Christmas

Now that I have read a few blogs from other family members that include Christmas pictures, I just need to do it myself.
Christmas for us is a series of separate occasions. My husband has two sets of families, I have one, and then we have just our family time. I don't mind going to these different occasions. In fact this year, it was very helpful to me.
Christmas this year was good, but also a little sad. A good portion of my family live in Kenya and another branch live in Wichita. It was my first Christmas without my brothers, the ones closest to my age. Last year was my first without my parents. To have all of these people missing from my Christmas was very challenging. To have me pregnant and emotional also made it challenging.
We did have a wonderful Christmas though, because the meaning of Christmas will always be the same. Jesus will always be the center and he gives hope to all circumstances. If my children never learn anything else from me, I would be okay with them learning just that.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our Christmas.

This is our girls with Bill and Jessie Schmidt. They are my sister, Rachel's parents.
They have been a tremendous blessing to all of us with my family living so far away.

Bailee is now a teenager and her Christmas list has definitely changed.

Sammy in her doctor's glasses.

Girls with Grandpa Mike and Grandma Pam.
Well I have run out of time. I have to get ready for a birthday party, so I will post more later.

Winter Weather

I thought I would share with you what our weather has been like today.

This is what our living room windows that face west look like.
This is only the bottom, but they are like this all the way up.

New Year's Eve

This year I decided to let our girls stay up until midnight, so we could experience the beginning of the new year together. Jeremy and I went to Costco and bought some party food and we decided we would play games and maybe watch a movie.

We did the game playing and it was fun. We played "Life" which I won for once, usually I lose. Part of the reason I lose is because I never get children. I cannot remember the last time I played and ended up with any children. Definitely not like my life.


We then played a DVD movie game that we have which was basically a contest between Jeremy and I although Bailee definitely helped. Then the girls decided they would like to watch a movie. It was about 10:00 by this time and I knew if we started a movie chances were good they would be asleep before the new year, but I also did not have the energy to suggest anything else.

So we put in a movie and Bailee and Makayla actually made it through the movie. But all of us together bringing in the new year together was not to be. This is how things stood at 11:30pm.

We will have to try again another year.