Cookie Exchange

My lovely friend, Lauri, invited me to her annual Cookie Exchange party. What an A-Maz-Ing night! I was able to ride over with another friend, Lori. It was not only fun to see Lauri's lovely home, I also got to see her beautiful new baby.

The food! Oh my goodness. And my favorite, honey baked ham. And home made rolls. And desserts! In addition to the cookies.

How about the adorable cookie box she made for all of us?
Thank you Lauri for a fun girls night out!

(For some reason these pictures turned out small! Wish you could see all the food!)

Happy Birthday Nate!

Another reason I love December? My sweetie was born in December. After Nate got home from work, we had presents waiting for him. Megan bought him some Razzles, his favorite candy, Sammy made him a Christmas sign, and I got him a new shirt. And he bought himself some new waders. Haha. Very exciting indeed. But I do believe that his favorite gift was from Diana. She made him her famous cinnamon bread.
And, of course, we headed out for a sushi dinner.

He is a lucky man indeed.

We may, or may not have been, slightly more obnoxious than this Japanese restaurant was used to...I'm just sayin'
At the end of the dinner, the sushi chef mentioned to Nate how fun it was that he could come with all three of his daughters. Hahahahaha! Yeah right!
We love you Nate! Hope you had a great birthday and wish you a wonderful 2010!

School Fun

December is always busy for the girls at school. Megan had an especially fun time, she had what we call the "wax museum". For the last couple of months, the sixth grade has been studying Ancient Greece and to wrap up their studies all the kids get to choose a god or goddess of their choice and dress up and the school comes through their classrooms, or "museum" and they explain about who they are dressed up as. Megan chose Athena.

Later that week she had an orchestra concert. She informed me that we needed to be there early because her teacher had 200 instruments to tune. Okay. If this woman doesn't instantly go to Heaven...I couldn't imagine teaching elementary school orchestra. And she does a fantastic job. They sounded great! And the good news, we had front row seats! WooHoo!

Not to be outdone, Sammy had her 4th grade Christmas play. I think some parents come right after school and camp out, because I've never had a good seat at on of these plays. I LIVE for these plays, I love them so much. So imagine my dismay as Nate and I were sitting there waiting for it to start I had the realization that this was my last one! I realize that we will have concerts and such, but this is the last play like this. Now we are into the big kid stuff. My eyes teared up, I can't believe how fast they have grown up. She did a great job and the play was very cute.

Sammy and her great friend Emelia.

As always, these are the highlight of my December!

December Begins

As a lot of people know, I HATE our Christmas tree. My hatred grows by leaps and bounds every year. I would love to get a new, easy to assemble tree. Nate loves the tree and would love to see our grand kids around it. Same friendly battle every year. This year was different. I balked, of course, and didn't want to help. Nate made me and I put on some Christmas music, and the four of us got to work. Something was different this year. It usually takes a couple of hours to painstakingly put this darn thing together. I don't know if it took that long, but time flew by as we spent that time together, having fun. And it is always so much fun to go through the ornaments. Megan brought up the idea of getting a matching set of ornaments this year, but no way! All of our ornaments are either handmade or have some special meaning. No matching anywhere to be found. We Love IT!

Gilbert Hoodlums acting tough.

So....today. I woke up with a wonderful new feeling inside. I don't know if it was the purging of feelings, the love of friends, or just the new me trying to get out. I woke up ready to start the day. And it has been a good day. Lots of love from the girls this morning and this afternoon we baked and baked and delivered cookies to our neighbors for Christmas. It's been real good.

Since living in Arizona, I have really struggled with the whole Christmas season. As a girl from the north, I literally cannot get into Christmas with the blue skies, palm trees and warm air. Those things are lovely, but they aren't Christmas. Today was gray and rainy and chilly. And it buoyed my spirits so much! I love it!

Lurking beneath the surface

TMI? Perhaps,but enough is enough. You just never know what is truly going on with people, do you? Sometimes I don't know what is going on with myself. I'm testy, discouraged, worn out with indecision's, stressed out and fed up. With what? Life. It sucks at times. Doesn't even have to be big deal stuff. But at times when it just piles on and piles on, and you see people you love get piled on and piled on; it is very draining. And I've had a hard time being truly happy. But here's the kicker. I have every reason to be happy. I've allowed all the crap to just drag me down. We just had Thanksgiving and were lucky enough to have family fly into town. And I found myself struggling all week. Testy, on edge. Nothing at all to do with having visitors, just life. LOVED having them here, but couldn't overcome my weaknesses. I lie in bed at night, unable to sleep, worrying about things that cannot be resolved by me lying awake at night and worrying. I'm not seizing the day, enjoying the little moments. So last night, as I was lying awake and worrying I decided that this needs to stop. And I've made effort all day. Didn't always succeed, but made improvements. And tomorrow, I'll try even harder. And hopefully in a couple of days I won't need to try anymore, it will just flow.

I was talking to Diana tonight about it and she mentioned a church talk to me (can't remember who it was by) where this person was also struggling but made a decision to every day write down something that they realized that the Lord had had a hand in their daily life. I think it is a marvelous idea and one I could really stand to do. Focus more on my blessings and to really see just how much the Lord knows me, understands my struggles and weaknesses and how much He loves me. So here we go....

I am very grateful to have three wonderful people to hug each and every day, whenever I want to. And even more important, they let me.

And really, I am okay. I just can't allow myself to get in a funk. I know this, I've been aware of this for many years, sometimes I just need to give myself a little slap in the face.