Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

A letter to my sweet babies;

Christmas is over, the presents are unwrapped.  The tree is empty and the lights are off.  I am writing you this letter as you are contentedly playing with all of your new toys.  I hear cars rolling across the floor and happy voices calling back and forth.  I have been going through all the pictures I took a couple of days ago and picking some to share. 

Things have changed so much for Mommy over the years.  It seems like forever ago, but I was once a little girl excited for Christmas morning.. waiting to dive into the presents under the tree and rip into the paper hiding my presents.  But now it is you, Maddy, Travis and Peyton that I look forward to seeing on Christmas morning.  I wait with impatience to see your faces light up when you come around the corner and see the tree FULL of goodies.

This year was no different!  I actually had a hard time falling asleep on Christmas Eve in anticipation for the morning.  I heard the first peeps from you, Peyton and hopped out of bed faster than any other day of the year!  The looks on your faces did not disappoint and I was given the gift of watching the Christmas magic unfold in front of me that morning. 

Here are just a couple of the moments I captured.  I cherish them and look forward to the years ahead with you, my sweet children. 

Love you more than you can ever know,

Mommy

Daddy reading you The Christmas Story Poem before bed, Peyt watching the Grinch, Grandpa, Daddy and various children and Cookies for Santa and celery for the Reindeer.... Christmas Eve at our house!

 

 

 

Reading about the birth of baby Jesus before presents, and then stocking time!!!!

Eight Days til Christmas!

This past November, I was wandering around Target with the boys and found a cute little foam Christmas Tree countdown.  I picked it up compulsively, thinking it would be something fun the kids could do to keep track of the days until Christmas. 

I actually forgot about it and it stayed in the Target bag in the back of the truck until the last day of November.  When I remembered it, I brought it inside and the kids were instantaneously all over me asking questions.  I pulled it out, assembled it and explained what it was and what we were going to do.

Bright and early the next morning, Maddy bounced out of bed and immediately asked who go to do the first day.  And so began our new tradition.  The child who doesn't get to change the date, gets to plug in all the Christmas lights... a system that will only work until Peyt wants in on the action....

We are 17 days in, and both of my older children can tell you what day it is and how many days until the big day... It was definitely a good $5 spent!

Deck the Halls

                                                                          

It's December already!  With a chill finally back in the air, Brian and I decided that it is finally time to start decorating for Christmas.  Brian pulled the boxes down from the attic last night and we promised the kids that today, we would pick out the perfect tree.  We are going to do ornaments tomorrow, but things are already christmasy around here!!  The smell of Christmas tree is wafting in the air, and I am typing this post by the soft Christmas lights wrapped around the tree. 

tree lot fun!

Miss Maddy at the tree lot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watching excitedly as Daddy brings in the tree!

Clean Plate Club

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you will already know this, but my youngest, Peyton is my picky eater.  Always has been.. Probably always will be.  The battle over getting food in his belly has been making a change for the better, however, and the end result is shown by a nursery worker calling him "a solid little guy" in nursery this past Sunday..  This in my world is an actual relief seeing as when he was an infant, I lost sleep over his lack of weight gain. 

As usual I digress...  Peyt's eating has improved to the point where he now wants to be a big boy and feed himself.  He actually gets mad if I try to help him.  Tonight was no different..  I sat right beside him at the table and had to let go and let him do his thing... His thing is pretty much to spread rice from here to the other side of the house.. but whatever!  He spent a good 45 minutes working on getting rice from his little orange fork to his waiting mouth.  A feat that he accomplished... even though he was still hard at work as his bubby and sissy cleared their seconds. 

His method was varied as he began by scooping from the plate, but moved finally to dropping the rice from his plate to the table and then picking up individual pieces of rice.  Either way, he cleared his plate and squealed loudly ( his favorite form of getting what he wants ) to get down from the table.  We had more to clean up after he was done than what he probably actually ate, but he felt successful and he is a proud member of the clean plate club...  Another sign that my lil man is growing up....

My Story

** Please excuse the random thoughts that you are about to read.  I have this funny thing that happens to me when my brain tries to wrap itself around certain thoughts, notions and life truths.  They roll around in my brain, crashing like waves over and over until I finally give in and take pen to paper, or in most cases, finger to keyboard...  At that point it is a form of self preservation.  I write these things down to get them out and stop the pounding of these mental waves that keep crashing.  It is a supreme relief when it is out, and afterwards when it is in written form, sometimes it is even worth reading or even sharing.  If this makes me crazy... well... yeah..**

Life is made up of a collection of everyone's personal stories.  If you really think about it, life is the ultimate story.  You have a beginning, a middle and of course, the end.  This pattern for us humans doesn't every really change much. 

The AMAZING part of this thing called life, is that for the most part, we get to write our own story!  We of course cannot choose our parents, our backgrounds or where we grow up... but after the beginning of every story comes this beautiful part called the Middle.  It really IS beautiful by the way... God gave us these bodies... with brains in them that give us a chance to make choices for ourselves.  If we don't like where our lives started, we can make up our minds to completely change the course of our story.  We make our Middle whatever we want it to be... Amazing.. right??

