December

The long awaited holiday month has arrived! It's December and we're knocking on the door of a new year yet it seems like I was just sharing pictures from our 4th of July beach vacation! The second half of 2019 has most definitely been a blur and time has certainly gotten away from me.

I turned 37 and didn't really do much celebrating. I spent my day doing laundry, addressing Christmas cards and running Kyndall to and from school and all of her activities. The older you get, the more it becomes like just another ordinary day. Matthew and Kyndall did take me out to dinner that night and a sweet friend left a special gift on my doorstep. Each year that I get to see another December 3rd come around really is the best gift of all, because there was a time not too long ago when I didn't know how many more birthdays I would have. I am thankful for another year!

Another friend had this special package of "Great American Cookies" delivered to me because she knows they're my very favorite cookies in the world! It was a great surprise!

This one wasted no time sampling my gift!

Although nobody other than the 3 of us will even see our Christmas tree, I enjoy admiring it each day.

I've always said I'd never have those tacky blow up Christmas decorations in my yard, no matter how much my kid begged and pleaded. Well...you see who won that battle.

Kyndall's elf "Candy Cane" returned from the North Pole. Unfortunately a few months ago one of the kids in Kyndall's class took it upon himself to tell her the truth about Santa, the elf and even the Tooth Fairy. Kyndall was heartbroken and I was MAD. She still truly believed in all of those things so it was devastating to find out in this way. I told her we'd keep the magic going and still play along with all of it, even though she now knows the truth. If for no other reason than to make sure that Wyatt and Easton keep believing for a long time. I think it made her feel special to know she was now in on the secrets but deep down I'm still a little sad that this part of her childhood is over. It's just another reminder that she's growing up.

Cam and Huck got haircuts and they look so handsome with their little Christmas bows!

The progress continues on Kyndall's soon-to-be craft room! Once they sprayed in the insulation it really started looking like a room and less like an attic!

On Saturday morning, December 7th I was the special guest of my sweet neighbor Mrs. Lindsey Allen as she spoke at a women's Christmas event at a church in Dallas. I loved hearing her testimony and I was honored that she asked me to join her.

While I was with Mrs. Lindsey, Kyndall and Matthew attended their monthly Saturday morning Home Depot class and apparently Santa was there as well...

Later that same evening we bundled up and headed for Arlington to spend the night at Six Flags. We have annual passes and although we go often, we'd never been at Christmas.

On the drive back to Forney I noticed Kyndall was awfully quiet and I turned around to find this. She never falls asleep in the car, so that tells you she was pretty exhausted from our busy day.

The next afternoon Matthew and I had a church Christmas party to attend but since we don't have any family nearby we were without a babysitter for Kyndall. Through the magic of technology Nonie was able to remotely babysit Kyndall for nearly four hours via Facetime! It worked out great in a pinch!

A picture of Kyndall and her friend Avarie that was posted on the school's Facebook page

Progress continues! This is our hard working contractor and his crew posing on Kyndall's new loft. She has no idea we're adding this part of the room but I think she's going to love it!

New window going in

It's almost finished!

"Cookies with Claus" at school is always something to look forward to

Working hard on some homemade Christmas gifts at sewing class....

Kyndall's entry for the school yearbook cover contest. The theme is adventure and their mascot is the cougars.

I look forward to my Friday lunches with her all week long! I wonder how many years she'll keep letting me do this??

She went to the book fair at school and spent her own money on some new books and all of the sudden each time I turn around she's got her nose in a book, even taking it into a restaurant to read while we waited on our dinner. She's never been much of a reader before now, but maybe it's just because she didn't have the right book? 

I love Christmas traditions and one of our favorites is to grab some hot chocolate from Starbucks and ride around looking at Christmas lights. We spent our Friday night doing just that and made some sweet family memories. 

Our neighborhood put up this enormous tree in the parking lot of our clubhouse and it looked so beautiful next to the full moon in the background.

Another favorite Christmas tradition...

"Christmas in the Mall" was held on Sunday evening at our church and we invited our friend Adara to join us. 

The church mall was filled with cookies, cider, crafts, music and families all enjoying the holiday season.

I received this email from Kyndall's assistant principal a few weeks ago letting us know she would be honored during lunch, so Matthew and I both made plans to be there. She had no idea she was getting this award!

