I know, what a slacker I am! So we’ll just pretend I’ve been updating and start from there.

We’re moving.  Back to Utah. 2 moves in less than a year. The girls are taking it well though I am sorely going to miss full day kindergarten out here. Adessa adores school, and moving to just 3 hours of it makes me cringe. I guess I don’t have to worry though about how she’ll do in first grade like many other parents though, wondering if she can handle it. Going to year round schooling is also kind of nerve wracking for me.  I believe kids need a schedule and just uprooting and changing it on them every 2 months is difficult.

Daniel closes on our new home on the 16th, very exciting. Random pics below in various stages of completion:

Outside, love the yellow w/ black door

We decided to have the girls share a room downstairs because it was just perfect. Double closets and a huuugee bedroom. Bigger than the master even. Should be fun for them.

Kitchen going in. The island is hhuuggee and I get my double ovens!

View from the dining room into the family room and kitchen.

Back of the house, before it was painted. It’s a very large back porch there.

We decided to finish off the basement so it’s 5 bedrooms 3.5 baths. Believe it’s 3200 sq. feet. Large backyard. Should be fun, and I’m hoping we can last for longer than 2 years in one spot. Though if you ask Daniel I all ready have my plans for our next move. I’m just being practical after all!

WE MISS YOU!!

Bring us home souvenirs <— Gena, Adessa and Caden

I’m so blessed to have such a great husband and just had to express that here on Valentine’s Day. I’ve never met a man who respects women more. Who will listen to my ideas, my rants, my questions, my passionate discussions… my voice. He encourages me, supports me and gives me the space I crave to grow and just be myself.  Through all the hard times I can rely on him as a friend and a companion to lean on and work together with. His perseverance is such an example.

I’ve never had someone who make me laugh as hard as he does, who makes me feel safe as much as he does, who makes me look forward to the future. I love our relationship, our quirks.  That we can argue and yell one moment then forgive and chuckle the next. That we can take any difficult situation and look at it honestly together, that we can make our decisions as a team. That we can never stay mad at each other and can go at most, 2 minutes, with giving each other the silent treatment. His fantastic ability to communicate and talk to me is one of the things that made me fall in love with him. We can talk for hours and never run out of things to say, we can tell each other’s thoughts at a glance. That even after all these years I want to hang out with him, I want to know more about him, I want to become closer to him.

I love that he loves being a father. That he adores his 2 little girls, that he cherishes his little boy. That he accepts life as it happens and that he knows the best laid plans for the future change, evolve and transform. That he loves to spend time with the kids, whether it’s homework, playing or taking them to the store.

I love that he’s always working and progressing himself, no matter what lay-offs we’ve been through he’s always had a couple of side projects. I love that he’s a dreamer and a romantic. That he loves football and writes poetry. That he’s so incredibly intelligent and brilliant at science and math and compassionate and sensitive.  He’s a contradiction and it fits him so well! I love the fact that we have not only this life but an eternity together.

I LOVE YOU!

Just a quick little note to my 8 year old niece, Angel!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! It was really on Jan. 24th but my little niece and nephew have very close birthdays so they are celebrating them together today.  I hope you have fun!

Christmas was just wonderful this year.  Even though we had some sick kids, Christmas morning was awesome. They were so excited and so good!! The girls were really excited about their presents, especially the new fish tanks that each girl got… courtesy of Uncle Jason. They have been diligent and excellent in feeding them every morning.  Though we did have 1 die this morning, Gena’s fish, so that was a bit emotional for her.

Christmas night was a different story, with a trip to the ER. Caden has been feeling miserable, he has an eye infection and a sinus infection. Christmas evening he started a fever of 101.  So we gave him ibproufen, and a few hours later it was up to 104 and he was throwing everything up.  We called his Dr. and she recommended we get him seen.  I would have just brought him to one of the Kid Urgent Care’s, versus a trip to the ER, but alas they were closed.  So we braved the crappy weather (seriously, in UT it had been snowing non-stop to the point that my brother’s car was stuck out in front of our house for 2 days). They gave him eye antibiotics and oral antibiotics and by the next morning, he was doing wonderful.  Strangely enough his rash that he’s had for the last 2 weeks was gone as well.  He’s back to his happy self today and all smiles.

Below is a pic of the kids Christmas morning, and yes… Caden really looked that sick:

Then there was Adessa’s dance recital.  She did wonderful!  Below you can see the pics of her doing her different positions and leaping:

First Position

Second Position

Third Position

Leaping

I have updates I promise, but I found this beautiful message on a blog I frequently read, Musings of a Distractible Mind, and had to share:

Christmas is not about prosperity and comfort, it is about help to the hopeless.  The central doctrine to this season is the incarnation: God becoming man.  God didn’t become a man because he thought it would be nice to spend time with us; he did so because we were hopeless.  He didn’t come to live in comfort, but to be poor.  He didn’t come to help good people, but to rescue the outcast.  He didn’t come to hear cheers for saving people, he came to be rejected and so to identify with rejects.  He scorned the self-righteous, and embraced the shameful.

What about the Christmas story itself?  Mary got pregnant out of wedlock and Joseph chose to bear the social shame.  They were in a country that was occupied by a foreign empire, ruled by self-seeking despots and self-righteous religious leaders.  Jesus was born in a barn -  not the clean manger scene we are used to.  The birth was announced to shepherds - people who were scorned by the “good” people of society.  The local ruler was so worried the messiah would overthrow him, he sent death squads to murder all children under two in the town where Jesus was born.

Fact or fiction, the scene was not pretty, but instead was filled with pain, despair, and hopelessness.  This is hardly what we see on TV.  This is hardly what we hear in church.  That is the setting describing the first Christmas, not a mall or warm living room with a tree.  Christmas doesn’t hide from pain, it addresses it.

Whether you take it as truth or just as an inspiring story, we should pay far more attention to this meaning.  Yes, it is great to give gifts and be with family - I will be doing that as well.  But there is no escaping the pervasive pain and suffering in this world.  The Christmas message is not about sheltering ourselves from that suffering, but instead going out among the suffering and providing comfort.