The middle.. the place in every story where the action, the drama, the horror, the heart break.. well everything really... HAPPENS.  Like in writing any story, you, the author of this particular story get to pick the backdrop, your cast of characters and the general flow of events.  Unlike a work of fiction, you cannot control every event that happens as the story unfolds.  That lack of control is what makes things a bit scary or at the very least, unnerving.  But that's just life..

Now in your story, with the characters picked and your backdrop ready, the Middle really starts moving faster.  You are shuttling down a path, an unknown path that you will only discover as you go along.  You have your choices.. right or left.. or even straight.  You make your choices and follow where the road takes you. Unlike the author of a book, you have NO clue where you will end up.. Maybe it will be a happy place full of sunshine, love and flowers.  Maybe the path you choose sets your life on a story path that is much darker.. filled with regret, heartache and gloom.  But most likely it will be a mix of these two extremes.  Times of unspeakable joy, days or months of complete normalcy and then those times of unhappiness that just cannot be avoided.

IF I still have you reading, I want to apologize for my ramblings.  I told you at the beginning I had to get it out..  I am almost done.. I PROMISE!!

What this all boils down to is just a couple of things.  You choose how to write the story of your own life.  You choose the characters you place in your story.  You choose how to act, and those actions can either bring sweet moments of love and joy, or in some cases, those actions bring regret, loneliness and discord.  The beauty of this is that God gave us the ability to choose for ourselves! 

Our WORDS, our ACTIONS build our character.  That character is what people will forever remember about us.  What they remember about our character can change other people's lives for better or in some cases for worse.  This story we call life is irrevocably powerful one way or another.

Words are strong things.  They can change an opinion, the can build a person up and just as easily tear a person to peices.  The words you use ALWAYS outlive you and the situation you use them in.  The wish and hope for my life is that my story is filled with love.  My actions should show love, and my words should be spoken in love.  Not just any love, however.  The love of my Savior.  My Savior who loved and forgave all.. Those who cursed Him.  Those who abandoned Him.  He forgave me for my wrong choices, he loves me.. sinner that I am.  THAT love is the love I want coming from me.  That love will never falter, never break and always stay true.

If my story ends there, then my life, MY STORY will be one that is worth remembering.

Traditions and Memories

Last night I saw a perfect opportunity to make a sweet memory with my TOO quickly growing daughter.  Yesterday was her last day of school before break and she has been begging me to stay up late just to see how it feels... So after the boys were tucked into bed, I snuck into her room and ushered her to the kitchen.  Every year for the past three years, Maddy and I have made the pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving.  It's a sweet tradition that I hope my daughter will always want to keep. 

This year, we decided to make little mini pies using the mini muffin pan as well as the regular muffin pans.  Maddy was super excited about even the smallest process going into the baking project.  Spreading the flour on the countertop, cutting small disks of pie dough, and shaking the evaporated milk for the pie mixture all took on a fantastic glow for my sweet girl. 

It brought back so many memories from growing up.  My momma always made sure we were in the kitchen if we wanted to be there.  She took on the extra time and work to make sure we were involved in the process.  I can remember the warm feeling of pride as I surveyed a batch of cookies or a cooling cake.  Those feelings are exactly what I hope Maddy will remember one day. 


Maddy got to relive some of my greatest baking disappointments.  She tasted both the flour and pumpkin mixture eagerly as she was curious about the taste of what looked like very yummy things.  Her face wrinkled quickly as she realized that flour is NOTHING like sugar.. and even though pumpkin might smell good, it definitely needs some sugar before tasting...**

After the pies were in the oven we filled the time by reading some of her favorite books, The time sped by so quickly and it was soon time to pull out her little masterpieces.  She of course had to test taste them to make sure they were tasty enough for everyone else to enjoy on Thursday.  She had to try two different pies to get a thorough opinion on the matter.  She decided that the pies from the mini muffin pans were better due to the pie to pie filling ratio achieved.... her exact words were something like, "the bigger ones have too much pumpkin mommy... I like the teeny ones"   What a sweet moment to savor.  Long after the pies are gone, the memories will remain.  God willing, I have many more years of pumpkin pies and sweet Maddy time..

It's that time of year again already!!??

With just a few days until Thanksgiving, and my mind full of kids, family, friends and holiday plans, I cannot believe that it is already been a year!  Maddy attended her first PCS Pow wow last year, and has been eagerly looking forward to this one since November began...  My Mom and Grandma helped me pick out the perfect Indian Princess "outfit" for Maddy at the thrift store, and Maddy impatiently waited for me to finish fringing and beading her shirt.

Waiting in line to sit down for the program, and then enjoying her "Thanksgiving Lunch"

She confided in me yesterday evening that she was one of the Indians that says "shh" in her class song.  I was able to witness the skit this morning and she did a FANTASTIC job "shh ing" 

Maddy and her friend :)