It's Christ-mas weekend

It's the most beautiful time of the year!  Whether snow or rain or sunny skies, the heart changes at this time of year.  Or at least it should.  For most people it's about family and love and the warmth inside minded. 

For some, maybe they were homeless this year after so many years of "having" and this year the bottom fell out, they had no place to go but the streets.  For some they are living in little communities of squaller type digs. The paper here the other day, said down by the beach there were 11 communities.  A few churches have opened their doors to house them and feed them.  We as a church body are to care for one another. 

This Christmas we watched God turn hurt into His Glory!  Pain into Incredible Love!  It was a beautiful Christmas.  This year, the gifts weren't expensive, they weren't.  They were simple and well-thought out, but we had so much fun doing that.  Here's a pic of what we did for two of the grand kids- We had so much fun collecting a ton of shells!  We even had help from a gentleman who was on his last day of vacation and collected some really neat ones that were still whole and oh, so beautiful.  We even found a few sand dollars, one even whole.  We collected a huge bag of them.  The two incredible comments for us this year was from Joel and Fionia.  Joel " This was the best Christmas ever, because everyone was here and I got everything I needed!"  Fionia " We just love those shells, thank you so much"  Gramma Pat gave them a history lesson with the shells, and they learned where Florida was and how the shells hosted animals. 

It was a heartwarming day!  

We spent Christmas with the grandchildren and our kids.  It was so much fun, we went over the river, through the woods, over the bays, around a few bends, at 4 a.m.  We got there about 6:30 after Christy called and said I passed down something to her, she really didn't appreciate it either! LOL!  I have always been so excited about Christmas until all the children all left home, than it wasn't as exciting.  But this year it was super!  So, anyway, she called at 5:30 a.m. and said thanks, I haven't been able to sleep and have been up since 4 a.m.!  She said I passed this to her! Yeah me!  Now, as a mom of grown children, and no real reason to get up so blasted early, I love sleeping at least until 6 a.m.! 

So, here are pics of our wonderful weekend!



Steve collecting shells for the grandgirls!





Getting bowled over by the waves, didn't see that one coming!



And then came Santa!

It's only 7 a.m.!  Kids slept in!  They were ready!



"Yeah, look what I got!"

  

"Oh Yeah, COFFEE, KONA COFFEE"





"It's a train table, even Sophia can reach it"




Aren't those boots fashionable, especially with Jama's!



So, to the end of all this...

What are your hopes and dreams for the next year? 

What do you want to happen in your life that didn't happen this year? 

What dream have you hung onto that you just haven't done because it just wasn't the time to do it? 

It's time, take that dream, step out in that faith maybe you just don't think you have but you really do posess, it is in your hands and ultimately God's hands. 

Ya know, you were born with dreams and visions of that God gave you, but when you were a child you had them, maybe somewhere along the way someone said something that hurt and those dreams got buried under the hurt.  Pray about it, think on those things and unbury them, figure it out and do it. 

For me, I wanted to be a rodeo clown- well- I played with a few "bulls" over the years. 

I also wanted to be a trucker- because I wanted to travel the country- we travel the country in a smaller truck and an RV travel trailer working. 

But I always wanted to be a mom, since I was about 10 yo, I wanted to be something to someone else. 

Albeit, I look back and I know I wasn't a wonderfully great mom, I tried but I think in some ways I failed.  I think maybe we all do in certain ways.  There are no parenting schools, only by trial and error do we do parenting.  We can read all the books but our children are so incredibly unique, there isn't another child just like ours.  Isn't God incredible!  Sometimes one thing works for one child it doesn't work for another.  It's true with rearing my children!    Anyway, enough!   

Merry Christmas and my your dreams come true!