I am STILL alive!!

I am going to start today's blog off with these pictures.  Both of the kids are Tommy-- one when he was 6 months and then 6 years-- in the snow.  He's always loved the snow.  But, when I look at these pictures, I can't believe how time flies!!  It doesn't seem like 6 years since I had my first baby...and now he's 6 and thriving in 1st grade.

That being said, I can't believe where the last month went!  I'm sorry to my few faithful readers that I haven't posted in 5 weeks.  We are busy living life w/ little time to write about it!  I'll try to sum up as best I can.  (I don't have any Christmas pictures on this computer, so those will come later too)

After our bout with sickness, the 3 older boys sang in 3 performances of a Christmas  musical at church.  It was fun to watch and they did great.  Everyone enjoyed end of the year Christmas parties at church, school, and friends' homes.  Break started on Friday, Dec. 21 for us.  We drove to MD that afternoon and spend the next 4 days with Josh's parents.

Josh and I enjoyed a couple "dates" while the kids were entertained by their grandparents and all the toys!  We saw The Hobbit along with Josh's brother, Danny, one day.  The next day, we drove to Harper's Ferry, WV and walked around.  This historical town sits on the shores of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers.  It's a fun little place to walk around and has a few hiking trails and beautiful sites!  Josh took me there the Christmas break we got engaged- 9 years ago.  it was fun to remember that time too!

The next day, we took our kids on their first trip to Antietam battlefield (about a 10 min drive from the Michael house).  I'm sure we will be going there often as the kids grow up as this is one of Josh's favorite places.  It happened to be very cold and windy, but the kids were troopers.  We walked "Bloody Lane", climbed the observation tower, and ran across Burnside bridge.  Josh attempted to explain things to the kids, but they didn't appreciate it quite like he hoped! :)   We went home and took naps after that and when we woke up it was completely white outside!!  MD was getting a white Christmas after all (This was on Christmas Eve)  It snowed hard for a couple hrs and everyone played outside throwing snowballs and building a huge snowman.  It was so fun!  Christmas Eve service at church was cancelled due to poor weather conditions, so we had a b-day party with Jesus instead.

Christmas Day is always fun with kids.  They opened gifts from their grandparents, but we left ours at home.  As usual, no one got dressed and the kids were very entertained by their new toys.  Josh and I always love Christmas Day naps!  Unfortunately, Josh was hit with a severe headache and was in bed for hours.  We did manage to get in Skype conversations with all of our other family members out of town (and country-- Uncle Ben in Afghanistan included)

We got up early the next morning and drove home as another snow storm was coming through.  We didn't have any weather problems and arrived safely mid-morning.  We did our family Christmas then and let the kids play more!  Over the next few days, we went sledding multiple times and spent time as a family.  Josh and I enjoyed another date to see "Les Mis" and loved it!

We had a big party on New Years Eve complete with 10 adults and 14 kids!  The house was crazy for several hours, but we still managed to play a game and no one got hurt or fought.  Clean up didn't take too long and we found a couple missing My Little Ponies! (obviously out of place in this house)  New Years Day brought more sledding and massive clean up of all the Christmas stuff.  It's been our tradition for the past several years to put everything away on New Years so we are all ready to start the New year w/o lots of mess.   Josh went back to work the next day and Tommy on Thurs.  It was definitely time!  we had a fun time off.

I started an online class studying the Gospel of John that weekend which meant the end of free time for me.  I enjoy my classes, but I hate how much time they take.  I'll tough it out for 8 weeks and then go back to enjoying my hobbies and "free" evenings!  I don't take a lot of time during the day working on homework, so I still spend about the same amt of time with the kids.  I'm enjoying my learning so far and doing well.  Once I'm done with this class, I'll be half way through my MA in biblical studies program.

So basically our January has consisted of home schooling the twins in the mornings and doing my own homework in the afternoon/later evenings.  I cook and clean in there too.  I'm still working 2 days a week at the hospital.  Though I enjoy the patient care, I'm not happy with personnel issues.  God is working on my attitude in many ways! :)

I'm going to do better at keeping up the blog too.  Anyone with kids esp. school age kids knows how busy things get!  I'm just glad the kids aren't involved in much yet.  I don't want them to get too busy too young.