Can't control my nav list's vertical position

I got a "navbar" in a nav wrapper, where I have 4 "links" and an image in the middle.

http://ift.tt/1LWuw4Q

The wrapper ends where the white line is drawn.

However... I can't manage to control the position for my links, vertically, since the image seems to push the link bar to the bottom.

I've tried with padding/margin, top/bottom, and only on the link items, but there is no way I can find how to move it up. (I want the links centered vertically on the image. Two links on each side.) Now they are at the bottom as you can see.

I guess you can easily see my code by looking at it in chrome/firefox etc...

Really appreciate any advice. I've tried to move the image itself as well, but it always end up pushing the links down.