Our favorite Christmas present

The best Christmas present this year.

Thank You Lord for our precious baby.

And thank You for Your precious Son, help us to remember He is what we celebrate this Christmas season.

Pictures of Monroe

Here are some pictures of Monroe at 8 days old taken by my good friend Meghan.  She did such a wonderful job capturing him and all of his newborn babiness.  I'm so thankful to have these to look back on.  Already, only 22 days since these were taken, he has changed so much.  Watching him grow is amazing and wonderful and sort of sad at the same time.

How precious and what a blessing.

Photo Card

Believe In Christmas Religious

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forgiveness

We have a white board in our kitchen where I write reminders and "to do" lists.  I also use it when disciplining my children.  Bad behavior gets your name with a frowny face.  Likewise, when I catch my children being kind to one another or obeying quickly and cheerfully, they get lots of smiley faces.  So this morning Palmer was giving me TONS and TONS of grief as we were getting ready for school.  At the end of my rope, I angrily wrote his name on the board with a big frowny face in red.  It didn't make our morning go any smoother, but it made me feel better.
When he came home from school, he apologized right off the bus and we enjoyed some wonderful one on one time while the little ones napped.  After a while, he looked at me and said "Mommy, can I erase my frowny face?"  Part of me wanted to say, "No, you earned that frowny face this morning -- do you remember how you treated me?  How disrespectful and irrational you were?"
I almost said, " I'll give you a smiley face for this afternoon, but the frowny face stays for this morning."
 But then a still, small voice reminded me that the Lord erases our frowny faces -- he doesn't give us a frowny face followed by a smiley face.  He forgives us completely.

Come now let us reason together , says the LORD. 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow . . . '
Isaiah 1:18a

Palmer got to rewrite his name and he gave himself 7 smiley faces -- he is happy to be forgiven and so am I.

Small steps

I almost did not post this.  I almost gave up on blogging AGAIN. . . but I was reading a friend's blog and saw the link to my blog with the caption "Welcome 2011" . . . how embarrassing. . . . I really didn't want to have to look at that every time I got on her blog.  So, I'm not promising this won't be my last post, but at least it won't be titled "Welcome 2011".

This has been a hectic year.  We're expecting baby #5 and I'm overwhelmed to say the least.  I have a seemingly endless "to do" list right now.  Just a few things on the list are -- taking the passy away from Jude, potty training Jude, moving Jude to Lenna's room, fixing the baby room, organizing the study,  getting rid of some of my homeschooling supplies, selling our van, eventually unloading an attic's worth of unused baby clothing and the list goes on...   It  seems that I wake up every day with this list in the forefront of my mind.  Before I work myself into a panic, I try to remember to take small steps each day and it will all eventually get done.

So, in keeping with that theme, I will not give up completely on my blog (YET), but I will be taking small steps with it. . . so that means I'm going to have to live with the Christmas wallpaper and picture for now. . . but at least I have a new post :)

Welcome 2011

What a  way to welcome the new year.   Two birthdays and three snow days  so far. 

                                                                      She's saying "cheese"

Jude turned 2

                                                               Lenna turned 4



Palmer sledding




Isaiah





Hello Kitty!!!