Last December 21st I got the best early Christmas present I've ever gotten.  Lucky me, it is the gift that keeps on giving.  On the 21st, our sweet little love turned One!  Can you believe it?  I'm so happy/sad.  Happy that we have such a wonderful little son.  Sad that time insists on flying by.

Jason was a little tired by the time we got to cake.  Tired and slightly worried about the giant cake we kept shoving in his face.  The rest of us were having a great time, however.  :)

(By the way, I added a few videos on this post.  Blogger was struggling to accept them, so I had to use photo bucket.  If you want to see the video big enough to actually see who is in it, you should press on the full screen button that looks like a square.  Otherwise, enjoy the micro-videos.)

Here we have our big boy with his brand new build a bear.  I got each of the kids their bears when they were about 1 year old also.  The kids named Jason's bear, "Wilson".  He has red hearing aids.  (isn't that cute? Jason like to eat Wilson's hearing aids almost as much as his own. Pill.)

On Christmas Eve, Jason took a grand total of 7 steps over to Lindi.  We didn't get that one, but the we filmed the next attempt.  It was as many steps, but just as cute.

And here is a little clip of big-boy Jason walking one-handed with daddy. This is all hard work for someone so small, but I think he's up to it. (again, these videos are seriously miniature. Full screen them or you will give yourself a headache trying to stare at them.)

Christmas music is blaring behind me.  The kids and Robert are gathered around the Christmas tree playing Monopoly (I graciously bowed out since it is really just a 4 person game.  I won't mention that it is my absolutely least favorite game on this good green earth.  It just goes on FOREVER!)  So we are ready for Christmas.

But WAIT!  I never posted anything up from Thanksgiving!  How embarrassing.  Well, we still have two days before Santa comes and so I'll just sneak this little post in today.

Thanksgiving was so much fun.  Mom and Dad Jones and Tonnette came to spend the holiday with us.  Lindi wasn't feeling well, which was very sad,  but I was secretly very pleased to have everyone staying at our house.  Don't tell on me.  :)  And it was fun.  We got to have big breakfasts in the morning and play games at night.  During the day we were able to go over and spend time with Nathan and Lindi when she was feeling up to it and we were able to give her some space when she wasn't.  And of course, there was the cooking.  I cannot tell you how much better cooking a Thanksgiving meal is when Grandma and Grandpa keep the kids busy.  Especially Jason.  There were so many helpers around that things happened even when I wasn't looking.  Dishes would be washed.  Children fed.  It was like Christmas.  (No. No. No.  Not Christmas....not yet.)  

One day we tried to go to Hoover Dam, which is what every other family in Nevada was trying to do at the same time and so we decided to hike around a random hill instead.  It was all the same to the kids!

On Thanksgiving day we all got together at Nathan's and ate and ate!  I still have to get the recipe of homemade stuffing that Lindi made.  I think that is the first time I've ever eaten stuffing that wasn't from a box.  Delicious!  It was so much fun to get everyone together.  So much fun, that I failed to take many pictures.  Well.  Actually.  I only took one.  *gasp!*  I know.  So very unlike me.  To make things worse, it wasn't the most wonderful picture, but here it is nonetheless.

Despite the twins and Anna being whited out by the sun...doesn't that all look very yummy?  It was.   Good food.  Good company.  That makes for the best kind of Thanksgiving, if you ask me.  A big thank you to Mom, Dad and Tonnette for making the trip down.

One morning Nathan got Robert, Dad and Tonnette to go shooting with him.  It looks like they enjoyed themselves.  A lot.

Beside all the fun we were having for our Thanksgiving crew, we found out how cool it is to be living in-between Utah and California.  It turned out that Jim and Steph were going to CA form UT to Stephanie's Dad's house for Thanksgiving and Spencer and Lisa were going to Mom's house in Payson from San Diego for their Thanksgiving.  So before Thanksgiving, both families criss-crossed each other and stayed one night at our house to cut their trip in half.  They missed each other by a couple of days, but on their return trip, both families were here the same night.  That meant that we had Mom and Dad Jones, (Tonnette had left the day before) Jim, Steph, Yve, Oliver, Spencer, Lisa, Myles and Ellie here for one night.  I realized how much fun being a half-way house is.  

Here are their pictures all mixed together from both mini-visits.

Alaina and Ellie

Alaina and Yve

Jimmy was here for his Birthday so Rob made him a gigantic pancake to eat with a weird little candle we found.  Jim was a sport and somehow ate the whole thing (even though I told him he din't have to.)

Austin, Myles, Ethan.

We spent the morning before Spence went on to Utah at the park.

And the boys love Uncle Spencer.  I don't know why.  It's a mystery.

