Let it snow! (Day 2)

Here is what we woke up to on Friday morning! It snowed the ENTIRE day on Thursday, and overnight covered up most of our tracks from the day before.

 

It even covered up our snowgirl we made the day before!  She’s got on a pink cowgirl hat, but you can’t tell!

 

We all (mostly my hubby!) worked hard in the front yard to built a snow fort.  The plan was to make it taller, but Bug and her friend from next door decided it should be a slide, so the plans got redrawn!

 

 

Bug had a blast with her good friend from next door.  We are blessed with some of the most wonderful next door neighbors!  This little girl is their granddaughter, and she and Bug just adore each other.  They played in the snow for hours before I finally lured them in to decorate cookies and warm up.

 

Finally, they wore out enough to sit still for a movie….for all of 30 minutes….before getting back up to play!

 

It was a wonderful day! We are very blessed!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! (Day 1)

For many of you, snow is just a given at this time of year.  However, for us in Texas, these past few days have been a real treat!  For an area that deals with temperatures in the 100’s for so many days in the summer, it’s nice to experience the colder side of things from time to time.

DFW just set a new record with over a foot of snow falling in 24 hours!  We built snowmen, ate snow ice cream, snow cones, went sledding, and just all around enjoyed it!

If you aren’t from Texas and you are wondering why we are so excited it’s because it is a RARE treat that we get real SNOW.  Usually it’s this icy, slushy, mixed with dirt stuff that Texans call snow.  But this was white, fluffy, powdery, genuine snow!

Here are some highlight pictures!

 
    

January Jumble

A little of this…a little of that.  Here is what January looked like for us.
Playing our new favorite game, Super Stretchy ABC



Playing dress up

Doing yoga with Daddy


Trying new foods (sardines & oysters!)


Earning a FREE PIZZA with the Pizza Hut Book It Program!


Sleeping on the floor UNDER her bunk bed. What kid doesn’t love a good ol’ fashioned “pallet”?



Riding a new bike! Thanks to a great friend, we received a hand-me-down bike for Bug.  (LOVE hand-me-downs!)   Her knees were hitting the handlebars on her old one, so it was time to move up.  This was a huge blessing!

Happy New Year!

Just a month late!  January was a busy month.  We started the new year at my mother-in-law’s house.  She lives near the beach in Galveston, and we always have a great time hanging out with her. 
We celebrated New Year’s Day with our annual Ice Cream Sundaes! We even get dye-free maraschino cherries from Whole Foods! Somehow, I was too busy enjoying the ice cream to get any pictures of it this year.  Oh well!  We also played plenty of Wii games to burn off the ice cream calories.

We can’t go to Galveston without going to the beach, even if it is the middle of winter!  We bundled up and headed to the beach for a shell-collecting mission.  Of course, we weren’t there for 2 minutes before Bug was playing in the water.  She was enjoying herself like it was summertime.  Crazy girl!  Her pants are wet all the way up to her coat!



Bug drew this picture of a bug all by herself!! LOVE it!
One day, Bug decided she wanted to be a mouse, so she enlisted Grandma’s help making a costume!
 

Unfortunately, on January 2nd, we received a call from my mom that my grandmother (my mom’s mom) had passed away.  We knew it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier.  We loaded up and headed home so I could be with my mom.  While we miss her very much, it is also a blessing to know that she is with our Lord and no longer in any pain.

We had my parents over the next day for dinner and some game play on the Wii.  We wanted to give mom a night of fun and laughs in the midst of her stress.  I think it worked!

Mom getting a little instruction from my Hubby!


Getting serious about it!


Meanwhile, Bug enlisted Grandad to play dolls with her!


A few days later we had the funeral, and it was short and sweet.  Praise God she’s in Heaven! She’s no longer in pain!  I heard a couple really great stories about my grandmother at the funeral.  One relative told me that my grandmother once spent her last $1 to buy her a pair of shoes because she didn’t have any to wear to school.  Another relative told me that once she didn’t have any shoes, and my grandmother took the shoes off her feet, gave them to her, and went home barefoot!
Wow.

I hope that those stories stay in my mind forever, and that I can shoot to live my live like that…..truly loving others and putting them before myself.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I feel absolutely, incredibly blessed today! I have had the best Christmas season ever, I think. We kept things so much simpler this year – spending less, giving more, not trying to go to every activity, making sure we had time for just R and me, time for just our family of 3, and time with extended friends and family.

I am so proud of Bug right now! She was amazing yesterday and today. Last night she got to open a present after church. She knew she was going to get one, and she was so excited about it. She had it all built up in her mind, and you could just tell she thought it was going to be the best thing EVER! She even talked about how we would all get to play with her new toy and how she would share it with us. I was concerned she was going to be disappointed when she realized it was just jammies.

But, she was so excited about them and put them on immediately. Unfortunately, I should have washed them first because they were a little uncomfortable on her, so she put her old ones back on, and was so content with it. What a little blessing she was with her great spirit and attitude!

Today, Christmas Day, she was so sweet and tenderhearted. She was patient, kind, loving, and a pure joy to be with! We opened stockings first, and she took her time, enjoying each and every thing that came out of her stocking. She stopped to play with or enjoy each item. When we stopped to go play in the snow (first white Christmas in North Texas in 83 years!), she got involved in that, and had a great time, never once asking about the other gifts under the tree or rushing us.  Once we came back to the gifts, she wanted R and me to go first (but we didn’t take her up on it).  She was truly thankful and appreciative for each of her gifts (doll clothes, and 2 animal skeleton books). She took time to play with them and look at them without rushing, then she showed genuine interest in what R and I opened as well.

She did this in the afternoon at my parents’ house too. We got there and hung out a bit, and we actually had to tell her that she was the kid and she was supposed to ask when we opened presents!  When we were opening them, she took her time to enjoy the gifts, to really stop and play with each one as if it was the only gift in the world she had. She slowed down and watched as others opened their gifts, and seemed genuinely interested in what they were doing. She was kind, polite, thankful, and so much fun to be with! I am so proud to be her mommy!

I was proud of my parents and R’s family too! Everyone was very generous with their gifts, but also kept it simple and reasonable in their gifts to Bug. She was able to truly enjoy her gifts without being overwhelmed with too many packages to open. She received things that she loves and enjoys and things that are perfect fits for her personality and interests – really meaningful gifts.

R and I were a bit spoiled by our parents – even more than Bug was this year. I feel humbled and so blessed to have parents that love us so much, and that even though we are out of work and can not reciprocate this year, they went all out to get us things they knew we wanted, but would never buy for ourselves.

I also feel blessed because we got to spend the day with my parents AND R’s family – in ONE location – as usual. My parents, his mom, his grandmother, and his uncle, all getting along and having a great time. We’ve always been very blessed and fortunate that not only do we get along with each other’s families, but they also get along so well with each other and really enjoy each other’s company.

I feel like we finally got it right this season. We slowed down and kept the focus on Christ. We gave more than we received and did our small part to help the “least of these”. We gave thoughtful, meaningful gifts rather than gifts for the sake of giving. We cherished our time with our family.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming to us over 2000 years ago, in such a humble beginning even though you deserved so much more. Thank you for coming as a baby, so that you could grow and experience life on earth as a human. So that you would know about anything we could ever go through, and be there for us. So that you, could live a sinless life and die for our sins, so that we could live with Our Father one day in Heaven. We love you! Happy Birthday, Jesus!