Merry Christmases

We were wonderfully blessed with many Merry Christmases this year.

The first was our Little Christmas before we left for Kansas.

Daisy bought Zekers a ring for when he grows up to give to his wife.  

Next was Christmas with Dad's side of the family, from the matriarch Gma E, through her children and their children and their children.  We had some game playing going on thanks to Kimmy.

Then we had Christmas Eve with the Hoard family.

After that Santa hit us up.

When we got back from Kansas we found our stockings had been filled.

Last, we celebrated with Grannie and Grandad Daniels.

We had many wonderful Christmas celebrations spent with our families.  As much as I try to remind my kids that Christ is the best gift ever and that's why we give gifts now, the message can get mumbled as they're tearing through the gift wrap.  This year my heart breaks for the many families who lost loved ones  over the past few weeks.  Christmas will never be the same for them.  My prayer for those families is that Christmas will not be a sad reminder for them of their loss in the years to come, but a time of hope and joy for what awaits them.  Joy that because God sent his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.  Joy because one day we will not only be reunited with loved ones that we have lost, but we will spend eternity rejoicing in the presence of God.  That is my prayer for all.

All Is Merry And Bright

I love December.  There's my whole Birthday Month thing, which is great.  Here we are blowing out the candle on my birthday white chocolate popcorn cake.

But I also love all the build-up towards Christmas.  Decorating, lights, parties, goodies, Christmas music, visiting Santa.  I like to cram as much of it in as possible.

Some of the latest things going on in the Daniels' house:

Daisy:  "You wanna know how to say Happy Thanksgiving in Spanish?  Elise Doddy-da."  You may be more familiar with its cousin, 'Feliz Navidad,' who of course is referring Merry Christmas.

Zekers climbed a tree, so naturally the others wanted up there, too.  Daisy tried but got scared and quit.  When she tried again Zeke encouraged her, "That's my girl.  That's perseverance."

Elijah throws down mostly good one-liners.  "Chip.  Here."  (As he's pointing to his plate.)
[Frito] Pie.  Outside.
Daisy.  Hurt.  Ouch.  (As he's pointing to a body part.)
Shoes.  On.
Car.  Daddy.
etc.

And then there's Frito Pie.  One evening Abe gave her a bunch of left-over juice from the crock pot.  Of course she loved it.  Going down, that is.  The next evening she was up and pacing all night.  I took her out once to go pee pee (recently she peed on the rug, so I thought I was being proactive).  I walked her out on the leash because she doesn't come when you call her and she likes to run and bark at all the nocturnal animals at night.  She went potty so I thought we were good.  Nope.  When morning arrived she had the cha-cha-chas.   In 2 spots. Yeah.  Ewww.

So the next night when she was pacing around, even though it was night and there is that whole wild animal-barking thing, I stuck her out back.  Not making that mistake two nights in a row.  Around midnight she would not stop barking.  When I finally went out she had just caught an opossum.  It was playing dead.  I wasn't going to get too close to try to catch the dog, who was of course all kinds of worked up.  Thinking it was playing dead and the dog would lose interest soon, I went back to bed.  For some reason the opossum got up a minute later and the dog was going crazy again.  Once again, I didn't want to get in the middle of it, so I left her.  Around 2 a.m.  I awoke from a dream about Frito Pie barking and Dad and Crystal (my niece who goes hunting) geting ready to shoot my dog.  Turns out she was really barking ~ still.  Yes, 2 hours of non-stop barking.  Our neighbors were loving us.  At this point Abe went out.  He finally threw a big toy car at both dog and opossum to distract them.  It worked.   Dog got caught and opossum got away with its life spared.

Thank goodness no more eventful nights with the dog.  She has been in the house every night since with no cha-cha-chas.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

The whole DanFam5 kicked in to help deck the halls this year.  'Help' is a term I am using very loosely.

"Are those ornaments glass?"  I asked Abe.  He picked one up, tapped on it and looked inside it.  The words "I'm not sure," were barely off his lips as we heard the sound of shattering glass over in the general area of where our youngest was standing.  There was the answer to that question.

The migration of all the ornaments from the bottom 2 branches of the tree to the top 2 inches of tree is taking place much quicker this year than normal.  Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.  Especially when it comes to 22-month olds and Christmas trees.