Christmas season

Ok.
So blogging has really taken a backseat lately to moving, showing our house, flying to Phoenix, going to Richmond twice to hunt for houses and getting ready for Christmas.

This last month has felt like trains, planes and automobiles. C to the Crazy.

We have a beautiful snowcapped landscape outside and I just put some birdfeed outside for the little guys. The girls are playing with the couch cushions as Brandon sweeps the couch.

It's crazy. I wonder if people get used to being insanely busy and have withdrawals when a quiet season permeates their lives. Because honestly, I am longing for quiet weeks.

We had a great Christmas this year. The girls and Ryder got up early and opened presents and we read the Christmas story. After presents we had brunch at my family's house and then presents, naps and ate again. We made some yummy lamp chops that will be even better next time. First time making them!

Mom made some awesome app and some polenta. Then we played telestrations. Hilarious.

Merry Christmas from the Shmidts 

Christmas dinner prep with mom 

Looking at the amazing amount of lights at a house close to moms. 

Lukie, Becca, me and Ryder and Kelly 

Cousins! Ethan, Sophia, Charlie, Ava and Ryder on Christmas morning

Poppa and his new scarf

Ryder and his new cars and trucks - it's Made in USA and is wooden and he loves it. 

Sweet Ry Ry 

My math nerd husband (:) j/k) and the girls left a note for Santa. Notice the graph paper. 

The girls on Christmas morning. So pumped. 

Momma and Poppa Shmidt visited us and we had a great time! 

Ava and Sophia at the living nativity at my parent's church. 

Ava is ready to sing in the choir at our church's play, Graced.

Ava cried the day after Graced was over because she loved singing so much in it. 

Sophia at her last gymnastics session. 

We made peppermint milk this year. Milk + candy cane = amazing peppermint pink milk. 

I have a kindergartner

I have a kindergartner. Her name is Ava. She loves to draw and play "trash girls" with her friends at recess and buys pizza for lunch on fridays. She has brown curly hair, doesn't like to dress up too much at school and always has a headband on.

On cold frosty mornings, I drop her off at the curb of the brick, elementary school. I have never thought about an armed man storming the school and shooting her classroom and fellow friends. 

After last Friday, I have to think about it. 

It's something that's real and a very evil thing. Killing children and those who give their lives to serve them. 

It's a senseless act of extreme evil. Tears and a heavy heart remain. 

I wanted to do something. 

Make Ava's school more safe. Write more guidelines. Pass a bill. Raise money. Give money. Just do something. Anything. 

And while these are all things that may or may not need to be done. 

He just had one word. 

"Pray." 

And I thought, "Yes, but, what else?" There has to be something more. 

But pray? Just pray? 

Yes pray. Pray deeply in our souls. 

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. James 5:13-14 

Pray for safety. Pray for Shalom (all things as they should be). Pray for our anxieties, our children and those families affected by this tragedy. 

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis pens a fictional and thought-provoking tale of a senior demon instructing several letters to a junior demon on the character of man and how to lure him away from the Enemy (God).

“For as things are, your man has now discovered the dangerous truth that these attacks don’t last forever; consequently you cannot use again what is, after all, our best weapon — the belief of ignorant humans that there is no hope of getting rid of us except by yielding.” The Screwtape Letters.

Hope. 

We have hope.

"For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands."

moving

Well, my last post was in October! And it's now December. We have had loads of things going on lately, Christmas, Thanksgiving and oh yeah, moving to a place 500-miles away!

Brandon accepted a job within Nationwide at its regional offices in Richmond, Va last month. And since then I feel like life has been a whirlwind.

Prepping the house for showings.
Getting all of our documentation ready.
Talking with the girls' teachers.

And being in this weird world of not knowing when our house will sell and we will join Brandon in Richmond. The nice thing is that they buy our house after 60 days on the market if we don't sell it. And interest rates are extremely low and houses are less right now.

Running has taken a backseat to our house getting the flu for a week and getting our house market ready. My last run was 7 miles around 9:10 pace. And then I threw up for 24 hours. It was real. :)

So, we are now getting ready for Christmas and excited to celebrate Sophia's 4th birthday!!

The girls at Whole Foods, our fav place to shop and eat lunch.

Ryder's Honda ad.

And I am currently reading the She Reads Truth Advent series. It's an online movement of women who are reading together. They have a plan on YouVersion Bible or here. I love it. Makes the Christmas season so much more real and impactful.