Liebster Award//Eleven Fun Questions

I was offered the opportunity to go for the Liebster Award from Kelly, a friend made recently online. 

 The Liebster Award is a way for others to discover smaller blogs like mine. The nomination means I am supposed to answer eleven questions about myself and my blog.  I am also supposed to nominate other blogs to do the same, but I'm not going to. (Being lazy... sorry!) But if you feel like answering the questions (some of them are fun!) feel free!  

1. How did you decide on the title of your blog? My blog started as The Cunningham Twins because the twins were the reason I started this blog.  Then it morphed into The Cunningham Family, when we added Wyatt to our brood.  And finally, when we landed in the rural village of Marshall, Alaska four years ago, it changed again, this time to The Cunningham Family in bush Alaska which it has been ever since. 

2. What is one word that sums up the heart of your blog and why? Family.  This blog is all about my life as a wife and mother.  It covers relationships with loved ones near and far, and dipped most recently into my struggle with a miscarriage and the loss of those dreams about Babyham #4.

3. What are your favorite pastimes other than blogging? Reading, hiking, swimming & camping.  (the last three only when I am in Washington)  I also enjoy crafting-- scrapbooking, cardmaking & letter writing.  

4. What is your favorite aspect of blogging? I love sharing my story, particularly when others can relate.  And now that I live so far from family (I am closer to Russia than I am my hometown) the blog is a great way to keep them abreast of everything that's happening.  

5. Which project, recipe or idea on my blog would you most like to try yourself? I'm not one to love new recipes (too stressful) and the last few treats I tried to make on Pinterest were awful... so I'm once burned, twice shy... but I would like to someday try knitting. I even got a kit from Purl Soho, but have yet to dive in.

6. Where does your blog inspiration come from? My own life. Namely my children and where we currently live.  I had three sons in three years, so life here is loud and parenting is non-stop.  From breaking up fights to talking about heaven, these three boys keep me on my toes.  I also enjoy writing about living where we do, the perks & the challenges, in hopes of helping others who are planning to relocate to rural Alaska.

7. What is one country in the world you would like to visit? Why?  I do not have wanderlust.  I have little if any desire to travel.  Josh and I have talked of wanting to visit Yellowstone someday with our kids, but that's about it.  We are content to spend time with our family in Washington in the summer (camping at the lake, swimming at the river, and visiting my grandparents at the beach) and having our adventures there.

8. If you have children, what are there names? If not, what are your favorite girl and boy names?  We have identical twins named Logan Henry & Jack Sawyer.  They are currently six and a half.  We also have a singleton son named Wyatt Nathanial.  He is three and a half.  The girl name we have had since our engagement is Bailey Kate.  But now I'm not sure that's the name we'd go with if we ever did get a girl.  

9. A long-lost relative leaves you a large sum of money. What do you do with it? We would pay off all our debt (credit card & student loans).  We'd also like to buy a house.  I think that's about it!

10. In your opinion, what are the best blog posts you’ve written so far? (Include the links!) Our Journey, which is the story of how we came to be in rural Alaska.  Perspective, which is about how fleeting our time in the nuclear family is.  And Every Feeling where I discuss my emotions post-miscarriage.  

11. Where do you see yourself in five years time? This the question I've been grappling with since the miscarriage.  In five years, will we have added to our family? Will we still be in Alaska?  Will I still be homeschooling? I have no idea.  At this time in my life, I am best suited to just put one foot in front of the other, and let the future come a day at a time.

***

Christmas Favorites

I love the holidays.  I love them more now that I have kids, but I find myself overwhelmed by all the amazing ideas I can't possibly squeeze into one month of celebrating.  So instead of focusing on the hundreds of things I wish I was doing, I am trying this month to really love the things we are doing.  I thought I'd share those few things with you all.

Favorite movies:

{for me}

The Family Stone

The Holiday

{for the kids}

Polar Express

Jack Frost

Home Alone

I adore Christmas movies.  The good feelings they evoke and the memories of my own childhood (particularly with Home Alone) make this time of year nostalgic. I could watch The Family Stone everyday.  I love the family, and I adore that there is a deaf character and all the other actors learn how to sign in the movie.

For our boys, the whole month of December we spend movie night (which for us is Saturday night) watching Christmas movies.  It creates anticipation for the holidays and we all love it.

