Finally Christmas to the Blog World!

Just a Hint...

If you are like us, the Christmas tree is decorated. Stockings are hung by the fireplace. Holiday decorations deck the halls and nativity scenes are in many rooms of the house. This time of year makes you feel like a little kid again. You just want to go over to the tree and grab a present with your name on it and give it a shake. Now, I am the queen of peeking. I love to snoop. No MOM... I haven't attempted to look at Kenzie's present. No, I'm not lying. No, no dimples showing...see the truth is being told!

Anyways, I thought what better way to kick off the Christmas weekend with a tiny intsy-bitsy peek at the present I have for all of you. Just one little look! And if you are good, maybe Santa will have a surprise for you Christmas morning!

The Shepherds

We started decorating for Christmas last Monday. Monkey May had a great birthday. I still can’t believe she is two. Wait, let me rephrase that…I can’t believe Jake and I survived two years as parents! She has definitely presented us with some challenges and has been a little stubborn troublemaker on a very frequent basis. In all reality, she has been such a blessing and is such an amazing little person. We are so proud of everything she has taught us in the last two years and are so blessed to have such a sparkling happy little girl in our lives each and every day.

One of our first projects was hanging stickers on the windows. My mom gave us the pictures that she had when we were kids. Kenzie had a blast decorating the doors. She was so amazed but the scene we created. We had a wonderful talk about each and every item that we hung up to make our doors very Christmas-y. She counted the number of chickens and sheep, told me the sounds all the animals made, and helped get the snowflakes to stick.

I had the best conversation with Monkey May the next morning. I’ll share with you just how it went:

Momma: “Hey Kenz, who is that?”

Monkey May: “That’s Baby Jesus’ daddy”

Momma: “That’s right Kenz…that’s Joseph”

Monkey May: “Yep, that’s Joseph”

Momma: “Who’s that Kenz?”

Monkey May: “That’s Baby Jesus’ momma”

Momma:” Good job kiddo…that’s Mary”

Monkey May: “Yep, That’s Mary”

Momma: “One more …who’s that?”

She stared at the next two people for a moment and thought really hard “That’s the sheep’s daddy!”

Momma: ‘That’s right! Those are the shepherds”

Monkey May: “Yep the sheep’s daddy”

Momma: “The Shepherds take care of the sheep. And the Shepherds went to see Baby Jesus when he was born."

Monkey May: "The sheep see Baby Jesus."

Then she did the cutest thing. She took off one of the sheep from it's place on the window and stood on her tippy-toes and tried to stick him by Baby Jesus. In that moment, my heart was so overjoyed. Here Monkey May just turned two and we have just started talking about the Christmas story and she gets it. She gets that there is something special about Baby Jesus. She understands that everyone and especially the sheep wanted to go and see Baby Jesus in the manger. You know we talk all the time about how special the Wise men and the Shepherds must have been felt coming to Bethlehem to visit Baby Jesus, but what about the sheep and horses and donkeys and cattle and chickens? Now that I think about it, I'm sure they knew they were experiencing something special. I never really gave it much thought and I'm so thankful that my little girl made me stop and take a moment to give praise for

I am so excited for Monkey May to show such excitement about the true reason for the Christmas season. I am really looking forward Christmas to get here. I am excited for Christmas Eve service. I love celebrating Christmas at midnight with our Church Family. There is such a special feeling in the air, such a magical closeness with that first Christmas. I am really looking forward to Kenzie opening a special present on Christmas morning. I am looking forward to our family reading the first Christmas story in Kenzie's Bible. I hope everyone else is starting to feel the specialness of Christmas in their hearts. I hope God blesses each and every one of your families this Christmas season.

All I Want For Christmas

It's that time of the year. The air is crisp. Or just downright frigid if you are crazy enough to live where the wind constantly howls and whips over the mountains and heads towards the plains. Kenzie's not to keen on the wind. Although, I don't really blame her one bit. On those super cold days, I tell her to send out kisses to Namas and Poppas far away. She takes a deep breath, blows a kiss and shouts out an "I Love You" for the wind to carry east. Maybe that's the reason why the wind is so crazy up here...the love has a long ways to travel to reach those that we love!

