White Christmas!

Okay, so technically this isn't a "true" White Christmas, as there isn't any snow anywhere, but hey, things are still very WHITE, so it counts, right? We had the oddest fog roll in a few days ago, and the longer it stayed, the whiter everything got! Of course with temperatures under 25 degrees, it's no wonder all that soupy water vapor turned to ice, but WOW....it left us with the most gorgeous display of winter foliage! Check it out:

I hope all of my friends in blogdom had a blessed Christmas--we certainly did. As usual our children were overwhelmed with far too many gifts and we were all passed out on the couch by noon, but this year we had a little something different. Kelsey had a Christmas Eve emergency room trip for severe stomach pains. We wanted to rule out appendicitis, and it was. Just gastritis, but that meant that none of the huge feast I prepared was eaten by my buffet queen. And now Morgan and Pete have it, so our traditional Christmas breakfast burritos and fruit salad went uneaten, and I'm not even bothering to make the lasagne I planned on making today. Oh well....there's always next year!

Ahh, next year. Well, one of Pete's gifts turned out to be a bit of a surprise to all of us. It wasn't really from ME, although I did wrap it for him and hand it to him to wrap. I gave it to him on Christmas Eve, because with Kelsey's illness and Jon's temporary "I hate my family" attitude, it wouldn't have been as easy to just be excited about it had it been opened on Christmas morning in front of the whole family. What was it, you ask? Well, it was a cute little digital device, fairly new on the market. A little white stick about six inches long with a display screen on one end with one simple word to announce........that we are expecting baby number SIX in August of next year!!!!! We are thrilled (even though our family will not be) that God has blessed us again with yet another arrow for our quiver, and we pray that as we grow spiritually that we will be able to do everything for this child and all of his/her siblings that God would have us to do. We pray, as we have with each of our other children, that their hearts and minds will be molded to fulfill His will for them and that they will each become as much of a blessing to this world and His Kingdom as they are to us!

It's amazing to think that next year we'll have an 18-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 3-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 4-month-old around our table at Christmastime! Shoot, who wouldn't want a houseful of little ones like this?