Favorite traditions:

Decorating the day after Thanksgiving

Christmas Eve Movie Night with new pj's

Grandma Beverly's Cinnamon Rolls for Christmas breakfast

Daily Advent with gifts hidden throughout the house

Elf on the Shelf

Some traditions have come and gone in the eleven years Josh and I have been married.  But these five have stuck.  We always put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving, we always watch a movie in new pajamas on Christmas Eve and we always have my Grandma Beverly's cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.  Since the addition of our three boys we have added Elf on the Shelf to our holiday, as well as a daily advent that counts down from December 1st.  I love these couple of traditions and that the boys look forward to their arrival.

Favorite Music: 

Mariah Carey :: Merry Christmas

*All I Want For Christmas is You

Amy Grant :: Home For Christmas

*Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)

Idina Menzel :: Holiday Wishes

*Baby It's Cold Outside feat. Michael Buble

Dr. Suess' How The Grinch Stole Christmas Soundtrack

* Where Are You Christmas by Faith Hill

Christmas music for me is the essence of the holiday.  I start playing it in early November and don't stop until well after the new year.  I play it during school with the boys (we have music channels from Dish, and I am loving the Holiday Instrumentals channel for school time); I play it while I'm doing dishes and I play it when we're doing crafts.  I think at first the boys were like, "Ugh. Mom. Seriously." Complete with eye rolls. But now they've adjusted, and the other day I even found them singing Jingle Bells in their playroom.  Made my singing-mama-heart so proud!

Favorite Books:

{new favorites}

Tacky's Christmas

The Night Before The Night Before Christmas

{old favorites}

A Christmas Celebration

The Sweet Smell of Christmas

My boys like funny books, so Tacky's Christmas and The Night Before The Night Before Christmas are just up their alley.  I grew up loving Scratch & Sniff books, so the two from my childhood (A Christmas Celebration & The Sweet Smell of Christmas) are forever favorites.  I also love the illustrations by Joan Walsh Anglund on A Christmas Celebration.

Grown Up Christmas Books:

Winter Street by Elin Hildebrand

Chicken Soup for The Soul {Christmas Treasury}

I think it was our second year of marriage when I got the Christmas Treasury of Chicken Soup for The Soul, and every night me and Josh would read one of the inspirational stories aloud.  It was one of my favorite holiday seasons.  I loved sharing the joy of the season each night before bed.

This year I am looking forward to reading Winter Street by my favorite "summer" book author, Elin Hildebrand.  

***

"This is love: 

Not that we loved God, 

but that he loved us 

and sent his son as an 

atoning sacrifice for our sins."

1 John 4:10

Thanksgiving 2014

{Jack & four of Josh's students}

For Thanksgiving this year we celebrated at the school the day before, and at our house the day of.  The schools' Thanksgiving feast is one of my favorite activities of the year.  The food is amazing, and I always love to see all the students.

My boys love it just as much as I do.  

We have a great time.  This year I was blown away by their manners and how calmly they sat and ate beside me, not even attempting to get down and run around with all their friends.  I was so proud.

***

The boys were equally excited to host Thanksgiving for the Marshall staff this year.
All day they kept asking if it was 3:00 yet.

I made a turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, olives, pickles, brownies & pumpkin pie.  Everything was delicious and the company was wonderful.  I was so grateful to have a house full of people.  It helps distract me from the fact that I am over 2,000 miles from my loved ones.

*

This was the first year I dug out the wishbone to wash and save for the twins to break.

They were really excited!!!

So excited in fact that they both admitted they forgot to even wish for anything.

Luckily it didn't matter because instead of breaking with one side larger, the extra top piece busted off and flew under the table, so the twins were left with bone fragments the exact same size as each other. Josh and I laughed so hard.  

*

This year I found myself thankful above all for Josh.  For my birthday I got Tyler Knott Gregson's new book, Chasers of the Light, and when I found this poem, I instantly thought of my sweet husband.

"You

are the poem

I never knew how to write

and this life

is the story

I have always 

wanted 

to tell."

Tough as the last few months have been, I wouldn't trade any of it.  

This life we have, these beautiful children we've made... they're worth it.

And I'm so grateful for all of it.

Teacher of the Year... Literally

Wyatt is so proud of his daddy.

Let me tell you why.

At an assembly last month, 

Josh got awarded with what I think is the greatest honor a teacher can have.  

Teacher of the Year.  

