simple and filled with JOY...

is it really possible that christmas has come and gone already?
seriously, where did this month go????

knowing my life i suppose it shouldn't surprise me that a whole month flew by in the blink of an eye....
between a couple weeks of homeschooling, a pinch of cookie baking, some shopping with my love, helping with pies and my sweet baby nataley fracturing her skull, here i'm left standing at the end of the month and the end of a year.


december, a month typically filled with joys of the season, but this year God brought my heart back to the simple joys life,
as He reminded me that my children are not my own, they are His, they are in His hands and His will for their life is what really matters.

so by the time Christmas Eve came around this year i only looked forward to what really mattered.
Remembering the fact that Jesus came to this world to save us, unconditional love in it's truest form.
loving on my whole family, and honestly, being thankful we didn't spend Christmas in a hospital.

no santa...
that has proven to be one of the greatest choices brian and i made this year. telling the truth behind the myth of a man that flys through the night leaving gifts for small children. it opened the eyes of my children as to what christmas is really about...
in the words of levi "christmas is Jesus coming because i am a sinner, knowing he would save me".
and in the end i think it even brought more thankfulness to the toys they did get. they knew things were picked out of love with them in mind from people they love.

an extra special Christmas, one i'm sure will be pulled through my memory bank for years to come.
simple and filled with JOY.

in the spirit of thanksgiving...

thanksgiving is my absolute FAVORITE holiday!




so much to be thankful for...

Daddy: bear hugs from mommy, levi, alivia and nataley.
Mommy: my 4 favorite people God gave me to love.
Levi: a good mommy and daddy, and video games. :)
Alivia: barbie girls
Nataley: yea!!!!!!!!!!





God is so good! ALL THE TIME!

pie here, pie there, pie EVERYWHERE...

i know i say it all the time, but it's such a blessing to be part of this family.
day in and day out i witness God's greatness as he builds up, blesses and grows this restaurant.
coming so far...
my father-in-law was just telling me a story the other night about how not even 10 years ago, they would cut off pie orders at 500 because they were to overwhelmed. and now, with great minds behind them (and God's unfailing mercy) they stretch their limits into the high thousands.
making yoder's thanksgiving pies truly, sarasota tradition!


blessed i get to take part in the craziness of the week, blessed that my children get to grow up in the "pink pie bubble" as we have come to call it.

congrats on a FABULOUS thanksgiving pie week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a new kinda 4th...

i am a girl of traditions...
anyone who knows me even a little bit, could never deny that fact.

so, when the fourth rolled around...
i was slightly bummed that both brian and i decided to break away from our almost 10 year tradition of doing our own fireworks in the restaurant parking lot. :(

we jointly decided the night before that we have two children deathly afraid of loud sounds...
and fireworks, unfortunately, fall right into the category of "too loud". :(

we started the day out the same...
a birthday celebration for my dad.
which gave my heart a tiny bit of comfort.

but, driving towards home at the end of the night,
i was rather sad to think i wouldn't even see one firework on the fourth.

low and behold, my husband, being the brilliant brian that he is...
pulled into a mcdonalds, got us ice cream cones and told us to look up...

and to our amazement, we saw a light show in the ski, far enough away from the "too loud" that goes with it.

who knew that eating micky d's soft serve cones on top of the mini van roof,
watching rockets light up the ski could be so much fun?

and just like that, we started a new 4th of july emrich tradition!

abundance of thankful...

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
Psalm 107:1 (NIV)


if there is one thing i can say i have learned in a new way this year, it's that god is truly good.
i have seen his blessing flow both in my life and in the lives of people around me.

i have seen friends lean on him in time of weakness,
i have seen people rejoice in his faithfulness,
and i have worshiped in his unexpected blessings.

god is good, and i am so thankful to be covered in his love.


thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday (ok probably not as a child, but most definitely my whole adult life).
there is something amazing about the month of november to me. it's a full month to reflect and show thankfulness to each and ever blessing god has bestowed on my life. before we get to the month of material gifts, we get a whole month of simply being thankful.

it's the month of november where it always hits me hard, how sincerely thankful i am that god's plan worked out for my life and not the ideas i had in my head.
the month when i look at each one of my children, and know whole heartedly how blessed they have made me whether planned or unexpected.
the month i know i am blessed to call my friends "my friends".

november is a whole month of thankful, and i love it.

this year was a tad bit different then thanksgivings past...
brian and i had talked about how we have never enjoyed a thanksgiving at our own home, where we cooked.
always running from house to house... which is good, but we wanted to try one on our own.

