A Touch Of Tyrell

Family life is hard. It's really hard.  It's a lot of work.  There are so many things to keep balanced so it's easy for things to fall apart sometimes.  There are personality challenges and challenges that come with certain ages and stages.  We have a lot of flaws in our family. A lot of different personalities, ages & stages, interests, wants and ideals.  But we also have a lot of love that glues us all together. We have learned patience, sharing, selflessness, kindness, service, and gratitude. Those things also bond us together.  We have all grown a lot this year. This year has seemed especially challenging for me (I feel like I say that every year). I have a lot of personal growth to do; we all do. But the thing is, I think we always will have more growing to do.  But we can do it together.  And we will.  Like we always do. 

For Jake's birthday this year, the kids and I bought a bunch of his favorite junk, made him an everything-bagel sandwich and brought them to his office at lunch time.  *I never even noticed the 3 was backwards until now! It turned out to be a little stressful but we had fun too. We wrote on his truck windows while it was still in the parking lot too :)

I love decorating for the holidays! It's been the most fun the past two years because I've been able to use some of my photography money to buy extra decorations to make things more festive and just the way I like them :) *My one and only (and forever favorite) nativity scene.  The funny thing is that I didn't even take a picture of the Christmas tree and all of our Christmas cards we got in the mail. Maybe I just assumed the kids' Christmas eve pictures in front of the tree counted :)

Christmas morning we all slept in till 7:30! Maybe it was a good thing we let them stay up so late! The kids opened presents, everyone was happy, it was the best christmas yet.  It was rainy and cloudy but then turned sunny and nice.  Since everyone was so happy and playing, I went for a run. It felt amazing.  Christmas evening we went to the Smiths for their tradition of soup and bread bowls and then we stuffed ourselves with dessert! We had a very merry Christmas!

There was one last thing we really wanted to do with Tana before she left. We wanted to decorate Christmas cookies with her. I woke up early and made the dough and the girls helped me cut them out once they were chilled.  Tana read some last stories and snuggle the kids on the couch while I baked the cookies and made frosting. When the cookies were ready, we got to work on decorating them! We all loved Tana's cookies! We were all sad to see Tana go back home but were so thankful she came. On the night before, at her special farewell dinner, we all said something nice about Tana. Everett said he was go grateful she came and Breckie said she loved that Tana read to her every night. It was really sweet.  We dropped her off at the airport and gave her hugs and said our goodbyes.  The last few days we have gotten so many treats and gifts delivered to our door. It feels so nice to be loved! Speaking of gifts and lo...

Tana was about to stay with us for 15 days.  It was great. We loved having her and spending time with her. The last night she was here, we had a special dinner. We set the table fancy, had tri-tip, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls and sparkling apple cider.  We put on warm clothes and rode in the back of Jake's truck and looked at lights.  Tana read stories to the girls (like she did every night) and then the kids opened presents she gave them.  They were super excited! Breckie made a picture of her and Tana as snow people on an ornament and gave it to Tana.  We are going to miss Tana SO MUCH!! *Roxy being hilarious on her way up to bed!*