For the 2013-2014 school year.

That man worked his tail off last year, balancing family, his masters degree classes, his internship, his classroom and his students.  I choked up a bit as he walked up to accept this beautiful recognition that all he does does not go unnoticed.  

To tell you the truth, the crowning moment for me as the wife of a teacher, was the day in early November when Josh came downstairs wearing his first Ugly Sweater.  

The best teacher cliche there is.  

The award is nice, but this sweater proves to me that he's a teacher through & through!

***

Courage to Continue

{Untouched photo of the sunrise out my front door}

Tuesday night, after my first good day in a long time, I walked over to the church for Women's Bible Study.  It's just myself and two other ladies, but our time is treasured.  You would imagine that a walk in the dark in Alaska would be peaceful.  And it was.  But it wasn't quiet.  The wind was whistling through the trees, making my insides feel hollow.  The dogs in town (there are probably as many dogs as there are people in Marshall) were all barking and howling at the giant moon that hung heavily in the sky alongside a scattering of sparkling stars.

As I trudged loudly along, ice cleats crashing on the ice with each step (we still don't have snow, just frozen dirt & ice patches) I braced myself against the cold, only my eyes peeking out between my hood and my scarves. (Yes, I wore two scarves.  It was that cold.)  The ambient temperature was 16, which is tolerable.  But with the wind blowing at 23 mph, it felt like -2 degrees.  It took my breath away!

The relief of making it to the building and slowly peeling off the layers is unlike anything else.   You can finally take a deep breath without it stopping halfway through your lungs because the air is so cold.  Your shoulders, once tightened up near your ears begin to come down; and your body, once tense in a fight with the invisible frigid air, begins to melt into the warmth the bright room offers.

It's the same when anxiety leaves you.  You are struggling, against the wind, uphill, when suddenly a break comes, and you can't believe the weight being lifted off your shoulders as the layers peel back and you are left with hope that perhaps the long journey is over.

I know I still have a long road ahead of me.  It's only been six weeks since the D&C (I got a bill in the mail today for my $500 copay.  Now I'm going to have a monthly payment plan to ever so kindly remind me of my loss) and I have a lot of healing left to do, but I can feel the weight lifting.  And I can feel my hope for a good future returning.

I believe Winston Churchill said it best,

"It is the courage to continue that counts." 

And so I will carry on.

***

The Christmas Letter

 This is the first year in eleven years of marriage that I have not included a Christmas letter with our Christmas cards.  I always send out a Christmas letter.  Complete with milestones the year held, celebrations that were enjoyed, and any changes/decisions our family had made that I wanted to share.  To be honest, this year, it was just too hard.  The last year was not a great one for me.  I struggled with depression and anxiety, worried too much, enjoyed too little and suffered the loss of a great dream in the death of our pregnancy.

Sitting down to try and put a positive spin on that as I printed out sheet after sheet on sparkly paper felt impossible.

The truth is, the last year also held wonderful memories.  Josh graduating from Rocky Mountain College with his Masters Degree;  reuniting with our loved ones at the airport in May; spending time with my bestie in Anchorage in January; the twins turning six; Wyatt learning to swim; camping at our two favorite places; family movie nights, date nights and more...  But with the loss of my pregnancy being the most recent, it sort of overshadowed all the good that went on.

In the few weeks since the miscarriage, Josh and I have gotten closer than we've ever been.  I have been leaning, hard, into him.  He has risen to the challenge, loving me and hugging me through my tears and pain.  I have also come to love my boys with a new intensity that didn't exist before I lost their sibling.  One night I lay in bed thinking, "Thank God I didn't miscarry the twins.  That I only lost one baby instead of two."  And later I was remembering how when I got pregnant with Wyatt I thought a miscarriage would not be so bad given the circumstances. We were broke, living in the ghetto with no promise of things getting better, and I couldn't imagine how in the world this baby would be a good idea.

In those thoughts are bits of hope.  That God knows what he's doing.  That good things do come out of trials, and that he does have a good plan for me.  I just have to trust, as I'm walking through the darkness, that eventually the dawn will come.

Meanwhile, in the dark, things are a bit sad.  I'm a bit lonely.  And I'm feeling a bit guilty.

I'm sorry there's no Christmas letter, folks.  Fact is, I just couldn't muster the strength to recap the last year in a positive light.  Here's hoping next year I have more sunshine and a little less rain.

