Church - Christmas Edition

I think I posted before that we officially joined Northside Church this year.  I feel like my faith has grown since we started attending and I definitely think I'm in a place at my life where I need to have the faith that Jesus provides.  We went to church the Saturday before Christmas.  It was a family service and it was beautiful.  At the end we each had a candle to light and we sang Silent Night.  It was amazing to see and my iPhone camera doesn't do it justice.  What a beautiful celebration of the birth of our Savior.

Ava Spends the Night

Kaylea invited Ava to come and spend the night with us after the UL vs. UK game Saturday.  They had a good time.  They mostly played together alone, but we did all play the game HedBandz.  It was fun and they are funny to play with.  They sang karaoke in the basement with us and put on a show.  They finally went to sleep around midnight.

Christmas Day 2014

Christmas Morning - magical!  I want to start by saying how proud I am of Kaylea and how she handled Christmas this year.  She was thankful and had the spirit of giving this year.  She was almost as excited to give gifts as she was to receive.  She told me that it was important that we don't leave anyone out at Christmas.  She told everyone thank-you and loved all of her new presents.  

I was in the room when Kaylea woke up.  She looked around and thought Santa had skipped her house.  She said, there are no presents.  I think she was going to cry, but I pointed over by the fireplace and she was excited.  I thought maybe she would be disappointed because there were only 4 presents from Santa, but she wasn't disappointed at all.  I told her she had to wake up Daddy before we opened any presents.  

Santa brought Kaylea a locket, and iPod, a pair of boots, and a game.  He also filled her stocking with a few small things.  Turns out she loved the iPod!  We all shared in the gift giving that morning.

Next, we got in the car to head to Nana & Pop's.  Because Christmas Eve hadn't gone quite as planned, I read Kaylea baby Jesus's birth story on the way.  I found a very simplified version on the Internet that included pictures.  Kaylea asked a few questions and said that she bet Jesus was excited.  Kaylea was excited to see all of the presents.  We hung out at Nana & Pop's.  Kaylea made bracelets with Shannan and puppets with me.  

We came home and my mom wasn't feeling well, but wanted to give Kaylea her presents.  Kaylea wanted to show Mimi her locket.  Kaylea was so good - she discovered a present from Mimi in my room the other day.  I was planning to wrap it, but I saw that it was on sale $10 cheaper so I needed to price match it.  I had no choice but to tell Kaylea it was from Mimi.  I told her she had to act surprised and excited.  Kaylea did awesome :)

I really thought Christmas afternoon was going to end badly.  My mom didn't feel good and she kept saying she didn't want to go out to eat.  We decided to do something different this year.  We usually cook at home, but not knowing what was going to be happening with my mom and if she would or would not be in the hospital, Jordy suggested that we have dinner at Tomo.  We really enjoyed lunch and then returned to our house to celebrate and open presents.  Kaylea was thrilled with all of her presents and said it was the best Christmas ever.  In addition to buying everyone a present, she made canvas art for everyone.  I wish I would have taken pictures of everything she made.  It was all adorable.

Ornament Exchange 2014

Christmas Eve

I worked on Christmas Eve.  I almost always do.  I got the call from my mom around 10am that she was ready to be picked up from the hospital.  I headed to get her.  I really don't know the true reason that I applied for and got this job, but I feel like this cancer is part of it.  It has some flexibility that is going to allow me to really be there for my mom as she goes through these trials.  I brought my mom home and Jordy and Kaylea were there to take care of her while I went back to work.

Below is a picture of the Elf - this is what Kaylea woke up to on her final morning of the Elf.

My mom wasn't feeling well enough to carry out our tradition of going to the Struck's house on Christmas Eve.  It wasn't the same without her, but we tried to have a good time.  Kaylea was awesome.  I think she almost enjoyed giving out presents as much as she enjoyed receiving them.

This is our obligatory picture in front of the fireplace - I think I may have to fire the photographer Kaylea's face :)

Kaylea loved the big horse she got from her Uncle Richard.

Uncle Richard posing for a JibJab video!

Around 9pm I started being worried about my mom.  She wouldn't answer her calls or texts.  I came home to check on her.  We had a very emotional night.  Thankfully, I did not have go back to pickup Jordy because his sister volunteered to bring him home.  My mom and I spent over an hour crying together and just spending time together.  While it wasn't ideal, I was so happy to be there for her and to love on her.  

Kindergarten Christmas Program

Kaylea's kindergarten class had a Christmas program.  Would you know that it was scheduled the same time I was in NYC with my dad for the basketball game?  The rest of the family went.  They sang about 10 songs and each had a speaking line.  Kaylea wasn't afraid with the microphone.  I think she might be a performer.  Trina & Jordy recorded the entire thing for me.

Cookie Decorating

I was pretty stressed about finding time to make and decorate Christmas cookies.  I am blessed with great friends and Katie was super sweet and made us some cutout cookies to decorate.  I knew Kaylea wouldn't care if we made them. I also knew she wouldn't care that we used canned icing to decorate them.  She had a great time.  While I missed following our normal traditions, I was happy that this freed up some time to see my mom at the hospital.

Mimi's in the Hospital

We got some terrible news this past week.  My mom's breast cancer has returned to her lungs.  It is devastating.  She went in for a standard outpatient procedure for a lung biopsy and through complications has spent the last week in the hospital.  Today we got news that she will make it home to celebrate Christmas.  It is going to be a long road.  While there is no known cure for the cancer that has invaded, I'm praying for a miracle.

Lights!

We planned to surprise the family on Sunday night with  a limo ride to look at Christmas lights.  I found a great deal on Groupon and thought with my mom's recent diagnosis, it would be fun to take her.  I remember growing up that my dad would drive us around to look at lights.  Unfortunately, my mom ended up in the hospital so she wasn't able to join us.  We made the most of it and invited everyone over for dinner beforehand.  We made fajitas and then the limo picked us up to take us to the Lights Under Louisville.We had a good time.  I love looking at lights this way.

Madison Square Garden

My dad and  I traveled to NYC for the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Gardens to watch UL take on IU for the first time in years.  After my dad had a state of normalcy for awhile, I invited him to go.  We were there less than 24 hours and it was a decent time.  It was the best time I've had with him in years.  Despite our major flight delays, we made it to NYC in time for the game.  UL won, but it was a great game to watch.  Apparently, I missed Nick Lachey at the game :)

Busy Weekend!

Saturday was busy and mostly because of Kaylea’s social calendar.  She came home after the slumber party and we headed to Derby Dinner to see Rudolph.  Kaylea really loves the stage and watching performances.  She loved the show and watched intently.  The food wasn’t very impressive, but the show made up for it.

After Rudolph we had a couple of hours to relax before Kaylea went to her friend Chassidy’s 6^th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.  We had to drop her off so we could get ready for the paint party at our house that evening.

At 6pm we hosted a mommy & me paint party.  I decided to try this in lieu of hosting a cookie decorating party.  Kaylea picked the design – a gingerbread cookie.  As you can see from the photo, I let Kaylea take over the design and do what she wanted.  She doesn’t know when to stop.  She wanted the eyes to look like real eyes – those are no classes!

We had a long day.  After the kids finished playing and we cleaned up, Kaylea crawled into bed with me.  Daddy was supposed to be out late.  He ended up getting home early and in turn got kicked most of the night!