Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for this holiday season.  A few things that top my list are:

-  My two beautiful, healthy little boys

-  My amazing husband who is so dedicated to our family.

-  Our new house that we have been busily tearing apart this week

-  An incredibly supportive extended family on both sides that we love so much

- The freshly fallen snow out my window

-  My loving God who has blessed me with more than I could ever deserve

Dinner with Friends

We had a wonderful time with some good friends this evening.  We have become close with our friends Gregor and Amy over the last 5 years that we've been at Proctor.  Although they are a few years older than us (in fact, I think Gregor used to babysit me at one point in my life!), we actually have a lot in common.  Gregor and Scott coach basketball together which means they spend hours and hours together in the winter.  This also means that Amy and I are "basketball widows" and enjoy spending our husbandless afternoons together.  They got married young and had kids young just like us (which we've found is very rare around here.  I think most of our Proctor friends think we're crazy for being married and having two kids AND owning a house(!!!) when we are only 28).  They also have a deep faith and although we worship in different ways and have theological differences, it's really nice to be friends with people who value what you value and want to honor God with their lives.

Long before we were friends with Gregor and Amy, I grew up with Gregor's younger brother, Glenn.  We have been friends since we were 3 and were in the same small class in elementary school.  Even before we were old enough to go to school, Glenn's mom used to babysit me while my mother worked at Proctor and we therefore spent a good deal of our early childhood together.  Like most of my childhood friends, I lost touch with Glenn when he went to high school at Proctor and I attended the public school, Kearsarge.  We keep in touch on Facebook and I've seen him a couple times in recent years when he's home to visit his family...but we really haven't spent significant time together since probably 6th or 7th grade!  We had a blast having dinner at Gregor and Amy's who are hosting Glenn, his wife Kim and their son Tate for Thanksgiving.  So fun to all be together and reconnect with old friends.  We had a delicious meal of pancakes, waffles, eggs, muffins, potatoes fruit salad and bacon for dinner and had fun playing games and catching up.  Camden and Paige had fun chasing each other around the house and attacking each other with hugs.  They're quite the pair!

Here is a picture of Glenn and me that I just found in the Proctor Archives from back in the day...

 

Glenn and Amy...

 Kim with Tate and Brynne...

 Cope, Scott and Gregor...

 Paige and Camden take a rest after chasing each other around the house all evening...

 Playing Pit...

 Nelson, Camden and Cope...

 Brynne holding Micah...

It was great to see you Glenn and Kim!  Thanks for hosting Gregor and Amy!

Exciting News!!!!!!

We have some very exciting news, and no, it doesn't involve a baby this time!  We closed on our first home today!!!  It is going to be a major project, as it is in really poor condition right now, but it is in the ideal location for us!  It is located on a little dead end street with only three houses on it and the neighbors on both sides of us are family friends that I've known for my whole life.  I grew up playing on this road and we are so excited to live next to such wonderful people that we already know and love!  We are still only 1/3 of a mile from the village (aka: my parents house, the elementary school and library and Proctor's campus), but it is on the outskirts of town and will feel much more private and secluded than anything we've ever lived in before.  The property backs up to Proctor's land (a huge meadow, river and ski hill) in the back so the boys will have lots of room to play. 

This house first went on the market in mid-July and we were out for one of our many walks and decided to walk by and check it out.  We ran into the woman who lived there and she offered to bring us in and show us around (no realtor or anything, we just went in right then and there)!  Most people would have been scared off immediately.  The house was a mess and needed TONS of work, but we both left super excited about it!  We had visions of what the house could be and we started to pursue it more formally.  After four months of negotiations, a potential oil tank spill and the following state testing and results and many other random hoops to jump through we finally closed today! 

We can't wait to get in there over Thanksgiving break (which starts today!  Woohoo!) and start knocking down walls and tearing out broken kitchen cabinets.  It needs a complete overhaul and luckily we were able to purchase it for a low enough price that we will be able to put money into it to make it our own.  It will be the perfect combination of old and new as the house was built in the mid-1800's with beautiful wood floors and unique designs, but will be completely renovated (eventually) to meet our needs! 

 We can't wait and are excited to have a big project to keep us busy (haha...as if we need to be more busy) over the course of this year.  I'm sure I'll be updating the blog often as we make progress on the house!

Entering the house for the first time as homeowners...

JillandKate

Two of my good friends from college have been pursuing their passion for music since meeting one another at the Contemporary Music Center (a semester-long program held at the FOCUS Study Center on the Vineyard (where I used to go to summer camp!) for Christian students from schools all across the country).  They have been working in the music industry full-time since graduating from Gordon, balancing their time between touring the world as Kelly Clarkson's backup singers and pursuing their own career as the incredibly talented duo, JillandKate.  They write all their own songs and their voices blend so beautifully it is as if they were created to make music together.

They have quite a following of devoted fans and on the 17th day of each month they post a video of them singing a new song on their blog.  Just yesterday they released their first acoustic album (this is their third album overall) and it is a compilation of many of the songs they have sung on their blog.  When I went to bed last night, their album, Songs on the 17th, was ranked #5 in the Singer/Songwriter category on iTunes, just behind James Taylor's Greatest Hits and just ahead of The Best of Simon and Garfunkel!

