Well, I do believe we have almost officially survived 2007. Christmas day was nice and relaxing for us! We went to my mom's and opened gifts, ate food and had some good ole QT. Jordan was pretty surprised with a new macbook from me, his parents, and my mom and her bf! So you can all imagine exactly what he has been doing for the last 6 days. Here are a few pics of course!

Jordan is "everything mac"

My mom helping the boys play with their new cars...disregard the tight PJ pants...nice.

Way too cool for school...stickers and all

Apparently Noelle likes macs too...

What, you don't wear shoes with your pj's?

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful...um, no you haven't.

This weekend was also Jordan's official last weekend at Sagebrush. We've both felt a bit indifferent about it. It's hard to say goodbye to something that you love...even a job. Working at a church will always be the more than just a job...maybe that's why it is so hard to leave. Either way, we will continue to seek the Lord's provision for where our family should be these next months. We are definitely looking forward to a brighter future ahead. Thanks to those of you who have supported Jordan and our family's next step. Your words of affirmation and encouragement in confusing times are coveted. And can I steal a moment just to say that I could not be more proud of my husband. I am proud of the man he is when he is praised and when he is not. I am proud of his unflailing honor and integrity to his ministry and to his family. I am proud of the living example he is of the mercy and humility of Christ. I am proud that my babies call him daddy and proud that he will forever be mine. I really can't think of a way to improve that man.

What it means to be held

I really am not a scrooge. I tell myself this in kind of a convincing way. I admit that I get a little overwhelmed at the thought of buying gifts and all the things necessary for a "successful" Christmas. Our anniversary is the 22nd of December...which I love! We had a fantastic day and evening to ourselves...thank you mom! But this weekend has set a little different tone of Christmas for me. The presents are still here...the food is prepared...I am wearing my official "Christmas Eve" pajamas as I am writing. My kids are sleeping and my husband (aka Santa) is putting together a train set for the boys. So here is where it gets a little off track...Saturday morning a friend of mine called to tell me that her aunt, who had been diagnosed with cancer only 2 weeks ago, passed away unexpectedly that morning. It was difficult to hear her raw emotion, and I truly hurt for her. This morning another friend called to tell me her grandma was found unconscious and they were spending their Christmas Eve at the hospital....waiting. Tomorrow, Christmas Day, is the same day years ago that my own grandpa lost his battle with lung cancer and my mom and I made an impromptu Christmas flight to Ohio. With all that said, yesterday at church a song was sang that I had never heard. I see it's pretty popular now that I have officially "googled" it, but it was new to me. It is called "Held" by Natalie Grant. It's a raw song about hurt, loss and devastation. Here are the lyrics to the chorus that is so touching to me through this past weekend...

This is what it means to be held

How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved and to know

That the promise was that when everything fell

We’d be held

The song is a reality check that horrible, devastating things can and probably will happen to us...even to those who "have died to live" as the song says. Our promises aren't that nothing will fall...only that He will be there to hold us when it does. Losing the ones I love is the biggest fear that I have. I refuse to even play out those "what if" emotions in my head, but I am comforted knowing that in all things I will be held. So this Christmas, I am praying for and hurting for my friends that I dearly love. I am also remembering how much I miss my Grandpa...I miss being called his "little pill" and how he and Grandma would come to our house every October and he would spend all day fixing up every broken lawn chair in our backyard. I miss feeling how spikey his hair was against my little hands and feeling so proud to be his "Roseann Rosanna-danna". But above all these things, I am spending this Christmas being "held" in His arms.

This is me and my grandpa about 24 years ago!

Fun family visits!

This week we were lucky enough to see BOTH Papa (Stacy's dad) and Grandaddy (Jordan's dad). Papa came into town Friday night and Uncle Matt and Aunt Sara were here on Saturday. We had tons of fun...the boys absolutely love when family comes to visit and so do Jordan and I. Noelle was in love with them all...of course. It was the perfect visit for everyone! Papa really took it for the team by sleeping with Landon and getting peed on TWICE...sorry Dad! One day we'll have a spare bedroom!

Noelle and Grandaddy laughing at each other!

More love with Grandaddy!

Papa and the kids!

Noelle and Papa!

We are getting pretty excited about Christmas! We have an awesome christian advent calendar that we got a few years ago and the boys love looking forward to the story every night. They get to hear the Christmas story almost every night in December! If anyone out there wants to know where we got it, let me know!

2007 Year End Review

What better reason to start a blogsite than doing an eChristmas newsletter? We want to join the ranks of other blogging families so we can update pics and useless information for you all. We'll just pretend like someone actually looks at it other than ourselves!

