Life Lately :: December 2015

It's been a quiet bunch of weeks. We fill our days with quick outings, bathtub bubbles & cookie making. To be honest, while most days it's all a bit tiring, it is actually a bit of magic adventuring with these two. Getting to take it slow in the cold foggy December we're having is giving my heart the delight of having time to savor. This is quite a contrast with my Christmas seasons of previous. This has been our first holiday season as a family of four. While we added one in number, it's our most quiet to date.

With said quiet Christmas ahead, we've been working extra hard to pump up the Christmas cheer. Eowyn has caught on and can be found singing songs from Rudolph, the Grinch soundtrack and others. It's a great kind of silly, especially when she add-libs most of the words. (AAAbooo booorreee! Welcome, Welcome Christmas eer!)

Elias is, as usual, causing mischief of one kind or another. Fortunately his life has been spared a few times thanks to his trusty overseer Eowyn-quick to ensure he doesn't get into too much calamity (like the horror it would be if he fell upon her lego tower-seriously though-death trap.) 

Christmas crafts abound-all made seemingly haphazardly-and are sprinkled through our house. We've got sock snowmen, laundry clipped wreaths bedazzled with flower rhinestones, Washi tape Christmas trees! We've got all our Christmas cards from last year still hung and we're adding to them by the day. It's a jolly time of year. Elias is still trying to consume the Christmas lights, we've told him 'no' often enough that he gets this mischievous grin while looking over his shoulder as he approaches the blinking lights. He's a rascal. 

On the flip side, the days are dark here in Finland and the defiance is thick from the little people. We're in the deep-dark-wood of threenager forest and Elias is getting to explore his own wants and needs, and demands. There are some days I think that this three/almost-one business is as good as it gets, other days I'm praying for deliverance.  Just like every other parenting lesson, it's been good for my heart (in the not so good feeling, but seeing fruit coming sort of ways.)  

We finished "The Meaning of Marriage" by Tim Keller (finally), and it is most certainly one of my top 5 best books of the decade. That book is shaking me up in all sorts of ways. I hope my readers read any book (if you're single, married, know someone who is single or married, or otherwise) Read this one. Especially if you believe in the God of the Bible.

It's the perfect head+heart book.

I took a break from instagram recently. I'm not really sure when I'll get back to it, but I noticed my heart doing weird things and I needed to fix that. At first, I was delighting in taking pictures to capture moments already happening. With enough time however, I was starting to think about creating moments for the purpose of capturing. So if there were no 'photo-worthy' moments in my days, I felt a bit disappointed. Also, I think scrolling other people's feeds gave me a loose sense of connection without the reality of actually communicating with anyone. When I started confusing my 'friends' with real ones (telling Ben stories of friends I have never met and who have no idea who I am) I knew I was getting into murky waters. So, a quitting was in order. Now when I find myself thinking of someone, rather than just checking their instagram feed, I shoot them that email, schedule that hangout, send them a text.

So, for this season, I'm liking the break.

As you can see from the pictures above, that hasn't stopped me from documenting our days. I'm laughing because all of the pictures seem so.so.dark! Perhaps that's because even now, at two pm, my living room is barely even illuminated by the Christmas lights. Finland, you sure are something.

 I'm really wanting to reach a point where in my  moments of quiet, I don't feel so impulsive to either consume or produce. I so often make plans for naptime. Eat some chocolate, push out a blog post, get some work done....all that is fine and well, but I'm finding that simply sitting still feels nearly impossible. And yet, I think this season is teaching me more about 'being' than any other season has. I think my heart is craving the quiet. I think I'm experiencing my Christ more than ever in the quiet.

So, if you find that things on this end are a bit more on the quiet end, now you have a reason. :)

Christmas is in a week! Counting down the days!

Hope your holiday season is filled, (but not to the brim.) And that it's got a lot of heaven glimpses.

because I bet Christmas in heaven is EPIC in celebration. Can you even imagine?!

Merry Christmas!