It’s amazing to me how time has flown…and as I look back at these pictures and want to cry that the time is gone…I’m grateful for how wonderful the time has been.  Our almost Valentine girl has sure given us so much love and I am really so thankful for her…every bit of her!!

{FOUR} brings…

Sassy that we hadn’t so frequently seen before…and more independence, but only when it’s convenient for her (i.e. brushing teeth, buckling seat belt…she can do it, but only if she wants to…otherwise she.just.can’t. The other times are typically the most INCONVENIENT for you to help!).

A love for music…oh I will be surprised if this doesn’t continue in her life…she’s obsessed with music and dance…she stands in front of her mirror and sings and dances…it’s so sweet.

Wants to be pretty, smell pretty, wear pretty things…this makes me just melt…love this! Just today she looked at me and exclaimed “are you going to wear THAT?” I said yes, to which she responded with great concern, “but mommy, you HAVE to wear something pretty. Do you want necklaces, or braceletes (she made it plural) or scarves or what pretty do you want to wear?”

Not only is she the fashion police and clothing police, she also gives genuine compliments “mommy, you look so pretty, I love your earrings”. They are infrequent but totally sincere…and I love them.

Loves girly everything…babies, make up, barbies, pink, princesses and DOING HAIR.

Puts up a fight at dinner nearly every.single.night. Won’t eat MOST things we serve for dinner…and frequently goes without. Dinner is a constant battle of creativity (so many things we try to get her to at least TRY the food we serve) and power struggles in hopes to get her to like things…it’s a slow process, but we aren’t giving up. She doesn’t get special meals…so hopefully over time she’ll learn to EAT!

I couldn’t narrow it down…I love so many of my pics of her…so here are a bunch of her through her 4 years…my has she changed =(

I told you I couldn’t narrow it down…this IS narrowed down! What do you expect…I’m her mama…I can’t pick just one or two favorites!

Happy Birthday pretty girl! I’m sorry you spent your birthday, valentines day and first real trip to Disneyland totally sick!!

We love you!

He’s so beautiful Lindsay! Congratulations.

This past week he and I had the misfortune of catching the colds that were consistently coughed on us for two weeks prior from Dawson and Emery. And though it was inconvenient for me…it was pretty dangerous for Easton.  Poor baby is still trying to completely recover.  He was diagnosed with Bronchiolitis and put on breathing treatments. My other two boys had that as well as babies so I was pretty sure I had this one covered…a bonus for having 4 kids I guess.  BUT…he’s so much younger and I guess my mommy instincts had me worried all too much.  After declining quite a bit in the next 24 hours of steroid and breathing treatments, I took him back to his pediatrician who immediately sent us to the hospital. Once at the hospital they did a deep suction, a couple of breathing treatments and they decided he needed to stay so they could monitor him and suction him more. So…we stayed overnight and he was tortured (suctioned) a little bit more.  Thankfully he was one of the healthier of their sick patients and he improved quite a bit that next 24 hours.  We are now home and just riding it out with breathing treatments at home as he is still full of a bit too much mucus.  It’s sad to see such a small baby suffer drowning in his own mucus.  You just want to give the poor kid a decongestant!

Thanks for the extra thoughts and prayers on our behalf as he stayed in the hospital and worked to breathing better.  We aren’t done yet, but he’s heading back to the dr. tomorrow, so hopefully she feels like he’s on the mend.  I’m still on the fence on how good I think he is, sometimes he’s seems great, but he still doesn’t want to eat much, cries more and chokes from his mucus, so I’m still in a place of worry since he is so little to fight such a yucky virus.

We had a beautiful, much older home that we loved and had remodeled for a few years, however with the unstable economy and the amount of work and money it still needed (mainly in the form of yards, the pool and a bit more interior work), we sold it.  It was, and still is, a very hard decision for me…but I kind of think this quote says it best…

So much of our blood, sweat and tears…and MONEY went into that house. It was definitely a dream project for us to take on, and we did it.  We didn’t finish like we wanted, but our “wants” changed and in the name of more family time, long term financial security and less projects (no honey I just said less, not zero)…we moved on.

That part is hard, moving on. It’s not really the house at all, although it is heart wrenching to look at these photos of our personal selections throughout…but it’s all the other stuff. The memories we made, the accomplishments & learning we mastered…and failed, the time working with our little boys on yards, baseboards, paint and moldings. It’s the dreams now changed, the close walk to the school, the friends we made, the kids sitting up on the wall between our house and the neighbors. It’s knowing we brought our baby girl home there, the long driveway for bike rides and the big yard (that we were so.sick.of.mowing). Most of all it’s the end of an era, a separation of friendships and a time to regroup and start over…CHANGE…I don’t tend to like it one bit.

