FINALLY...I'm in a holly jolly mood!

It wasn't easy, and I may not have handled the obstacles that came my way very pleasantly (sorry!),
but...

We finally made it to our new (temporary) home last night, and guess what:

It finally feels like Christmas!

If you didn't get your fill of unwrapping things and opening boxes, feel free to come on over and I'll let you open some of mine.

It's good to be "home."

Stuck

Snow is not my friend. I'm sick of snow. (Clarification: Snow is fine, as long as it stays off the roads, doesn't cancel school the last week before Christmas break, and doesn't give me cabin fever.)

Will we ever make it to our new home? I'm not sure. Will it ever stop snowing? It doesn't look like it will.

Will the Northwest ever learn that snowplows are not just convenient, but necessary?!

Will I ever have to move in December (in the snow) again? I hope not.

What am I thinking!?

I keep find myself asking that question. Like last night, for example. We had to have Family Home Evening, moving week or not, and we have got to have just a little bit of Christmas around here, so the girls and I got busy making beaded angels. What was I thinking, starting a project like that? And then I spent hours sitting in a chair in my kitchen while Jennifer colored my hair, and wondered how I could possibly get everything done today before the moving company invades the house tomorrow. And what was I thinking when I told Doug that I could handle all this moving stuff while he's working at his new job, and we only see him on the weekends?!

And sometimes I ask myself what was I thinking when I decided that it would be less stressful to have the moving company pack my stuff than to box it all up myself? It may be less physical exertion, but it's not less stress. That's my conclusion. Because I still feel the need to organize and purge every corner before they do the packing. And then I still won't know exactly which box holds whatever I'm looking for when we move in to the new house.

And now, what was I thinking starting this post, while out of the corner of my eye watching two little girls in the tub who now need to get out and I can't finish what I started here.

But let me just tell you this: I really strongly dislike four-legged furry things that want to share my living space. And this time, it's not a racoon in the back yard space. It's a rodent-type thing in the attic space. I'm not kidding.

Two nights ago, Lauren called me into her bedroom a few minutes after I had said goodnight, and whispered to me, "My bed is making noises." It wasn't her bed, but she does sleep on the top bunk, which is very close to the ceiling where a mouse (or whatever) was making it's scratchy noises. I HATE that sound. A lot.

This was Lauren's prayer at breakfast:

"...I don't want the mouse to die, but please make it go away and not come back, so that I can go to sleep at night, because Emily just ignores it, but I don't know how to do that."

And I told her I'm praying for the same thing. Not because I think it would be sad, like she does, if the mouse died, but because I think I might lose it if I have to remove it (dead or alive) myself.

And I don't need one more reason to "lose it". I have plenty of others!

Finding Time for Family

Since we're spending a few weeks apart - Doug is working at his new job, and the girls and I are trying to button things up here at home - it was nice to have a Family Reunion scheduled during this busy time. It gave us some valuable time together. We spent a few hours in cramped spaces (planes, trains [if you count the airport ride between terminals], and automobiles) :

and we spent a few days with all these people in the same house:

(It was a pretty big house!)

We had each other, we had cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, we had sunshine, we had a Wii, and we had a pool. What more could we need to be perfectly content?

Tradition

What do these movies have in common?

• Aladdin
• The Adams Family
• My Girl
• Enchanted
• Bolt

These are a few of the movies I remember seeing in the theater on Thanksgiving days. It's a great place to "fat dog" after a fabulous turkey feast.