Overall, the before, Thanksgiving itself, and the after was all full of family and laughter.  It made me even more Thankful for my entire extended family.  

Whew.  We made it.  Now, let Christmas come!

Last Friday, in Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza walked onto Sandy Hook Elementary and started shooting.  He killed 20 children ages 6 & 7 and 6 adults.  This isn't breaking news, anymore.  Everyone knows about it.  Coverage has been relentless over the last 5 days.  You have probably read more than you care to about the subject.  So forgive me, if I take a few minutes to write down a few of my thoughts.

I started scouring articles online the moment I heard of the tragedy.  It was so horrific that I could hardly believe the words that I read.  Every article I read made me cry.  I cried for the insanity of it.  I cried for the grief that the families were going through.  I cried looking at the pictures of the sweet babies who were lost. I cried at the very thought of something so unforgivable happening to my own little loves. The last time I remember feeling so emotionally connected with something that happened to strangers was on 9/11.

Still, I read on.

In this day of instant information, you can watch, minute by minute, a tragedy play out.  You and I, who live on the other side of the United States, found out the names of the victims almost as soon as their own parents did.  Perhaps that plays a part into how deeply the whole dark event affected me.  Raw emotion seemed to seethe out of each report.  In the live news clips, not even the reporters seemed to be able to keep any distance between themselves and the senselessness.

Still, after each article, I was able to wipe off my tears from the computer, stand up and get back to whatever I happened to be in the middle of.  Making dinner.  Listening to Christmas music with the kids.  Reading a few more chapters of Fablehaven at the dinner table.  We'd laugh, go shopping,  get our homework out and we'd chide our children.

It worries me that I can live with such a stark dichotomy of emotions.  I feel so much sorrow and empathy for the ones affected, however, a click later, I am joking around with my kids.  It is almost like I'm reading a very sad novel that I can put down whenever I feel like it.

I feel ashamed at admitting this.  How is it that I can have such a disconnect between these two realities.  And if I'm admitting my most secret thoughts, I should also add that I also feel relieved that it wasn't me.  Relieved that it happened across the United States and not in my backyard.  (Our school actually is quite literally in our backyard.)   How horrible it is to say, "Thank goodness it's not me." while so many are crying, "Why me!"  But, in a hushed whisper, I say it.

I know it is important to take as much away from the experience as I can.  I'm positive that these poor, bereft parents would never wish the same to happen to anyone else.  I can imagine, however that they want us to take each moment we are gifted and hold it up as our most valued possession.  As indeed it is.

Every day, I've hugged my children a little closer to me.  I've made them a few more cups of hot chocolate and baked a little bit more than my usual.  Enjoying my family just a little bit more intensely doesn't change anything.  The news keeps filtering in.  Everyday 3 or 4 more funerals are being held.  3 or 4 tiny little caskets are being lowered into the ground.  Voices from around the world are clamoring to find a reason any of this happened.  Of course, there is no reason.  Not a reason that would make any sense to a sane mind.

And today I felt something even a little more scary than before.  I felt like not reading the news today.  I  didn't care to dwell on the grief and sadness that is never going to end for so many families and an entire community.  Instead, I felt like taking a shower and cleaning my kitchen.  How easily I have begun to move on.  I still feel sad when I think of it, but Christmas it here and I have presents to wrap and errands to run.

I managed to travel from being overly emotionally invested to passively sad in a terrifyingly short amount of time.   As the horror of this calamity starts to fade into the back of my mind, I hope that I keep, at least, a sharp sense of how quickly our time can be cut short.  Even if nothing ever befalls any of my children,  (please, please, let this be so) I know that this small time of wonder and innocence already passes too quickly.

This Christmas, I will send my prayers and heart out to the families who will have untouched presents under their Christmas trees.  I'm not sure how else to honor the lives of those sweet, tiny, strangers that flashed into my life through a series of computer images.  I feel compelled to try.  I'll try hard to be a better person and a better mother.  I'll work at getting frustrated less and appreciating more.  I'll love my family just a little more fiercely.

Now I'm looking at another computer image; one of my four smiling, beautiful children and very wonderful husband, and I wish I could capture, the happiness that each one of those faces have brought into my life.  (Imagine, the collection of laughs and giggles we could collect, flitting around like fireflies in a mason jar)

No matter what future lays in wait for me and my loved ones, I hope that I can always remember all of the joy that I have been given in my lifetime.

To all my friends and family.  I love you.  I'm grateful for your grace and for the friendship and love you have always offered to me and my little family.  I am thankful that my heart is full of experiences from every turn and challenge I ever had, where someone has reached out and touched my life. 

For this Christmas and for all the Christmases to come, I wish you happiness, joy and peace.  

Merry Christmas