The Five Days of Christmas and a Happy New Year

Christmas is my favorite time of year. The obvious reason is the gloriousness of "God With Us" but, secondarily, it also serves as a kind of benchmark on life. You compare life now with life in Christmases past. You reflect on the past year and ponder where you've been and where you'd like to head.

This time last year, Weston was just starting to say "Dedad" (Jesus) and that was about the extent of what his little 20 month old mind could handle of the Christmas Story. This year, on top of saying Jesus correctly, he grasps the idea of it being His birthday, that he was born a little baby in a stable with animals, who His Mama and (sort of) Daddy were, that Jesus is God, that Jesus is now in Heaven, that Jesus loves us so much. He sings "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Joy to the World". His little mind is able to understand a bit more, yet has so much still to understand (hmmm...like me I should say). I look forward to watching the Christmas Story unfold clearer and clearer, year after year for our children...what a blessed gift!

This time last year I was also enormously pregnant and Weston misunderstood that Jesus was in my belly. And now here she is, Lily Louise celebrating her first Christmas. She wasn't into wrapping paper like you hear baby's love to do. That's okay, she was just fun to have around and she looks so stinkin' cute these days. Since she didn't really "get" the gift thing, Weston took it upon himself to just claim her gifts as his own. Whatever. His time is short in this area before she catches on to his antics.

As far as a look back at the year...WOW! A few key words come to mind. Awesome, exhausting and waiting. Awesome because Lily has enriched our family and God has used her in so many ways. I cannot even imagine life without this precious little thing! Exhausting because there has been little sleep, lots of chasing, lots of discipline, lots of change, lots of decisions. Waiting because, well, I don't know. If I knew, I guess we wouldn't be in this waiting place that God has placed us in to trust Him more. Perhaps we're always waiting...

We celebrated Five Days of Christmas this year, so here we go...

With Nana and Julie's family...




Christmas Eve to ourselves...





Christmas morning...





Christmas evening at Noni and Papa's...



Not pictured: Montgomery City with the Bethel clan and dinner with our far away friends the Herndons and their sweet Sharp family...

And lastly, opening presents sent from Grammy and Grampy...


Our New Years' Eve was pretty uneventful. I don't really care for this holiday, so small children are kind of a good excuse for me to be a homebody, but I think Kurt misses a little New Year's adventure. Soon enough sweet husband. We ate dinner at the cute little Mexican restaurant by our house and then had breakfast the next morning with our dear friends the McKinley's.

Happy 2011 to you! Whoever you are? This wraps up my first full year of blogging and although my main purpose for this little place is to document moments for my family and print up a little blog book each year, I'm always surprised and touched to discover someone finds something here interesting enough to pop in every once in a while. I know there are just a handful of you, but perhaps if I don't know you're here, you could comment and come out of the closet? No fancy prizes, just saying thanks!