Advent season has started. Christmas songs are starting to blare from radio speakers. Lights and decorations are going up all around us. Well, except for our house. We've come up with a way to make Kenzie's birthday extra special, Christmas extra special, and to enjoy the holidays all the way to the end of January. The Christmas season doesn't actually begin in our house until after Kenzie's birthday. The day after her birthday party, the Christmas tree will come into the house after living in the shop for part of a week. The boxes of decorations that my strong hubby has brought down from the attic are waiting to be unpacked. It will be so exciting this year. Kenzie loves all the lights and sparkles and twinkles. Santa's little helper is ready to go and it is going to be a blast.

Kids are getting excited for Santa's big night. Christmas lists are being made for loved ones. I am about 2/3 of the way through not only my shopping, but everything that is in our house is already wrapped and labeled for our holiday celebrations. I am such an internet shopper! Living where we do and with our crazy schedules, shopping online is so much easier and less stressful. Hopefully, (fingers crossed) the gifts that are on back order will be shipped and on there way here very soon! With all of the preparations, everyone is starting to ask the same question: What do you want for Christmas?

The more I think about this question, the more I come up with two things for Santa to bring me this year. I want to be able to stop time! It's not like I want to turn fifteen minutes into three weeks or anything...just, maybe give me an extra hour or two in the evenings. I just never seem to have time to get anything done! Exhibit A~ the last time I even looked at my blog was over two months ago! Today was a great example. We went outside this morning and got some maintenance stuff done: Jake worked on the tractor cleaning the horse lot while I cleaned the rabbit hutch, pigeon and chicken coops and the dog kennels. Then we went down to Jake's grandparents so we could cut our yearly supply of wood for the winter. With two running chainsaws, we got the back of the truck filled up in no time at all! After we arrived back home, we unloaded and stacked the wood in the dark, put out a round bale for the horses in the dark, did chores in the dark, and worked on the Suzuki in the dark. We did accomplish a lot today but it really was only half of my list of what I wanted to get done today. I could have used at least three more hours today! It was nice out and there was no wind...I could have worked out there forever.

My second Santa wish list item: Finding my way to be Super Mom! This week is going to be insane! We have a million things that need done before family comes to visit, Kenzie's birthday party, plus we have a Christmas party to go to, doctor's appointments this week, Christmas family pictures that need to be taken at some point plus all the daily work schedules, Kenzie playtime, Ruger and Zip loves, and whatever else decides to present itself this week. I know what my mom is going to say the second she reads this: "Just do what you have to ... nothing else... the rest can wait... take some time to relax and we will see you in 5 days" Did I get it right Mom? I have made my lists for the week. Yeah, I know. My New Year's Resolution for 2010 was no more lists. But, come on... it is impossible for the insanely list oriented me to succumb to a life of not crossing things off a sheet of paper. I divided my list into have to's, need to's, want to's and should do's. So it is prioritized. Even though the list is prioritized and even though only a specific list needs done this week, I want to see it all get done.

I have all these things that I want to do and should do and I never have the time. Either there are other things that are my priorities or other things that have to get done it puts all of the "want to's" on the back burner. And the days that I actually have time to work on a "want to" I am so exhausted that all I want to do is hang out with the Monkey Baby and just enjoy my day off. It is just so hard sometimes with my full work schedule and trying to take care of everything around the house until Jake gets home, spending time with the Crazy Kid and then trying to do the Cool Mom stuff. Special invites for Kenzie's birthday, plans for a homemade cake I want to make, preparing a great get together with our friends and family, Christmas projects that still need to get finished up and a million other things that I want to find the time for. I know I need to take it all one day at a time, one project at a time. I just get so burned out still. I try so hard to do more and more everyday. I know I'm getting better. I know I'm doing more and more. I know that this too is another test of my strength and determination. I am starting to feel more and more like the old me. Bad days are better, good days are better. But I'm still not there yet. I know that this too will past. I know I will look back on this and not be able to remember the hard days. I just get so frustrated sometimes. I get mad at myself that I'm not stronger and more determined on my bad days to just push through no matter what.

Right now, Kenzie is snuggled away in her bed for the night with her baby. Jake is snoring away on the couch. I should be getting a start on the week. But, for tonight, for right now, I am going to relax. My frustrations are out. My goals for the week are set. I am just going to finish watching my t.v. show in silence and then head to bed. The rest can wait until the daylight breaks.

So goodnight all! I'm going to bed with thoughts of sugar plums dancing in my head. And, just maybe, I will get lucky enough that Santa thinks I'm a good enough girl to bring me my two presents this year!