We have never written a "Christmas newsletter". I always enjoy reading the ones I get, but have never seemed to have the content for my own. Well, 3 kids and 6 years of marriage later, we figure we may have something to offer!

2007 started off as glorious as ever on February 15th with the birth of our beautiful, angelic daughter Noelle! Everything about her from the moment she came to us has been incredible. From the get go, she ate good, slept good and thrives off of watching the rest of her crazy family interact. Now at almost 10 months she is rolling everywhere, crawling, eating finger foods, babbling her baby language and waving bye bye. Her skills change daily and she could not be more perfect! We couldn't imagine our lives without that perfect little thing.

Landon celebrated the big 2 in March of this year, and he is living it up. It's hard to describe Landon in mere words on a blog. He is beefy, he talks incessantly, he likes to suck his thumb, he can't say the word "sausage", and is learning to wake up in the morning without peeing on himself. He started a "Friday Fun Day" program this fall and loves going to "school". He is surprisingly good at remembering the words to songs and I will randomly catch him singing a little Shane and Shane while grocery shopping. I can't imagine what this kid will be like in years to come, but I know that Jordan and I feel blessed knowing God entrusted us to be his parents!

Austen turned 4 in September and has been amazing us daily with what his little brain can retain! He has been doing 2 mornings a week of preschool and he is able to write his name, recognize words, shapes, sings songs...he really amazes us. He is incredibly sensitive like his dad, but sneaky and intuitive like his mom. Recently him and I were at the kitchen table eating lunch talking about Christmas coming up. I asked him if he remembered whose birthday we celebrated on Christmas, and after he got it wrong about 5 times, I reminded him it was Jesus' birthday. "Oh yeah" he said. He sat there quietly for about a minute and a half and then as seriously/innocently as possible asked me "Do people eat the birthday cake on Jesus' birthday, and then it goes right into our hearts?" Sweet baby...his favorite thing about birthdays is the cake, and since he knows that Jesus lives in our hearts, he was trying to figure out how in the world Jesus was able to eat his own cake. Gotta love that.

As for Jordan and I, we will be celebrating our 6 year anniversary on the 22nd of this month :) It has been 6 years of pure adventure and it looks like it is not settling down anytime soon! As most of you may know by now, Jordan's employment with our church will be over at the end of this month. This change in our lives came somewhat unanticipated and has put us through a whirlwind of emotions in the past couple of months. We both are so fortunate for the relationships we have made and the life changes we have witnessed through the ministry of Ignite. It was a bittersweet departure, but we feel confident that God has revealed his next steps for our family. Jordan and I have both felt something of an unsettled feeling or like a rumbling in our hearts for the last few months. God has made it overwhelmingly apparant to us that while we love the people and the mission of our church, it is not where we are best being used by Him vocationally. Jordan and I have a heart for relationships and taking time to pour into people with the intention of drawing closer to Him. In addition to this, we are both at a place where we feel it is absolutely necessary for Jordan to finish his Bachelor's degree to continue on with the work God has for us. Jordan has about 2.5 years left of full time enrollment to finish his degree. So it really came down to all or nothing for our dedication to this! We both turned 28 this year and we know that we aren't getting any younger! The next decision we had to come to was...where in world will JY finish his degree? After some praying, some talking, internet researching and real soul seeking, it was very obvious to the both of us. I could write for literally thousands and thousand of words of why we made this decision, but ultimately it all boils down to one thing...God told us to GO. Starting in January, Jordan will be a full time college student at CNM here in Albuquerque and we got the letter in the mail today that he has been accepted in the Adult Degree Completion program for a Bachelor's of Science degree at Multnomah Bible College in Portland, OR starting Fall 2008. What seemed devastating to me 2 months ago, now seems overwhelmingly liberating. Logistically, financially and practically it really doesn't make sense, but I can't and will never deny the still quiet voice within me saying "Trust me and go". A friend of mine shared this verse with me this morning and I think I will unofficially declare it as the Young family verse of 07....

"See, the former things have taken place,

and new things I declare;

before they spring into being

I announce them to you."

Isaiah 42:9

I will never claim to be deep or super spiritual, but one thing I desire to claim is complete obedience and naively trust that He will work out the details that could easily overwhelm us.

So yeah, you could say that we are little excited about 2008 and extremely thankful for what we have pulled through in 2007. Yay for blogspots so we can all stay connected and we can share our lives together! We really are kind of clueless on posting basics...but I'm sure we'll figure it out along the way. Oh and maybe next time we can keep it a little shorter!...maybe.

Here's a few more pics just for kicks...

How cute are they?!

It repetitive I know, but it's so cute!

Yeah, I see the cord...kind of like a noose...she's alright.

I can't think of a good caption for this...it's just a day in the life of Landon I guess.