Merry White Christmas

We woke up at 530am on Christmas morning. And I'm glad we did. Our plans were to leave Richmond on the 26th but as snow began falling we had to make a quick decision to head for NC and fast.

I am glad we left when we did. The snow had been falling for just about 1 hour when we arrived at my mom's house.

By this morning, we had 6" in North Carolina. There is no way we could have driven in so much snow from Richmond.

So we are enjoying a Merry White Christmas!

I miss you, papa

Nothing is the same without you. I will miss you forever. I love you. Merry Christmas Eve.

Last Christmas

Last Christmas Eve, as I took this picture, I had no idea I was pregnant. I thought I was tired and weepy because it was my first Christmas without Papa Bud and because I was so homesick.

I'm sure that played a lot into it, but my pregnancy had became very difficult before I even knew I was pregnant.

I am so thankful to God that I am here to celebrate Christmas with my family. Shortly after I gave birth to Karsen, things began to go terribly wrong. I began swelling up. My hands and feet were huge. My back hurt. I felt like I had been hit by a car I was so sore. It wasn't until two days after being discharged from giving birth to Karsen that I reluctantly went back to the doctor to see why I felt so bad.

My blood pressure was 173/110 and the Dr. heard a heart murmur. Fluid was beginning to fill my lungs. I was hospitalized in the ICU department for three days while the Dr's figured out what had happened and got me on a medication that would help me heal.

It was scary. Thank God I had listened to my body.

Its amazing to feel better. The heart medication still makes me tired but I can do so much more now than the entire time I was pregnant. It feels so good to clean & decorate the house for Christmas, wrap presents, run errands and to be able to make cookies with the kids. Last year was a blur. All I remember is being so tired, and so sad. It was hard to celebrate the way I had in years past.

Now we have Karsen, who is my hearts delight. It is amazing how much can change in a year. Thank you God for the blessings of a new life, and of bringing health back to my life.

Merry Christmas!

Karsen

She has the cutest cheeks. EVER.

My Christmas Decor That Makes Me SMILE

Christmas Memories

So, this is my 2nd Christmas without Papa Bud. And our first Christmas without my husbands father, PawPaw.

I honestly don't know how we made it through the holidays last year. I felt so numb.

This year is brighter because of Karsen but it is still very sad because it is our first Christmas without PawPaw.

PawPaw loved Christmas. He loved decorating. He loved tinsel, he really loved tinsel!

While we were in Wva for Thanksgiving, John's mom gave us some of PawPaw's Christmas houses from his village.

PawPaw loved his Christmas village. The houses were from various stores (mainly Big Lots because PawPaw was also very frugal!) Every year he would line up tables in their home and create winter scenes.

MawMaw gave each child (they had 5 kids) several houses each. It makes me smile seeing them lit up. And even though I was never into Christmas houses/villages, I am now.

PS Happy 2 Year Blogging to ME!

I almost forgot.........
2 years ago, on December 13th 2008 I began this blog.

It has helped me heal in so many ways! THANK YOU to my faithful readers!

Snowed in!

Whew. We are enjoying an early blast of winter in Virginia this week! We had about 2" of snow Sunday evening and this morning it began to snow and hasn't slowed down much.

It's more work for me when the kids are all out of school than when they go!

Karsen isn't happy that she is having to share me so much today with the other kids.

We have had a busy morning. We made four batches of chocolate chip cookies, made grilled cheese & ham sandwiches for lunch, went sledding and then enjoyed hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies.

Getting 3 out of 5 kids ready to play in the snow took some effort!

But I love days like this when we are all snowed in together.

Merry Christmas Photo

And Christmas' past:

My PC is Healthy!

My computer is fixed!!!

It took a lot of prayers, and many visits to online geek chat forums to get it back in shape!

This was truly an answered prayer. Not only did I fix it myself and save our family at least $130.00, my documents and most importantly my pictures are all safe.

We certainly could not afford to buy a new pc had this one died, or fix this one really with Christmas right upon us. Buying for 6, yes 6 including my step son, is expensive and this year we have been hit hard with medical bills.

I was stressing over this pretty badly and then I truly just gave it to God and patiently worked on it a little each day learning new ways to reboot and reinstall programs that might have been infected.

Thanks to my pregnancy, heart valve and Jonathan's lung we had to pay out over $800 in prescriptions and out of pocket expenses since August. And that's not including what we still owe. For a family that is already on a tight budget, these unexpected medical issues was enough to make things REALLY tight.

Thank you for the prayers! God truly does work miracles!

Little One @ 3 Months

This little girl has me wrapped around her chubby, little fingers!