MamaGrizzly

Well, the whole goal (at least for us at Christmas) is for the children to get toys that are imaginative and fun that they will play with for more than 1 hour.  I think we’ve been successful at that!  I’m going to give the top 2 toys our children received this Christmas. 

We got our daughter the Fisher Price “Grow with Me Kitchen” which has turned out to be a HUGE hit.   Last year after Christmas, I bought a bunch of pretend food and serving dishes at Target (I spent about $5).  We bought the kitchen (picture is below) from Toys ‘R Us on sale for $49.99 and used PayPal which offered a 20% discount on the Monday after Thanksgiving.  Well, our 20 month old daughter has not stopped playing with this kitchen.  The cool part is that it’s a “Grow With Me” and so right now it’s about half the height you see below.  She LOVES it! 

Our son just turned 4 and his aunt got him the HotWheels 4 way race track that you see below.   It has been a HUGE hit also.  He loves cars and hasn’t stopped playing with his race track since he opened it up! 

It’s been an awesome and relaxing family day.  The sermon today was given by one of the church members and she told the story of “The Rag Coat”.  Turns out, it’s actually a children’s story (and if you haven’t read it, I HIGHLY encourage you to seek it out).  But, the story was a reminder that about what is important in life.

May the blessings of Christmas, and the birth of the Savior bring joy and peace to you and your family.

I simply can’t delete his phone number.  It’s been just over 2 months since my Father died and his home phone number (the one that the family has been dialing for over 37 years) is still programmed into my cell phone.  It says “Dad Home” followed by his number.  *sigh*  I don’t know when I’ll be ready to delete it.  It just makes it so, well, permanent and real that he is gone.  I might add that the actual number has been disconnected - my sister had to do that and I know it was incredibly difficult for her to do.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about dialing his number either.  I’ve called it a couple of times *knowing* that it has been disconnected.  My Mom has been gone now for 3.5 years and I STILL think about calling her.  I’ll be doing something and I’ll think, “I should call Mom”…. but I can’t reach either one of them with modern technology. 

It’s been difficult losing my Dad.  He was my last surviving parent and losing him has made me feel, at times, like an orphan.  He was the last person on this earth who had been there for me from the beginning.  He was the last person on earth who loved me unconditionally.  Losing him and dealing with that grief has made me realize how incredibly hard it was on him when my sister died in 2001.  I realize now that his reactions after she died, while they seemed strange, were his way of coping with the impossible.  It’s been hard enough to lose both parents but burying our parents is a natural part of life - it’s something we know we will probably all face someday.  Burying a child is a whole different story and I now know, more than ever, how incredibly difficult that must have been for my Father.

But the blessing is that life goes on and death has the incredible ability of bringing families closer together - of making us realize exactly what is important in life - it’s not a new car, or new clothes or money in the bank.  The value in this life is our family, our friends, our relationships and the chance to have a positive influence on someone else’s life.  ….. that is what matters most of all.  And God truly has blessed me with a wonderful family, husband, and the 2 cutest children in the whole world (sorry to break it to y’all but mine ARE the cutest and sweetest in the world).  And, while this Christmas will probably be one of the hardest, I have fond and fun memories of my own childhood and my parents.  I’m surrounded by family and friends who love me and care about me and I also have God there to hold me in the palm of His hand.  Merry Christmas!   

Christmas time is my favorite time of the year - I’m sure that I share that in common with a lot of people.  But I love the traditions in families and with our young family, my husband and I have enjoyed coming up with our own traditions.  We’ve started some already and have thoughts for many more but right now I have 2 children that are under the age of 4 so some of my current traditions are limited by age.  Nonetheless, they are fun and we are enjoying them.  Of course, we put up a Christmas tree and stockings, our nativity scene.  But, I have a special box that I keep for each child that holds only ornaments for that child.  Whenever we travel somewhere, I try to find a unique ornament that is a reminder of where they have been and I place it with a note (from Mom) in their box.  You see, I want them to have their own large assortment of meaningful ornaments from their childhoods when they leave home.  I have no intention of telling them about their boxes until they are ready to leave home (for those of you who know me IRL - please don’t let out my secret).  It’s kind of a special collection that I will give to them much later.  I don’t limit myself to just 1 ornament - I just find very special and unique ornaments.

We’ve started our own tradition of having Texas BBQ Brisket on Christmas Eve just before our Children’s Church Service at 5:00PM.  Following Church, our neighborhood has a tradition of lining all of the streets in the neighborhood with luminaries at dusk - it’s absolutely beautiful and last year was the first change we had to enjoy it and it was beautiful.  I think this year we will get some hot chocolate and walk around (or drive depending on how cold it is).  I plan to read the children the story of the birth of Jesus just before bedtime and then Santa and Mrs. Claus will enjoy putting out a few items for each child and then retire to a nice warm fire.   

One thing we will definitely do when the children get older is to adopt a family at Christmas time - we haven’t completely formulated our ideas of how it will work but essentially we want our children to learn true giving of themselves.  We may even take a year where we don’t spend any money on each other and only provide for a family - I’m not sure what age the children will need to be to understand all of that but we are definitely a few years off. 

We really like traditions at our house - we revel in them and we know that it’s these types of traditions that will make lasting memories for our whole family.   What traditions do you have in your home? 

So, if I look back over the last couple of months, it appears that I have only posted YouTube videos and Wordless Wednesday entries.  Part of that has been a blogging break due to some very personal things that have happened in the last few months.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share everything here but I’ve come to the conclusion that I will because I think it will help me and it will also most certainly help others going through the same things in their lives. 

I’ve written so many blog entries in the last couple of months in my head on my way to work but most especially in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep - or when I’ve been up rocking a sick little baby girl.  I’ve invented (in my mind) a device I can connect to my brain that can take all my writing “thoughts” and transposed them into blog entries.  I wish it was a true possibility. 

I’m making a huge assumption here that there are 1 or 2 people out there who actually read my blog - that may be a bad assumption on my part but JUST IN CASE you are out there, I wanted to let you know that I’m still here - just thinking, processing, wondering, and mourning.  I’m hoping to have more time to process thoughts and put them on paper computer over the coming months. 

In the meantime, may you have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and have a chance to reflect on the real reason we come together this time of year - to celebrate the birth of Christ. 

This is hilarious!!!