Happy "almost" New Year!...

What the heck happened to fall? I blinked and it was gone and I cannot believe I have not updated the blog since the middle of AUGUST! Wow sorry about that! I hope everyone had an amazing holiday! We did. :) I gave the kids time off from schoolwork (I love homeschooling.) for month of December. We made dozens and dozens of cookies,I made peanut brittle for my dear neighbors, we bundled up in hats and scarves and took a thermos of hot cocoa and headed out for a drive to look at Christmas lights. We attended a beautiful Christmas service at church, watched movies, played board games, and in general really celebrated the holiday by hanging out with each other. This year was a constant reminder to me to hold our loved ones close,as it seems as if I was constantly hearing stories from former classmates, or friends or people in our community about their loved ones finding out they were sick, or they lost a friend or family member and then 2 days before Christmas a teammate on my son's special olympics team passed away after a two month battle with pneumonia and had been in the hospital. It just made me want to put my children in a bubble and keep them from everything. However that is no way to live life. Or especially go through a season where we celebrate the birth of our great savior. So instead I chose to just focus on family and keep our outside commitments to a minimum and just work on creating good memories my kids will hopefully remember when they are grown. I want them to remember this as the season where Mom and Dad slowed down and we had fun and always talked about the true meaning of Christmas.

Now that I have waxed philosophical on you...:) I will leave you with a tip for all those extra boxes leftover..if you have not already recycled them. :) Why not fill the empty boxes with used toys the kids no longer play with so there is room for their new stuff...and then give it to a local favorite charity? Or even better why not fill up those boxes with supplies and a thankyou note and ship them overseas to our devoted soldiers? I am not going to promise to update too regularly (though I will try) because when I do that I always blink and suddenly it is months later! :) But I am going to try not to go that long again.
Until next time!
Encouraging Mom