Every January, I assemble a blog post of sorts that catalogs our year. Largely organized in list-form, I touch on the big and little things, events and thoughts and experiences that shaped our life over the last year. I do find this incredibly helpful as a sort of reflection, a glance back on the Lord's faithfulness, to show me, time and time again, that He is a good God. And with that mindset, I feel less encumbered as we continue on into the new year, more ready to face a full year of new, fresh days, with the heart attitude that regardless of what the days will hold, mundane or exciting, difficult or good, I can walk into the future with hope and trust in Him...

I wrote about our early Christmas celebrations and travels in my previous post here. After we returned home from that trip, we had a relatively mellow week at home, with lots of little celebratory things sprinkled into the week of Christmas.On Monday, I had a midwife appointment. I haven't written much about this pregnancy so far, but it's going well! I am seeing a different midwife provider for this pregnancy and have been thrilled with her care...

The weekend before Christmas, we packed up our truck with warm clothes and Christmas gifts, plenty of snacks for the drive, and a loaf of sourdough bread, and drove north to see my family in the Twin Cities. It had been over a year since we spent time in my home state, and it was a so nice to be back for a visit. We stayed at my parents' house, along with my Grandma Donna, and much of the visit was the lovely little things of life: making coffee and meals together, Cooper exploring the house, eating, lots of laughing with Cooper and the sweet and silly things he does and says, and chatting together in the evenings. We arrived late on Thursday, and my mom had hot beef stew ready for us; such a cozy meal...

Over the last several months, I've been working on several Christmas crafts--both sewing and knitting. Some are for our own home as decor, and most are gifts. Since some were mailed off relatively early or opened at early Christmas celebrations, I can now share them here, just in time for Christmas. The links with the knitting projects are to project pages which then include pattern links...

Per usual, this time of year flies. I've had much of this post saved in a draft for what felt like only a few days, but has in fact, been weeks. Time to catch-up a little on life these last few weeks!We stayed in town for Thanksgiving this year. The day before Thanksgiving, I spent most of the day prepping food and doing some cleaning, in hopes of having more time to be present and enjoy the actual holiday...