Frank's 3!!!

My little man turned 3 years old this passed weekend!! I can't believe how fast he is growing up! We had a great time celebrating his birthday, starting with a morning of presents, a day of playing with new toys, then pizza and cake for dinner. I think he had a fun time on his special day : )

XOXO -Amber

Thanksgiving

This year I am incredibly thankful that my family is healthy and well!! We have a beautiful new baby girl who is wonderful. My parents are talking about moving to be closer to us! We have a lot to be thankful for!! We actually enjoyed my parents company at Thanksgiving.

We had a mix of traditional dishes and experimental dishes that we tried. The prettiest might have been this maple pecan tart with dried cherries from Eating well. It was also super tasty!!

We also made a "Use a Spoon Chopped Salad" which gets it's name because everything is chopped so small you can eat the salad with a spoon. This went over really well, there were no leftovers and my dad had 4 servings!! We made a Roasted Sweet Potato Soup from the book For the Love of Soup that was easy and delicious. We also made a Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle, which tasted good, but the texture was just kind of mush. I think next year I'll pass on the trifle but everything else new was something I will make again.

Gelsey helped to set the table. She made menus and name cards for everyone's place setting. It was decorative and also fun to look at while we were eating. We served dinner in several courses and it was nice to look and see what was coming next.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! XOXO -Amber

Family Photos

We went out to have some family photos taken and lucked out!! While we were at the portrait studio I thought we were wasting our time, we had to wait for 30 minutes and everyone was antsy, Frank wouldn't smile, he kept wanting to see the pictures the second they were taken, Penelope got hungry..... You can imagine my surprise when they turned out well!

Hope all is well!!! XOXO -Amber

Happy Halloween!!

I had to include this photo because I found these two asleep on the sofa and it was the sweetest thing I've seen in awhile. Already another daddy's girl!!

This year we decided to for-go the popcorn balls and make caramel apples in their place. What a fun and easy treat!! Although, it's very difficult to get them as pretty as they are in the candy store. Me and Gelsey tried to figure out how they must do it and we agreed that they probably waste a ton of toppings in the process. It didn't matter how they looked though because they tasted great!! I think this will replace popcorn balls from now on!

Penelope was an owl for the day (when she kept her hat on).

We decorated the front with some skeletons, ghosts and spiders in addition to a black light. If you have a black light I suggest you put it out front next Halloween. It was hysterical to sit inside and listen to people go crazy over their glowing costumes before they rang the bell. Some people were out there for more than five minutes before they wanted candy, pretty funny.

Little Red Riding Hood

Frankenstein

Jillian was a light up candy corn witch but I don't have a better picture : ( Here costume was super cool!!

For the first time since we've lived in Anthem our pumpkins didn't get smashed!! I've never cared that they get smashed because we just throw them away but the kids were happy to see them this morning, especially Frank.

Hope you had a fun and safe Halloween!!! XOXO -Amber

Penelope Jane

She's here!!! On September 14th and 10:12am we met our little Penelope Jane. She is beautiful!!

We're relatively sleepless around here so you'll have to excuse my lack of enthusiasm for the blog but hopefully we'll be getting back on our feet soon! Hope all is well! XOXO -Amber

To all the sinners in my life

To anyone who has ever been yelled at through a fog horn by a “Christian trying to spread God’s message” I’m sorry. If you’ve ever been told that you’re going to hell because you’re gay, or that you’re love for a band makes you an idolater, or that God hates divorce, or that the abortion you had makes you a murderer, or that your tolerance for “sinners makes you just as bad as them”, or …… I could go on for a long time. God doesn’t hate you. As a matter of fact he loves you more than you can fathom! “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

I always wonder why certain people are picked on so much, why I’ve never seen a rowdy group with hateful signs trying to ”convict” people of greed outside of a Ferrari dealership or condemning people of coveting when they gaze longingly in the window of Louis Vuitton or Tiffany’s. I think it’s clear that we are all in desperate need of God’s grace and mercy. Even now, with all the confidence in the world that I belong to Christ, I still show my humanity not only on a daily but an hourly basis. I still feel a smidge of envy when I see someone with a great pair of Jimmy Choo’s or a house with enough bedrooms for all of their kids. I get ticked off at my kids and lose my temper. I’m judgmental, and have difficulty seeing my own faults, etc, etc… It’s a good thing I don’t have to be sinless. As a matter of fact I’m ecstatic because I wouldn’t be able to come even close. But “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:20-21)

With that in mind, know that you will never do anything to be good enough and neither will I, and we don’t have to. Christ’s love is free; you just have to accept it. Here’s one I’m sure you’ve heard, even if you’ve never set foot in a church. Just consider it; what it says, and know that it doesn’t come with ANY strings attached. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” (Romans 8:38) Praise God for that!! He loves you and I love you too!! Have a wonderful day!! XOXO -Amber

Possibly the most random blog post to ever appear here!

