Where Have I Been??

I hate that I have been away from my blogging life for so long, but I promise I'm coming back. Life would not slow down for me to even go to the bathroom alone so as you can imagine to sneak away to blog was impossible.

We had some of our close friends and their four children in from Texas for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun and we loved having them. We celebrated Zac's 8Th birthday on Thanksgiving Day.

My milk almost dried up due to busyness and stress and trying to get it back was worse than having twin newborns. For those of you who are wondering how in the world do you get it back well, lots of rest and constant nursing. Rest...what's that? I had to get it back since I plan on nursing Cal until he's four, since he's the last baby and all. Okay so maybe not quite that long, but I wasn't ready to wean him at 5 months.

I got my milk back and then 3 of the six kids took turns being sick. Then of course H and I got sick also. Just after this drama we just moved on to the next one. I felt God confirming the call I had been feeling to pull Zac and Ryland out of school and bring them home to home school. Kylie, my 8th grader, is at home but my technique for schooling her is "Hey Ky go school yourself". No...... not really, well maybe. Zac is 2ND grade and Ryland is 1st and even though it sounds a little crazy I am very excited about it. Some where in the middle of all this I did get my hair done.

Well then, we had Christmas and you must know I love, love, love Christmas time. It is by far my favorite time of year. I love the lights, cookies, trees, parties and fires. I love all of the smells, Christmas cards, and feeling that it would be okay to just relax and be with family and friends. I love Christmas music and telling the Christmas story to my children. I love the conversations we have about Jesus and the hope that Christmas gives us all.

Just before Christmas we had a "FREE GARAGE SALE". Me and the kids cleaned out toys, clothes, bikes, baby items and packed it up to take into a very poor area of town. I loved watching their little hearts have compassion for those who have less and decide that they wanted to give a toy they really liked because they "just knew another little boy or girl would love this toy". We went with our small group and set up in an open field and gave. We advertised for people to come and Christmas shop. We had cookies, cider and hot chocolate in the morning and hot dogs for lunch. We had a fun jump for their kids to enjoy while they shopped and a wrapping station where we wrapped all of their gifts for FREE!! People could not believe it was all free. Getting to see and hear of peoples thankfulness was a gift to our family. There were so many stories. One lady with tears in her eyes told us she did not know what she was going to do. They just weren't going to have Christmas this year. I can't explain what this did for all of our hearts.

Then we had picture day. You know the day, it's the day when you prepare for the Christmas card photo. The whole family gets dressed all nice and we all pose and smile for the perfect photo(nothing like real life). I beg Hans every year to let some one come over just to take the picture for us, and he insists every year on propping the camera on something (this year a diaper box), and then setting the timer while he makes a mad dash to get in the picture. Right when the picture snaps the little ones are turned around looking at daddy to see where he's going in such a hurry.

But we made a pact that this year was going to be different. This year no one was going to fight or talk ugly we were going to make picture day a good memory for all involved. I was still upstairs getting ready when I hear Hans and Zac going at it. Tears and major frustration and they were only taking test shots. I'm sure you can imagine this got everything off to a good start. In the middle of the picture I had to stop to nurse since Cal was trying to latch on to anything that moved and after that everyone was done. Nice. We should have just sent you the one where I was nursing and everyone else was either crying, yelling or whining and Tinslee was eating a candy cane just to keep her in the room. That would have been some real family life from the Molegraaf's. So why in the world do we do it?? Because after all of the hard work we hopefully get at least one cute photo and I know we love to get every one's so it's become a Christmas tradition.

We went home to Texas to be with family for Christmas and it was wonderful. We are back home. The decorations are down. Hans went back to work, and the kids and I start school on Monday. I wish it were Christmas everyday!