and now that's it's done and over i can say...
although i always complain about going house to house to house, i really missed it, myself.
so, it's not a new tradition. but it was a thanksgiving full of memories.
and someday...
when the tables of time turn, and it's our house the kids come home to with their families...
we can handle it, and will do fine.

so much to be thankful for.

fall festive....

here i am again with not alot of time, and plenty to blog about.
sigh, crunch time wont be ending anytime soon i fear.


fall festival...
i think i have mentioned this before. levi's school always does some sort of special event every month. the day is always filled with clever activities, and all the kids have so much fun. levi always tells me after those days how much he likes school.

well, fall festival was no different. from hay stacks and games, to cotton candy and snow cones...
with a class hay ride through the schools pumpkin patch to top it all off.
it interested me to watch and see just how much levi has grown in the past few months.
his skills in alot of the activities amazed me....
and i can tell you first hand, that boy playes me at home! he can do perfectly most everything that he still asks for help with at home.

here are the stations they had:
~musical chairs
~ the cracker whistle
~ the apple sauce slurp
~ hay stack class photo spot
~ clothes pin drop (dropping clothes pins into a mason jar from a standing up position.
~ hula hoop hustle
~ find a coin in a hay stack (which was levi's favorite)
~ tug of war (which was my favorite to watch)
~ face painting
~ potato sack race (which was another fun one to watch)
~ and an obstacle race (which ended with levi running with a potato on a spoon.

so, as you can tell the day was full of excitement.
most activities that where "competition" were boys against girls.... and the girls always won!

i helped out with snow cones towards the end of the day, which left me a sticky mess.
but i don't mind cause i am getting to know so many new faces, and making new friends of my own.





halloween...
alivia decided she wanted to be a cupcake of all things (i think she saw the pottery barn catalog) so my brain rotated and decided that nataley would be a ice cream cone. i had hoped that i could convince levi to be a cookie so that brian and i could put aprons on and be bakers....
but, i would imagine every mother in the world would have a hard time talking their 4 year old son into be something so lame as a cookie, so in the end bumblebee transformer beat my idea out the window.
halloween was a rather hot night and we all pretty much sweated to death, poor nataley was a watery mess half way through, so i improvised and her ice cream cone costume was transformed into a doughnut by the nights end.

not two houses into it faye bay fully understood to go up to the door pick out her piece of candy and return it to her bucket that daddy was holding. she would even get mad when we made her sit out a house or two along the way.

alivia freaked out at all the "scary" houses...
which is one of the many reasons why i really don't personally care for halloween.
and levi would shoot his arm gun and all the "mean" costumes he saw along the road.

so, here i am a full week later with loads of candy, which i only let the kids pick two pieces a day...
and will more then likely throw the rest out sometime this week (or hand it off to alyson) seeing as how no one in this family is big candy eaters.


they had fun, which is what's important, and the talk of what to be next year has already started.






levi's repot card...
yes, my son received his first little report card this week in the mail. he had pretty much all "O" or "G" except for that he won't sit for more then 8 minutes to listen to a story...
daddy's son 100% :)

the parent/teacher conference was good. levi is a pleasure in mrs. koch's class. he is learning so much, and is pretty much right along with all the other kids in his class....
which was my concern because of the past hearing issues, and the young summer birthday of his. they have started ladder blends and i must admit...
it is the coolest thing in the world to see my biggest little person actually starting to "read" all on his own.
smarter and smarter everyday!

"i'm sorry mommy"...

no exaggeration...
i think i heard that sentence come out of levis mouth 10 or more times yesterday.
in fact, so much so that i am nearly 100% sure the way it flows off of those skinny lips of his is will be embedded in my memory for my lifetime.

i don't know what it is...
but we are going through a spell. it's almost as if some light bulb has gone off in his head and he has gained the wisdom of a 10 year old. he has certainly learned the buttons to push with me. and it is exhausting me.

i have a bit of a sweet tooth these days....
and so naturally, i keep my a stash of chocolate eggs (the little ones are the perfect size to get my fix) high up on the counter. now, i don't mind if my kids have a taste of candy now and then, but it is by no means the free for all levi expects it to be. i saw him reaching those hands high up on the counter, stretched as long as he could make them yesterday in hopes of of returning with a fist full of chocolate eggs.

i immediately put a stop to it and told him... "NO"
to which he replied... "my dad told me i could"...
then i said... "well, dad isn't here, and i am the boss, i say NO"
he looked up at me and said... "your not my boss!" then he slapped me and ran away!

to say that i was infuriated would be an understatement.
i called brian and he made his way home to reprimand his son.
"i'm sorry mommy, i want to be a good boy" was what i got after a 15 minute talk he and his daddy had in his room.


