New Year blessings

I'm back! Happy 2015! Sorry I have been out of commission for a while. Lots of busy-ness in December with illnesses three out of four of those weeks from someone in this household.

I wanted to start off the year in gratitude. So, this first post is things I am grateful for. One thing I am grateful for is the beauty of the house at Christmas. Something as simple as wreaths on a window and  candles glowing from the inside makes instant beauty.

Inside the house was our Christmas tree. We enjoy buying it at the fire hall Christmas tree lot each year. I feel like I am in a Hallmark movie. Except the kids are running around acting like goofballs.

This is the mantel this year. Special thanks to my aunt and uncle that handed down that big wreath to us last year.

Now I am going to digress a minute back to November and fall. But one thing I am grateful for is fog. I love it. I went out to get the trash can one morning and saw this great fog, so tried to get a photo of it without using my flash. A bit hard, but as you can see, you can't even see the intersection ahead.

Now onto Christmas....I started off in bed. I got the flu. I felt like I was fighting something for two weeks, but then alas, the fever came on and there was no turning back. Two days later, Ben got it. The whole house, but me, was put on Tamiflu, either for help or for precaution. That stuff works. I spent lots of hours in bed, which actually was a blessing. It forced me not to do any of those last minute Christmas projects that didn't need to be done anyway. And see? I'm still smiling. I must have been doped up.

  Christmas morning rolled around and we rallied for celebrating!

 Eddie got calculators!

 Ben got a Star Wars puzzle!

 And sorry...but that is basically all the pictures I took for the next week. I just couldn't lift a camera for a while. I was just happy to be vertical.

We had a nice visit from Peirce's mom, Rupert, Will, Tricia and the kids. It felt really nice to socialize again. The weather was warm and we even got to spend some time outdoors. Again, sorry I took no pictures!

 A few days later, we celebrated Christmas with my dad and Kathy. 

  Eddie received this Young Architect planner thing. It is really cool.

 You can design your own houses. He got right to work.

 We also got to work on the gingerbread house kit. It made four cute little houses. There was fussing that the buildings kept collapsing and a certain mother saying, "They always fall! Just deal with it!" But, they "stuck" with it and ended up creating some really cute designs. They wanted to eat them right away, but a certain mother then said, "No, we need to stare at them for a few days first." I mean, really, after all that, I want to enjoy the fruits of the labor and bask in their beauty.

I hope everyone is healthy and enjoying the new start to a new year!