So in my effort to move forward, I first want to remember and share what was…to remember we DID IT, even if it didn’t go the way we originally planned…

We started with this…wallpaper covered nearly every room of this house…it.wasn’t.pretty.  We spent HOURS scraping those walls. In this room we took out the pantry, false ceiling, low pony wall and kicked out the wall on the left about 6 feet to increase the room size by a lot…

That took us to about this point where we built out a corner pantry to maximize our space. We also raised the ceilings in the hallways, which ended up making it feel so much bigger in there.

This shows the exterior area where we built a new wall gaining a lot of space in the kitchen.

And after 4 months during a hot summer, with no A/C because the ceilings were torn up, while pregnant with little kids…we finally were able to move into this…(ok the decorating was done later but you get the point)

I almost forgot how much I love those cabinets…until I make dinner tonight and struggle with the pot/pan cabinet =)

The living room also had some of that pretty baby blue wall paper and some pretty pink carpet too!

Without too much effort it became a much prettier space…

And as I’ve done more thinking on this over the past year than I care to admit, the end result is this…this “House” became our “HOME” not because of the cabinets I loved, or the tile we selected…but because of THESE PEOPLE which we created fabulous memories with.  And the best part about change is that they all come with the move, and together we will make our new “HOUSE” a fabulous “Home”, in fact, we already started =)

I’ll share a couple more of our remodel pics in another post! And I look forward to sharing before/after pics of the new house, which we LOVE, at some point too!

SO with that I have a very short list of my 2012 goals. I don’t want a bunch of nonsense resolutions…just some REAL, meaningful, personal goals…things I can focus on and live by.

This year, in no particular order I want to…

Be PRESENT in my life…I want to answer questions more, spend more time, laugh more, play more, pray more, hug more, compliment more, study more, teach my kids more and have more patience. This year I want to focus on being the wife and mother I want to be…and I’ll embrace the hard times and know that they are frequent…but short…and pray for better times to follow the hard ones, because they usually do.

With that I have a goal of some sort of organization to the dreaded dinner hour! I HATE cooking, meal planning, recipe trying and especially grocery shopping…but you see I have 4 kids, so this year, I’m going to try and cook more, plan more and grocery shop with a list. I won’t be perfect at this, and that’s ok, but I want to try to do it more.

In my business I want to be more intentional and present with my clients. I plan to do more face to face appointments to help clients make their photos their art. I want people to see and enjoy their images on their walls as much as I do…because I believe it truly makes your home a happier place. I hope to incorporate studio viewing appointments in the near future.

I want to exercise again. Yes, I want to be skinny, lose weight and shed all those baby pounds…but that’s not my 2012 goal. My goal is just to do more, eat better and TRY. I’m not going to beat myself up for a treat, a bad week and another Dr. Pepper. That just sets me up for failure. I will however, work on running again. Get fresh air. Eat more vegetables, drink more water and be more intentional with my health…cuz it matters.

I’m going to take.more.pictures. Well this probably seems like a no brainer…but you see, I take pictures for a living…and you know what that means? I never take pictures for fun. This year, I’m changing that. I WILL document my family in the mundane, day to day life as well as the bigger/more fun life experiences. I never bring my camera places, cuz I just don’t feel like downloading and editing more…and it’s dumb…and I’m losing out on great photos…so this year I will take more pictues. Some with my Iphone for convenience sake…and others with my 5D MarkII…either way I will have photos of my kids and our life this year!

And on that note, my last real intentional goal of this year is to PRINT.MY.PICTURES. I won’t get caught up from all the years past, I can’t print and organize years of photos all at once, but I will start. I have this disease of perfectionism. I don’t want to do an album or a book online because I just want to do something really cool and unique with all the really great vendors I can work with…and so my photos sit…on my hard drives…and my kids can’t see them!! Because I’ve never had “time” to do the really cool ideas, they just haven’t done much of anything, except for what is on my walls. This year will bring a mix of small, loose 4×6 prints in a lame Target album that I probably already have…and some other digital books, and I plan to even print up one or two quality photo albums from one of the wonderful album vendors I’m able to order from. It won’t necessarily be done, but I’m striving that it will be better than years past!

That’s it. Which already seems like a lot…but hopefully it’s still a manageable list.

And even though this post is already too long and you CLEARLY don’t have time…I will say, neither did I the day I watched this…but I watched it anyway…and boy has it resonated with me. I love this, yes it can sound cheesy and no motherhood isn’t all rosey, but it hits the nail on the head. And it sure has helped me the past few weeks as I work on being PRESENT in my life.

The gift of an ordinary day…

What about you? What are your new years goals?