Last week was so full of activities it was hard to keep up! I saw it on my sister-in-laws twitter feed best... #Food4Thought Interesting insight...about this year's February: Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Valentine's Day...Eat, Pray, Love! Here at the Miller house we have a tradition for each of these wonderful days. Each year on Fat Tuesday we have a big pancake dinner. The kids love it mostly because it's PANCAKES for dinner and we talk and talk and talk. We talk about what we should give up for Lent, what we've given up in the past, weird things they have heard of other people giving up. It's just a fun time all around. Lucas REALLY got into the chocolate chips this year and made a big chocolate chip pancake sandwich, turns out his eyes are bigger than his stomach. Our church doesn't typically have ashes on Ash Wednesday and it isn't something we've ever done or gone to but it is a day of reflecting on our sacrifice and the struggles we have with them. This year we are also adding in more devotionals to get a better understanding of the Gospel. Personally I took on a "40 bags, 40 days" challenge. This is to help purge us of so many unnecessary things and donate as much as we can! So far I have more garbage bags than donate bags, but we are moving forward. It will help us hopefully live a little more organized and simple. Everyone else gave up video games {games on phones, iPods, iPads, computers, Wii. Let's just say it's been trying thus far. Valentine's Day around here is always fun, we go crazy and decorate the dining room and have special dinner and dessert and everyone gets to open their Valentine's before we eat. It's always small cutesy things. This year we were still on the fence about what to do because we had two sickie boys. I decided to go ahead with what we normally do but try to scale back dinner to accommodate the sickies. It turned out phenomenal, even the two sickies were smiling:) and the head honcho didn't mind this once there wasn't meat.
My birthday boy, what can I say...
It feels like just yesterday I was walking and walking about the park to get you to join our family and it was in such a park that I felt a stirring and I knew you would be joining us soon! Maybe that was a precursor to your life because not a day passes that you don't ask to go to the park. Jumping and playing, smiling and sailing, you enjoy it all! While you are our stubborn and hardheaded one you also teach us the most. How to live each day to it's fullest, how to dance in the rain, and how to find adventure in everything we do! You see the dinosaur in the clouds, the glitter in the snow, the wildlife in the bathtub, and the stars under the blankets. Thank you, oh thank you for joining our family! I can't wait to see what that adventurous spirit does each and every moment from here on. Every New Years Eve we stay in, get movies, play games, have some bubbly, and set off some fireworks! This year was no exception, however we added a little twist. Everyone knows I am pretty obsessed with pinterest, and why not, it has tons of great ideas! So when I found this balloon activity for New Years I knew we had to do it. This is what you do... Decide what time you want to start and get enough balloons for each hour. Write an easy activity to do each hour on a slip of paper and put it in the balloon before blowing it up. Blow up all the balloons and hang them up somewhere. Then each hour on the hour pop a balloon and do the activity inside together. We all had so much fun! We made brownies together. Made some new years resolutions together. When the ball dropped I got to kiss each and everyone of my babies and have some bubbly! To top off the night we went outside and Lucas and Kris put on a little fireworks display! We had so much fun and the kids said it was, "the BEST new years ever!"
Between Christmas and New Years we headed up North to spend some time with Kris's family. It was really actually kind of relaxing even with eight kids running around. The kids got lots of grandma time... ...and uncle time! {The kiddos were always a little crazy so this was the best I could get} We went sledding a ton! This particular time was pretty cold and Kourtney wasn't to excited about it she just wanted "ups." The bigger kids however didn't seem phased by the cold or the size of the hill to continually walk back up after the 30 second trip down. Lucas really didn't care about the cold either as long as he had Uncle Matt by his side! The whole time up North was fun and relaxing, the sledding days especially were fun...getting us outside and racing down the hills! It also gave these three a chance to catch up! And really any day you can get a view like this you know you are in the right place!
