Christmas Eve

Love these faces who fill our ordinary days and holidays with such energy, laughter and joy.

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Reindeer food

                                        

 

We have made reindeer food every year since these little ones joined our family...It is one of our favorite holiday traditions.  Reyna and Pedro are scattering the food before we left for candlelight service....

Eutychus

A tradition in confirmation awarded for a great sermon note. Yahaira brought Eutychus home just before Christmas break. This is a picture of all the members of our family who have shared a week with Eutychus.

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Catching Santa

They promised me they were going to stay awake the entire night. They have been discussing this all day. They had a plan to catch Santa's arrival. They were determined.....it appears Santa caught them snoozing. I can't wait for them to see this picture when they wake in the morning.
They made it until midnight. One of those two had been awake since 5am. They both woke me at 4 this morning. The braver of the two at the moment quickly said "I know you said no one could check their stockings under the tree until the sun woke up...but we thought you should know "He's been here!!" (I had announced on the drive home from church late last night that no one was allowed to wake me asking to open presents before the sun woke, the didn't ask to open anything they just wanted to share Santa had been here) both did go back to sleep for a couple hours perhaps they sensed it would be calmer for all if their mom slept a little bit longer.
later that morning they "found" this picture on the floor by the printer, their faces where priceless and they spoke in stuttered sentences as they tried to  figure out how Santa had managed this. 

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Love your melon

My sister always find gifts that represent a good cause.

This year she gave the adult kids Love your Melon hats.
here is the story of the company:

Love Your Melon was founded in an entrepreneurship class at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota by two friends, Zach and Brian. On a mission to improve the lives of children battling cancer since October 22nd, 2012, Love Your Melon began with the simple idea of putting a hat on every child battling cancer in America.

After achieving the original goal of donating 45,000 hats— one for every child battling cancer in America — Love Your Melon set a new goal of donating one million dollars to pediatric cancer research and providing immediate support to children and their families.

Fifty percent (50%) of profit from the sale of all Love Your Melon products is given to Love Your Melon’s nonprofit partners in the fight against pediatric cancer. Our nonprofit partners work in the field of pediatric oncology, fund cancer research initiatives and provide immediate support for families of children battling cancer.

To date, we have donated over 2.5 million dollars and over 90,000 hats. Let’s write the next chapter together. Join the story. 

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Photos

 

Haycraft's with my dad

 

Piercy's

 

Cassandra and eric with grandpa

 

Beckie and Greg with grandpa 

No holiday gathering is complete without the family photos..and the grumbling of course about having to be in those photos 

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Tracking Santa

Thank you NORAD for giving kids the opportunity to follow Santa's travels this one was completely captivated by the journey 

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Cookies for Santa

The thought that went into this plate of cookies.  The very best chosen, consideration of what Santa would want to drink and of course we couldn't forget the reindeer.

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My favorite view

During the Christmas season 

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Christmas morning

 

Late risers join ed those early risers for a quiet morning discovering the wonders inside their Stockings.

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Art supplies

She was happy with the discovery of art supplies in her stocking and quickly sat down and started creating...

 

I live her finished design!

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Continuing

Johnny left a tree shaped out of post-it-note during December with a note to fill it in with messages  and doodles. We decided to continue with that idea each month with a new shape and more messages.

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New years eve

Our annual new years eve celebration inclouded this crew the rest were watching a movie in the other room...every year Linda and now Evan join us for home made Pizza and movies...in recent years Reyna and Evan have had far more energy than the adults making it to the midnight hour 

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Birthday party

He loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so putting together a theme for his party was pretty simple. A message to Candace who has created amazing cakes for us in the past marked one check off the list when she agreed to make his turtle cake. It turned out amazing no?

 

Large groups and birthday excitement is often a perfect storm for some off the chart behaviours it's always been a concern for me to give this little guy the typical kid experiences while still preserving an environment where he doesn't lose control. We have found that small is helpful and having the guest list include family who knows his quirks gives him the experience within a setting he can handle.  He invited one little voyeur from school and knew from daycare the rest of the guest list was family and close family friends.  Since TMNT was the theme holding the part at Fox's Pizza Den seemed like the perfect setting especially when they offer a challenge Pizza/birthday party Pizza.  Everyone was amazed at the size of the pizza.

