A New Post

Wow, these past few months have flown by. 
So much has happened between now and my last blog about Gabriel's 5th birthday.  Where do I begin?

My dad came to visit for Thanksgiving.  Actually, it was more of a "Daddy, please come visit us and watch our five young children for two nights while Chris and I go to a marriage conference on the other side of town.  Oh, and we'd love for you to stay for Thanksgiving.  I'll buy you a plane ticket.  Pretty please?"  He said yes.  I have a great dad and Chris and I had an amazing weekend at the conference that has continued to benefit our marriage.  I highly recommend it: the Weekend to Remember conference by Family Life Ministries.  The speakers were good, but it was the "homework" over that weekend that really benefitted our marriage. 

Anyways, here's some pictures from my dad's visit.  The girls loved seeing him and it's so nice that they only take a short time to warm up even though they only see him once or twice a year.  The boys loved seeing him too, but they didn't want to be held like the girls did.

Grandpa helping Leah decorate the tree. 

Grandpa reading to his grand daughters.

Grandpa with his grandkids and Chase, who posed perfectly for this picture for exactly one second as he walked through the picture.  

Our family at the tree lighting ceremony down by the Riverwalk.

Grandpa with sweet little Anna.

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December went by in a blink of an eye and the best part of it was how unstressful it was for our family.  We do presents and all that, but we focus less and less on them every year.  We make plans for what we'll get our kiddos, we get it (a lot of it online, some on Black Friday), we order photo books for our family, and we're good to go.
It was so nice to just enjoy the JOY of the season.  To me, last month felt like one of those movies where the whole family just sits in front of the fireplace and laughs and plays games and drinks hot cocoa, the point being that they are just enjoying themselves.  Except we have no fireplace, there's just as much crying as laughing and the games are interrupted by pushing and hitting.  But the hot cocoa part was there.  And that feeling of everything being just right was there too.  It's hard to explain what I mean exactly, except to just say again, we had JOY.  And we tried to put Jesus right there in the middle.

Oh, and we made Christmas cookies.
Lots of them.  Which brings lot of joy.

The ones that look like they used to have chocolate chips on them were decorated, and undecorated, by Leah.  She also decorated the gingerbread boy that looks like he has a diaper on.

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We went to our homeschool co-op Christmas party and the kids had fun with the gift exchange and crafts.  The cards the children made were donated to the Fisher house at BAMC, which houses the families and patients going through treatment there.  Many patients are there because of burn injuries sustained overseas.

 Leah tries to wear her rain boots when we go a lot of places.  The biggest problem is that they are too big and she can't walk in them well.  Since we were going to be inside a confined area (our church), I figured I might as well let her wear them!

 The boys making Christmas cards for the Fisher House injured military.

 Leah making a Christmas card also, like her big brothers.

 The four older kids were all doing their gift exchanges in different rooms so I was running around trying to see all of them.  Here's Gabriel.

 Leah was very happy with her new book.

Gabe was not as excited.  I was holding my breath when I saw him open his gift and was expecting him to cry, so he did better than I thought he would (he received a girls' dress up doll book instead of a gender neutral book...but someone traded with him later). 

 Anna was thrilled to be allowed to play in the paper!

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We are still figuring out our family traditions, and may be for quite a while with young kids at home.  This year we had our big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, followed by a beautiful service at our church and hot cocoa in the car while driving around looking at Christmas lights.  When we got home, we finished our last "What God Wants for Christmas" gift box and then opened our traditional Christmas Eve gift...pajamas.  Someone was not thrilled with that.  You'll see in a minute.

 Christmas Eve dinner.  We couldn't decide on a ham or a turkey, so we had both.  Mostly for the leftovers...yummm!

Christopher with his imaginary "handguy". 

A quick Christmas Eve photo before the day ends.

 The kids excitedly opening their Christmas Eve presents.

 Gabriel was obviously expecting something better than pajamas!

This was right after he threw the package across the room and exclaimed how un-fun his present was.  Yes, we need to teach him present opening etiquette.  But I still chuckle thinking how funny the moment was...bad behavior aside.  And for the record, Leah was super excited about her new pajamas.  The older boys liked theirs also.

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So, this has gotten very long and I think I'll share Christmas photos in a new post.  Stay tuned!