Thankful ...

... for wonderful, amazing, giving neighbors that are willing to help in any crisis ...

... for family that are willing to drop everything they are doing to come help us in a time of need ...

... for friends that check in on us just to see how we're doing ...

... that this hurricane flood could have been so, so, so much worse ...

... that this stuff is just s.t.u.f.f. and we are safe and healthy ...

... for my precious children who didn't complain about not having a TV for 2 days ...

... for a husband who keeps going until the job is done ...

... for one super-special neighbor who bought a new generator after the hurricane and let 5 families run their electricity from it ...

... for a merciful God who watches over us always.

We are praying for all of the families that still don't have power, were displaced from their homes, lost their homes, or worse, lost a loved one. Will you please join me?

(The last few pictures in THIS post show what the basement will look like once it's repaired!)

You're Beautiful

My grandmother left this piano to me in her will almost 20 years ago when I was 11 years old. It sat at my parents' house all through my childhood and was there until a few weeks ago. My parents had it moved to my house this year as a Christmas gift and I am SO thrilled. Doesn't it look like it was just meant to be here? It still needs the bench to complete it but it's so amazing to finally have it here. It's been tuned, the pitch has been raised, a few keys have been fixed and it's squeaky clean ... now I think it's time I learn to play :-)

On a totally different note, I heard this song on the radio today and thought of Sunshine ... here are some of the lyrics:

"Beautiful" by MercyMe

Days will come when you don't have the strength

And all you hear is you're not worth anything

Wondering if you ever could be loved

And if they truly saw your heart

They'd see too much

You're beautiful, You're beautiful

You are made for so much more than all of this

You're beautiful, You're beautiful

You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His

You're beautiful

Before you ever took a breath

Long before the world began

Of all the wonders He possessed

There was one more precious

Of all the earth and skies above

You're the one He madly loves

Enough to die!

You're beautiful, You're beautiful

You are made for so much more than all of this

You're beautiful, You're beautiful

You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His

You're beautiful

Big Boy

Well ... this is it ... Lovebug had his very last night in the crib. I shot these this morning just as he was waking up. They're too "flashy" for my taste but it's the winter and there is no light this early in the morning! This makes me so sad that my "baby" is not so much a baby anymore. Although I have known this for quite some time, I have been resisting it ... ignoring it ... putting it out of my mind. LOL. The only thing that softens this is that I know we have a beautiful baby waiting to use this crib & changing table in just a few short months.

I will probably take some pictures of his room today when I have window light so that I can document all of the small details. Actually, I am sure I will do the same for Angel's room (which is becoming Sunshine's room). Big changes coming up for all of the bedrooms! Angel is moving into the guest room - she is super-jazzed because she will have her OWN bathroom! I just finished painting the room a bright, happy yellow (at her request). The other rooms are keeping their current paint because I like them too much to paint over them and well ... it was a lot of work that I only did 2 years ago. LOL. I picked new bedding for Lovebug's and Sunshine's rooms that will work perfectly with the current paint - yay me!

Alright, onto other things. Lots of stuff to take care of before the new furniture comes on Tuesday!

The calm before the storm

I just love Christmas Day. It's my *favorite* day of the year. After the kids open their gifts from us and Santa (the 4 sitting in front), our families roll in at about 10am with lots of yummy brunch casseroles and breakfast foods. We open gifts, hang out, chat, and drink LOTS of coffee.

This is what the family room looked like after "Santa" had visited right before DH and I were heading to bed ... the calm before the storm!

Family storyboard

Color or black & white?

I wanted to work on a way to use all 3 of these images for wall art. I really like the "whole house" photo but it would've looked kind of funny enlarged and hung on a wall (esp. because the house was in focus, not us). So this is what I came up with. My gut instinct is to go with the color version ... thoughts?

This is currently sized to a 16x20 but I'm considering going slightly larger ... maybe a standout instead of a framed print. But I'm not sure and I also have no idea where this is going to go ... maybe the stairwell?

Blizzard February 2010

So, WOW what a lot of snow. This was the view from our back door this afternoon when it was still snowing. Angel can't wait to go down the slide with all of the snow still on it.

Yes, I realize that I still have a Christmas wreath on the front door ... it totally fits with all the snow anyway! LOL. It was so windy that the snow was coming down sideways - our whole house is covered like this!

Angel totally loving this ... we were walking back from our next door neighbor's house. Angel just loves them :-) The crazy thing was that we had to walk out into the court where the snowblower had been - we couldn't take the sidewalk the whole way! By the way - Lovebug is NOT loving this. LOL.

Our snowy house. This was about the time that we found out our power was out because the garage door wouldn't open when we came back from next door. I think this was about 2:30pm. Thank goodness DH brought a key with him - he went inside through the front door and opened the garage door manually for us.

I stood in the center of our court to take this ... I liked the footprints. Our house is directly to the left.

Mailbox shot with the snow still falling.

Our view from the garage. If you look closely, you'll see where the snowblower made a path to the right this side of the mailbox - that's supposed to be our sidewalk. LOL. I'm standing on the driveway which WAS snowblowed a few hours earlier.

Settings - 1/30th - 1/320th, f/4, ISO100.

New family room furniture!

Yay, new furniture all set up!! Keep in mind that these Ikea tables are NOT staying ... they're temporary until we figure out what we want to do.

The play kitchen is definitely still permanent though, doesn't it give the family room that "je ne sais quoi?" :-)

These colors are all pretty funky - the walls give everything a weird glow and then I can never get it right in processing. The sofas are a really pretty chocolate brown.

The gallery wraps of the kids ... this pic doesn't even come close to doing them justice. They're 20x30's.

The basement with our trusty microfiber wraparound.

AND Taylor laying down. LOL. She's awesome, she follows me everywhere.

You can see the pool table that DH re-felted by himself. This pool table came from his parents' house, originally owned by his grandparents. They got it from a pool hall in Dundalk, so it's the real deal! Pretty cool :-)

The humongoid TV we got from Mike :-) It's old but it definitely works ... that's all that really matters. Oh, and there's Taylor again.

A-MAY-ZING!

Yes, that's right ... it's definitely January 15th and the windows are OPEN! And as you can see, I'm not the only one enjoying it :-)

You can see the temp at the exact time I shot this image, but check out the max temp - 69.6 degrees! In fairness, this is the warm side of the house at this time of the day, so it only "felt" like 69 degrees. But when I took this pic, it was cloudy, so there was no sun to impact the temp - it really was 55 degrees ... awesome! I opened all of the windows for about 15 minutes before it started to get cool - fresh air is the best!

Settings - 1/60th, f/4, ISO400 - taken with external flash/diffuser for fill light and ambient light.