The news today about the tsunami and earthquake in Japan was so sobering. makes all the random things that are hard in my life mute points.

I pray every day that God would grow compassion and love for others in Geneva’s heart, so even though I want to protect her innocence from the tragedies in the world, today I made it a point to share with her what had happened to so many people so we could pray for them together. I told her about the flood waters and how things or pets can get swept away; I explained what earthquakes to do land, houses, things, and how both are very sad and dangerous for the people they affect.

Her response made me cry:

” But Mom, it can’t shake Jesus. Jesus’ house doesn’t shake. Jesus’ house can’t get swept away by water. Jesus is strong!”

Yes, Lord. We belong to You.

Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10

For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? Psalm 18:31

At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:26-29

I’ve been taking a lot of pictures lately, all of them learning experiences.

Geneva is an okay sport most times, but it really cracks me up how for me to get a shot like this:

I usually get quite a few like this:

I’m hoping Clara will grow up to be a better sport since she’s had this big black contraption in her face from infancy. She does pretty well smiling for me most of the time -

although clearly making farting noises is much more fun:

hahaha.

I’m trying to broaden my understanding of what it means to truly capture my children’s childhoods. Generally, I prefer looking at, and taking, smiling, put together type pictures.  Thankfully I’m married to a man with great humor and who will grab the camera and take pictures of Geneva with a dirty face in a insanely messy room dressed in her pajamas, snow boots, and princess dress. I’m so thankful he takes those shots – even though I blush to see how messy my living room was or how badly she needed her face washed – those are often the pictures that make us laugh and warm our hearts and, let’s be honest, remember how life really was.

I was recently invited to better learn photography with a small group of women in town. The plan is to get together once a month, watch an instructional video, have homework assignments, critique each others pictures, etc. I am by far the rookie of this group, but they are gracious to let me be there and learn from them. The first video we watched was by Me Ra Koh and was entitled “Refuse to Say Cheese.” Me Ra, a professional writer turned photographer and mother of two, argued that taking pictures should be a way of story telling and if you just have the “cheese” shot you give the viewer an empty payoff as there is no story behind why the child is smiling. Smiling pictures definitely have their place in photography and in storytelling, but if that is all you document you won’t have captured what it was like to be that child at that time in that place. The video went on to discuss the elements of building good photo stories and tips for taking those kinds of pictures. I’m still working on those homework assignments but maybe I’ll post them when I feel like I’ve accomplished them to at least B+ standards. stay tuned…

Maybe you are dissatisfied with yourself, but you are doing more good than you know. John the Baptist never performed a miracle, but Jesus said of him “Among those born of women there is no one greater” (John 10:41, Luke 7:28). His mission was to be “a witness to the light” (John 1:8), and that may be your mission and mine. John was content to be only a voice, if it caused people to think of Christ.

Be willing to be only a voice that is heard but not seen, or a mirror whose glass the eye cannot see because it is reflecting the brilliant glory of the Son. Be willing to be a breeze that arises just before daylight, saying, “The dawn! The dawn!” and then fades away. – George Matheson

what foodie blogs do you all read?

What?!! My baby is 6 months old already?! It goes by SO much faster with the second one!!

5 months was the month of transitions. Clara went through what seemed like the growth spurt that would not end. She went from eating about 6oz before bed and sleeping 10 hours to eating 14oz before bed and waking up once or twice a night to eat more!! AHHH! Needless to say, she’s eating solids now. That’s going okay, typical hate peas loves carrots stuff, but she oddly developed a diaper rash immediately after starting the veggies, which freaked me out a little bit, but she’s fine now. She also made the transition to only 3 naps a day which has been so nice. It’s a little weird to me that she is still needing three naps a day, but this girl just exhausts so easily and she gets soooo cranky if she’s up longer than 2 hours! With all these new transitions, plus with teething fully underway, she still hasn’t gotten back to sleeping soundly from 8pm to 6am like she was, which has been a very unwelcome setback. She seems to think that when she goes to bed at 7:30 or 8 that it’s that fourth nap and she gets to get up in an hour and a half. So it’s lots of up and down the stairs. And then half the time she tries to get up at 4 as well, which Geneva thinks is amazing. Yeah, if you want to party at 4am, just stop on by our house.

But none of that detracts from the fact that she is the sweetest, happiest little girl you’ve ever met. She’s really gotten more ticklish too, and can belly laugh next to the best of them, and that sends the whole household into glorious giggles.

