More Catching Up

I find these pictures particularly funny. If you don't notice, both Micah and I have been crying. They're awful pictures, but I now find this so comical I just wanted to share.

And here...Daddy decides it'd be amusing                                 But Dad cheered us both up so it was fine 

to pick up the camera. The boy and I do not                               after all. 

agree.

 I thought this face he's making was really funny.

 Little toes!

We were about to go somewhere the same day, and cracked up when we covered him up to go outside and this is what happened. 

Stay tuned for more of the month of January to come...

Goodness

Well, obviously I've been horrible at keeping up this month. Still struggling with the insane cold out here (when we woke up this morning it was -54 out), but at least daylight is coming back little by little. In another month or two, we'll finally see more sunshine again. I'm going to spend a few days catching up the month of January in pictures, then hopefully I'll be sane enough to keep up with everything.

I suppose the theme of these should be: my husband is wonderful.

 Flowers AND chocolate?? Oh my. 

Micah was really fussy this one evening, because he was really tired but it wasn't bedtime yet. So Scott scooped him up and held him, and sang songs to him. Micah was calm the entire time. So sweet. :)

My two greatest earthly treasures.

I Can

Lyrics stuck in my head right now. Definitely a good song to have there.

I Can

Looking on the sad times, the guilt and all the shame, 
I have learned to submit my existing hurts and pains
All the grief I've learned to set aside, 
'Cause I am, I am, I am, I am....


Feeling underooted, feeling undermined,
Can this grace of God, cover me this time? 
And when I feel the pain I know why I feel strange
And when I hear the rooster crow, I am ashamed


Jesus on the cross, and this cross upon my back
I have learned to submit then I, I whine about my lack
Sometimes I drop my cross, deserve a little rest,
And that's when I run to You, and I nail Your feet, and Your wrist!


Feeling underooted, feeling undermined,
Can this grace of God, cover me this time?  
And when I feel the pain I know why I feel strange
And when I hear the rooster crow, I am ashamed...


Do You really love my soul, even after I hated You? 
Do You really know my name, can I really come to You...
Are you really more faithful than the changing of the seasons,
And the morning sun,
And do You really know my name, can I really come to You?


I can, I can, I can, I can, I can I can I can I don't care if the rooster crows, if the rooster crows, if the rooster crows, if the rooster crows...

STUPID cold

It is so cold out here. I know you've heard that before. But it is way colder than last winter. Lot more snow too. I found this news headline today on one of the sites I frequent:

http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/17180728/article-Copper-Basin-300-canceled-because-of--impassible--trail-conditions?instance=home_news_window_left_top_4

It says in there that it's been -45 to -50 degrees out here. And I can tell you, it's been that way for about a week now, give or take a day or two. At least it's getting a little lighter, it is almost 10:00 am and I already see dark blue instead of pitch black. So that's something.

Also, our family car is dead. Poor Scott's been trying to revive it, but we can't even get it into the garage, because it won't start and we can't push it in, there's an 8 inch lump of ice we can't possibly push it over. Scott spent a lot of time outside last night trying different things to start it, but it just wouldn't work. I felt so bad for him, it is MISERABLE to be out there for any length of time.

We cannot WAIT to get out of here.

Is it seriously Sunday already?

Wow! I can't believe how quick this week went by. It was pretty much just a blur of spit up, diapers, feedings, more spit up, laundry, spit up, more laundry, diapers, and really sore muscles. I managed to stick with the Insanity! DVD all week, except for Wednesday. I just couldn't bring myself to do it Wednesday. These work-outs are seriously intense, and every day I have to convince myself all over again that I want to exercise. I've definitely wanted to give up several times. Especially when I look in the mirror to make sure my form is correct, and all I can see is the stuff that...well...jiggles. Ew. It makes me feel disgusted. And then I feel like I don't see results fast enough so I want to quit. Thankfully today was a rest day, so I was very glad to not have to think about exercising. But it all begins tomorrow again.

