Slight panic attack!!

Garrett and Benny boy are going in for surgery tomorrow.

I keep having panic attacks that something might go wrong.

I know I am being a silly goose and that all will be fine.

Dale hand picked the surgical team ,he works with these guys all the time he knows them and has all the confidence in the world in them.

I trust Dales opinion, but these are my babies.

Someone just tell me I am being a silly goose.

Let it snow let it snow let it snow!

It has been non stop snowing for the last 2 days.

I think we are going to have a white Christmas for sure.

My pretty handsom blue eye Ben trying to walk in the yard.

The more he walked the higher it got!

He did not make it very far before he bit the dust snow.

He was very mad that I was taking pix of him falling he said"you are not being a very nice mom now come pick me up please"

This was how the much snow we woke up to from last night.

Here is my front porch.

This was my side yard Sunday after noon.

Momma moose was giving us a show.

Here is the same spot today.

Don't even get me started about the roads, the poor plow men couldn't keep up with all the snow.

They had already come twice.

This was me trying to get up the hill to my house.

So how is the weather in your neck of the woods?

Do you all think you are going to have a white Christmas?

Mary, and the 2 wise men

My title kinda sounds like a the beginning of a bad joke.

Sunday my 3 littlest took part off a live nativity at the church.

They sang songs and read the Christmas storey from Luke.

It was very sweet.

Madeline was Mary(she was so excited)

Garret was a tall wise man.

And Benny was the littlest wise man.

I love that they get to do this every year.

It really helps bring the reason for the season to our Christmas.

OH COME LET US ADORE HIM.

 This Sunday was the 9th year of the Nativity that our church host for the community during Colony Christmas.

Last year was the first year I decorated a room.

It was scary but turned out well.

You can read about it here

I choose to do it yet again in honor of William, I think this will become his yearly birthday gift.

Last year I hung his little stalking with his name in the room and this year I put up the picture that we had etched on his grave.

I really love being in the room the 2 days that we are open.

I can really feel the spirit of the Christmas season while enjoying all the beautiful nativities.

I wish I each of you could come and see the nativity it is amazing

Not only do we have 1,400 hundred Nativities all over the church there is also live performers and the children put on live nativities.

I will tell you all about that tomorrow.

So dose your town do any thing specheale during the Christmas season?

New blog look but not by Choice

I about had a hear attack when I pulled up my blog page and it was white and my pictures were all at the bottom I know longer had 3 columns heck I did not have any.I just sat and cried when I realized my old set up was gone.I had a short pity party and then went to work trying to fix it..I am still tweaking and will be until it is just right again.Now I have to find a new perfect header, what I have for now will have to do..Hopefully all will be better soon.    

Something happened to my blog!

Boo Hiss I am about to cry right now!Maybe I will wake up and it will all be fixed.If not I will have to come up with a new look .. BOO Hoo

Happy Birthday William Stonewall Wilderness

I cant even believe that it's been 4 years since William was born.

My how time has a way of slipping by faster every year.

Fours ago today was such an emotional happy intense day.

I will never for get the first time I held William in my arms it was purely amazing that he was here and alive.

I remember staring at him in awe and wonder like I had never given birth before.

I kept memorize his face his hands his eyes his sweet little feet..

I wanted to just soak all of him in to my mind.

I am so very grateful for the time we had with him.

I am so grateful that he chose me as his mommy.

I am so grateful that I know that I will get to be with him again.

I love and miss you baby boy..

Happy Birthday!!

Tis the season to Bragg.

Yes I am going to brag about my boy!!

When Robbie was 3 he carried around maps where ever he went. He would sit and stare at them for hours.

He would often tell us the information he learned from the map, like the rain differential from the area he was studying on the map.

It always made us laugh and friends and family were always in awe of what he had to say.

Well that obsession paid off on Friday, he won the Geography B for his School he will now go on to state.

I am really proud of the kid, and needless to say he was proud of himself.

By the way the winning question he answered was "What is the state that has the MT Sunflower that is south of Nebraska and east of Colorado.

I will give you all a clue it was his birth State He said it was probably the easiest question he had that day.

 He almost laughed at how easy it was.

Then he realized he Won!

'Tis the season to create

Monday the kids made our annual gingerbread house.

I think it turned out great and the had lots of fun making it.

I stayed in the background while there daddy helped them put it together.

I think they liked it that way.

Me taking pictures and daddy letting them create how they wanted to.

Some of you may remember what happened to our Ginger bread house last year

Lets just say when it was time to do make the house this year Ben went to Kadie our oldest and said she was NOT aloud to HELP..

He went into her room and said stay away from the gingerbread house cuz you recked it last year.

Her feeling where slightly hurt, but she got over it quickly.

