It seems I find myself wondering, and reflecting on my life, each year around Christmas. My eyes always feel with tears of joy, sorry, and laughter. I hug my children a little tighter, I cherish their little corks, and become less "uptight" about the rules around my house. Every year, the story of Jesus gets me. It isn't just the story though, it is the whole thing. His whole Journey. Then I remember my friends whose children have gone before them, and my heart swells with tears in a different way.

It amazes me how we can love so deeply, so raw, so completely, in so many different circumstance. How the human heart can love so much, and so completely fill us.

I am grateful this holiday season, for so many many things, but most of all, for the joy, and laughter, and pain of the years. I am a better person because of it. My life is richer.

May I always remember this.

Good things + Small bad = chaos??

How can it be that one bad thing can overshadow the good things of the day?

Lord help not dwell on the tantrum in the back of the car on the way home from great family time and focus on the great things that happened today. Wipe my mind clear and help me handle the grumpy things with more grace. Amen

Spider!!!!!

Today my daughters and I battled a spider... Rylee cried, hay held perfectly still.. and I screamed and slapped my face and rubbed my hands everywhere until I knew the spider was gone... then it jumped to haylee... ry, very bravely said "MOM! its on haylee!!!" When it jumped off of haylee I squished it!

I am SO proud of us!!!!

By the way.. .it was between a nickle and a quarter size..