Nana...The angels are singing.

The angels of heaven are most definitely singing tonight as they welcome Nana HOME.  Nana (Aaron's grandma) passed away this afternoon. We were able to spend the day at the hospital with her, surrounded by family. And, when it was time, she peacefully went to be with the Lord. God is extremely generous in allowing us to be with her.

I have known Nana for a little over 12 years. What a gift to know her and be counted as someone that she loved. Truly, if Nana loved you...she let you know it!

Nana blessed our lives in many ways, but here are a few that stand out to me...

1. Nana was a joyful person. Even as she aged and especially over the last few months as her memory slipped up a bit at times, she was joyful. It was continually obvious that she loved the Lord. Scripture, hymns, praise music, etc...these are the things that were imprinted on her heart.

2. Nana prayed for us. This point was NEVER in doubt. I often received cards from her, especially when I was pregnant, describing how she was praying for us. I am convinced that my children have been "soaked" in prayer by Nana, since before they were born.

3. Nana was extremely proud of her grandkids. I am sure all of her grandkids felt this, but I can only speak to our experience. When Nana spoke of Aaron's ministry, or a sermon he had preached, she would talk as if she was speaking of Billy Graham. She loved to watch Aaron as a dad, as well.

Luke has always loved to be with Nana. If we have a family event and she's not there...he notices! So, today before we dropped him off and headed to the hospital we wanted to be honest about the likely outcome of the day. We let him know that Nana was sick and was probably going to go to heaven today. He looked right at me and said, "Mom, that makes me sooooooo sad. I just love Nana." When I picked him up late this afternoon his little voice shook a bit as he said, "but I didn't get to give her a kiss and a hug and tell her goodbye." So we had a good time remembering that we recently saw her and Luke remembered that he did get to hug her then...and he's sure she remembered too.  Oh what a tender little heart.

So, as I have written this long post, I am reminded that I write this blog for us. We LOVE to share it and have others read it, but it is our way to capture the memories and events of our family. So, thanks for hanging in there with us.

Below are some pictures of Nana with our family...

         

At our wedding.

    

Luke and Nana

    

Peter and Nana

    

Nana and Natalie

This is one of my favorite pictures...Luke and Nana this last Christmas.

Cupcakes and Curly-Bows

A whole new world of fun...somedays you just have to wear cupcake pants and curly bows!

Where did the last 7 months go?

Natalie Kate turned 7 months on the same day Obama was sworn into office....obviously both were HUGE events. :-) Our newborn, turned infant, has now turned into a happy, bouncing, joyful baby girl. I really can't believe she is 7 months old. She is growing and changing right before our eyes. She is working on sitting up on her own, loves to eat baby food (spinach and green beans are her favorites), and she's constantly reaching, grabbing, and "gumming" anything within reach. She's weighing in around 15 pounds...which is about 4 pounds less than her brothers at this age. Here are a few pictures...

The cute bow lasted for about 20 seconds before falling out...but it gives me hope!

Getting the hang of sitting up.  I love this picture though, because it looks like she has a big head and a tiny little body.  

Chubby little hands and feet.  I will miss the birthmark on her hand when it disappears.

Cheeks! What else can be said?

Who wants to crawl, when you can just sit still???

There's all the time in the world to move, crawl, etc... That's what I keep telling Natalie.  No rush!  Let's just be content sitting and playing.  Unfortunately, she doesn't share my laid back view of her mobility.  She is NOT crawling yet,  but she did manage to get her little knees under her the other day... which was adorable.  So I snapped the picture below.

Luke is such a great big brother,  and he decided that it would help Natalie if she saw a picture of him as a baby, learning how to crawl.  Here's his drawing.  I love it!  

Some kids sleep with teddy bears....

Most kids love to sleep with bears, blankies, and all sorts of stuffed things...but not Peter.  Most nights we find him snuggled up with a monster truck or motorcycle. Oh how cuddly!   

Peter is observing the world and is commenting on what he sees all of the time.  The other day, Aaron was working on copying our VHS tapes to DVD.  He was in the middle of copying our wedding video when Peter walked in.  Peter was completely fascinated by the video and came running to find me.  He said (rather surprised), "momma, you a princess."  I of course confirmed this as the absolute TRUTH!   Okay, I really said "you think mommy is a princess?"  I was smiling, enjoying that for this moment, my little boy thought I was a princess.  Then he burst my bubble and said, "NO, now you just a mommy."  Uggggghhhhhh...so much for the royal treatment.  

Stinky mommy and a stubborn God...

Today I put on some chapstick that happened to smell like strawberry. When I was hugging Peter he leaned in, took a sniff and said "you stink good, momma." Ahhhh the ultimate compliment from a 2 year old!

Awhile later, I used the word stubborn. Luke stopped me and asked what it meant. I explained to him that when someone is being stubborn they want to do something their own way and it's really hard to change their mind. Without even a pause, Luke said, "Well, I know someone who's REALLY stubborn...God. He ALWAYS wants us to do stuff HIS way."

Some days are just funny!

Christmas in Portland...

Like I said in a previous post, we headed to Portland for Christmas on the 22nd and we stayed until January 2nd. We had a great time staying with my mom and dad, as well as with the Lesyks.

