I read this passage in Lamentations 3 this morning and it hit home.

¹⁹ I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
²⁰ I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
²¹ Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

²² Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

²⁵ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him..

I won’t forget, Lord, the trials you have brought us through.  It’s not always easy, but just as Jeremiah wrote, it is good to remember the pain and the affliction - to share the story with others - as a praise, a love song, a Hallelujah to Him.  I want others to hear our story and see God’s handiwork ALL OVER IT - to be encouraged by it, inspired by it, and moved to Christ because of it!  I so desire a life, a heart, a mouth that bring glory and praise to my Saviour.  Thank you for the trials, Lord.  They are not easy to pass through, but they are a testament of your FAITHFULNESS and LOVE.  I will remember them.  I will continue to share them.  How I PRAISE You!

99.9% of my posts will be about family life and the star of our little show - SIENA!  :o)  However, I happen to have a love for all things decorating.  I don’t consider myself a professional by any means and usually steal ideas from other people, stores, magazines clippings, etc.  I love to tinker with our house (even though it’s a rental) and while I don’t have a ton of time to dedicate to it, it is fun to dream about and tinker with now and again.  Poor Ryan gets hauled in to these projects time and time again - usually because I need his hammer and drill expertise!  :o)  He is so good to humor his decor-addicted wife.  I thought I would share a couple of “wall projects” we recently tackled!

Our new photo wall - displaying photos of our adventures in Colorado, milestones (engagement, wedding, Siena), and photos of our little family.  If I’m feeling blue, this is the perfect wall to go study for awhile, as each photo brings a smile to my face and heart.  We started with a bunch of mixed frames I picked up at Wal-mart, then I arranged them on the floor as I wanted them on the wall.  Then it was time to hang them.  This is where Ryan comes in.  He took a photo of my photo arrangement and using his mad math skills, figured out how to mathematically hang them on the wall correctly.  Ain’t he great?  I’m so pleased with the results!  This whole project cost $40 - not bad!

BEFORE:

DURING: (as you can see by the Fall pumpkins and green grass, that we’ve been working on this since forever)

FINISHED PROJECT!

Picked up a couple new pillows at Marshall’s too.  I’m aware of the photo-less frame at the bottom - it’s waiting for that perfect family photo…and may be waiting for awhile.  :o)  And YES, my house is ALWAYS this clean, picked up, and toy-free.  Not.  Let’s just say I took these photos during Siena’s nap time.  :o)

We needed some wall art over Siena’s toy cabinet and it hit me just last week what we needed - birdies!  I’ve always had a fondness for God’s little winged critters and have many around the house in the form of a sculpture, pillow, etc.  Why not put some on the wall?  I found my photos for free online and enlisted my talented hubby to use photo software to cutout the backgrounds and make them just white to help brighten this corner of the room and make them a bit more contemporary.   Completed with white mats, I think they turned out pretty good!  Sure makes me smile!  And, even better, the price tag makes me smile - a $15 project!

I unpacked yet another box the other day and found my old M&M lights from when I was a kid.  I thought they would look happy hung up in Siena’s bathroom - and she agreed!  It doesn’t matter if she has only a quick stop in the bathroom - she insists on having them plugged in!!  :o)

We’ve had fun adding a little “pretty” to our duplex!

What to title this post?!  Frolicking in February!  February Fun!  Fabulous February!  Well, just pick the one you like best!  :o)

Is the warm weather here yet?  I’m so ready.  As I type this, the world outside my window is glistening after an afternoon ice storm in KC yesterday followed by an inch or so of snow.  I’m a Colorado girl through and through, but seriously.  Enough snow and ice already.  Bring on the warm!

It’s interesting trying to figure out weekend activities when it’s super cold outside, but I think we’ve tried to be fairly creative with our adventures.  We hit up Fritz’s one weekend - a local hamburger shop that is known for their miniature trains that zip around overhead tracks and deliver the customers meals.  This was a HUGE hit with Siena.  And, of course, we donned the paper engineer caps!

Actually, we’ve apparently had something of a train theme going this month!  We spent the day at Kansas City’s historic Union Station - built in 1914 and, at it’s peak in WWII, had nearly a million travelers pass through the station!  The interior was gorgeous!  They had a small “museum” inside that we browsed, but the highlight was a large hands-on science center for kids - Siena’s favorite!  They had experiments the kids could tinker with, small animals to pet, and lots of things to climb on.  We topped the day off with ice cream - and coffee for Mommy and Daddy!

