I Am Thankful for Pie

Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Our first Thanksgiving with the three new Jones girls.  Well, technically, it is not the first one with our daughters, just our first one with them "officially" as our daughters.   It's our third Thanksgiving with them in our home.

And it was our first Thanksgiving with a daughter-in-law.  She is a welcome addition in many ways, but ESPECIALLY if she keeps making those ridiculously good buttermilk pies that she made!

We also had a little foster baby with us, "Baby D" as we call her, as well as my Dad and Step mom.

And then Jacob came home from college, something I always look forward to and am incredibly grateful for when it happens.

Man.  Full House to say the least!

I love that my family gets together at Thanksgiving.   Well, technically I always love that.  No matter the occasion.

But for the most part, I don't love Thanksgiving.  I spend two days cooking a meal that takes 15 minutes to eat and two hours to clean up from.  Mike spends most of the day outside cooking turkeys (he cooked THREE turkeys this year . . . I have no idea why!)

The boys typically spend the time napping.

The girls spend their day being toddlers, requiring interventions on an ongoing basis.


And me?  I'm in the kitchen cooking, and constantly answering the most asked question on Thanksgiving Day, "What time do we eat?"  (At least I had help in the kitchen this year!)

Even though I don't enjoy Thanksgiving, "the holiday," I do enjoy my family, in all their messiness, all their craziness, all their moodiness, and all their zaniness.

I enjoyed having my parents here and watching them interact with their granddaughters.  I want Nikki and Shannay to have sweet memories of holidays with their grandparents.  And I enjoyed having Jacob home, even though he left early.  And I enjoyed playing dominoes with Zack and Christina and my dad and Mike, even though I lost, again.  And I enjoyed sharing our home with a baby who didn't have one.

And I enjoyed the pie . . . man did I enjoy the pie.

All that to say, I am glad that we are moving into the Christmas season, the season of hope and joy.  I am "thankful" that Thanksgiving is over.   And I'm thankful for my family.  (And I'm thankful for pie!)

(Here are some favorites from the day)

Christina teaching Nikki to make Pink Salad (to die for!)

Chef Mike frying THREE turkeys!

Jacob, Nikki and Shannay with our guest

The family eating.   I love that everyone is either in mid-bite or looks grumpy that they had to pose for the picture!)

Christina taking her turn at Croquet.   Probably getting instructions from Mike here!

The girls with their mallets.  I have a massive bruise on my leg from one of these!

All That to Say: Grow

For the past seven days, I have been watching a sweet, little, now 9 day old, baby girl do her thing. Her "thing" is to wake up, eat, poop, sleep, repeat.

That's the sum total of her existence.  The whole cycle lasts about 3 hours.  Every 3 hours she relives her life.  And in the less than one week that we have had her, she has changed before our eyes.  

At first, each time she awakened, she awakened with one need; eat.  Then, as she would eat, she would leisurely suck down about 2 oz. of formula, maybe a little less.  Then she'd poop, burp, get drowsy and fall asleep.

Now when she awakens, she demands to be fed, hungrily sucks down 3-4 oz., gets annoyed that we stop to burp her, then does the rest of her cycle, but now she stays awake for a while.  Not a long time (really just long enough to prevent us from going to sleep).  But she's more alert during her awake time.  She makes eye contact.  She's trying to raise up her little bobble head while I'm burping her.  She's taking in the world around her.  She's growing.  Each day she is becoming a better version of herself.

And watching her I have been struck by how much work it is to grow, just to grow.  That's her one job.  Growing.  That's why she sleeps so much.  Because growing is exhausting.

I think that's true no matter how old we get.  Growing is hard work.  And at times, it's exhausting.

But the benefit of growth is that we become better versions of ourselves.  And if we are open to the hard work that comes with growth, we become more like the people God created us to be.

All that to say, becoming a better you is hard work, but so worth the effort.  So go, grow.  And get some sleep.

*Photo courtesy of Shauna Maness Photography who shall someday will these GROW letters to me.

All That to Say: Change

I'd like to begin this post by saying that I am sleep deprived, hormonal, and I watched a Hallmark Christmas movie at 3:30 in the morning.  Any of those things alone could cause the rush of emotions I have had today, but all of those things combined is like the perfect storm.

The movie was about a family that was blending.  Each of the parents had lost a spouse, each came to the new marriage with children, and for each family this was a first attempt at trying to take their separate holiday traditions and merge them into their new holiday traditions.