'Tis the season to Give..

The part of Christmas I love the most is the service that goes on all over the world at this time.

So many people give of there time , talents and finances to bless others during the Christmas season.

I know our family has been blessed many times by anonymous givers.

Of course my favorite year that people served our family was the year William was born.

I will tell that story in a minute.

First I want to share the story of our first Christmas at Travis AFB.

It was a very tough year for our family we had just moved to a tiny 4 bedroom apartment on the base our house was about to be in foreclosure in Kansas I was pregnant with our 6th child and had just broken my hand by falling down the Church steps.

It was the week before Christmas and our Bishop called to say that he had Christmas for us and could we meet him at the front gate to pick it up.

When Dale came home had a bag filled with every thing for a Christmas feast and presents for everyone.

I was so overwhelmed with emotion and so grateful for the family and the gift of love they gave us that Christmas season I always wondered who that family was, It wasn't until years later that the mom of that family was sharing with my daughter about their family tradition of making Christmas for a family that has fallen on hardship. She explained that here family would get together and pray for a family to serve they then would buy every thing for Christmas for that family. She shared that storey with my daughter and the rest of the girls in my daughters mi made class at Church and then challenged each girl to earn money by babysitting so that they as a class could make Christmas for a family in our ward.

When Kadie shared that storey with us I was sure that it was here family that had blessed us that year.

I will forever be grateful for this Sister and her family's example to our family.

It is ironic that I am choosing to share our first Christmas at Travis  AFB and our last.

Our last Christmas at Travis AFB was truly magical, blessed and full of service.

In march of 2005 I was really think how I was possibly going to top the Christmas spirit I had the Christmas season 2004 It had been a special Christmas for me it was the Christmas that I got the true Christmas spirit back it was the first time in years that I felt the magic that I had felt as a child.

Then in April I got my answer I just found out we were expecting our 8th and last child.

The baby's due date was Christmas day. For the first time in my life I was hoping to go

 to my due date, since I was a little girl it was my dream to have a Christmas baby.

This Christmas turned out to be more than I could have ever imagined.

As most of you know our Story William was born December 14th our Christmas miracle.

William was just the beginning of our Christmas miracles. We were blessed by so many people in our Church, on our base and many nonprofit organizations.

I would get phone calls daily from organization wanting to give our family things for Christmas. I kept telling them we had plenty and there answers were always the same.

Please let us serve your family.

How could I say know to these blessed saints that wanted to serve us.

I remember sitting with my sister and Dear friend Valerie overwhelmed with all the Christmas presents that were filling my house.

I looked at all the presents and said each of these presents represent love.

On Christmas day I remember waking up with William in my arms thinking how truly blessed I was.

We got all the kids up and  think there eyes about bulged out of there heads at the site of all the Christmas presents.

We then explained that we had many santa's helpers this year.

We told them how the community wanted to help make this a special Christmas for them because of William.

I remember my son Robbie say so Santa is real he just sometimes has helpers to help him.

My kids often talk about this Christmas it it is one I will always Cherish it is the only Christmas that our whole family was together.

I now have a challenge for all of you 1st I would love to hear your stories of Christmas service.

2nd I want you my blogger readers to find a family or cause to serve this Christmas season.

I know for many of you this has been a hard year economically so don't think I am saying spend money.

There is so many other ways like being a bell ringer, reading the Christmas stories in an asstent living home.

Sing Christmas carols door to door.

help out in a soup kitchen. Go your local childrens hospital and read to the childern. There are so many diffrent things you can do.

If you blog about it be sure to send me your link I would love to hear how you all choose to serve.

Tis the season to remember..

If you have read my blog from the beginning or just started most of you know that this is a hard time of year for me.

I have to say I have been doing very good this year not to fall apart or be overly sad.

In fact I feel darn right happy this season.

Everyday I feel more and more like my old self just slightly improved.

I am loving the feeling of being my old self again.

It has been alowing me too do so much more.

Six days from today will be Williams birthday.

It is almost strange for me to think that I would have a 4 year old running around right now.

So this morning I went down memory lane not intentionally it just happened.

It was hard memory that I just plain blocked out.

I was talking to my daughter, she was telling me about going with her boyfriend to pick up a deceased body from a residents.( Her boyfriend works at a funeral home and drives the Hurst)

I asked her if it was weird and she said no it's not like I went in and saw the body or anything.

She then said it just showed her how thoughtful and sensitive he was he took the time to carefully talk to the grieving family.

I then started talking about the day William had died and about how hard it was for me to let William go in the Hurst.

I remember them putting him on to the gurney thinking he was going to fall off if he hit a corner.

I asked if they were going to seat belt him in he gently held my hand and asked me if I wanted to seat belt him in.