It's been a month since I've posted anything on this blog (or any blog for that matter). It's not that I don't have anything fun to post about it's just that I'm lazy/tired. Four weeks to go until Penelope will be here, Hopefully!! It's going well so far, we're getting closer to being "ready," although it doesn't quite feel real to any of us yet that we're going to have a new person in our family. We're all excited to meet her of course! That being said, I need to figure out what to do about the blog's name. I think we'll leave the url the same but just go by another name.

Anywho, here are a couple last shots of Murphy's Five as it is now : )

This summer was wedding madness for us, we attended/participated in three weddings in two months, all of which were out of town. My brother and Jessica got married in May and all of us, except for Frank, were in the wedding. It was at my parents house and it was very sweet and beautiful. Ryan and Jess now have a new newlywed blog, the Latte Love Cafe, if you want to check it out, it's pretty funny.

We also had the pleasure of attending Shelly and Mark's wedding in Pinetop, which Josh officiated. It was also really beautiful and fun. Josh had a great time marrying them, he said it was a wonderful experience to get to see their joy from that perspective.

Me and Josh also got to attend his cousin's wedding in San Francisco which was at the historic Flood Mansion, Stunning!!

All of the weddings were wonderful in their own way and they all reflected the couples personalities, which you would expect but it was interesting seeing them so close together, it made the differences much more noticeable.

Had to put this in because my kids are awesome : )

Lastly, do you have instagram on your ipod/iphone... It's free! Josh took these pictures (which is the only reason they're of me!) and used the instagram app to add filters, re-focus... It's a really neat app that let's you easily manipulate photos. If you have an app capable device you should check it out!

I'll try not to go so long next time! Hope all is well. XOXO -Amber

Juice

The UPS man delivered something very exciting yesterday!! A new juicer : ) I've never had a juicer before but I've read quite a bit about the benefits of adding juice to your diet so I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I did was juice a couple of apples, which was phenomenal! It's like an apple in a glass. I couldn't believe how much flavor you loose by buying apple juice in the store. For that alone, the juicer was worth it. I also concocted a fruit punch type drink with peaches, strawberries, blackberries, grapes, an apple and a grapefruit, yummy! I also really wanted to see how I would like vegetable juices so I juiced together a cucumber and some cherries to start which I thought was good but I probably should have used a little less cucumber. Lastly I did a straight veggie juice with cauliflower, celery, carrots, and tomatoes. It's pretty good, I'm going to slowly work my way into making green juice.
Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber

Dancing Time!

Gelsey recently performed in a jazz recital which was a huge success!! Great job Gels!! She can certainly pull that color off better than I would be able to : )

XOXO -Amber

My Seattle Randomness

Me and Josh took a trip up to Seattle and Gig Harbor a few weekends ago and had the BEST time!! I could only laugh when I uploaded my photos at the randomness of what I decided was picture worthy but here it is.

We went to visit Josh's grandmother who really doesn't like to be photographed so here is the one that I got of her : ) I have more to say on that matter but I'm saving it until I've wrapped my head around it a little better.
My favorite flower EVER which lasts maybe all of one day in a vase here and definitely will not grow outside. The peonies were everywhere!! You can buy them for $1 a stem at Pikes Place and they are stunning, I have to admit I was a little jealous. It's probably a good thing we don't live there as I would bankrupt us filling our house with flowers : )
We also enjoyed the fresh fish while we were there. We had some Chinook River salmon and sampled the smoked salmon at the market, which was soo good we ended up buying some.
We spent the first night in picturesque Gig Harbor where we had dinner at Anthony's.
Josh even got us a seat buy the window : )
I had the tastiest cup of hot chocolate I may have ever had at a coffee shop in downtown Seattle. I'm pretty sure it was a Seattle's Best, it was a blend of dark and white chocolate and it was Yummy!!!
We also visited Josh's Aunt and Uncle who live nearby. I can't believe I don't have a single photo of that night. They seriously live in Stepford, it's the prettiest neighborhood ever! Josh's cousin Molly graduated from high school this year and we were celebrating : ) Anywho, we had a good time and I will post more pictures from Josh's grandmothers place when I can. Hope all is well!! XOXO -Amber