later on in the afternoon i had decided to clean out the food pantry. powder had spilled off the top shelf about a week or so ago... everything was covered in a dusty coat of sugar and it had been driving me nuts. upon pulling everything off of the shelves i came across a enormous bag of starbursts (must have been from one of brians "SAMS" runs). that stupid bag caused utter havoc well into my evening last night. levi could not control himself. no matter where i moved it, or how high i put it up his little brain found a way to get to it. i pulled sticky chunks out of munkys mouth countless times. till finally, i pitched the whole darn thing and took it out to the trash....
each and every time levi was caught with it he would quickly jump up and say... "i'm sorry mommy"
time outs weren't working.
so finally, my last straw i spanked that hinny of his.
he tearfully looked up and me and told me in these words exactly...
"i will not cry, that's what you want me to do".

i'm telling you, i don't know what to do with this boy of mine!
i can only imagine what teenage hood is going to be like.

and if that wasn't enough to end this "wonderful" day. when i was helping the girls get undressed for their baths levi got into the diaper bag i had from the fair and smothered himself full of sunscreen....

"i'm sorry mommy, i love you".
( seeing as how it was waterproof, at least he was protected by those harmful UV rays last night in his sweet slumber). :)

thank you jesus for this boy you have given me...
who is teaching me unconditional love and patience if nothing else right now.



ps... i had to post my three little shamrocks for st. patties day!

a happy ♥ day

in our relationship brian and i have never really been big valentines day kinda people. we have always much preferred sweetest day. mostly because no one here in florida knows what that day is, so it makes it feel a little more special between us. we actually got married on sweetest day for that reason.
with that being said. my valentine worked all day. and while he was the first to hold my heart, he now shares pieces of it with the three beautiful babies he gave me. so valentines day has become the day we thank our kiddies for their love... and what better way to show them my love for them then to spend the day doing what they love to do..... kitchen fun!


that's right! we spent nearly the entire day in our home sweet home of a kitchen. first, we made up sugar cookies and decorated them. then i thought it would be fun to finally use that pizza recipe that my good ole friend sara gave me so long ago. levi was oh so very excited to make his own pizza. he was shocked and amazed that there would be no need for the pizza man to bring us one. he quietly waited the hour and a half it took for the dough to rise, running to check on it nearly every five minutes. and although theirs looked nothing like a circle they thoroughly enjoyed every bite of it!

we ended the day of love with a chocolate fondu extravaganza! strawberries, pineapple, raspberries and all. this was honestly one of the most fun things i have ever done with the kids. both were just tickled to be dipping their fruit plate in hot melted chocolate. i highly recommend doing this as a fun filled night... if you can handle the mess.




at the end of the night when the kids were fast asleep brian and i did share a small special moment. and while this may seem no where near the typical romantic gift it was nothing but romantic in my eyes!
for months now i have been talking about wanting a freezer in our garage. my hopes and dreams, to make meatballs, doughs, soups and more in advance and be able to simple defrost... ahh yes what a dream!
my husband silently heard my complaining! and while some men brought flowers and candy home for their sweeties... my husband brought home a giant, shiny and pretty new freezer! now that's love!
and if you may be wondering....
i made brian a shadow box frame with all the stuff he holds near and dear to his heart from his grandpa levi (our levi's name sake).
~his belt buckle with the letter L on it.
~the tape measure that grandpa had scripted his name onto.
~ a small stone he had always carried around in his pocket. he would rub it in there and actually made a finger print marking on it.

there is love in this home,
there is love in this home!

*********************************************************

we went to the circus tonight. it's funny cause i always get a little choked up when i'm experiencing things through the eyes of my children. their amazement amazes me!
and we had a simply fabulous time.... well, up until levi puked all over brian that is!

love mail...

i will admit i was the tiniest bit excited when i got the paper last week that levis "homework" was to make the nostalgic valentines day mail box....
hearts, kisses and love was what popped into my brain.... but who was i kidding... we are talking about my three year old boy!
like i said a little while ago levi is obsessed with monster trucks in the current moment. actually, i think my son is a true "redneck" at heart. he loves NASCAR, "monster jam".... and yes, even hunting! which is funny cause his daddy is such a pretty boy, so i have no idea where on earth these thrills that make up levi came from.