She had no clue that her name was going to be called, which made it even more fun! I was able to get my phone out just in time to capture this video of her surprised face...

All of the 3rd grade students of the month along with their principals, Mrs. Rader and Mr. A

Everyone should have a friend like Adara. She couldn't wait to jump out of her lunch seat and run up and give Kyndall a big congratulatory hug. She is one of Kyndall's sweetest friends and biggest cheerleaders.

I promised her I'd stick this decal on the back window of my car and I kept my promise!

We are so proud of our girl for receiving this award. Good grades and high test scores are great, but it's her character and conduct that make us most proud.

Even though this was the first year that Kyndall knew the truth about Santa, she still wanted to keep with tradition and make our annual visit to Bass Pro to visit him. I love that even though she's growing up and getting older she still wants to keep the magic alive!

In keeping with tradition, we always have to try out the toys at Bass Pro...

Progress continued on the craft room construction....

Kyndall worked on finishing those homemade Christmas gifts in her spare time...

Her art teacher at school sent me this picture of a drawing she did in class

On a cold day, there's no better after school treat than a warm chocolate chip cookie from Chick-Fil-A!

Friday, December 20th was the last day of school before winter break and also class Christmas party day...

Katie, Kyndall and Avarie

We love Mrs. Bailey!

We had promised her that before we headed out of town for Christmas, we would let her see her new craft room. It wasn't quite done, but was close enough so we did a reveal, complete with a blindfold. Keep in mind, she hadn't seen this room since it was still just a raw attic!

Her reaction was great! She loved it!

Her friend Ashlyn had walked over from across the street just before we did the reveal so it was extra fun having her here for it too. They immediately started making play date plans for the new room.

As soon as the reveal was over it was time to load up and make the long drive home for Christmas.

Nonie and Poppie had a big (but actually very little!) surprise waiting for Kyndall when we arrived at their house....

Meet Taco the turtle, Kyndall's newest pet. She actually cried happy tears when she saw him for the first time because she had no idea she was getting a turtle for Christmas. After playing with him for a few hours she decided on the name Taco and I think it suits him perfectly. 

We had a couple of days before Christmas so we spent one of those days with the Lynch kiddos on a day trip to Wild Adventures.

Cam's favorite place to be is wherever I am

Christmas Eve!

A little flashback to 2014. Look how tall she's gotten!

Per tradition, we spent Christmas Eve in Tallahassee at church with Grammy and G-Daddy, followed by Christmas Eve dinner at Village Inn and then back to Grammy and G-Daddy's house for gifts.

I guess we should at least be glad they aren't real candles

Kyndall's big gift from Grammy and G-Daddy was this sewing case that she can use to take her sewing machine back and forth to class each week.

Poor old Albert--He doesn't care for all the commotion!

We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus

Playing with new toys

Late night getting back to Nonie and Poppie's house where we sat out cookies and milk and anxiously awaited Santa's arrival! Again, I'm so glad that she's still willing to play along despite being old enough to know how this really works!

She's probably the only kid I know who had to be dragged out of bed on Christmas morning!

Before a single gift is opened, we always read the Christmas story from the Bible

Kyndall made out pretty well this year...

She got a new laptop...

Tickets to see her favorite YouTubers, "Dude Perfect" on their upcoming 2020 tour...

Lots of new decor for her craft room....

A subscription to National Geographic for kids....

Lots of pajamas, purses and jewelry....

Tons of turtle themed things since she's such a turtle lover....

Toys....

More pajamas.....

And lastely, the Verizon Gizmo watch that she's been wanting for so long. We won't allow her to have a cellphone so this is the next best thing. This watch can call, text and is also a GPS tracker so I always know exactly where she is. She was pretty surprised that she actually got it....

She made this homemade trivet on her sewing machine for Nonie and Poppie. Of course, they loved it! She also made one for Grammy and G-Daddy but I failed to get a picture.

Christmas breakfast

This was a gift from Kyndall and Matthew and it's probably my favorite gift I've ever been given. This is Kyndall's sweet handwriting forever captured in the engraving on this necklace. I love it so much!

By lunchtime we were at Grandma's house in Two Egg, ready for another round

We played our annual game of "unwrap the gift card while wearing oven mits"

....And Kyndall won!

