Christmastide come and gone

We had a wonderful Christmas season this year with family and other loved ones. I have two lovely boys that I fall deeper in love with each day and a wonderful husband who cares for us with a true servant's heart. We enjoyed parades, lights, baking, gingerbread house making with friends, festive story times at the library, sugar cookies, candy canes, the first snow (yes, we saw snowflakes fall for the better part of one day in early December all the way down here), fires every night, our Christmas tree, talking about baby Jesus, naming our Elf on the Shelf and seeing his new place each morning in the house. We bundled up each night and with our flashlights in hand we started our winter ritual of night walking through town. I am typically NOT a winter person, but I am starting to "warm-up" to this season as I am learning (through the eyes of my children) that with each new season there are new and wondrous things I had missed before. I love the awe on Alder's face as he gathers kinlin for the fires on every walk we take and his love of collecting other such things in nature like red berries and the droppings from the popcorn trees. I love watching Kingston explore the Christmas tree, its needles, and the barren outdoors. I feel extremely full as this year came to a close. I love my job, role as mother to these 3 I nurture daily, excited at the arrival of the 3rd little one in March, our families we spent time with over the holidays, a stable job for Jared, our good health, and mountains of other blessings that I resolve to focus more on in this New Year. 

Yes, my heart aches for other "things" like a bigger community, being closer to our families, an ease of finances, and so on but I feel overwhelmed with the joys in my life and I thank my God for those. 

I had collected lots of pictures over the last month and could not fit all of them into one post. I thought I would just post a series of 3 posts and let the pictures speak for themselves. I remind myself that one of the main reasons I keep this blog going (since sometimes I feel like not posting at all) is to have it serve as a scrapbook for my children and our family. I hope my boys will treasure these pictures one day as much I do. 

Enjoy! We hope your holidays were Merry and Bright!