Trolly, Santa and Update

"For unto us a child is born". It truly in mind boggling to me that God himself would leave His holy throne, and submit himself to not only the life of a human, but to start at the very beginnings of earthly life...and humbly I might add. When I truly think about this truth, I realize just how loving and truly understanding my heavenly Father is. He lived this life, he felt our hurts, sorrow, joy and fear. He knows what we are up against, and He set himself to set things straight. It's easy to get wrapped up in the "American" tradition of Christmas....Santa, gifts, hustle and bustle, too much money spent, too many sweets eaten, Christmas music in stores before Halloween in efforts to push spending....its ok to celebrate Christmas this way, my family does too. Some of us want to focus on the spiritual side of Christmas, but truly, the real meaning of Christmas is a day to be celebrated the whole year through. Not just on one day of the year, but every minute of every day of our lives. In all honesty, I find it much easier to teach my children the love of Christ on a daily basis than on this one month of th year that is filled with so many distractions. So every year, my family celebrates the greatest gift given and received, Jesus...but we also celebrate the gift of living in this country and all the traditions that come with it. And we spend daily life taking the gift of Christ and glorifying our heavenly Father to the best of our ability.


I can't even believe its been over a week since I last posted. I can not let myself get this behind again, its too hard to catch up! Our holiday season was wonderful, we celebrated Christmas with my family on the 21st complete with a catored dinner from a Tapas restaurant, gifts for the children, Adult Yankee Swap (I highly recommend this, we laughed a lot) and ended it with a 2 hour Surprise Trolly Ride through the streets of Grand Rapids singing Christmas Carols, delivering gifts to a less fortunate family and checking out the major Christmas light display at our very own minor league baseball field, the "White Caps". It was a very snowy night, it could not have been more magical.

Christmas Eve was spent with just the 6 of us. We went to Christmas Eve Service, out to Dinner and then home for games, jammies and cookies for Santa. I am as excited as my kids for Christmas morning, I rarely get more than 2 hours of sleep if any. This year was no exception...I finally fell asleep at 6 am and my boys were up at 7 am jumping on our bed. Our rule is 7 am. Bella was a little confused but woke up rather quilkly. The boys were thrilled with their gifts but a little disappointed Santa did not bring a Wii. Then I pointed out the tiny gift under the tree that they missed and the race was on. Santa had sent them on a treasure hunt through out the house looking for a gift. As it turns out, our family did receive a Wii and a Wii Fit....santa left clues in all of our bedrooms and we found the big box in the basement! I am not an electronic game player, but I love this system....rediculously fun and entertaining. My family actually got together the day after Christmas and had a Wii bowling tournament.

We spent New Years home, quietly. Bella had chemo that morning and both of us were wore out.

I am so happy to see that all of you had such a wonderful holiday season as well. Praying for health, prosperity and joy for all of you this 2009.

Blessings to all!

I just thought this was so funny! 27 pairs of boots lined up at my parents in preparation for the "Surprise Event"....the Trolley Ride

All aboard the "Polar Express"!

My Mom "Grandma Nance" and Great Grandma Betty

My sister Mary, brother Peter, Nate and Bella

Sam and Dave on the Trolley

Bella and her favorite Uncle, Peter

Snow Princess

My Dad and Joe Joe

Niece Morgan and my Jake

Aunt Erin, nieces Emma and Lauren

Dave and I

The Fam....after a 2 hour fun filled Trolley Ride!

The typical "Cry Picture"....everyone needs one of these

I know I shouldnt laugh...but it was a little funny

Every year my Mom makes all the grandchildren their Christmas jammies, this is a picture of all the girls...unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the boys in their matching blue snowflake jammies.

Jake on the Wii Fit. Ha!

Bella checking out Sammy's ipod

Santa Came! I am thinking its a midwestern tradition to wrap all the gifts and a southern tradition to put the gifts under the tree unwrapped. Its been fun to visit everyone's blog sites and see the differences.

Christmas Eve after Dinner