Then it was time for the long awaited traditional dirty santa gift swap which is always the highlight of Christmas day at Grandma's

We all chipped in and bought Grandma a new iphone--A much needed upgrade from her old flip phone!

Later that night back at Nonie and Poppie's house she finally got to sit down and play with some of her new gifts.

Here's a recap of our Christmas up to this point--A 14 hour drive from Texas to south Georgia with an antsy 9 year old, two dogs (one of which is car sick) and a vehicle full of strategically hidden gifts. A day trip to Valdosta for an afternoon at Wild Adventures with friends. A quick hop over to Florida for Christmas Eve dinner, church, an family time, then a midnight bedtime back in Georgia where we anxiously awaited Santa. Up at 6:45 a.m. with sleepy eyes to see what Santa had left. Christmas breakfast in Georgia and then off again to be in Florida by Christmas lunch. More family time, a few gift exchanges and our traditional family game of Dirty Santa. Back to Georgia by 9:00 p.m. to finally play with all those gifts we had to leave behind earlier that morning. And the next day, we would do Christmas round two with the other side of the family before loading up on Friday and heading to Tallahassee for the remainder of our Christmas vacation. I call it the Christmas shuffle and it is blissful exhaustion at its best. It's chaotic and busy and hectic but I can't imagine it any other way.

Two days after Christmas we packed up and moved over to Tallahassee for the remainder of our trip. Kyndall and Wyatt were so excited to see each other. Kyndall adores the neighbors' dog, Cooper and she was happy to see him again. He's grown a LOT since the last time she played with him!

 While we were in Tallahassee our own dog ended up at the emergency vet for an abscessed tooth.

Lots of game time over the next few days....

Dinner with the crew after looking at Christmas lights

Kyndall is pretty good at checkers but she met her match when G-Daddy challenged her to a game!

Little church angels....ha!

Air hockey with G-Daddy

Always catching and rescuing some kind of critter

I was able to meet up with some of my girlfriends for dinner while we were in town. We've been friends since middle school, we were college roommates and now we all lead busy lives but when we get together we pick back up right where we left off. I'm so glad that even though I don't live close by anymore, they always think to include me when I'm in town visiting.

Albert is still annoyed by all of the commotion and probably wishes we'd just leave!

Here's a conversation that made me laugh....

My Dad: "I'm going to take Kyndall up to Bass Pro to kill some time and look around."

Me: "Ok, just promise me you won't buy anything. We JUST had Christmas."

My Dad: "Sure thing!"

And they walk in the door with this. Grandparents!!

We spent New Year's Eve ringing in 2020 and celebrating Kelly's birthday a little early while we were all in town and together. We had dinner at Cracker Barrel then went back to Grammy and G-Daddy's house for cake, presents and to watch the ball drop.

One highlight of our time back home was getting to meet Kelly's new boyfriend, Jason. We all really like him and hopefully the chaos didn't scare him off!

Happy New Year!!

We spent new year's day making the 13 hour drive all the way back to Texas. It was hard to say goodbye and hard to believe Christmas was already over, but we had such a great time and made so many good memories during our 11 days back home.

Notice Taco the turtle sitting next to Kyndall, making his maiden voyage to Texas. I was really nervous he wouldn't survive the trip but thankfully he did. I cannot afford the years of therapy that would surely be required if that little turtle had died. She is utterly in love with a reptile.

With the arrival of a new decade, it got me thinking about the last decade of our lives. A lot can happen in a decade but it wasn't until I started really reflecting on these last ten years, one by one that I realized just HOW much has happened.

A pregnancy...a baby...parenthood...moves to five homes in four cities in three states...multiple job promotions...seven months spent on the organ transplant list...two major life saving surgeries including the loss of my large intestine and my "original" liver...an organ transplant and recovery...the passing of three Grandparents...the addition of two precious nephews and the loss of one (crappy) brother-in-law...eleven years of marriage...countless hospitalizations and close calls...sickness, health, sickness, health...dozens of amazing vacations and trips...Kyndall's salvation and baptism...so many new friendships and new experiences...ups, downs, highs and lows...laughter, tears, joys and heartaches--And those are just the things I can actually remember! Ha!

We had no idea what was coming at us ten years ago and it's probably a good thing because it would've scared us to death! However, I wouldn't change any of it even if I could. This is the story God has written for us and I am thankful for every chapter!

May the next decade be just as thrilling and unpredictable as the last!