Today has been pretty good, we put Micah in the nursery since we were doing worship this morning, and it was nice for both of us to be able to sit there and actually pay attention to the sermon without worrying about whether Micah was going to start fussing or not. We only put him in the nursery when we're on the worship team though, we rather like having him with us in service.

Pastor Adams has been preaching on Ecclesiastes, which we all thought would be rather depressing, especially given the dark and the -40 temps these days. But it's actually been a really big encouragement. This morning while he was preaching, my mind sort of wondered away from the sermon, but I was thinking about eternity. It's kind of terrifying to think about eternity. Sometimes I wonder if I really am a Christian, and it is horrifying to think what would lie ahead of me for eternity if I wasn't one. But at the same time, it really puts things in perspective to me. Life IS fleeting, and when you think about it in the context of eternity, it is a mere vapor. So when I am depressed because it is 72 degrees below freezing and dark all the time, or frustrated because Micah fusses and I don't know what's wrong, or upset because the house is constantly messy and no sooner do I clean it, it gets super messy again in a snap...all this is SO unimportant when I will eventually die and then spend eternity..FOREVER...either with the everlasting, incredible God, or in absolute and constant agony. These things that seem so big to me right now really are nothing. And to me, it is sweet to realize this.

Anyway, my mind is rapidly fading. Despite a nice, long (THREE HOURS!!!) nap today, I am still exhausted. I will try to post more this week, but if it passes as quickly as this week has, it may not happen as often as I hope. It seems like I just posted something yesterday. So strange. Ah well. Now I'm seriously mumbling and I need to get off. I hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend, and enjoy your holiday tomorrow!

Only Two Weeks Late...

Wow, I just have to say, thank you to all of you who responded to my last post. I was really grateful for it all.

Our first Christmas with Micah this year was very enjoyable. Of course, I was still kind of sad we couldn't really be with family, but hopefully that will change soon, since we have less than a year now before the military moves us somewhere else. Hopefully closer to either family.

Despite that, we were still able to enjoy family somewhat, since the first thing we did was set up the computer in the living room, and have a "Google hang-out" with Scott's family, and a bunch of Washington friends. It was good to see all your faces. We clowned around a bit too with the funny features Google has for face recognition:

(sorry Ethan. :P)

For breakfast, we fried up some "ugly eggs" with maple moose meat we got from a hunter friend of ours. It was amazing. Even Micah may have drooled over it. At least the smell anyway.

After we were done with that, we spent a pleasant afternoon and evening just enjoying being together as a little family. Playing with Micah, having fun with our loot, and when the little one went to bed, we were able to spend time just talking and enjoying each other's company, just the two of us. On top of all that, Scott got to be home for over a week!

I wasn't planning on doing this, but I just had to share our "loot." I got Scott something that has been on - I guess you could call it - our bucket list. There's a dive shop in town pretty close to us, and I went there and bought us scuba diving lessons. Just one class, but it'll make for a great date. Especially with winter being so awful right now. At least we have something to look forward to. We're planning on doing it in February sometime, both of us are excited. And Scott bought me a new camera lens! It's a 50mm lens that has a really shallow depth of field, I've really enjoyed experimenting with it. All of the pictures I've taken after Christmas are taken with that lens. We also discovered that the little camera store where Scott got the lens also RENTS lenses for not too bad a price, and these are super expensive lenses that we would never be able to afford. So when summer hits we're planning on renting lenses a few times and going out to Denali or something to experiment with those. Now all I need to get is a good editing program. Because right now, I can't seem to edit ANY of my pictures, although I have tried. I can't figure out why it won't save the edited pictures. Oh well. I'm trying to see it as an opportunity to get even better at taking pictures, because I know I'll have to post them unedited for now, and so I'd better get them to look as good as I can.