Ryan had this past Monday off for President’s Day, which shocked both of us!  We started the day at Dunkin Donuts (great for the diet, eh?) and Siena was pretty thrilled sampling her first ever doughnut - the sprinkles were her favorite part!  Then it was off to historic Parkville and shopping (just a little) in Zona Rosa.  A fun, RELAXING, “get away from it all” kind of day!

February has also included fun playdates for Siena (and for Mommy too!) with our friends!

Pushing Anna…

Driving with Kherington…

Siena’s a little young for most games, but we’ve been able to add a couple that she really enjoys!  Elefun (a butterfly catching game), a matching game, and a “jumping game” that we created for her where she jumps on letters, numbers, or shapes written on construction paper that we call out to her.  This last one is her favorite and a good learning game for her too.  We’ve turned a few Friday nights into our “family game night”, complete with pizza!  It’s been pretty fun, even if we are playing preschool games!  :o)  Our greatest joy comes from watching Siena relish in the fun!  I’m thinking we may have landed on a new family tradition for Friday nights.

We’ve even had a bit more snow and while most of it had melted away a couple weeks ago, we were able to scoop up enough to make ONE more snowman and snow cat!  :o)

Siena has never liked having dirty hands.  She’s a little young to be a clean freak, don’t ya think?  :o)  Fingerpainting has never been her thing, so I finally went out and got her a couple of paintbrushes.  We painted for the first time yesterday and she loved it!

It’s fun thinking of new things and activities to try with her and she really does relish in it all.  With the whirlwind year (or two) that we have had, it is such a sweet blessing to be able to be home with Siena and just BREATHE and dream up new things to try.  God is good!!

Me and my tiny Valentine…

The perfect winter day:  being completely snowed in, all my family present and accounted for, flickering candles and a roaring fire in the fireplace, a warm crock of homemade chicken soup, and playtime in the snow with my baby girl!  Yup - that was yesterday, and it was a treasure of a day!  Thank you, Lord, for these sweet memories and the white snow that not only brightens the world, but also my heart.

It was fun having Daddy home from work!

Those two specks are me and Siena…just love this photo, though!

Here we are going to get the mail, which shockingly enough was actually delivered despite the blizzard!

We made this snowman last Friday, but it seemed appropriate to share the photo in this post!  The squirrels ended up eating Frosty’s carrot nose and acorn eyes and mouth!  :o)

With all of the snow we have had, it seemed fitting to go for a sleigh ride! Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop (a real, historical stagecoach stop) was offering sleigh rides, so we jumped at the chance! Siena LOVED the “neighs” and they even let her pet them! A fun family memory!

We made hot cocoa beforehand and took it with us…a new Siena favorite!  :o)

These next three photos have absolutely nothing to do with sleigh rides.  They are just too adorable not to share, if I do say so myself! :o)

Siena playing dress-up - our sweet fairy butterfly!  (Thank you, Gg, for the great dress-up duds!)

Our happy girl, all ready for church on Sunday!

And making blueberry muffins with Mommy:  (such a GREAT helper!)

Yesterday was Ryan’s birthday!  He tried so hard to get home for our little family party, but it took him 2 1/2 agonizing hours to navigate traffic in the blizzard we were having!  We made the most of our shortened party and Ryan built a great fire in our fireplace.  ”Happy Birthday” is Siena’s all-time favorite song and she just has to help blow out the candles!

And one purple balloon just for Siena!

We even broke out the “Bob and Larry” (VeggieTales) birthday masks!…

The snow made for a ton of fun for Siena and myself today!  Our Siena could live outside, I think.  There’s nothing she loves more than playing outside - no matter the weather!  This mommy loves it too!  There’s nothing better to bring out your inner-kid like making snow angels all over the backyard!

Armed with her bucket and shovel and ladybug sunglasses…

Mommy gets in some good exercise pulling Siena on her sled!

The snow is too dry for a good snowman, but we did our best with our little red bucket and some dead flowers…  (He looks like a marshmallow snowman!  Yum!)

This slide is a year-round toy…who knew?

Time to go in for some hot cocoa!  (or “hot juice” as Siena calls it!)

