Catching Up December: My Birthday Celebrations With Friends

After my birthday I had 3 little get-togethers with friends that were kind enough to want to celebrate with me. (All of these photos were taken with my iPhone.)

The day after my birthday my sister and 2 other sweet friends took me to a delicious Italian restaurant called Bucca di Beppo. They made me feel so special... and thankfully, they shared this piece of birthday cake with me. :) (The day before, on my real birthday, Cooper had been very upset that I didn't have a birthday cake, so I was sure to take this photo for him.)

My niece, Claire, wrote on my birthday card that her mommy brought to me. This is the first time that I have seen my aunt-name written by one of my nieces or nephews... and the first time that she wrote it! I LOVE it! See? It says "MIMI". And don't miss the giraffe with spots on the left side. (She is such a cutie!)

A few nights later a couple of other friends took me to Starbucks for a cookie and coffee and some great conversation. I love those 2 gals a ton!

Then, the next week a friend took me to La Madeline for dinner... and I like I said on Facebook, it was a hat-day, and she loved me in spite of it! My wonderful friend gave me two mugs to go with my Fiestaware collection, and I adore them!

It's funny, as I get older I find that I value small gatherings of my loved ones so much! I love the feeling of getting to know my friends on a deeper level and them getting to know me that way too. So, these small gatherings of friends were a perfect match for me this year. I am so very thankful for my girlfriends and the relationships that we share! They are all so individualized and personal, and I can see the way that God has used them to fill in my life like pieces of a puzzle. Each one unique and meeting a different need. God has blessed me with a very special gift of authentic, deep relationships, and that is one of the best birthday gifts ever!

Catching Up December: My Birthday & Riding The Polar Express 12/05

This year I had a really great birthday! I have had some really good birthdays, but I think that this one was one of the best ever, and I think that that had a lot to do with silly ol' me than anything else. I try really hard not to, but I think I usually have this crazy fairy-tale imagination that leads me to believe that birthdays are supposed to be magical... You know? I wake up (after sleeping late) to a magically clean house, the children all get along all day, the husband and I communicate like we've actually read and applied all those marriage books on the book shelf, the gifts are all heart-felt... some are even homemade, the surprises throughout the day are endless... Just like all of your birthdays, right? Doesn't that just seem so crazy?!? This year, however, I was able to maintain a reasonable, adult-like expectation of what my birthday would be like, and it was just exactly that. And we all had a good time. (Well, except for those incidences where the kids acted like they do on all of the other 364 days of the year.) I had told Corey that I wanted to do something "Christmasy" for my birthday, so we decided to take the kids to Grapevine for their festivities downtown and to ride the Polar Express. It was a ton of fun!

So after a morning of a bagel served to me in bed, some wonderful gifts from my family, and some uninterrupted movie watching and Facebook playing, we all got ready and headed to Grapevine.

Cooper played games with Santa on stilts.

~ waiting for the train ~

(Many people wore their PJs like in the movie Polar Express, and the boys joined in on that fun.)

~Silly Cooper & me ~

Before we boarded the train, all of the people that were to ride our train gathered in a tent and watched a performance and sang Christmas carols. Part of the entertainment was a Daddy Dance Off. My kids excitedly brought attention to Corey, and out of the hundreds of people in the tent, he was one of the ones that was picked to be a part of the contest. I can say that watching him do that contest was hands-down a highlight of my holiday season. It was so funny! I didn't know he would dance like that --- in public! :) (I have the video of his Dance Off on my Facebook page if you have not seen it.)

After the entertainment in the tent, it was time to board the train.

We all sang Christmas carols as we rode on the Polar Express.

Then, Santa visited every train car and talked to the kids.

After the train ride, we walked around town for a bit and enjoyed the decorations and the light show that was set to music.

Before heading home, we stopped by Starbucks.

When we arrived home, Coop and I snuggled in the gift that he had given me for my birthday... a pink Snuggie.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Catching Up December: Jack's Colonial Festival 12/03

At Jack's school, all of the younger grades have a festival each year that corresponds with the period of history that they are studying. This year, in 4th grade, he is studying early American history, so his festival was a Colonial Christmas Ball. All the kids dressed in costumes that match the time period, they performed music, songs, and recitation from that time frame, and the parents provided food and games. It is really one of my favorite things about the school.

~ my little colonist and me ~

~ Jack & Dad ~

~ Jack's teacher and his class ~

~ singing Christmas carols ~

The kids made their own butter.

~ love the label ~

~ getting ready to play a hands-free, on the knees, donut-eating game ~

He was the winner!

(the "after photos" were kinda gross :) )

I just love this boy so much!

Catching Up December: First Snow 12/02

So, here is my plan of attack for catching up the blog... First, I am going to catch up December, then November while trying to stay current on documenting my family's life and my thoughts and feelings. If I hadn't seen the complete value of documenting things for us via my blog over the last few weeks as we would say, "When did this or that happen?... Go look at Mom's blog and see.", I might just skip catching it up all together, but really... we have come to count on this form of documentation for our family history, and I kind of like that.

So... here we go.

On December 2, we were just getting back into the swing of school after Thanksgiving break, and unexpectedly we woke up to snow on the ground! Corey and I woke Cooper because we didn't know if he would remember ever having seen snow before and knew that he would be excited by it, but we let the older kids sleep. When they woke up, they were more excited about the snow than I had imagined they would be, and everyone instantly started putting on layers of their non-snowproof clothes and heading outside. Yes, they looked very much like little Texans... and the the snow looked quite Texasy as well. It hardly covered the ground, but the kids scooped up all that they could and had snowball fights until there was literally no snow left. We delayed our always-busy Wednesday homeschool day for the very important activity of family-bonding and snow-playing.

On that day, I vividly remember thinking about how thankful I am that I get to homeschool my kids and that they have the opportunity to occasionally drop everything and do things like play in the snow. The fact that the older two kids - 13 and 9 - could be home to play with their 4 year old little brother was not taken for granted by me on that day. In many other situations, kids with that age difference might not have many opportunities to play together, and I am thankful that God has blessed us all with the chance to make that happen at this point in the kids' lives.

And after all of their snow-playing, the kids came in, and we all had hot chocolate, listened to Christmas music, and enjoyed the newly decorated living room before we got to work doing their schoolwork. It was a good day!

Merry Christmas '09

From our family to yours...

Merry Christmas 2009!

And did you hear?!? We had a White Christmas!!!

Earth To Amy, Come In Amy

I have felt so disconnected to the bloggy world for the last couple of months. My 11 year old Mac had had just about "enough" and pretty much put its foot down and said, "I'm not working anymore!" It even had the 4 year-old convinced that it was "the slowest computer in the history of computers", and he wouldn't come close to using it. Since that is where I store my photos, and since I basically don't blog without photos, I had to patiently (kind of) wait for my live-in IT guy to get to my "work order"... and that he did yesterday. We had a great Christmas - maybe the best one ever as far as I am concerned - and during our family gift-exchange I received my ticket back to Blogland... a new Mac Mini!!! All day yesterday, Corey worked to get things moved from the pokey computer to this blazin' fast one, and today I am once again able to sit at my desk and enjoy my hobby of blogging. And that makes me SO happy! Part of me wishes I could sit here all day long and blog away - there is SO much that I hope to catch up on - but the other part of me is headed to the kitchen to get ready for another day of eating and hanging out with family. I am not sure of my plan of attack for catching the ol' bloggeroo up, but I sure hope to! For now, have yourself a Merry Little Day After Christmas, and I'll "see" you soon...