Gobble, Gobble!

Dear Joshua and Luke,

It has been another fun week with family and all of the cousins. You have had so much fun with all of your cousins, and of course your aunt and uncles. On Monday, you made a trip to the Thole Dairy Farm - Aunt Sis and Uncle Andy. You were both amazed at the 650 cows that they milk morning and evening - that's over 6,000 gallons of milk each milking! Joshua wanted to know why some cows had blue tags and some cows had white tags on their ears. Daddy interpreted cousin Marge's explanation that the blue tagged calves had daddies on the farm and the white tagged calves had daddies on another farm! Great thinking, Dad! I was very impressed!

Aunt Amy was kind enough to spend her morning with Joshua on a field trip to Pottery Hollow one day too. Dad took Luke and the boys to the park to play ball tag. Isaac and Levi were pretty excited and talk about how much fun they had. Another day was spent at Monkey Joes. Needless to say, fun was had by all. We also celebrated Dad's birthday with a trip through the Way of Lights and dinner at Casa Gallardo. Thanksgiving Day was fairly uneventful, except for the 7:15 pm dinner time, but we had a feast! It was awesome. Mommy took time out of the day to visit Papa Ed who has been very sick and in the hospital. Everyone took part in preparing for a feast! We even had time to make the traditional turkeys with striped cookies, chocolate covered cherries, candy corn, and chocolate frosting! Leftovers on Friday were even better! The kids had more fun with ball tag and kickball at the city park again.

On Saturday morning, daddy and I went out for breakfast and to see The Blind Side. We both highly recommend the movie to anyone who is looking for a little inspiration and a reminder about how we should treat others. Uncle Luke and Aunt Lisa played with you and took you to feed the ducks. We also went to Grammy and Papa's church and dinner at their favorite restaurant. After lots of playing with toys at their house, we finally headed home. Aunt Lisa and Uncle Luke's family headed home this morning and it was very sad to see them go. We had so much fun with all of the cousins and family over the last several days.

Mama has decided not to get stressed this year over the Christmas holiday. Our family focus is going to be on the true meaning of Christmas and experiencing Advent. We are going to spend the time focused on preparing for and celebrating Baby Jesus's arrival. Yes, we are still going to have a great time anticipating Santa, but I am not going to get stressed about finding the perfect gift for each person on my list (sorry!) and I am not going to worry about taking the perfect picture for the Christmas cards, getting cards out on time, getting the decorations up quickly or any of the other tasks that seem to add to the stress. Instead, we will be prayerful and excited as we wait for Baby Jesus's arrival. This week out focus is on two of the three towns that were important in Jesus's life ~ Nazareth where the angel announced Jesus's birth and Bethlehem where Jesus was born. We already had a head start on this lesson as we drove through the shrine and discussed the bible verses.

I love you both very much. Love, Mama