 

Singing happy birthday 

 

Inside the cake was the TMNT colors it was a happy discovery when he saw the first piece.

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Birthday treats for school

Birthday treats for school for my ninja turtles licing 9 year old.

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Someone was pretty excited today

She has wanted a big girl doll, explaining that her babies are fun but she was ready to have an older doll.  That may or may not have been triggered by the arrival of the American girl catalog a few weeks ago.   I'm not a fan of purchasing something just because of the name, perhaps I am just too practical?  So when she requested a certain doll from the catalog, inside I groaned because the name and the cost had my budget weeping.  I answered with my best mom answer "maybe if you save your money".  We were in Target one afternoon and as she wandered down the doll aisle her eyes landed on this doll and there it was the connection as she looked at me with those big eyes filled with a happy sparkle she said "this is the one!"  I explained that she did have enough money from Christmas to buy the doll and then we also had a little chat about price comparison and buying a name brand product vs a store brand product. She floated as she carried the doll to the checkout and proudly paid for her ourchase.  My days have been filled with the endless conversations between a 7 year old and her big girl doll. 

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Shopping with a stormtrooper

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A break from winter

Spent the afternoon on Sunday swimming at a local hotel.  A much needed break from snow and cold of winter.

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A box

 

The box sat on the table for awhile....i was surprised by my reluctance to open it.  I knew what was inside I just wasn't ready to believe that finally I had achieved my dream of writing a book.

I've been waiting (im)patiently for this box to arrive, believing that once I actually held a copy of my book in my hands it would feel more real, rather than feeling like a dream. It took several attempts to capture a photo that wasn't blurry, those hands are still shaky and the butterflies are epic. For now it is with surprised disbelief that I look at this book in my hand, for so long it was a dream I wouldn't even acknowledge and now here we are....a book.
So grateful for all the kind, encouraging words so many of you shared last week when the ebook became available and for those of you who asked about the print version it's now available on Amazon.com

I shared the picture and post above on Facebook.

I have never seen him read a book, not even to our kids. He will help with any type of homework except for reading...and there he was reading my book.

purchasing my book on Amazon for my Kindle.  Coolest moment ever!

Cover designing and book preview.  It took countless times until everything was in order and ready for printing.

seriously took me days to get that picture to not be upside down.  I was learning Microsoft word and photo editing as I went.  Google become my best friend.

previewing the Kindle version...

uploading the manuscript for the first time.  I think my hands were shaking and my brain was on hyper-speed.

The stories that had been in my head, or scattered among different sources finally gathered into one place...the first time I read the preview online I held my breath as I saw everything come together into a book form.

You should write a book... I have heard versions of this for years, and chose to channel my most adult behavior and ignore those who dared utter such a thing.

I had been quietly working on this book for well over a year.  Pulling stories from my blog, Facebook, scrapbooks, writing more stories....slowly and steadily gathering them into one place. After researching publishing and determining the best route for me to take I decided on self publishing with Amazon direct publishing.  Next began the very lengthy process of editing and formatting my manuscript for both kindle and print versions.  I had foolishly believed writing the book would be the most challenging part...it was not.    Editing and formatting just about did me in.  After weeks of navigating the editing process I reached the point where a cover needed to be designed.  I shared a photo of that cover with my adult kids and a few others...still not ready to share with the world that I was writing a book.  I knew myself well and I knew if I had shared that I was writing a book with others, I would most likely talked myself out of finishing the book.  I had been doing it for years.  A few days later the Kindle version was ready to go live.  The email that arrived telling me this news was the most exciting email I have ever received.  It took a bit longer for the print version to go live, teaching yourself formatting and Microsoft word and countless other skills was at times overwhelming.  Finally it was ready and I placed an order on Amazon for the book I had been dreaming of for years, and working on for almost two years.  when that box arrived I stared at for the longest time, I knew what was inside but this moment of finally realizing a dream to completion was such a mix of emotions.  The moment when I paged through the book I had spent months writing was one I will never forget.  For so long I had been afraid to let myself believe in that dream.  One day I realized being afraid was pointless and it would be worse to not try.  Amazing things happen when you let yourself dream.

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Cookie time

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