I'm here to tell you, I cried buckets of tears during that movie.  In fact, I'm kind of glad it was just me and our little 8 day old foster baby sitting there in the dim light of the TV.  Otherwise I would have had to make up some goofy reason for why I was crying.

I think in part I'm a little emotional because this is our first year with a married son.  And that changes things.  "Our" traditions will inevitably change as they must split up their time between two families, and at the same time begin to create their own traditions.

They are a family.  He and she.  We are now their extended family.  And with that comes change.

And that's not bad.  In fact, it's what every parent wants for their child.  They want them to leave the nest, get married, start their own family, make their own traditions, live their own life to the fullest potential.

But nonetheless, it's hard.  Especially at holidays.  And especially when "someone" has enough holiday traditions to choke a horse.  I've raised holiday traditions to an art form.  Really, I have.  And now, I must let go, change, adapt.

And as I watched this TV family navigate the waters of change, I felt emotional for all the change that we will most assuredly navigate over the years.  So I had a good cry.  And then I ate a cookie.

So now then, that's out of my system!  And, I'm looking forward to seeing how the years unfold.  Years of holidays and more marriages and grand babies.  In fact, I think grand babies may be the only thing that will ease the pain of all this adjusting.  Lots and lots of grand babies. (insert knowing wink here)

All that to say, the holidays will be different this year.  But different is good.  It signifies change, and change means growth, and growth means life.  And if the Hallmark families can do it, then I can too!

All That to Say: A Little Distracted

Quite some time ago, over 2.5 years ago to be exact, we unexpectedly became foster parents. 

It wasn't our first time to be foster parents, as we had fostered two sweet little girls when our boys were much younger.  Zack was three at the time, and Jacob had just turned two, when a family member needed help with his two year old and 13 month old daughters.  So our family of 4 became of family of 6 overnight, and we found ourselves parenting a three year old, two two year olds, and a 13 month old. (Not an easy task to say the least)

Fast forward a whole lot of years, and once again our family of 4 became a family of 6, only this time it would be permanent.

We never set out to be foster parents (in either case).  It just happened.  Maybe because we made ourselves available, but most likely because God had ordained it would be so.

Once we realized that the short-term fostering of our daughters was going to become permanent, we knew we would no longer be able to be a rescue family.  At times, the longing to help children in crisis situations would pop up in our hearts and minds, but then the demands of twin toddlers, jobs, schedules . . . life . . . would distract us from those desires (which was probably a good thing for those days!)

Fast forward 2.5 years and once again we find ourselves as foster parents.  We had a sweet little boy in our home last week, quite unexpectedly, but thoroughly enjoyed every minute with him.

Imagine my surprise when just 4 short days later I received a phone call asking if we would take a newborn for two weeks.  A NEWBORN!  She had just been born that day!  We gulped a few times and then readily said, "yes" and began the process of preparing. (Thank God for facebook and facebook friends who jumped in with all the baby paraphernalia we needed!)

I gotta say, it does come back to you, much like riding a bike, but for a few days it's more like a distant, vague memory.  But we're in the swing the things now, sleeping (or not sleeping as the case may be) bottles, schedules, the lot. 

And then I realized, I FORGOT to  post a weekend giveaway! Oops!

All that to say, sorry.  I've been a little distracted.  I wish I could post a picture of the beautiful loveliness of this baby girl.  But privacy laws and agency policies say that I cannot.  So you'll have to take my word for it.  She's a beautiful distraction though. :)

All That to Say: Santa Logic

When Mike and I were in San Antonio last weekend, Zack and Christina took the girls to the mall.  

While there, Zack noticed that the Santa booth was being set up and mentioned to the girls that Santa would soon be there.  When they walked around the corner, he was surprised to see that Santa was already sitting in his chair.  And they girls were very excited as well.



The lady running the Santa booth asked Zack if the girls wanted to get their pictures taken with Santa, but at $34 for one picture, he declined.  He did ask if the girls could just sit on Santa's lap (apparently not typically allowed without paying the $$) and seeing that NO ONE else was in the mall, they allowed it.

Apparently he was a pretty awesome Santa and asked  the girls if they knew what Christmas was all about.  Shannay said it was Jesus' birthday, and the Santa told her she was right, and that Jesus was the most important part of Christmas.  (That makes me happy.  Please go see him.  He's at The Woodlands Mall)

Anyway, fast forward a week.

Shannay and I were talking about seeing Santa at the mall, and I asked her if she thought he was the real Santa or just a helper Santa.

