Five Beautiful Blessings Between Heaven & Earth

For new years eve we had a great family party.  Both sets of Grandparents came over and Grandma Smith and Nannie and Papa came too.  We had homemade pizza's and after pizza's we played Apples to Apples,  Aaron had so much fun he was so excited to play a grown up game with all the grown ups!  And he did awesome!  He beat us all hands down.  Sadly were kind of a boring group so at about 9:30 everyone went home and we all went to bed.  How fun is that?  Well we thought it was a pretty fun night even if none of us made it to midnight! 

I finally got my fairy tale finished!  And in time to give as Christmas gifts.  I'm so excited I love them.  A huge special Thank you to Kim for doing the illustrations for me,  I could not have made this come together with out you!   and here is a peek at what they look like on the inside.     I am so happy to have them done!  Now to finish Colette's other book. :)

So I thought I would update a little on what everyone got for Christmas this year.  Aaron got Roller blades from Santa (and he's so excited!)  a new sleeping bag, a digital camera (that has not stopped snapping photos sense then) and a guitar!   Bridgett Got a toy kitchen, A cabbage patch doll that she promptly name "baby Colette"  and I sewed her a new bedspread!  and even with all her fun toys she spent the 4 days after Christmas walking around asking "Where's my pink guitar???"  I guess Santa was a little off with Bridget's gift this year. :( Dusty got a nook to read all his digital books on.   And I got a salad shooter!  I know it probably does not sound like fun but It's really what I wanted and I'm so excited to get it!  I also took some of my extra cash from Christmas and Birthday  money and bought myself a fabric cutter.  Let the quilting begin!  I'm so excited I can't wait to try it.  Anyway that ...

We have some favorite ornaments and I just wanted to journal them so our family can look back and remember what they were and how much fun we had looking at them on the Christmas tree. This one we bought especially for our tree to remember Colette   Colette's first Ornament from Santa.  This one Aaron made fore me at school,  I LOVE IT!   This one matches the ornaments that we had on the wreath that we made for Colette.  It's kind of fun to know that we have the same ornament on our tree as she has on her decorations.  this little angel,  Grandma Wendel gave to me I think when I was about 13.  Funny how now it has a whole new meaning I opened it up out of the box and Aaron asked me if it was Colette.  I personally love her little wings.  This one the primary made for us and delivered a few days before Christmas,  What a darling idea I love the picture of Jesus behind him.  This one Grandma and Grandpa Chadwick bro...

We have a new tradition.  I thought long and hard of a Christmas tradition that involved Colette.  I wanted something simple and easy yet, fun for the kids and even practical.   I had lots of friends who have lost loved ones share their new traditions at Christmas and I thought and thought and thought...  Some of them felt ok,  some of them didn't feel right for us and some felt half right... So this is what I finally came up with.   Our new tradition is that when Santa come on and fills the stocking he leaves a little ornament in Colette stocking for us to hang on our tree to remind us of her.  Aaron loved knowing that Santa left something for him in Colette's stocking.  I loved having another ornament for our tree and we all loving having one more thing to remind us of Colette.  This is a tradition I don't mind carrying on long after Santa stops stuffing our stockings.

Look Santa Came!  oh but first let's talk about what I was doing ALL NIGHT LONG... It's Christmas Eve and all through the house not a creature is ....  oh wait what's that?  Why that's Bridgett who instead of sleeping quietly so that Santa could come, had woken up feeling so crummy she was almost hysterical.  Poor thing sounded like she had croup!  I ended up taking her out onto the front porch to let the cold air help clear her lungs.  It helped so we opened the window in our bedroom and she sat next to me on our bed.  Poor thing felt so crummy she would not even let daddy back onto his bed.  So finally a little after 1am I finally got her calmed down enough to go back to sleep,  Sadly then the alarm going off at 5:30 am felt WAY to early!  But enough of that.  Look Santa came! Sadly we had to wake up Bridgett... poor thing did not like that but once she saw that Santa had come she was a bit more excited to be up.  ...

Today for Christmas eve was a pretty mellow day,  which is good the house is clean the goodies are baked and the party starts at 5pm.  Aaron is so excited!   We played Santa Bingo which was a gift from one of our neighbors and the kids had great fun playing.  Bridgett was more into eating her m&m's than using them for markers but it was fun.   Right before the family party started at our house I let Bridgett and Aaron open their Christmas eve gift.  and this is what they found.  They were so excited have matching jammies.  and in case you can't figure out what that print is... here is an better view.    Yes we are all about the lego Starwars at our house.  They decided they liked their jammies so much they wore them through the whole family party.    At five Grandma Cindy, Grandpa Roy, Grandma Teena, Grandpa Ken, Uncle Kyle,  Grandma Smith and Nannie and Papa came and we had build your own hogg...