What color will those eyes be?

After three brown and one hazel ... a momma with blue and a daddy with brown ... what will Miriam have? When each baby was born, Grandma Jan would announce that THIS baby would have blue eyes. She's been wrong every time. Until possibly now.

A hard year and a great wedding gift

On our wedding day twelve years ago, my Uncle Bruce and Aunt Jen wrapped us a box of Christmas ornaments as our gift. It was a delightful gift to open and use. That little box was actually where we acquired our oft-repaired Christmas pickle which has brought lots of fun for four boys. And for a newly-married couple, having something to put on our Christmas tree was wonderful. We hung those, added a few of our own and tied bows made from Christmas fabric on all the empty branches.

There is one ornament in particular from that box that has seen a little hardship over the twelve years. The lovely couple has lost their heads.


I still have those missing heads wrapped in paper in one of our Christmas storage containers. And I still hang our headless ice skaters every year, wondering why I feel compelled to hang a broken ornament.



When I was packing the headless couple away this year, I showed them to Steve. He took one look and said, "It's been a hard year."I giggled, but he was right. It has been. Insomnia for Steve - the complete exhaustion of this pregnancy for me - the extra work of adding on to our home - the boys having a lot of trouble with all our transitions - multiple extra stressors for Steve ... I could go on, but it was just really hard and stressful.

I was thinking this year about my reason for loving that ornament so much. I really think that, to me, it represents our marriage. We made a point in our wedding ceremony of saying the old vows that we didn't think should be considered old-fashioned. "Til death do us part." And we meant them. We know the other person is broken, but we don't turn on them when life is hard. Instead we still go on actively loving them. I'm not going to trade one broken person for another. I'm going to go through life as a team with the one I promised to be a partner to.

Almost midnight

A new mommy of five not sleepy? I really don't know why. We had an active night with our children and three little visitors darting around along with one crying Miriam. But I'm wide awake (and really thankful that Miriam does seem to be improving with me beginning to cut out dairy products).

Speaking of her, here is a sweet sight of Miriam with her pink calico pig which Grandma Mary made it for her. I love it. I can't wait until Miriam can fully enjoy it. Grandma Mary is so special to each of her grandchildren. And she probably doesn't even know just how special she is to her daughter-in-law. I think it's especially fitting that she made Miri a pig. The boys have been calling their sister "Little Snort", because she does just that.

And a not-so-pretty sight -

It's fake. But it's funny. To me anyway. You'll have to ask our nephew just how funny it is to him. We left the four boys with him and his sister (our niece, of course) while we attended a Christmas party. From what I hear, they were having a great time, and when a spill occurred, they took these funny pictures of the boys pretending to vomit.

Not long after ...

... they started vomiting for real. What kind of a babysitter actually cleans your children's vomit for you? The poor guy caught the stomach virus along with the rest of us within a little over 48 hours. And then he moved out of our house.