Snow Day!

Happy Christmas

The gifts were great. But spending this Christmas together was priceless.

Twas the Night Before...

Goofy pictures in new pjs, sprinkling reindeer food, setting out cookies and milk for Santa....

Deck the Halls

A few more ornaments to be made for the tree, sticky fingers and all, a proud climb to the top of the slide stairs and a last minute letter to Santa...

Here Comes Santa Claus

Merry Making

Baking, tasting, Gingerbread House Making, frolicking with reindeer and spreading so much cheer... These little people CANNOT WAIT much more for Christmas to be here!

Weekend at...

I recently watched a spoof on Weekend at Bernie's and it brought me back to our past weekend in Raleigh. Why you ask? Well there was no party involving recently deceased bosses or party crashers but there was definitely a sense of absolute madness and the unexpected.Maybe because it was the only movie reference with Weekend in the title that I could come up with... Somehow, without warning in those brief two and a half days everyone ended up sick, throwing up, the whole gamut. Our littles were feeling wretched and retching for most of our time there. So long group activities with the other children, outings and train rides. I had moments looking out at the icy day when I felt we were destined to spend the rest of our days in those two rooms..But alas, somehow we recovered, regained our color and our appetites and by the last day we were able to take a quaint, cozy train ride on Santa's Polar Express. It was not to be missed, despite all it took to get there...

Going..

Someone I know is dying. Losing his precious life while the world goes on normally. How can it? Why doesn't everything, shift, stop moving until I've processed, until his wife and children have had time to understand, to deal, to prepare..

But it doesn't work that way. We can't freeze frame moments until we're ready to handle them. This man, Sean, is good and strong and faithful, a husband and a father and a kind soul. He and his family have been an important part of the fabric which is my life.. and now they will experience this great sorrow... How can it be? Why isn't the whole world crying..?

I just don't know what to say. I want to have the right words. the comfort Jen needs. But nothing I say or do can give her back the man she loves, who she is losing minute by precious minute, watching her world change into something she never planned for...Part of me wants to shut out the normalcy as though it is somehow mocking the sacred hours Sean has left...

Why celebrate this season? Why have cake for dessert, watch a funny movie, sing with a little boy at the top of his lungs? Why take comfort in a hug or a good long nap or revel in houses lit up for Christmas?

And yet the Voice inside me whispers, "Why not?" To not celebrate the now, the normalcy, the joys and bright spots in the routine would be to cheapen the value, the preciousness of this life I'm now living, this life that dear Sean is watching end... For in the celebrating in spite of this deep throbbing pain, in spite of the ache, in spite of the sorrow we are saying, "Death where is your victory? Death where is your sting?"

So tonight on the brink of this holy Christmas I will pray for Sean, for Jen, for their little boys to be carried through, I will freely shed tears for them. But also for them, for this world and for the sacred life I have been given will I get up from those prayers and have dessert with my little girl and read a silly book to my baby. I don't think God, or Sean for the matter would have it any other way...

St. Nick's Day Surprise

Rub a Dub Dub

Two Boys in the Tub

Lil Chef