Home for the Holidays

Home was especially inviting this year. It seemed this upcoming Christmas season crept in the back door and was almost overlooked until it was sitting on my lap! I hit the ground running when I realized "What? Only 14 days left!" Not much had been done. So from that moment on it was all hussle and bussle. Needless to say, being home on December 25th was a welcomed day! The kids slept in until 8:30 (phew!). We started with John opening up the Bible and reading the Christmas story and thanking the Lord for sending His son to be the Savior of the world. Jeffrey and Joel passed out the presents. It was a grand time. John helped me with all the food before his Dad and Marian arrived. We spent the day relaxing and chatting while the kids enjoyed the day with their new treasures. Grandpa put on his "Santa" suit...which is really red pj's with the drop drawer in the back. The kids got a good laugh as he passed out their gift of $50 each for a family ski trip. We are all so excited. Grandma Bailey got the boys a computer, which of course was quite a thrill, now lets just pray it is used for school and not just games. We are a blessed family and thank God everyday for his generosity and goodness to us.

Happy Birthday Jon

Jonathan turned 15! This is so hard to believe. We had a nice evening with just family...a request from the birthday boy. We had Pizza Hut and an ice cream cake. Jonathan was thrilled with his Red Sox paraphernalia. The Red Sox ball is officially signed by 3rd baseman Mike Lowell. If you look closely at the picture of Jon and his 6' 2" father you will notice he is not to far behind. But as Dad says "...you will NEVER be stronger!" We'll see won't we!

Yummy cookies for our sailors

Every year our church bakes literally thousands of cookies to hand out to our single sailors living in the barracks. It is always a fun time for our family to bake and bake the Saturday before they are handed out. This year was extra special because the boys wanted to do the baking all by themselves. I was a little nervous about letting them fly solo but I must admit they were yummy! While we were waiting for each batch to finish we watched White Christmas together. On that following Monday some of our Navy families handed out over 500 cookie bags to the sailors. They were so thankful and pleasantly surprised to be handed free cookies and an invitation to church.

Gobble Gobble

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone until next year! Ours started early as usual. Our church holds a fantastic Tuesday Thanksgiving meal for our church family and our sailors from the Navy Base. It is always a great time of eating and hearing testimonies of God's goodness in peoples lives. We fed over 90 people in our small church. I don't think anyone cared how packed in we were...just thankful to be together. Next year we will have room to spread our wings in our new building, but sad to have our last dinner in this meeting place.

On Thursday, we traveled to Grandpa's for a wonderful time with family. We stuffed ourselves! All the boys cared about was getting outside for some football! Thankfully this New England day was 65 degrees. Marian did all the cooking! I had to beg to bring something. She knew I would welcome a break from the kitchen, as I cook for 9 everyday! Grandma and Grandpa wanted to keep the boys until Saturday. What a treat for John and me to have some alone time.

That alone time turned into waking early and entering the crazy world of Black Friday! My first time...and I think the last! I walked into Target and was ready to call it a day after 5 minutes. About 3 stores later, the funny thing is, we found ourselves purchasing nothing but a cart full of groceries from BJ's! Typical! So home we went to enjoy an oddly quiet house. Although the quiet is wonderful, it makes me all the more thankful for my wonderful children.