The Tale of Four Christmases

What a wonderful holiday season we have had. I find myself saying this every year and feel more strongly about it each time; we are so very, very blessed. The love and support of family and friends, the financial blessings, the physical blessings; they are all overflowing in our lives and I cannot help but rejoice and praise God for what He has done. I recognize that all good and perfect things are from God and I give Him glory. Thank you, Lord for your overwhelming presence in my family.

We have enjoyed many holiday celebrations over the last couple of weeks. Papaw and Mamaw came to visit, followed by Christmas with the Parker clan, which is never dull, then a trip to Grandma's house and finally home for Christmas day. Wow.

I have not been as good as usual with taking pictures, not sure why. I actually made it home from Grandma's house without a single picture of our trip. I guess we will have to go back!

Here are a few snapshots of our happy holiday gatherings. We are looking forward to one more family get together tomorrow to see Danna and Trey, in town from Denver and then our annual progressive dinner with the neighbors on New Year's Eve, so there is a lot more fun in store!

wolves from Gre*t Wolf Lod*e. Papaw and Mamaw are sending us for a night at the water park!

Thanks, Santa, for bringing Soren this chemistry set...now, please don't let her do anything crazy with it!

Santa gave me money to sign up for my next race; April 25th in Galveston!

Our biggest surprise this Christmas...snow!

the craziness that is the Parker Christmas.

It was an American Gi*l Christmas for Soren and Reese. Grandma gave the dolls and sewed endless outfits for them, Nana gave the four-poster beds, cousins gave fun accessories and Santa brought a salon chair.

Pops recently bought a bike, therefore he needed some bike shorts and bike shoes. We demanded a model of the shorts, the socks and shoes were his idea.

popcorn shirts!

"Suffer the family picture" time. I did not get us to a studio like I had planned this season, so this is as good as it gets

Papaw, Mamaw, Soren and Reese

the story of the long horn: there was a random cowboy (he was the REAL thing!) who had his VERY OLD long horn at the corner gas station. He was charging $10/person to climb up and take a picture (you had to provide the camera). We were driving by, saw the bull, just happened to have my camera in the car, so we stopped, Papaw paid $20 for my city girls to sit on a cow and I took pictures. Too bad I don't know how to make the back ground fuzzy so it is not so obvious that we were just sitting on the side of the highway.

we made lots of crafts with Papaw and Mamaw. A gingerbread house, Christmas ornaments, and other various activities that we are generally too busy to enjoy. It was fun to relax and play with no thoughts of school or schedules

Note To Self

Don't leave the santa gifts in the back seat if you have to drive the kids to school the next morning. Dang it!!

A cookie for Jesus

A conversation that occurred while Reese and I were doing a little holiday baking this evening:

Reese: I wish I could see Jesus just once in life so I could give Him a cookie.

Me: That would be very nice. When will you see Jesus?

Reese: Not until I die.

(a short pause. a deep thought)

Reese: It will be hard to hold a cookie while I am dying!

and one more:

As Reese was putting red and green sprinkles on the rice krispie treats:

Reese: We need to make two of these with only green sprinkles because Sidda and Kiley can't have anything red.

Me: Oh, really? Are they allergic to red dye?

Reese: Yea, they are not really good at staying alive.

Tandem Date

Pete came home last night with a Christmas present for the girls and I. For about two years, he has been looking for a tandem that would fit all three of his girls and those are not easy to come by, so when this one surfaced down in San Antonio he jumped on it. We took it out today for a spin and it was GREAT! Kinda cold, but the excitement of the new bike easily made up for that. He will be able to ride this with me or Soren or Reese! Too cool!

Hello December

To say that it has been hard to get into the Christmas spirit after 8 days in the Caribbean would be the understatement of the century.

We left before Thanksgiving and when we returned Christmas was in full swing, the weather had turned bitterly cold and I was still on island time wanting to be lazy.

I am getting the important things done, but all of the fun, extra stuff like lights on the house, Christmas baking and decorating is just not going to happen this year. With both girls in school I find myself swamped with "to do" lists for all of their activities. It seems like no matter how hard I try to keep Christmas in perspective I get sucked into the madness. Everyday a new note comes home from school requesting one more item for this or that and it is really getting old. Enough of that.

Here are some of the things we have been up to...

a VERY loose tooth in the morning...

a tooth gone in the afternoon

a note to the beloved tooththe puffy eyes of my sweet Reese and her double ear infections this morning
Soren's choir in the Joshua Christmas parade they are always so nice to let Reese join in on the fun

More Cozumel fun

Here are some more pictures that Pops took. Thanks for helping us capture such wonderful memories of an amazing trip!

Pops took this picture from the 7th floor of our hotel. That is Nana and Soren down in the water

Soren and Nana were feeding the fish and got attacked by the sea gulls!

if you walked away from your plate, the friendly locals would help themselves to your leftovers!

enjoying dinner the night before the race

Grandma and Grandpa

just a couple of pictures from the day

Today I have been in the shade so I don't have many pictures of the kids playing. It has been an incredible day. Beautiful weather. If I was not racing tomorrow I would have soaked up the rays!

I do have lots of pictures of my pre-race stuff on my training blog http://www.imcozumel.blogspot.com/ thanks to Pops!!