes so fast and I'm gripping for time here!). I finally understand why my sister in law, Joana told me its a mixed emotion of happy and sad when her kids start hitting their developmental stages like crawling and walking. I know how fast it goes after watching Londyn and I hate seeing it go by now. She's started laughing and o.m.g. You have no idea how incredibly cute it is. She's always smiling and talking. She's in the middle of cutting her first tooth and she's been an absolute champ about it. She started eating rice cereal a couple of weeks ago and she's doing great with it. She's a little bitty thing still but she's starting to get some chunk. Every time we lay her on her back on the floor, she grabs her feet and rolls to the side. She's still nursing and doing great with it! Almost all the time she sleeps until 5:30am and goes back to sleep until 7 or 8 (The first thing Londyn does in the morning is find Scotlyn and wake her up with "hi Scoky hi" hehe). We have two sweet girls.

This year has completely slipped through my fingers and zipped past. I'm kind of sad thinking about it going away just as quickly as it came. On Friday night, Erik was talking about how his mom always cries on New Years at midnight because she's so grateful for all that she had throughout the year. It really got me thinking about how grateful I am and how much more I should be at the end of each year. I started to think about all the incredible things we've been blessed with and all the things we went through and thought sucked. We were able to see so much family this year and spend time with the people we love. We never had any awful health issues that were considered life threatening. We stayed strong as a family through some of the hardest trials we've had as a married couple. We move into a much bigger apartment with the help of friends and family who dedicated their time to helping us move. We were supported by so many friends and family through so many incredible things. We had Scotlyn. Londyn started finally started talking! We were sealed as a family for eternity. We never ever once had to worry about whether or not we would eat that day or have a warm home to stay in. Erik got a promotion. There's not one thing on that list I cannot say doesn't make me emotional also when I think about how blessed we are to have these things.

We also had some really tough trials that were really hard to make it through. But, we always did. We learned to grow closer through them and pray harder together and separately. We grew as a family by clinging to each other instead of widening gaps. The trials we have triumphed over this year make me feel just as thankful as the good things do.

Thanksgiving is this week and although I already have all our Christmas decorations up, I'm still very excited about Thanksgiving and all that it means. It makes me remember these things even more and gives me an entire day to reflect on all of these wonderful things.

We spent the weekend boxing up my parents' lake house and packing a truck full of the second hand things that we spent almost all of my childhood weekends using. I started thinking about how even though this house was full of hand me down furniture, antique quilts, and grocery store grade dishes, it meant the world to me. I didn't realize just how grateful I was for this house until I spent the weekend packing it up and remembering all the weekends we spent out on the water with my dad dragging us behind the boat in a tube or on a wakeboard and coming in and crawling under these old quilts and my mom having the vegetable tray and dip out on the counter for me and my friends. Ill never forget watching the birds and squirrels come up on the deck just feet from us. I'll always remember singing "Amazing Grace" on the back porch at night with my mom and listening to it echo throughout the cove. As a teenager, my parents had to drag me down to the lake kicking and screaming some weekends because you know, boyfriends were so much more important! But, I couldn't appreciate more than I do now when reflecting on the trouble I avoided getting in from simply being "at the lake" every weekend.

As I got older, it turned into my escape from the world where I could turn off my phone and forget that everyone was still living life and doing worldly things. I could laze about with family and forget about schedules and clocks. Erik and I spent our honeymoon there for four days and completely forgot that reality was waiting for us. It was great.

I'm so thankful that my parents made the investment of that house when I was ten years old. I've never appreciated it the way I should've until I looked out the window as we drove out of the driveway and back to life. It was very bittersweet.

Anywho, I'm getting all nostalgic and sad thinking about this so I'll wrap my post up with pictures of our fabulous and quite sassy girls. Have a great Thanksgiving!