I am thankful. I am thankful for my Jesus, and for all the blessings I have been given.

This Christmas day is a little bittersweet for me. This morning we had a delicious french toast breakfast and had a fabulous time opening presents with the kids. Now they are off to visit the grandparents and I am home alone, sick with the flu. It was unbelievably hard to say goodbye, knowing how much fun the kids were going to be having and knowing that I wasn’t going to be there to be a part of it.

However, I have a quiet house all to myself, a warm blanket, hot coffee, and my sister’s homemade chocolate pecan toffee. I suppose things could be a lot worse.

Merry Christmas and all of God’s richest blessings to you!

We have a family reunion coming up and I am so excited I can’t stand it! The only part of the trip I am apprehensive about is the 5 hour drive there and back. I need to be prepared to keep my 2 and 4 year old children entertained in case they do not sleep. My daughter will probably sleep but if history is an indicator, my son will be awake for most of the way.

This website has some great ideas for traveling with toddlers and preschoolers. These are my favorites:

• Drawing boards - I will have to be sure to bring the Magnadoodle my daughter received for her birthday
• Make a mini car racetrack - you can make this with an old shoebox and markers or crayons, easy as pie (which is actually a flawed comparison, cuz I suck at making pie)
• Sewing cards - this looks fun and easy; you cut thin cardboard into shapes and punch holes all around the edges, and let them thread yarn through the holes
• Teach your kids to like YOUR music - I have a playlist on my iPod with all of Luke’s favorite songs just for playing in the car; it includes R.E.M., The Rolling Stones, Foster the People, etc.
• Cookie sheet magnet board - I could totally use my old cookie pans for this, and just use the magnets off the fridge
• The Animal Game (like 20 questions)
• Name the clouds
• Silly Sound Game
• Tell jokes

I will definitely be keeping all of these ideas handy for our trip next week!

I am always so saddened when I realize I have reached the last bite of my cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream.

Sometimes there’s just never enough.

Slow cooker lasagna, Alfredo spaghetti, Chili Frito pie, Josiah’s cheese biscuits…

These all look good and super easy to make (i.e. less than 5 ingredients each)!

I’ll let you know how it goes.