I remember asking if I should get his car seat he said if you would like you can.

I decided I was being silly and that it would fine to just seat belt him in.

But I was grateful that Tim the funeral home director was so caring and thoughtful towards my feeling.

It was truly one of the hardest things I have ever done.

I could not believe that I was going to give my baby to a stranger.

I still couldnt believe he was gone.

It was so hard to walk back in the house with out him in my arms.

I remember just how it felt, the only word I can think to describe the feeling is EMTY.

Even though my house was filled with friends and family it still felt empty.

It was a hard sad day.

My husband all goofed up on goofballs..

Today my hubby had surgery on his hand.(not car accident related) Oh yeah we had a car accident this weekend. We were rear ended and were jostled quite a bit thank goodness it was only Dale and I in his car.

Dale had a concussion and whiplash to his neck and I just have a bruised back and bruises were the seat belt tightened up on my shoulder and chest.

Thank heavens we are ok and that our injuries were minor.

Ok back to today.

So dale had a tumor removed from his finger and some other surgery on his hand.

He has been a buckets of funny every since.

To be quite honest he is driving me nuts.

But I do like the fact that he is telling me he loves me every five minutes.

This is going to be a busy week! Have tons to do!!

Lots of sewing and decorating.

This weekend our town is having our annual Colony Christmas it a small town Christmas celebration.

Our church participate by hosting thousands of nativities.

Last year I decorated a room in honer of William it was my gift to him for his birthday.

I will be doing it again this year.

Last year my room was draped all in silks with crystal an hundreds of battery lit candles.

This year I will be decorating it a little different. I am so excited!

I also have 2  Christmas party's to go to one I get to dress up fancy and the other I get to bring a dozen of something fun I am making.

As crazy busy as this week is going to be I am so excited!!

I cant wait to share pix of every thing I am doing.

So what is your week looking like?

A beautiful sunrise, Crashing our Daughters date and The dress.

This is what I woke up too.

I guess this is one advantage of the sunrising at 9:45 am

So Breathtaking I love the cloud patterns.

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Last night after Dale and I went and watched Shell in the Madrigal we decided to stop by The V-hoe for Hot Chocolate.

As we were getting ready to park we saw our 19 year old daughter getting out of her truck.

She looked at us and said what are you doing here.

We said to get hot cocoa she then asked if we could go somewhere else.

I said why do you have a date?

She rolled her eyes and turned bright red.

We parked and went inside and my husband invited us to sit with them

I really thought Kadie was going to die.

We sat and talked a while with her and her boyfriend that we had yet to meet.

My husband was quite chatty.

She kept giving him the evil eye.

to further embrace her I pulled out the camera and started taking pix.

(Yes we are parents of the year!)

We then decided to let her off the hook and leave as we were leaving my husband with out my knowledge to  asked here date to Sunday dinner.

I think he was a little overwhelmed but said yes any ways.

(A good sport in my book)

I am doubting Kadie is going to forgive us any time soon.

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Crappy pic but here is the dress.

Hope everyone is having a healthy fun weekend!!

Just when you think you are going to go insane

Yesterday as I was unpicking the bodice the renaissance dress I was making for the 2nd time I jut threw it on the ground and walked away in total frustration.

I walked to the deck doors and was caught off guard by the beauty outside.

all the trees were covered in snow the sky was indigo and the moon was shining in the morning sky.

As I stood there admiring the beauty that God created for me a sent up a silent prayer thanking him for my life my family and my talents.

I felt ready to finish the darn dress.

I was almost finished and ready to figure out how the heck I was going to put all the eyelets down the back ,when my friend called I told her what I was doing and she asked me if I needed me to bring over her eyelet setter.

I told her Heavenly Father new I needed her to call just at that moment.

I really don't know how I would have finished the dress with out recking it if i didn't have the eyelet setter.

I finally finished the dress mid afternoon and called the girl to get her dress.

At this point I really hated the dress. I could see every flaw and mistake I was on the verge of tears when she came over.

I held of the dress and her eyes melted all my fears away she loved it.

She looked like a kid on Christmas morning.

She tried the dress on and I was just amazed at how beautiful it was.

Her mother kept Ewing and awing and said I know my daughter did not give you all her measurements how in the world did you get it hemed right and the sleaves the right length.

I just winked and said I had the Lord guiding me.

She giggled and said you must have because my daughter is not an ordinary size.

The girl I made the dress for is 6foot tall huge boobs and long arms.

I really did feel the guidance of the Lord on my side.

I can hardly wait to see it on her tomorrow when I watch the performance of the Madrigal that my daughter and her are in.

I will take pix of the dress and show you then.

Let me just say I will never make a dress with that much yardage again.

Well maybe never.