Longest post EVAH!!! With even more pictures!!! Beware!!!

I've been smothered.  Completely covered up.  Layer upon layer of activities, responsibilities, parties, packing, traveling, celebrations, not to mention the same-ole-same-ole of housekeeping and family-managing dailies.  One by one, two by two it all piled up on me until the only air I could breathe came through a tiny slit called "reality" that reappeared about 3 days ago on the side of the pile.  The pile has slowly been disappearing as each layer has been peeled off, and I feel like we are just about back to normal.  No more packages arriving, no more planning long days for the kids, no more birthday cakes, no more partying.  Over the last month we have celebrated big and lived large.  Well, large for us, which means we've had our whole family together non-stop for about 2 weeks.  To say it has been glorious would be an understatement.  Our normal schedule only allows us a few precious days together at a time. Because of a recent,(stressful, unnecessary, opposition-ladened) change, we were able to have us all together for an extended period of time.  Normally, I hate change (except for when I change the furniture around), but this change happened at just the right time for us.  The six of us needed to enjoy some life together and we loved it. 

After Christmas, we traveled  to New Mexico to visit some of Daddy's favorite places. The kids have traveled a lot and are great on planes and in airports.  We went to Carlsbad Caverns, White Sand Dunes, and Guadelupe National Park.  There was so much to see and do in these places. We sledded down the sand dunes, ate a picnic on top of one of the dunes, were amazed at the petroglyphs, oohed and aahed at the vastness (and darkness!) of the cave, and sang "Happy Birthday" to our Maddie while we were 850 feet underground.

Over and over we were blown away by all that we were seeing.  Patrick is a master trip-planner, and he  put together days of sight seeing that were both fun and educational.    Of course a lot of the fun that we had was when we arrived at the hotel and checked out the pool.  That was Meredith's favorite part every day.  One night, the big girls even swam outside while it was snowing(in Texas!).   This was definitely a winter break that we will remember forever.

Once we got home from vacation, we still had celebrating to do as it was New Year's Eve and Michael's birthday.  Uncle Martin and Aunt Bunny came into town to help us celebrate both events.  With champagne in hand and toasts to a "more relaxing, less stressful, altogether better year", we landed on January 1, 2011 - the day that Michael turned 5.  We went to Grandma Lucile and Grandpop's new house to celebrate Michael's birthday and we had a fantastic lunch together in their fancy dining room.   We had tractor birthday cake, singing, and more gifts. The following day,  we partied it up again with Grandma and Poppop while Michael and Maddie shared the spotlight at our favorite restaurant, Macaroni Grill.  We were the nonstop party family, I tell you!

So now that we've put away our party hats and stowed the wrapping paper and tape away we can focus on the New Year that is ahead of us.  The year 2010 was a year that had more stress, more opposition and more hardship than we would have ever thought back when it began 12 months ago.  However, the book of James in the Bible tells me that these trials will strengthen my faith and THAT is what I found to be true over this past year.  As I stare at the blank calendar that is before me, I know that there will be more stress, more change, and there are also more days to walk with God, holding His trustworthy hand.  He was loving and faithful last year, and I know that this year He will be the same.  He is constant and I can count on that; year after year He is the same.  Happy 2011, everyone!!

Peace on Earth

Christmas Eve has been such a lovely day.  It has been filled with peace and love.  There should be a frangrance named after it.  Chrsitmas Eve.  I would spray it often in order to bring back the memories of the beauty of this day.  Sweet family time, beautiful worship at church, yummy food and God's spirit of joy filling our home.  The stockings are hung, the presents are wrapped, "Santa" still has some work to do, but other than that we are all ready for a great Christmas day ahead.  I love being a mom anticipating the fun that the kids will have tomorrow.  Merry Christmas and May God bless us, everyone.

We have been haulin' out the holly over the past few days.  With Christmas songs playing on the radio, and the lights on the Christmas tree glowing we are making memories and filling the house with joy.  We started out the week with a shopping trip to the dollar store.  The mission was to spend $3 on a sibling,$1 on mommy and $1 on daddy.  Prior to the trip, we threw the kiddos names in a hat (Meredith offered her's up since she was wearing one) and the kids each picked a name to buy for.  They decided to keep their pick a secret which made the mission even more fun. I loved seeing their excitement while they picked out their treasures.  I could hear them giggling and whispering to each other, exclaiming "don't let mommy see!" if they thought I was getting too close. 

Once we got home, they couldn't wait to wrap their gifts.  Their spirit of generosity towards one another was beautiful for this mommy's heart.  I knew it would disappear soon and they would be back to fighting over who's turn it was to play the Wii so I soaked in every minute of it.  Their packages tripled the number of gifts that were under the tree.  It's REALLY beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

Later on that night, I made some cut out cookies for us to frost.  I baked.  Yes... it was a true labor of love because I do not like to bake.  AT ALL.  But King Soopers was all out of the already baked and cut out sugar cookies, because don't you think for a second that baking them myself was the first option.  I was so happy to find out that such a thing (pre-baked, pre-cut out cookies) even exsisted.  Thrilled was how I felt.  Then my high went to low standing in the store listening to the mean lady at the bakery tell me that they sold out of those last week.  I wanted to ask her if she would make me some more.  I didn't.  Instead I made my way around the store gathering all of the ingredients that I thought went into cookies.  I googled "EASY sugar cookie recipe" and then heated up the oven, got out my mixer from storage and then baked and cut out 8 dozen cookies.  I was cutting out gingerbread men, Christmas trees and stars when Michael came into the kitchen and asked "Can we make dinosaurs too?" Of course we can, my little man, because nothing says Christmas like a frosted longneck!.  So I made a few of those too.  The next day, we had some friends over to play and we decorated the cookies.  They were so pretty when we were finished, AND they were SUPER yummy. 

We finished off our day by watching the Christmas Charlie Brown movie.  Mommy was a tad cranky by that time, but other than that it was the sprinkles on top of very Christmassy day.  There is quite a lot of Christmas spirit around this place!  Now, in the words of Marky... "if it would just SNOW!!!"