This Christmas was so exciting, we had so much family time together to do some fun activities. Really, any Christmas we are all together and Kris is home we are blessed! We made homemade gifts. Had a night filled with gingerbread and candy. I am not really sure when they came down from that sugar high. We did our annual holiday lights search throughout the neighborhoods. Lights were a little scares this year but we found this small cul-de-sac right off the main round where every house was decorated to the hilt! We attended a beautiful Christmas Eve service at our new Church. It was amazing to see all the kids sitting up on stage listening so intently to the Christmas Story. Of course, we enjoyed presents and playtime! We raced, chatted on facetime, tested out new headphones and gamed a TON, and even made a bunch of play-doh candies. We even had a couple of sickies, so instead of playing the whole time we relaxed some by watched movies and eating popcorn. We had a beautiful Christmas Day dinner{just the 6 of us}! Keeping with tradition we made our Jesus birthday cake to complete the celebration of the birth of our Lord. It's been a crazy, exhausting, fun filled, relaxing, sugar induced couple of weeks. We had committed ourselves to simplifying this year and even though it may not look like we did...we made a commitment and stuck to it! We simplified by focusing on doing activities together as a family and creating lasting memories that will long out live any present or gift you can receive.
So a couple weeks ago I was having one of those bad days that started Saturday and went clear through to Tuesday. These tend to rub off on everyone else in a BAD way. So Tuesday afternoon I decided we would take a break and start some holiday baking and just relax. It wasn't all of us and there really wasn't any rhyme or reason to how we went about things we just enjoyed each other and forgot for an hour or so that it was the middle of a hectic week and we still had a lot of regular life stuff to do and activities to get to. Alexis helped measure everything out while Lucas cracked all the eggs for us. We turned up the Christmas music and sang to our hearts content! Everyone got a turn to scoop{and eat} the dough. We even whipped up our first batch of eggnog! By the time Kris came out of his office from work we were in full swing and all he could say is, "ahh what's going on out here."
By dinner we were back to homework and activities {all the regular stuff}...but if you haven't taken a Tuesday afternoon and turned it into something special you should try it, it does wonders! December 2012
As I sit thinking back over this past year and what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished, and who we’ve become all I can think is that we are so blessed. We are blessed with happy and healthy children, blessed with loving family, and blessed with the laughter and support of good friends. We are blessed to the brim and I wouldn’t have it any other way! We wake each morning with the possibility of a better day then the previous not because we need a better day but simply for the joy and hope of experiencing something new and exciting. With it brings that sparkle in the kids eyes with wonderment of what will come, what will we do, and what will we learn and accomplish. My kids love experiencing new things and growing into what they are. As their parents we have the huge privilege of watching them each day become something more than yesterday and seeing a glimpse of who they will become tomorrow! This year was filled with moving, adjusting, and reestablishing. With all the moving we have done I still can hardly believe the time it takes to accomplish it. At the start of the year we decided to make the big move back to Minnesota and now as we are finally getting settled the year is getting ready to close. The kids have been through a lot saying goodbye to friends, schools, sports, and a life they knew for five years. For the two younger kids that place is all they knew. Starting over takes your whole heart and a blind faith of sorts that everything will work out. We miss many we had to say goodbye to but know they are still a part of our extended family! As we start and get established in this new chapter of our life the kids have begun to make new friends, becoming established in their new sports teams, acclimating to their new schools, and finding their new normal here. They are resilient and amazing all in the same breath. Alexis continues soccer and dance with a drive for perfection. Since moving she has been reminded of her love of dance. Her new dance studio has ignited a great new fire within her! Derrick continues soccer and scouts. His love of things changes daily as he finds his way. Lucas continues swim, started preschool and soccer. In his words, “swim is on top of soccer, but school is on top of everything!” He has a love for activity and an inquisitive mind that doesn’t quite. Kourtney is growing “into her own” and is starting to decide what SHE wants. She still copies and mimics the other kids but without doubt we know what she wants now. Kris and I are always consumed with the kids but try to get to our own things in the “down time.” Kris has started his journey outside the military and seems to enjoy the increasing flexibility he now has! I know I am enjoying having him here more. Most of my time this year has been helping the kids adjust to everything, but I have found a new love of writing and hope that will take me farther than my blog. For now I am happy documenting my kids, my family, and all our escapades! Until next year from our house to yours may you look at each day with new eyes, see what can be through a child’s eyes and live it to the fullest each and every day! |