My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

Me: “Tazie, what would you do if you saw a coyote in the yard?” (since we had just seen one that morning!)

Tazie, unfazed: “Jimmy would shoot it with his baby gun.”

(She meant BB gun)

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Tazie doesn’t like it when I sing, dance or clap while she’s listening to music.  But apparently she needs an even greater level of compliance from me during music listening, because she turned to me when her favorite song was playing and said, “Mama, please don’t blink.”

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I was in a department store at the mall and I had tasked Danny with keeping an eye on Tazie while I picked out a gift for someone.  A few minutes later, I turned around and saw her standing on a platform between all the mannequins in the shop window while Danny stood by helplessly.  I hurried over to pull her out of there and started scolding her.  But she said, “It’s OK, Danny was watching me!”

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Susie: “I’m outstanding.”

Tazie: “No, you’re not standing.  You’re sitting!”

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I’ve been cracking down on Tazie’s tendency to repeat rude words that her siblings use (that they aren’t supposed to use, either!).  One morning, I heard her softly mutter “Jerk” under her breath, and when she saw my glare, she quickly reassured me, “I’m not saying you’re a jerk, mama, I’m saying you AREN’T a jerk.  You’re a pretty, pretty mama.”

After breakfast, it was finally the time the kids had been waiting for!  As always, we grouped the presents by person and then each person took turns opening one at a time.  It was so fun to see everyone’s faces light up!

Here’s Susie displaying the sign that Becky commissioned Grandpa to carve, and then she painted for her sister:

And Jimmy holding up the card Becky made for him.  Cracks me up!

Tazie REALLY got into Christmas this year, and loved absolutely everything she opened!

Most of the kids picked out their own gifts for family members, so it was so fun to see them excited about the act of giving, as well as receiving!

Here’s Jimmy with his new fishing pole:

And Susie with her Newton’s Cradle she really wanted!

More present pics to come!

I’m now almost a month late posting Christmas pictures, ack!  Here’s a few!

We loved having our annual Christmas Eve dinner at my in-laws’ house, along with Jim’s Aunt and Uncle and dear friends from church.

The kids were as eager as ever to dive into their gifts!

Aunt Mary once again got the kids the BEST outfits!

Love those desserts (I may have loved all the desserts a little too much)!

Then we came home, wrestled the kids into bed, and set about setting up for the big day.  Here are the stockings ready for the morning:

And all the gifts ready around the tree.  We kept saying we were going to go “lighter” this year on gifts, but I don’t think we managed it!

Well, it’s been way too long since I’ve posted to this blog, so for my first post of 2020, I thought it was fitting to announce that the kids have a new cousin!  My sister Angie had a sweet baby girl in late December, and since I was sooo anxious to meet my new niece in person, we took the weekend after Christmas to drive down to Virginia to visit them!  It was such a wonderful trip!

We are in love!

Jim took the big kids out for a drive on Saturday morning so I could spend a few hours with my sister and my mom (and of course, my niece!). They were all smiles – especially since they picked up two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts!

On the way back home, we drove by Ocean City, Maryland, to see how it stacked up against our favorite Ocean City, New Jersey.  It was much bigger and boasted more restaurants and hotels, but we decided we all liked our little NJ boardwalk best. 😉