Happy 2016!

I haven’t disappeared despite the state of the blog@ It was a year of big changes and I needed some time to process everything before writing again. I don’t have much time to get this out, so it will be short, unfortunately and not edited very well…here is the quick recap.

After a miscarriage in the fall of 2014, I felt like I needed to purge a good amount of our stuff and because of this, we started the new year fresh. The yurt looked better than ever before – I was able to take real baths and look out over the fields while doing so!! Despite the cold winter, we were very cozy.

Shortly after the new year we happily discovered I was pregnant again and this time with identical twins! We were full of joy and excitement and knew that God would guide us through the next chapter, so thankfully we didn’t have “the freak out” moment that most of our friends and family had for us. Despite having no idea what was to come, we felt like everything would be fine as long as we trusted God (and it is!).

We assumed we would be in the yurt so made plans to change things in order to accommodate our newest family members. Instead, however, we received notice from our town that we had to take the yurt down. We moved a couple months before the babies arrived and now live in a house. It was heartbreaking having to tear down our home, and we still miss it (Alma asks weekly if we can move back to the yurt), but it has been a good thing for us to be in a house. Washing diapers is WAY easier now that we have our own washing machine, and dishes can be washed much quicker when you don’t have to wait for the kettle to boil. It is also a lot easier to keep the house warm, so we aren’t burning as much wood.

Life is really busy with newborn twins and a toddler, but it is very fun as well. The girls have been quite colicky for the past two months, but we are hoping that will pass and they will feel better soon. Despite not really being able to get things done (I pretty much tandem nurse all day while Mike changes diapers and feeds the rest of us), I feel like 2016 has a lot of potential. Even if I can’t realistically accomplish most of it, I love lists..so here is what I’m hoping might be half-accomplished in 2016:

• read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo and hopefully get our house in order once and for all
• get things organized for Alma (a self-serve art area, a DIY lunch shelf in the fridge)
• develop a cooking routine so that we have meals ready in the fridge for the entire week
• get outside with the kids every day even if it isn’t for very long
• stretch every day and try to get my strength and flexibility back
• read through the entire Bible by next Advent

I have finally jumped on board with the “word of the year” thing and have chosen the word hygge for 2016. It is a challenge to translate, but how I have interpreted it is: your surroundings are cozy, inviting, and peaceful. When the yurt was aglow with oil lamps and beeswax candles on a snowy winter’s evening, I believe we were experiencing hygge. My hope is that we can create the same feeling of warmth in the house.

Happy New Year!