This was her logic.

Shannay:  "He was the reeeeeeeeeeeeal Santa, Mama."

Me:  "How do you know?"

She held up two fingers and said,

"1.  He said "ho, ho, ho."  (duh Mom)

"And 2, he had presents."

Then she put her hands around her mouth to really drive home how secretive this information was and whispered, "I saw his presents."

LOL.

I love that girl. 

All that to say, you can't argue with her logic.  If the man looks like Santa, has presents and says, "ho, ho, ho" then he must be the reeeeeeeeal Santa.

This is going to be a fun Christmas!

All That to Say: Pinch Me

My grandmother used to make this cake that she first baked, cooled, frosted, the whole bit.  And then when it was all looking pretty, she'd dump it and crumble it!  Then she'd layer it with vanilla pudding and whipped cream mixed with cream cheese.  It was unbelievably good!

I remember the first time I saw her take a beautifully frosted cake and turn it upside down in a bowl.  I almost had a heart attack! But she assured me she was making something even better.  And she was right.

That's how I feel about my life right now. 

I felt very comfortable with the life I had.  I enjoyed my work, the people I worked with, my church, our friends, all of it.

And then all of that got turned upside down.  And I almost had a heart attack.  (Truth be told, I still have hard days every now and then).  There was no way that I could see the whole mess turning out okay.  But God assured me He had a better plan.

So here I am a couple months later, and I am just so amazed at everything.

Mike and I are in such a great place, marriage wise. Probably because we have more time for each other!  Maybe because our family order has returned to normal.  I don't know.  But it's awesome!

I'm writing.  For a living.  And I'm making very good money to work part-time.  From home, well technically from Starbucks.  I'm working with some people who are doing amazing work and for some reason feel like I have something to offer in the process. 

And every. single. day, I am home when my daughters get off the bus.  Every day.

And now we are getting to foster babies.  Because I'm available.  Last week we had a sweet little 4 month old boy.  And this week we are getting a 3 day old baby girl. 

All that to say, I feel like I have awakened to find that I am living the life I was created to live.  And it's pretty incredible.  Pinch me . . . yep, it's real.

All That to Say: A Weekend of Surprises

I was on facebook the other day when I saw that one of my former Marathon Makeover peeps was offering her Hyatt San Antonio Riverwalk rooms for $100 a room.  (She had booked the rooms because she thought she'd run the marathon, but an injury sidelined her.)

These are rooms that typically go for well over $400 a night, so I contacted her and took one of the nights off of her hands.  After I contacted my village (aka Zack and Christina) to see if they could watch the girls, I surprised Mike with the announcement that we were going to San Antonio Friday and Saturday!

It was a weekend of surprises to say the least.

We arrived at our hotel room Friday around 3 p.m. and decided to just hang out in our beautiful room.  A couple hours later, after an awesome nap (something we just don't get to do much!) we decided to get moving and get ready for dinner.

I had just undressed when I thought I heard a faint knocking sound.  It stopped so I just assumed that someone was knocking at a door across the hallway.  But you know what happens when you assume, don't you?

All the sudden, I heard our door handle click and the door opened!  (note to self: always use the security lock on your hotel room door!)  Let me tell you, I couldn't have moved any faster out of view if I'd superpowers. 

"HELLO?" I said in a panicked voice.

"I'm here to check your phone,"  the voice said back.

(What the heck?!!!)  I thought in my head.

"Well you aren't gonna do it now!" I said back in the same panicked but slightly tinged with anger voice.

After I put clothes on, we went downstairs to discuss the situation with the hotel staff.  The man at the desk said, "Well I'm sorry that happened.  What would you like me to do for you?"

(In my head, I saw that conversation going differently.)

He suggested we should think about how the hotel could help us and let him know the next day.  Seriously.  I just thought that was an odd approach.  Maybe it's not.

Anyway, next morning, we went downstairs and our helper wasn't there, so we had to re-explain to the new front desk girl what happened.  She blushed when I said naked.  And said, "Oh my goodness."

We said, "The man we spoke to last night suggested we come back this morning and let him know how the hotel could help make it up to us.  We thought maybe if you comp'd our parking that would be nice."

Well apparently she didn't think so.  Because she comp'd our parking, bought our breakfast, and then comp'd our room.  (I think she was more embarrassed than I was!)

All that to say, it was a weekend of surprises.  I wonder what they would have given us if the room intruder had actually SEEN me naked!!!!  Bahahaha!