Check out their music on iTunes!  You won't regret it!  Click here to go straight to their new album!
 JillandKate's Blog
JillandKate's YouTube Channel
JillandKate on Facebook

Brian and Sarah's Wedding

This weekend we had an incredible time celebrating Brian and Sarah at their beautiful wedding in Groton, MA.  It was a weekend filled with laughter, happy tears, family and friends and it was honestly one of my favorite weddings I've been to.  It was a little exhausting with our two little ones.  This was our first big outing as a family of four, and it was challenging at times.  Sleeping in a hotel room with two babies is tough.  Camden would be sound asleep and Micah was up until almost 1:00am both nights so Scott and I would take turns walking the halls with him or hanging out in the lobby so his cries wouldn't wake Camden up!  Luckily we had lots of family around to helps us out.  Despite bouncing babies and escaping to nurse Micah throughout the weekend, we were able to truly enjoy our time.  The wedding ceremony was beautiful and contained many Jewish elements that Sarah and Brian thoughtfully included.  I had never been to a Jewish wedding before and it was a blast!  They had an incredible band and Camden had a BLAST dancing the night away!  They also had a delicious ice cream bar from Kimball's (my favorite ice cream place!) which was a highlight of the night.  The food was delicious, everyone was having a wonderful time and Brian and Sarah are just perfect for each other.  Congratulations Brian and Sarah!  We love you!!!!

Sarah with her sister, Jessica at the rehearsal dinner...

 Reading his new Curious George book with Uncle Brian and Aunt Sarah (it's official now!)...

 The Best Men...

 Our little family...

 Love this one. 

 Sarah looked amazing!

 So fun!

 Hanging with Ami - it was SO wonderful having my parents there - they were a great help with the boys!

 Dancing with Nan and Pop...

Random Happy Thoughts

So I've been attempting to blog for days now, but every time I sit down with my computer on my lap Camden wakes up from a nap or needs a snack or Micah is fussy or  hungry or I'm just too darn tired!  Even though I haven't been as good about blogging, life has been wonderful in our home.  We are loving life with our two boys!  

 Here are a few things that I have been enjoying/excited about over the last week or two...

1)  On Saturday I got to play SOCCER!!!  It was amazing!  I played with a couple other faculty members against/with the girls Varsity team!  We had SO much fun and it felt so good to break a sweat, run around in the fresh air and score a couple goals! :)  I was really nervous to play as I was only 5 weeks post-partum and still not completely physically recovered, but my midwife said I could play and I went for it!  It felt much better than I anticipated and now I'm all inspired to get back in shape and lose this baby weight!  Here I am with Mel, Lindsay (who I played against in high school!  She is a nasty goalie and when she first started at Proctor a couple years ago we both totally knew exactly who the other one was from our years as competitors) and my friend Amy...

 

 2)  Unlike much of the country, I had never really watched the television show Glee until recently.  I would flip by it occasionally when I was watching TV and thought it was kind of strange - I mean it's essentially a musical on TV (something that's never really been done successfully before) and if you're just flipping by it it's a little strange.  BUT, I know enough people who love the show (particularly my sister) and decided to give it a try.  I borrowed the first season from the local library and started on the first episode and was immediately hooked!  I was shocked by the development of characters, the intense topics that the show tackled and how the producers handled each one, the incredible voices of the cast who sing all of their own songs...Let's just say that I spent Camden's nap times watching lots of Glee over the last couple of weeks and I am now officially caught up and can watch season two as each new episode premiers on Tuesdays.  YAHOO!!! :)  

3)  We had some of our good friends from college up to visit on Sunday and had such a blast with them.  We usually go down to Connecticut to visit them since there are a few couples that we're friends with who all live near each other, but this time they offered to come up to NH!  We met our friend's little baby Eden who was born in July and had so much fun catching up on life!  Thanks for making the trek Hayes, Kara, Josh and Meg!

 4)  I'm loving watching Camden love on his little brother!  How cute are they?!?!

5)  I got the new Taylor Swift album for free (long story) and am actually loving it!  I know, I know...I'm a preteen at heart.  It's fun to get new music and learn all the lyrics (something that I don't get to do very often!

6)  My favorite restaurant in the world closed for about 10 months and just recently reopened!  I went three times in the first two weeks (but still couldn't match my dad's 5 times!).  Loving having my Peter's Mother's Favorite back again!  :)

7)  I'm super excited for my brother-in-law's wedding this weekend!  Can't wait for Sarah to officially be a part of the family (although it feels like she already is!).  I'm sure I'll do a post with pictures soon!

8)  LOVE living near both sets of our parents.  They are the best and our boys just love them all to pieces.

9)  It's been so fun watching Camden grow up.  He got to ride on a horse last weekend and he's loving the easel that he got from Uncle Brian and Aunt Sarah for his birthday!  It's so fun that he's old enough to do crafty projects with now!

I guess you could say that life is pretty good right now!  We are so thankful for all of God's blessings in our life!

Happy Halloween!

We had a wonderful Halloween weekend!  On Friday, Camden, Micah and I joined the Proctor preschool and went trick-or-treating around campus.  It's so fun to visit all the different offices and departments and spend some time with all his little buddies who he doesn't normally see during the day.  

Camden and Paige...

 Camden and Paige with Edna - she's worked in the kitchen at Proctor for 35 years (is that right Edna?) and is famous for her delicious cookies!

 Me and my boys...

 Had to get a shot from the back...love the little tail and banana!

 My other little monkey was fast asleep...

 Linden and Camden riding the horse at my parents house...

 Me and Molly with our little ones...

 The boys in the boat...

Friday afternoon Scott and Camden carved our pumpkin!

 *kiss*

 Look at that cute little tail!

 Sunday night we went trick-or-treating around town with Camden's friend Jordan!  They were pretty darn cute together!

Halloween is so much fun when you have kids!  And I'm not sure how we managed, but we got through the weekend with Camden only having about two bites of candy!  He was great and I can't wait for Micah to be a little older so he and Camden can enjoy these special times together!