Whirlwind Livin'

My plan was to be cleaning house right now since my kids are with my parents traveling. The hubs and I won't be traveling until he gets off tonight and I thought it would be a perfect time to clean house. Well....I decided catching up on the blog is much more fun. So the last few weeks have been a whirlwind (isn't it for everyone!) but wonderful and fun at the same time.

First, we headed down to the ranch to cut down some trees to get stocked up on firewood. It was a chilly day but the kids had fun watching their dad work a chainsaw for the first time. They got to help push over the trees and yelled "TIMBER!" every time.

Papaw showing Jerod where to cut to make it easy and fall in the direction we needed it too.

All bundled up :)

Then the next evening, we had the awesome privledge of watching my little brother graduate from college with his Bachelor's in Business. We are very proud of him and so glad this long hard road is at its' end!

My mom is very proud of her baby boy :)

Amanda is pretty proud of him too

Then later that evening I decided that if he was big enough to graduate college, then he was big enough to finally hold the newest nephew. So being the good sister I am, I just walked over and plopped him in Uncle Adam's lap.

Of course, we had to do the traditional gingerbread houses. Princess chose a village to create and Little Man wasn't interested in helping this year so it was different but still so much fun!

My icing was a little runny

But it was all so yummy!

Gingerbread village done! Complete with sugar snow, sprinkle roads and gummy trees

And then the Christmas celebrations began! This little one was so fun to follow around with the camera. She is a HAM. BONE.!

Little P did a good job of chilling out and watching all the other kids play. He is studying up so he can join in next year!

Three days after this picture was taken it became official: these two are getting married!!! Yeah! I am so excited for them and ready to watch them grow as a married couple and see what God has in store for them. I love them both very much! :)

Christmas lovin'

After the first few Christmas' were over and we had a break between the next two, the kids and I went to the ranch to get out of the house and hang out with my parents. My dad has this obsession with these alpacas off one of the roads we travel to get to the ranch. Princess likes them too but isn't brave enough to get too close. One day...Papaw is going to get spit on. And I am going to laugh really hard.

This one must have found some drug-store buck teeth

Very funny animals! :)

So I guess now that I'm all caught up, I'll go clean house. Yesterday was Princess' birthday and today we leave for another Christmas. I hope to post her birthday post when we get back with more pictures. But now off to rejoin the whirlwind. Thanks for resting with me today! :)

Chasing Rabbits

Sometimes it's funny to look back at previous posts and realized how little you know about your own future. :) Like, in my last post, I said I was going to buy presents from the craft shows I would be attending. Haha! The first one we had to dodge out of because of bad weather and the second one, well...I ended up getting the stomach flu the day before and couldn't go. Thankfully, my wonderful husband went for me but there was no shopping going on. Oh well. I have ordered a lot of my gifts online and in one way or another, I've held to my gift-buying goal. There may not be as many handmade gifts as I wanted, but I feel good about what has been purchased this year.

Although, I have a confession. After being sick for 2 days and not feeling like doing much more than sitting with my eyes open, it hit me today how far behind everyone else I am. And that bothers me. And the fact that it bothers me, bothers me. I do not want this season to be stressful, I do not want to be a frantic maniac and hurried. I want to enjoy this season for what it is. My Lord, my Savior was born into this world for me. And you. And everyone else that you know or don't know. That, my friends, is what I want to be celebrating. This year in our studies we learned that Christ may or may not have been born in "December". The truth be told, at the time of his birth, there was several calendars and somewhere down the line we chose one to stick with. We learned that it wasn't until 386 that someone actually gave Christmas the same specific day to be celebrated every year. I find all that very interesting and something to be studied further. Some people celebrate "Christmas" at different points in the year (Ethiopia's Christmas is January 7) but for me, I don't mind celebrating in December. It is still a time where we come together to remember, reflect and remind ourselves of who He is to us. This year my family has been doing two advents: the one we call the "candles" and the Jesse Tree advent. It has been so wonderful to go back through history to learn about all these people God put in just the right place at just the right time so His son would fulfill His plan perfectly.

Since we just finished our Roman studies and are moving into medieval times, I got a book that studies how they celebrated Christmas back then and one that describes "The Real 12 Days of Christmas". It's all very different and new but I like it. So all that to say, I refuse to let the commercialism and materialism of the season affect where my focus is. If I don't get everything taken care of, so be it. I will make time to build a gingerbread village with my daughter, I will make time to shop for our "special family" and look at lights with my family, I will sit and watch movies with my kids while enjoying a season of rest and reflection. I will not let the "world" win and steal my joy because we've decided to only buy 3 things for our kids. I will not allow the stress, rush and frantic madness take over. I will not let family differences and schedule conflicts take the happiness away from the time I do get to be with them. I will not let gossip, negative words or snide remarks affect my attitude.

I will love my Jesus, celebrate my Jesus, thank my Jesus, and look for His glory in everything around me. And I pray...that you will too. :)