And, this is a little gift Scott received from Hannah. We named him Pablo, and I designated him as the Guardian of the Cookies and Chocolate, hoping that maybe he'd prevent me from dining on all things wonderful.

It didn't really work. 

All in all, it was a good Christmas. Hope you all had a good one as well!

Insanity all around

It's official. I have gone mad. Somewhat in a good way, and somewhat bad. (Ooh oh! It rhymes!)

I know I am terribly behind on posting, although sometimes I wonder if anyone ever even reads this stuff. Maybe I should just post pictures and shut my mouth on here too, and get a nice journal. But I digress.

These last couple weeks have been really hard, mentally and physically. Winter is really getting to me now. I know the days are getting longer, but it just doesn't seem like it's happening fast enough. I don't think I've seen the sun in about a month, and the little I HAVE seen of it, it's just this faint glow because it's either rising or setting. Also, we have close to two feet of snow, and it's been extremely cold outside. So cold, the -12 temp we had yesterday was warm to us. I feel like crying a lot. Ever since Scott went back to work, I've also been feeling really alone. And I went nuts for a few days when I discovered I could hop a military plane to Hawaii if I wanted to. After that discovery, I spent a couple days calling the 24 hour flight recordings of possible base terminals on which I could potentially catch a hop, and looking up everything I could about Hawaii. I seriously feel like I'm going insane. I want so badly to be on a beach somewhere really sunny. But, it would be monstrously selfish of me to leave my poor husband by himself in all this. Besides, Hawaii wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable without him anyway. So I'm staying here. In order to keep myself sane until we FINALLY get to LEAVE this place for a while, I'm trying really hard to focus my energies on something else besides how miserable it is out here. Here are some things I've thought of (some of which I'm actually doing.)

1. Go tanning. Not sure about this one yet. Lots of people out here do that when they get all depressed like this. It just might be worth the money, and I don't plan on doing it after we leave AK. I don't think tanning a few times is going to give me cancer.

2. Take pictures, and actually upload them to the computer, then actually post them.

3. Read, a lot.

4. Play piano

5. Think of ways I could bless my husband and new ways I can possibly bond with Micah

6. Research everything I can about every Air Force base in the world, so wherever we end up next I'll be slightly more prepared

7. Sort of embarrassed to admit it, but I've been playing the Sims quite a bit these days. (And by quite a bit, I mean I've finally started doing it for the first time since Micah was born) It's always sunny in the Sims' world. Plus, you can make them live on the beach. Moving on...

8. Have dates to go try different things out here. Next date we may try the contra dance club in Fairbanks. We've been here 2 years and still haven't done that.

9. Find a bunch of cool do-it-yourself projects that I can do really cheaply to decorate or organize the house more.

10. Exercise! Which brings me to...

The next part of the insanity. I have officially begun the "Insanity!" work-out DVD here at home. I've been doing it for a couple weeks now, but I haven't done it as often as I'm supposed to, and I am following the wrong order for the exercises. So last Friday I downloaded the calendar for it, and today I am beginning to actually follow it. Just finished the first workout, it's pretty brutal. But great for a home based work-out.

Despite how tough things have been lately, I DID capture a few moments on camera these past few weeks that I'd like to share. I also have several posts I'm working on, one of which is about Christmas and New Year's. I know it's REALLY late, but I don't want to forget, and I wanted to share those pictures too. So without further ado...

More playtime with the boy!

 Still cold.

Folding laundry...

Until I got distracted. 

And then he fell asleep and I was able to have some quiet time.

The End.

Baby it's COOOOLD outside...

I have to say this one little thing. Wearing a skirt for some reason, makes me feel like I can do anything. I get housework done faster, I even get a little time for things I enjoy like piano. But it might be taking it a bit too far when I felt so good, I decided to run outside in nothing but a thin skirt, thin long-sleeved shirt, and boots to grab my new Piper book out of the car. It is -35 degrees outside. And my hair is wet.

That's all.