A year in fiveish paragraphs

and thats a wrap for 2014. Holy shmoly.

We started the year by spending three months in Mahwah, New Jersey. We have some marvelous friends from Mahwah that own and operate a maple farm near Cooperstown, New York. Ches spent those months tapping maple trees, and I spent them annoying Nancy by laying around her house nauseous. We loved spending that time there, and feel so blessed to know such amazing people.

Chesley spent over three hundred hours of this year about ten feet off the ground in a BELL 47 helicopter. He dominated that sweet corn. He has loved flying everyday just as much as he always thought he would, and being paid to fly rather than having it the other way around has made for one happy man.

I spent the year growing a human. I finally got a piano of my own, and we were able to move from our apartment into a house (can I get a HUZZAH!) ?? The highlight of my year has been all of the visitors we've had. My mom basically waited on me for three weeks, and it was heaven. She was here a full week before the baby was born, and ten days after. My dad even got to come for a couple of days at the end of my mother's visit, which was a huge deal. My mother in law came for about five days while Ches went on a hunting trip, and we got to have the ENTIRE Lewis clan out for Thanksgiving. The house was bursting at the seams, and it was absolutely perfect.

Maverik grew from a baby faced toddler into a little boy this year. I can't believe how much he's changed. He has an incredible vocabulary for a two year old, and will talk your ear off. Some of his favorite things to say are from movies. He loves to say, "curse you tiny toilet!" and "I had a dream once" (even in a little tiny deep voice). You totally get points if you know those movies. He also totally rules at being a big brother.

Piper managed to break free of the womb on October 15th, and had one happy momma. She was about 10 pounds, and was between 21 and 22 inches long. She has been such a dreamy baby, and we can't wait to see her personality come out.

Have great holidays and stuff!...or we hope you did since we got our cards out late, and some of you may be reading this after the fact.

Love,

The Lewis's

Taking Stock

working: to stay on top of laundry. Babies  get some sort of body juice on themselves or a parent about hourly. 

cooking: chocolate chip cookies (surprised?) and biscuits. My aunt gave me a buttermilk buscuit recipe that rules, and when paired with raspberry butter it is truly impossible to get enough. Bring on the crisco.

reading: emails from my baby bro on his mission. He's the boy version of me. I'm hairy, but handsome as a man. I miss him, but what he's doing is so important and he's so good at it.

listening to: Winter Moon. I reeeeally enjoy Mindy Gledhill. 

wasting time: I never do this, but if I did it would be reading blogs and stalking people on facebook. But I don't....

looking forward to: CHRISTMAS!!!! Which entails family, food, presents, lights, snow (hopefully), and just good old fashioned joy from celebrating Jesus. He's kind of important. 

making: cinnamon ornaments for my tree. They smell sooooooo good. Sniffing a tree was never so pleasurable.

falling asleep to: man cuddles. Having a husband is great for a lot of reasons, but falling asleep next to one is the greatest...when they shower.

appreciating: the fact that Mav is fiercely in love with his baby sister. I have great hopes that they will be close as older people. I get in deep doo-doo when I don't allow him to give her enough kisses. Oops. My bad for wanting there to be at least some facial surface area free of brother saliva.

craving: Sugar. I'm an insatiable sweet monster. It's ridiculous. My sister and I have talked seriously about finding an addiction aid program that would take us.

smelling: more poopy diapers than any human should. M has started to fill his diaper a few times a day to try and keep up with his sister. 

excited: about seeing family. My family (including my husband's family) never gets old. They are the greatest in every way. So much fun and so many laughs are headed my way.

wearing: yoga pants (always) and one of C's shirts (also always). Somehow I feel most comfortable wearing at least one item of men's clothing.

experiencing: being a mom of two. It's actually less difficult than I thought simply because of how well Mav is taking it all, but it's still a challenge. The fact that the cold weather makes outings difficult or impossible has set cabin fever in early this year too. Thank goodness for amazing friends and an awesome community!

completely stole this idea from my darling cousin kayla.

and then there were four

I have missed this space. A remarkable amount.

There have simply been too many other things going on for me to get here.

Things like having a baby, readjusting to life with two children, and helping a toddler adjust to sharing mama.

He's doing fabulously by the way.

I think the perfect way to jump back in is to show you what my life looks like now.

Disclaimer: It just so happens that cameras are only pulled out for the cute parts. In reality there are plenty of messy, dramatic, tearful, boring, ineedadietcokethisinstant kind of moments. But these...these are how I get up and keeping doing it every day.