I’ll leave you with some of her 6month expressions:

and yes, that is an entire pack of princess stick on earrings on his neck. and yes, he did miss one and was completely embarrassed when one of his law colleagues pointed it out to him later that day. haha.

For some reason, the first “trick” we’ve taught our babies has been to give kisses. It’s stinkin’ adorable and as you can see, C is pretty pleased with herself.

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My amazing husband TOTALLY surprised me this Christmas and bought me a new DSLR (Canon Rebel T2i) camera!! It was quite amazing because he somehow managed to fit it into my stocking, which is not large by any means. I was shocked and humbled. He is toooo good to me.

I have to say, after opening it the first couple of days I had major let down. Of course, I just had it on auto and it was the most frustrating thing to have a good tool and know that it was not working how it could and not knowing how to use it properly. Michael had bought the owner’s manual but I don’t learn that way. I suppose I could have youtubed how to use it, and I would have had to if not for my amazing friend Alicia. Alicia and her sweet 1 year old daughter Fierah were flying out to see us for a week and to also take our family pictures. Alicia recently started a photography business called Beloved Life Photography and is AMAZING! Check it out!  Alicia and her business partner both use Canons and she was able to sit down and give me a fantastic tutorial.  And now that I know what most things are and do I can use the camera on manual and change my settings as the shots change. AMAZING! THANK YOU FRIEND!!!!!!!!

So now comes the playing around and learning. I think I’m getting better, although I currently still have more flops than wins and have to take two or three adjustment pictures to figure out how I want the picture to look. But I’ll get better. I’m SO, SO grateful for such an amazing tool and for my wonderful loving generous husband. And that I’m surrounded by friends like Alicia and Emily that can teach me how to be better!

Here are some recent (unedited) wins:

now I just need to learn how to use photoshop!

My sweet Geneva spent countless hours in the weeks prior to Christmas wrapping presents. At first she just wanted to hang out with me as I wrapped gifts to send to people and her “wrapping” consisted of cutting paper and ribbon and taping it all together in various geometric shapes. But then she decided she wanted to wrap real presents, and spent days picking out things that were precious to her to give to her family at Christmas. She was very thoughtful and wrapped things that she thought each person might not already have, like a doll for Clara and, well, one purple dress up slipper for Opa. ::grin:: sweet, sweet girl.

My dad and Mary came in from California to celebrate Christmas with us this year. We had a lovely and festive Christmas Eve . We spent the morning strolling through Old Colorado City looking at shops, eating French pastries and taking a surrey ride around the downtown.

We feasted on our traditional Christmas meal of Raclette, and then went to church where Geneva was an angel in the children’s Christmas production. (She was adorable!)

Before we put the kiddos (and the grandparents ) to bed we read Luke 2 and enjoyed some egg nog.

Then Michael and I got to work bringing out all the presents and blocking off the room for the Christmas morning reveal! Wrapping papering off the room was Michael’s idea. He is so much fun! I’m so thankful to be married to such a fun person. It worked out great as we did stockings and breakfast first thing but waited til everyone was “ready” to open presents.

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Geneva LOVED it. It made Christmas morning that much more fun and it might just end up being a Francisco family Christmas tradition!

Every year at the RJ&L Christmas party, which is a wonderful affair with beautiful traditional choral Christmas music and fantastic food, Santa makes an appearance bringing toys for all the children. This year was extra special since Mrs. Claus and two elves also showed up!

a note, no matter how many times or ways we’ve said “Santa isn’t real. There was a man named St. Nicolas…blah blah blah…but now people dress up like Santa for fun and to remember the legend…blah blah blah” Geneva still believes that the Santa is real and that the Santa at Daddy’s office is the real Santa, and she knows because he comes and gives her presents. haha. okay.

I’m obviously catching up on the last two months and that includes our before Christmas happenings. This pic was too cute not to post of Geneva and friends Jacob and Isaiah baking/decorating Christmas cookies. How cute are these three?!

I have to say, it really is incredible how completely different boys and girls are from each other. I mean I’ve been told this many a time, but since I only have girls I have yet to experience this first hand. This pic brings this up b/c I remember cracking up to myself all during the time I was watching these sweet boys for my friend. With Geneva, she will sit down for 20-30 minutes at a time before needing a break and consistently work at something like crafts, school, making cookies, etc etc. But boys oh boys. haha. It’s like focus great for 5-7 minutes, okay! now run and exert obscene amounts of energy, okay we’re back for 5 more minutes of focusing! okay, aaand RUN! hahaha. delightful! I hope I get some energetic boys of my own someday. =)