Traveling for 11 days with 3 kids is a bit of a challenge. Just the packing alone is a bit crazy. Luke weathered the long stay like a champion and had a load of fun with his cousins. Peter is 2 and apparently that doesn't change when you stay at someone else's home. He enjoyed his cousins as well and thinks that Isaac and Reiley's playroom is akin to Disneyland. But, being 2 years old, he also found time to potty on Auntie's carpet, dismember one of Reiley's paper dolls and hand it to her limb by limb as she cried in agony, color Bubby's carpet with lipstick, and a few other choice 2 year-old moves that are enough to bring any parent to their knees. Natalie was a perfect angel of course...except for the part where she decided that sleeping at night was for rookies and insisted on waking up every 2-3 hours. For a girl that sleeps 10 -12 hours at home, mommy was not excited about the 1-on-1 time we spent together in the middle of the night.

All of that aside, our time was better than we could have ever imagined. We spent Christmas Eve with the Lawler family and the 9 kids had a great time together. We were blessed by my Grandfather reading the Christmas story from the Bible...a tradition that we treasure.

Christmas day was wonderful. We had a great morning as a family and then spent the afternoon and evening with Bubby and the Lesyks. They made Christmas dinner and we spent a good portion of the evening playing Wii Fit.

Here are some pictures of our Christmas adventures...

Scarbrough, Lesyk, and Stewart kids...

Grandpa Lawler reading the Christmas story

Santa brought the boys a Lightening McQueen race track

Peter is standing on a little skateboard that he got for his bear...not so sure the bear will get to use it much.

Natty loved the paper.

The new bathrobes were a hit.

The boys made a build-a-bear bunny for Natalie.

Yep, she loves it!

Nothing beats holiday cheer...

The kids made this platter for Bubby and Papa

Luke and Isaac are great buddies. Luke is watching Isaac play his new DS.

We thought it would be a great idea to go ice-skating. WRONG! Kids and ice don't mix...at least not our kids. I had visions of us skating around the rink. Instead, Aaron and I pretty much carried the kids around the rink trying not to fall on them.

Natalie is starting to sit up...

The boys found these great sunglasses and bubble makers (that they used as guitars) and kept telling us that they were rock stars.

Stewart family Christmas...

Snow and ice can't slow us down!  Stewart family Christmas was wonderful.  While we were cozy inside, about 2-3 inches of snow was falling outside.  

We had a wonderful dinner at Ross and Shannon's house.  As can be expected from a 4 year-old, Luke drank as many shirley-temples as he could convince people to make for him (see the red lips in the pictures below) and ate just a roll for dinner.  On the other-hand, we looked down the table to see Peter eating salad, roast, and anything else we put on his plate.   Of course, he thought the soda was excellent as well and wandered the house drinking out of any cup that was not being held...thank goodness we weren't drinking martinis!

We had dessert and opened presents at our house.  Below are some pictures.  The two best "presents" of the year were Natalie and Emmett who were celebrating their first Christmas.  

Here are the cousins...Luke, Peter, Natalie and Emmett.

Mema hit it big when she bought Legos for the boys.  Peter got a Duplo Police Boat...complete with "bad guys" and all...

Ross, Shannon and their adorable Emmett.  

Auntie Saza, Aaron and Natalie.

Nana got Natalie a sweet doll.  Dolls are a welcome addition to our house...if you ask me!

What an awesome picture of Mema and Emmett.

Pepa the HERO!  He removed the 12 screws and 4 zip ties that were holding this digger in its packaging.   Tonka may be going a bit overboard on the security these days.

One of my favorite pictures of the night.  Luke and Nana sharing a moment of complete JOY.  Luke adores Nana.

Auntie Saza gave Luke and Peter these remote control bulldozers.  Peter said, "awesome."

Natalie is rolling all over the place and was thrilled when she looked up and found herself under the Christmas tree.

Arctic blast 2008...

You gotta love the news coverage in the NW.  If any weather event lasts more than 10 minutes, it's given a name and then the name is repeated thousands of times until we all find ourselves aimlessly chanting... arctic blast, arctic blast, arctic blast!  

While the news coverage got old, the snow did NOT.  We loved every minute of it.  Of course, Aaron grew up in Yakima and is an EXCELLENT snow driver and we happen to own a very "un-pc" Toyota Sequoia, which we have since nick-named the Beast.  The snow slowed us down in the ways we wanted, but we weren't stuck at home and we were able to be out and about as well.  Aaron and I have always said that we would love to live somewhere that gets a fair amount of snow in the winter.  

The first picture below is a picture I took of our backyard on the day we left for Portland.  My favorite part of the picture is the snow on the swings.   

We braved the wet pavement (well for most of the trip) and headed to Portland on the 22nd.  When we arrived in Portland, we found snow and ice covering the freeway.  Then we were shocked to see that there was almost 2 feet of snow on the ground at my parent's house.   We made the most of it by heading out to do some sledding.  Bubby and Papa joined in the fun.  It was such a fun morning.  One we won't forget for a very long time.  Check out the pictures below.

Peter ran out in the yard and immediately put his little hands out and fell backward.  It was hilarious....the first 500 times he did it.  When we were walking back from sledding he insisted on leaving his mark by falling in EVERY yard we passed.  What a silly boy.

Peter started the trend and then everyone had to try it...here's Aaron mid-fall.

Papa and Luke joined in too.  Is this a good grandpa or what???

Here's Luke after taking a header in the snow.  

Let the sledding begin!  We headed down to my former Jr. High to get off the main roads, but walking was just too slow for the guys so off they went.  

Off we go...

C'mon Papa...let's go faster. 

Bubby and Peter getting ready to tackle the hill.

Even Natalie took a run with Bubby and Papa.  Her first sledding adventure.

We call this a "Stewy Stack."