364/365... enJoy

Travis and Sam win the award for one of Caroline's favorite gifts this year - a pet of her own! They gave her everything she needed to make a home for her very own beta fish and she was very specific in her wants upon choosing her fish. She had a particular look and color in mind and, by golly, she wanted a GIRL! What she didn't realize was that girl beta fishes look nothing like the boy beta fishes that she had in mind and that they're really not pretty at all. It might not been one of my prouder ethical moments, but I was somehow able to convince her that the pretty beta fish could be considered a girl and she could have exactly what she was wanting in a fish. She'll figure it out one day and hopefully she'll laugh with the rest of us, but for now she has a boy beta fish that she thinks is a girl and her (his?) name is Pearl.

Welcome to the family, Pearl joy...


363/365... enJoy

We have a new generation of Davy Crockett lovers in our family, which made the gift giving for Jack and Ben easy for us this year. The surprise was threatened to be spoiled about two weeks before Christmas when Ben spotted two toy rifles in the back of the Suburban and asked who they were for. Quick on my feet and without even lying, I told him that they were for some special children for Christmas. When he asked who the special children were I told him that it was a surprise and I would tell them once we gave them the presents. You can imagine his delight upon discovering that he was one of the special ones and he's already named her Old Betsy. Now to keep his coon skin hat away from Chesty....

He's special joy...


362/365... enJoy

Grandpa wants to know when Eli ever stops smiling. The answer? Not very often. He kept threatening to stuff Eli into his luggage when he left but then backed off when I told him that Eli was a package deal. With Eli comes Jack. : )

Smiley Eli joy...


361/365... enJoy

I love that our only daughter gets to celebrate her birthday with her daddy. I also love making them each their own birthday dessert and that Caroline wanted to help me with all of that baking this year. And I love that I'll have many years of pictures of the two of them blowing out their candles together.

Happy birthday to two of my favorite people joy...







360/365... enJoy

While we usually only get to celebrate with one side of the family for each holiday, GaGa and Grandpa's travel plans this year made it possible for them to swing through TR on their way home from Virginia so that they could celebrate Jimmy's birthday with him. And since Jimmy is the coach of the boys basketball team, he thought having both sets of grandparents in town made for a great excuse to try and throw together a scrimmage game. Travis and Sam had quite the cheering section! Since half of the team was out of town for the holidays the five boys that were there from our team got a workout playing the entire game. They did great and gave their fans a lot of opportunities to cheer. I know they loved getting to play for Maw Maw and Paw Paw and Gaga and Grandpa.

Playing for their biggest fans joy...










(how close can Jack get to the blue line without going over it?)


(a little too close, apparently.)

Seven is a great year

Sassy Seven is what we'll be calling our sweet Caroline this year and it fits! Our girl is the perfect amount of sweetness, fun, thoughtfulness, humor, compassion, joy and spunk. She is always ready to lighten someone's load and loves to delight people around her with unexpected surprises (like finishing a chore for her brothers or having a hot drink waiting for daddy when he gets home from work). She is strong and capable and always willing to jump in and help get a job done. She loves to be with me in the kitchen and has reached an age where  her presence is not only enjoyable but also quite productive! She adores her brothers, both young and old. She is a loyal and peace-making friend. She loves knitting, sewing, reading, playing dress-up and house, and taking care of babies (real and pretend). She has a very tender heart and is quick to admit when she's wrong. She loves fiercely.

Caroline brings us so much laughter and joy and I'm beginning to see how much fun we're going to have together through the years as the only two girls in this family full of men! I am so thankful for our little "rose among thorns".

Happy birthday, sweet Peach! You are one very loved little girl.

January 2011

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December 2011

359/365... enJoy

While I certainly do work a full-time job, most stores don't want to be paid in the wages that I receive (hugs and kisses and accolades reserved only for a wife and mom). Usually I'm limited in the gifts that I can buy for Jimmy since I'm less likely to splurge with money from our regular budget, but this year I decided to go big. With the help of Craigslist, a houseful of stuff I could sell, Ron's encouragement that we really could make it happen and his willingness to do the leg work (as well as some very generous financial contributions to the effort from both him and my parents!), we were able to really blow his mind with a gift that we knew he would love but never, ever expect.

Jimmy works so hard for our family and gives us so much of himself. And while he might laugh at himself a little when he's got the oldest bike in the sea of bikes at their adventure races, he would never put that want above the needs (and even wants) of our family. It was so hard to keep such a huge secret for so long, and while he might have had an inkling that my gift had a little something to do with a bike, I am certain that a full, ready-to-ride Niner bike wasn't even on his radar and that's pretty awesome. I don't get to spoil him very often but it's really fun when I do.

You're never too old to love getting a bike for Christmas joy...







358/365... enJoy

"You see, people thought shepherds were nobodies, just scruffy old riff-raff. But God must have thought shepherds were very important indeed, because they were the ones he chose to tell the good news to first... at last, they reached a tumbledown stable.  They caught their breath. Then quietly, they tiptoed inside. They knelt on the dirt floor. They had heard about this promised child and now he was here. Heaven's Son. The Maker of Stars. A baby sleeping in his mother's arms. This baby would be like that bright star shining in the sky that night. A Light to light up the whole world. Chasing away darkness. Helping people to see. And the darker the night got, the brighter the star would shine... this child was a new kind of king. thought he was the Prince of Heaven, he had become poor. Thought he was the Mighty God, he had become a helpless baby. This King hadn't come to be the boss. He had come to be a servant."

~ The Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones

Merry Christmas joy...






























356/365... enJoy

To day that this season has been a little busy would be a bit of an understatement. We've traveled, had company, had a lovely cold that has taken its sweet time passing from person to person, two basketball seasons (men and boys) and have I mentioned that we have a puppy? Yeah. It hasn't exactly been the calm, peaceful Christmas season that I idolize in my dreams and if I'm honest I've had more than one mini-breakdown about all of the ways we're not celebrating this year (we're about nine days behind in our "nightly" advent reading, for example). So when Jenny-Lynn suggested outsourcing our tradition Christmas Eve fancy meal it made my heart soar. I went from wondering when in the world we were going to get it planned, shopped for and prepared (and then cleaned up), to eagerly anticipating the luxury of being served delicious food at one of our favorite holiday places, The Grove Park Inn. We've made a tradition of going there each December to look at all of the entries in the annual Gingerbread House competition, so making that trip on Christmas Eve and enjoying their amazing Christmas buffet was a genius idea.

On the way there I was explaining to the kids that this was no Golden Corral buffet (sorry, Dad) and that since it was Christmas there were no rules as to what they needed to eat other than that they enjoy every bite and eat as much dessert as they wanted. They were happy to comply. Showing up to a fancy restaurant with nine kids, ten and under can give even the most proficient servers a panic attack, but Cee Cee was a dream. She helped kids into their chairs (a few times), called each of them by name and went extra-fancy on their hot chocolates. And she didn't even seem to notice when they got a little restless during the grown-up coffee time and started their own little dance party (three cheers for a late reservation and a near-empty dining room!).

While I do love cooking up a huge feast for our holiday celebrations and I'm not sure that I'm ready to give that up every year, it really was the perfect way to celebrate this year and I'm so thankful for a flexible family! And, truth be told, I don't think it would be hard to talk me into it again next year.

Fancy Christmas Eve joy...








(photo of the Inn taken from the Grove Park Inn website)