Christmas

We had our 2nd Christmas in a row together, since 2003. I was looking forward to spending this day with our family. I'd invited my friend who spent Thanksgiving to spend Christmas with us. I've never had anyone spend Christmas morning with us and have to say I don't think I want to again. Christmas morning is very special, to be able to just have our little family with us is truly such a gift from our Lord. This year our home was opened to my friend and her girls and another friend who's a single soldier who's pregnant (she didn't get up until the kids were nearly done opening gifts). Having M who's the soldier, wasn't an issue, since she didn't come up until late. What was hard was that we have a certain way we do things, and with the grace of GOD our children were blessed with gifts this year. But ultimately it was a blessing and although I prefer it to be just our family, my friend K's husband is deployed so I know being here was a nice distraction for her.

We had a wonderful dinner. I made turkey (which we're still enjoying leftovers of!), a small ham, homemade noodles, my homemade dressing (or stuffing which is what we call it, but we do not stuff it in the bird!), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes. I also made pumpkinn and chocolate pies. M made BBQ meatballs, which were seriously the best BBQ meatballs any of us had ever had! She used my meatball recipe and then made her own sauce which was to die for!!! She also made deviled eggs, which was via Chad's request!!! Dinner was yummo! The kids got to go sledding in our over 1 foot of snow that we started getting more of on Christmas Eve and it continued to snow a day on Christmas!

We have been so blessed and it's all to the Glory of GOD. Christmas is all about Jesus. We are thankful that our Lord humbled himself to be born a poor babe in a manger. Without his birth, we wouldn't have the promise of the cross.

Thank you, Lord....I just wanna thank you Lord.

New Years post will come hopefully tomorrow or Sunday. I have made a decision to take a picture every single day this year. I've already started with taking pictures of all of us at midnight! I also plan to have at least one picture a week with me in it! I'll be posting the pictures, maybe not daily but at least weekly.

God's Blessings...Humbled by our Lord

Hi all! Life's going good, busy for sure!! We're preparing for the celebration of our Lord's birth! The 3 oldest kids are going to be in our chapel's Nativity Story play/program. I some how got wrangled into helping! I don't mind, just not sure how it all happened! LOL PWOC is now finished until January! We'll have 4 weeks off and I have to admit, I'm soooo looking forward to the break. This year I did the normal morning class, which was Sheparding a Child by Tedd Tripp (great book), and I took the evening class (because I'm crazy like that!) and took Beth Moore's: Daniel. If you know anything about Beth's studies, they're homework heavy, digging into the bible, and learning lots of new things. Here's my problem....having so much homework equaled Christy not doing homework most of the time. I know HORRIBLE example to my children. Between school with the boys, playing with Emma and Noah, keeping up the house, a dog (that gets on my nerves daily), trying to be a decent wife, Homeschool PE twice a week, PWOC Praise team practice, Hospitality House, helping friends out with their kids, and just every day living.....homework was often something I literally didn't think about until Tuesday night and then I was too tired! I know still an excuse, but it is what it is. I still learned a great deal in BOTH classes, and think my walk with Christ is deeper, my parenting skills are closer to where GOD wants them to be, and honestly I have joy in my heart. GOD is GOOD.....ALL the time! He knew I wouldn't pull off the homework and he loves me anyways!

So here we are 9 days from Christmas!! I have applesauce cookies made! So one down!! Still need to make no bake cookies, buckeyes, and sugar cookies (with the kids). We have the turkey, don't need to buy too much more for Christmas dinner. This year I was smart and while planning our menu and making grocery list, I finally remembered how stressed I am on Christmas Eve, in trying to get our family a fulfilling dinner, yet never having the actual time to make it because of various other things I need to make for the next day, as well as Christmas Eve service, and our family traditions of opening a gift on Christmas Eve, Daddy reading the story of Christ's birth, and watching a movie together before sending the kids off to bed, very excited. So this year...on the 23 I'll be making a big pot of Veggie Soup and we'll have left overs on Christmas Eve (mmmm....it's always better as left overs too!). I also the last couple of years the kids and I have made sugar cookies on Christmas Eve...not this year! We'll be making them earlier in the week! I'm working to simplify things that we love, yet make sure we keep our eyes completely focused on Christ. Less gifts, more giving.

Well, Noah is over in his Jumperoo fussing and literally calling my name "Mommmaaaa, Momma"!! So I'll write more later! I'm so blessed!

Zumba....I did it

(This post is truly all over the place as I haven't written in a while, so as I think of things...they'll be there! LOL)


I went tonight to my first Zumba class. Holy smokes, this girl is sore, almost 3 hours after the class and the longer the evening is going on the more I know that tomorrow I'll probably be barely moving. What's crazier is that I'm planning on going tomorrow night too! LOL I'm excited about it. Our instructor is a girl I know. She was actually about my size about a year ago and is literally half the size she was. She looks AMAZING! Honestly, had I not seen pictures of her on facebook I would never have recognized her when I saw her in person. I know I won't have as fast of results as she did, since I can't go every single day, but I am planning on going twice a week. Well next week I won't be able to, but after that I will. There's a class tomorrow evening, which normally there isn't on Tuesday evenings. Wednesday evenings I have bible study, but the last of that class is next Wednesday so after that I'll have 2 hours a week where I'm doing nothing but downing water and working my butt off (hopefully literally!!). A lady that I know has gone 6 times and is already seeing a difference in her body, pretty awesome for 3 weeks worth of work outs! I want to add in weight training as well, I know that's a must to have sucessful weight loss and to up my metabolism, and to firm everything up as the weight drops off. That was tonight, but today was busy and fun as well. Our homeschool group had our Christmas party. It was great. We had good food/snacks, the kids had Christmas crafts, they played Bingo, then we did a family ornament exchange (each family brought an ornament and we then numbered the gifts/ornaments and each family got a number! The kids had a great time and us mom's and even 3 dad's were able to come and enjoy the party (Chad was able to be with us pretty well for the majority).

We've been getting snow since the day before Thanksgiving! It's looking better and better that we're going to have a white Christmas! Every day for the next 10 days, except next Thursday they're calling for snow. Today it was a very wet snow and probably will be the next couple of days, because the temps are up just a little above freezing. I have to say I love snow. I love the beauty of it and I get so sick and tired of people constantly complaining about it. Winter they complain about the snow and cold and summer they complain about the heat....I know by the end of winter I will be more than ready for spring, but I'm not going to complain and whine about it especially at the very beginning of winter. The season's are blessings from GOD and we praise him for all 4 of them!!!

Noah's 6 months now! He's growing so much. Sunday he rolled over for the first time! Yes I know he's a little behind the curve on that one and that's ok by me! I've purposely held him a lot because honestly I'm in no rush for him to roll, which leads to crawling, which leads to walking. It's already going by too fast. But...he's rolled now and so it begins! I'm not going to obviously stop it and he does get on the floor every day quite a few times a day, but I've not encouraged this little bit of progress! LOL I think this weekend or next Daddy's going to be putting up gates on the stairs. The stairs have no back to them, so if he ever did get to them, he'd fall to the basement. I hope I can figure out how to add video on here, and hopefully soon I'll remember to get it up on here. Noah's just the happiest baby. The only time he's really fussy is if he's tired of not feeling good. He just has the best giggle and does it often!!!

Well I'm off to walk the dog. Wish those who WANTED the dog would do so more willingly and that includes the husband who wanted and asked for a dog just as long as the kids! But Momma does the nightly walk, which honestly I don't mind, but from time to time it'd be nice to have a night off from it! Especially when it's wet and slick out! Oh well, a Mom's job is never done! :)