i spent all of the late afternoon and much of the early evening helping a pair of little boy hands invent his creation....
turning a garbage bag box into a truck.... although, i know about no such things. i had ideas in my head but my creative child had ideas all his own, and in the end i fought back the urge to be the perfectionist that i am and let his little mind do the creating.
so now we have a red box, with four freshly painted black wheels, decaled all over with "monster jam" and spider man stickers. it was levi's ingenious idea to have the hood be the spot where you put your love letters....
all in all it was a little on the messy side. paint was all over and levi and alivia fought over where the stickers would go.
but, the end product is absolutely perfect in my eyes.
my creation created it after all. :)


right before baths i made up an assembly line.... levi and livi helped put their "treat bags" together. not my favorite task by a long shot.... note to self: never put mounds of candy in front of children and think they will be able to control themselves!


one more quick thing....
i know i am short for time but i'm looking for a good romantic gift for the hubby. something special. for example last year i gave him a "list".
it included stuff like
*making his favorite dessert.
*a night of watching sports in bed (i hate sports on TV and he is never allowed to have them on in our room).
*sleep as late as you want, unbothered by me or the children.

that was by far his most favorite gift i have ever given him... he still talks about it. and the best thing about it was that it was FREE!
anyway, i'm looking for good ideas like that does anyone have any?

christmas.... the short version!

is it for real? is christmas over already???
call me a grinch, but hallelujah! as kim just said to me today.... christmas takes a whole long month of planning, work and running around to be ready for and is over in one quick day!
however, seeing my little boys face on christmas morning this year beat any christmas i have ever had before! for a month now levi has been talking about santa and his "monster cowboy truck" (a big wheel). how it ever got the name of monster cowboy truck is beyond me but that is what he has called it from the first moment he laid those big blue eyes of his on it. he was so incredibly cute on christmas eve night over at brian's parents house. during dinner prayer after grandpa said "amen" levi kept his eyes closed and kept the prayer going...."and jesus, please tell santa to bring me my monster cowboy truck". come on now... who wouldn't just melt at that?!
christmas eve gave me a good idea at just how exciting the morning was going to be. levi and livi were elated all night. going from present to present in awe these were now their toys!
after a couple years of debate brian and i came to the conclusion this year that we were infact going to do the whole santa thing. however, we added our own twist. last year i had planned on just getting the kids three gifts a piece but who was i kidding?
i am still the same shannon i have always been, and three little gifts would just never cut it for me. so, we came up with the idea that SANTA would bring the kids three gifts each. that way mommy and daddy could get some credit too with gifts from us.... the three gifts will represent the three gifts the wise men brought the baby jesus. remarkably, the idea worked really good. all month long levi kept telling me about the wise men and jesus and how santa would bring him three gifts too. i guess that means we have made and will continue that tradition.
the big wheel was so big that i had to move furniture around to make everything else fit. one of the couches i had to move is the one right in front of levi's door. i was afraid that if he woke up in the middle of the night and came into our room like he sometimes does, he would see his new truck and i would miss his face. he did in fact come crawling into our bed at 4:30am but the good news is he was so out of it he didn't see that "santa" had already come.

i have never seen him so excited! the smile on his face was so big! and truthfully, we should have just stopped shopping after that one gift cause it was hard to distract him from it to open his other presents.
miss alivia had been asking santa for a baby. which was one of the gifts he brought her. but she was so excited about her new dolly house that when asked the rest of the day if santa brought her the baby she would said "noooo...anta bought me ouse".
nataley, just took it all in smiling and laughing all day long. i think by the end of the day she was pretty tired but i have learned that she has a hard time sleeping if she's isn't in her crib. she kept a good mood till about 7pm, then got a little on the cranky side.
every year there is a "pinecraft parade" all the local businesses in the area decorate platforms and go riding around the streets of pinecraft throwing candy. it has always been somewhat bothersome to me. not because it's not fun, but rather it interferes with going to my mom and dads house. but, brian is also somewhat expected to do it because as most people know.... he is the king of pinecraft. i guess it just wouldn't be the same for people without that small town celebrity husband of mine. i will say this, after doing it this year i won't complain to brian again that i really don't want to be doing it. the kids had so much fun! alivia was so cute. before we left she had found a sucker that she reallly wanted. i told her she couldn't have it yet but later so she held onto it in one had the entire ride, while she filled her other hand and dropped the hand full of candy off the side of the float. and levi made me laugh when he told me it was just like feeding fish.
my parents got the kids a boston terrier puppy for christmas. the only thing is she is still to young to leave her mother. so my parents got the kids a cage and a bed and stuff for her in hope of building their anticipation of the new pup. neither one of them really understand it yet..... that they are getting a dog. so, i guess that will be the next great exciting thing to happen in the emrich future.

my mother has always made a cake for jesus birthday. and yes, we put candles on it, sing and everything!

nataley's first baby doll!



we don't read the night before christmas, we read it's jesus birthday!