Flight: Russian Mission to Marshall

On my trip home from Anchorage back in October, for the first time since I've lived in Marshall, I had to stop in Russian Mission before landing in Marshall.  A few people got off the plane, as did some mail; then a few new people got on the plane and off we went to Marshall.  Here are pictures of our trip.

(The first few are actually from my flight that went from Anchorage to Bethel)

***

Here are the ones I took from the 207 traveling Bethel to Russian, & Russian to Marshall.

{Russian Mission from the air}

{Marshall is just on the other side of that mountain}

{Marshall is just off the river bend to the right}

** home sweet home ***

Here Come The Holidays...

The tradition in our family is to decorate the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.  That way I get the most out of my holiday sparkle.  

The boys were really excited to help decorate, and thankfully they don't realize how pitifully tiny our Christmas tree is.  Josh and I miss the smell of a real tree, but the convenience of an artificial one fits our life up here.  And once it's decorated, lit up and sitting on it's little table in the corner of our living room, it really is quite beautiful.

***

In addition to the arrival of Christmas decorations, our elf on the shelf, Dashy surprised us, showing up on the 30th, ready for December's arrival.  I adore the boys' joy in these pictures.  And I love that a little holiday magic for them turns into a little holiday magic for me.  Seeing their faces when they wake up in the morning and race off to see what shenanigans Dashy's been up to makes me so happy.

Here Dashy had taken a shower and was using toilet paper for a towel.  I will try to post more pictures as the month goes on.  He's a pretty clever little elf, and we're really enjoying having him around. (Mostly I am, because I get to constantly remind the children that "Dashy is watching" or "Dashy's going to tell Santa..." and it encourages them to be a little better about kindness and listening.)

The lights all around the house make me so happy.

(This is the view as I come down the stairs)

And the lights in our bedrooms make them feel so cozy!

We've been getting little tease of snow each day the last week.  I am hopeful that more comes because a) it's beautiful and b) then I could get these kids out of the house to play in it!

I'm definitely praying for a white Christmas!

Around The House

Last week we decorated for Christmas (even the boys' bedroom window got some holiday twinkle!).  

In addition to decorating for Christmas, Josh also got a bunch of things knocked off his "Honey-Do" list from his adoring wife. 

Like hanging this new trio of shelves I got for less than $15 from Target.

I've had these letters for the twins' names since I was six months pregnant with them.  Last year I painted them to match the photo boards Aunt Julie made for their bedroom here in Alaska.

And now they finally have a place to be displayed.

I don't have letters for Wyatt (and they wouldn't fit on this tiny shelf anyway) so this adorable picture of him from our trip to Anchorage in October 2011, when he was four months old, will have to do.

***

In addition to sprucing up the twins' room, Josh and I have been working recently on making the arctic entry more user-friendly.  A little help (also from Target) in the form of a shoe shelf and an adorable wall shelf, and voila! Our arctic entry is suddenly awesome!

The shoe shelf has made use of the vertical space under our hanging jackets, freeing up floorspace for all the bodies we have to squeeze in this tiny space when we're gearing up.

This wall shelf makes me smile every time I see it.  I used to have to pull down a giant Rubbermaid tote each time we got ready so the boys could choose the correct gloves, scarves & hats for the weather.  The tote was heavy, which was annoying, but it was also a space-eater, cutting the arctic entry's square footage in half when it was on the floor being rifled through.

Now the boys' baseball hats sit atop the shelf, their assortment of gloves sit in their own individual baskets, and their hats hang on tiny hooks under their baskets. 

This is the view now when you step into the arctic entry.  

Organized and clutter-free.  

(And can I just say how much I love my seasonal "Welcome" sign Julie made me?!?  

The Christmas wreath for this month is beautiful!)

I added one (perhaps strange) addition to our wall shelf.  Clothes pins.  

(How? Me & hot glue... we're best buddies!)  We only have seven hooks on the wall below the shelf, and when we all have full gear on (snow pants, sweatshirts & winter coats) those hooks fill up quick!

So the wall shelf having a space for the boys' hats was great, but I still didn't have a space to hang gloves that needed to dry.  Enter the clothes pins I bought over the summer.  I put two on each side, and two in between the hat hooks.  Now there's a spot for every glove, and the hooks below remain free for larger items.

*

I am so happy with our little room re-do's!