We FINALLY had SNOW in Kansas City!!  YEAH!  This Colorado girl was seriously missing the snow.  Siena has never really played in the snow.  She has been anxious to use her “boot shoes”, as she calls them, and walk on the snow and make a “no man”.  The snow wasn’t great for a snowman, but we sure had fun making snow angels and just playing in the winter wonderland!  Daddy even got to come home early from work and play with us!  We bought her a sled the next day, but the temperatures dropped to about 5 degrees with a -15 degree wind chill.  Made it hard to get outside after that!

Siena had her two year check up last week and she is a healthy, happy girl!  She is still in the 90th percentile for height!  Who knew they made patient gowns for the tiny ones?  This just cracked me up…and she couldn’t have been more thrilled with her “blue dress”!  How cute is she?

It was one of the first times that we didn’t scream at the doctor’s office.  Her friend, Kherington, gave her a doctor’s kit for her birthday.  We brought it with us and it made the whole experience kinda fun!  She didn’t even cry after receiving a shot!  My brave girl!

We had lunch with Daddy on “The Plaza” afterwards!

A couple days later we enjoyed a super cold, but fun, playdate with our friend Anna at the park!

We made so many fun memories in December, that it seems a shame not to share them with you!  So…humor me a bit while I do a couple of “back posts” for ya!  :o)

We had fun decorating our little duplex - more because Siena took such delight in all of the lights and ornaments!  She really brought so much joy to the season for us.  She got so into decorating the tree, that she even took the necklaces out of her dress-up box and started hanging them on the tree too!

You can’t have Christmas without the smell of freshly baked cookies!  We got a little exuberant and baked too many, but it was fun all the same.  Our little Christmas girl had to get in on the action!

I’ve never associated fireworks with Christmas, but Kansas City is all about their fireworks at this time of year!  It was such an awesome experience - a new favorite tradition for sure!  We went to a great fireworks display at Longview Lake and then drove through an amazing Christmas light display.  Kansas City is famous for “The Plaza” - an outdoor shopping district with it’s beautiful architecture designed after buildings in Spain.  Ryan’s office building is right off The Plaza.  Each year, they light up the buildings with thousands of Christmas lights and we enjoyed watching the lighting ceremony, with fireworks at the end.

A local park/arboretum also had a  luminary/light display with carolers singing around a giant bonfire.  It was cold, but another fun Kansas City Christmas memory!

Siena’s second birthday was in December, but I never had a chance to blog about it!  Back when we lived in the apartment in Shawnee, we used to go to the storytime at the library over there.  We met two great gals through that time and their sweet daughters are right around Siena’s age.  We have continued to get together with them for playdates and invited them to Siena’s birthday party.

On the day of her party, neither one could come because they were sick!  HUGE BUMMER!  The party was scheduled on a Saturday, so since Ryan was home, we went ahead and had a party just the three of us.  We were able to schedule another party with Siena’s friends on her actual birthday a few days later.  She didn’t seem to mind all of the celebrating - and cupcakes!  :o)  We traveled to Colorado for Christmas and both Ryan’s family and mine had parties for her too - it was a month of the never-ending birthday party!  Siena loved every minute of it!  I think she is still wondering why we aren’t singing to her everyday and eating cupcakes!  :o)

The party theme was an easy decision this year.  Siena is really into kitties right now, or “mimi’s” as she calls them.  None other would do than to have a Hello “Mimi” party!  (With lots of purple thrown in, as it is her favorite color right now!)

Here are photos from her first two parties - I have yet to go through our Christmas photos, but hopefully will post those soon!

Loving the Hello Kitty (mimi) decorations!

I look sickly here, but sharing this anyway - it’s the only photo with our whole family! :o)

Even Siena’s cherished Fuzzy Bear got in on the partying!

I don’t care who ya are, cupcakes just make you smile!

Kherington and her mommy, Lindsey

Anna and her mommy, Carol

The girls made Hello Kitty paper dolls - they picked out what clothes they wanted her to wear and decorated her with lots of stickers and crayons.

Having a formal tea party with Kherington!

Presents!

Siena and Anna

Siena and Kherington

Thanks, Anna and Kherington (and their moms!) for making Siena’s day so special!!  We are so grateful for your friendship!

Hard to believe two years have gone by.  Siena brings so much joy and laughter to our lives!  Our sweetest blessing!  Happy Birthday, Baby Bear!