Christmas Miracles

Dear Kids,

Christmas miracles. That has been the theme for us this year.

Iddy-Biddy back story: In the last 6-9 months there have been some big IRS issues that have come up in our family under the old property management business that we lost and other past transactions with a business that was started and failed from about 10 years ago. We are working currently with a professional to help us with everything, but needless to say it has been tight and stressful. We have experienced a lot of up's and down's financially that have stretched us quite a bit. I say stretched us... I should say has been molding us and putting us through yet another strong "Refiner's Fire" experience.

I am sure it won't be our last "Refiner's Fire". But we have really felt the Lord "lifting our burden to make it light". It has been difficult, but completely worthwhile because of how the Lord is teaching us to be Spiritually Centered and rely on Him and His Son.

Anyway - back to Christmas miracles. We ended up having a decrease in pay with a few things your dad has been doing. Because of how extremely tight we are, going without the littlest bit of cash flow sets us back A LOT and it takes so much to catch back up again.

We have been planning very simple gifts for all of you this year. What I can sew, what we can make and then saving up a little bit of things here and there for a couple of small fun things.

Well, the miracles started happening a couple weeks ago. My neighbor has a blog that she receives things to do reviews on. This time she got a bunch of toys for girls - just perfect for Talia's age. She called me and asked me if I would like a few of these things she got. I was thinking she had a couple of small little things. Oh no, not small. She brought a big box of a bunch of toys that totally covers Talia's Christmas.

I felt like I could help with cash flow by doing some massages. I put it out there and within a week I have had so many appointments with about 3-4 more massages pending. Usually finding clientelle again takes some time... not this time!

Just last week we had someone drop off a couple of jars full of coins to help us. The kids were so excited to see these jars of coins on our doorstep! They thought it was from one of Santa's elves.

Then today some really good friends came and took me shopping (Brenda and Ken Kenworthy). She told me the spirit whispered to her that we needed some help and support. I just cried. They bought us a bunch of fun things for the boys. I was so touched that the Lord would answer our prayers through such an amazing and blessed friendship. She and her husband have no idea about the details of what we have been trying to get through with the IRS stuff.

Then tonight our Bishop showed up on our doorstep and gave us a very generous cash donation from the people in our neighborhood. It will help us to buy some updated shoes and nice clothes for all three of you! Immediately after he left and I opened the letter, my knees hit the floor and I just started sobbing.

I am just so grateful for the Lord showering us with love. It is such an amazing blessing to feel His support and help. We have been very quiet about everything going on... we are not the kind of people to say anything to really anyone! But the Lord knows. He has showed me that faith filled prayers are real, that what goes around comes around, that He hears and helps and guides and lifts.

I have been very alone through other "Refiner's Fire" experiences, but the Lord is showering us with love and help with this one. It has lifted my burden and helped so much. It feels so amazingly good to know that there are angels helping, the spirit is whispering and most importantly that the people in our lives have noticed.

Christmas miracles are real! This all has been such a testimony of listening to the whispers of the spirit... because those whispers are, I believe ALL THE TIME, answers to someone's prayers!

I love you,

Your Mom

Elijah update

Dear Elijah,

So we have been working on words with you. We got into a very bad habit of letting you communicate through grunts and other types of noises and now that you are 2 years old there is some language learning for you to catch up on.

You are getting better and better everyday. I am making you say the beginning sounds of words and making you talk to me more instead of your grunts. I feel bad because there is so much work I did with the other two that I haven't done nearly as much with you because of how much my time is dividing up. I need to read to you more and spend more time with just you.

I am working on that. I also understand why the third child is the party animal. Every friend who comes over to play with Talia or Gabe ends up wanting to play with you instead. Your brother and sister want to just climb all over you all the time. I like to see how much your personality is coming out with your sense of humor. You have a GREAT sense of humor and you are going to be an amazing athlete. Your coordination is already super high.

You want to be involved in everything that is going on. You are always wanting to make sure you are part of what is happening and you know very well if you are being left out of something. Your dad really loves to play with you.

We are starting to get your screaming under control. I feel bad because I know one reason why you screamed so much as a baby is because of how frustrated I felt with you often. Looking back there were so many ways that I was completely frazzled and unfortunately you got the brunt of it. But we are building our relationship more and more in the last few months and I feel better about our relationship than I have felt for a while.

I love you so much,

Your Mom

Natalia update

Dear Natalia,

You, my girl, are quite the little soul.

You are persistent, determined, imaginative and satisfied with playing with leaves and rocks everyday. It doesn't matter what I take away or give to you, stuff just doesn't matter to you at all. However, you are hugely motivated by hugs, loves, snuggles and kisses. You need physical love and attention like crazy.

Your mind is working a mile a minute. You are catching on really well to reading and you are already writing really well for your age. You are understanding social skills like second nature and everywhere you go, there is always a friend that you make. People love to be around you, kids love to follow you around.

You are always saying the nicest things like, "Oh mom, you are so cute." or "Oh mom, you are so beautiful and I love you so much." You are not afraid to show your emotions and share your feelings and thoughts. I think you give people compliments all the time.

You test my patience with your whines that is for sure! You have a squirrel voice and when you whine it is pretty hard to take. I am saying a lot, "I can't understand you when you talk that way." You switch it around. You are an antagonist for both of your brothers so you can have the upper hand all the time.

You are always moving around, you are always wanting to do something. You are a go getter. You love music and you hear music in everything that you do.

I love you so much,

Your Mom

Gabriel Update: Hug from Jesus

Dear Gabriel,

You are amazing to me. I feel like your learning has just jumped up quite a few notches. You are reading on a first grade reading level right now! You are still not confident in your own skills. There are many times when you are afraid to sound something out because you don't want to be wrong. But most of the time you figure out the word and it is perfect!

We are working on your writing. It is coming, more than anything we are reading everyday and you are still working on Rusty and Rosy to help supplement everything else. I have been very particular about who you are hanging out with. Your friends Jake and Jaren from the neighborhood haven't been great friends lately and have been bullying you quite a bit. The problem is that your reactions are so out of control a lot of the time. Which is why they tease you so much. They like to know that they have so much control over you and your emotions. So we have been pulling back from that and you have been playing with other people when we go to park dates and such.

You are so obedient. You are so helpful. I love that about you. You are very aware and very coordinated. You are saying things that are just fascinating to me. you are a HUGE feeler. Last night when I was tucking you in you started to cry and you said, "Mom, I really need a hug. I mean... not from you, but I really need a hug from Jesus." And you just cried. You wanted that hug from Jesus so much! I told you that you could pray for him to give you a hug and you told me that you had already prayed for it. "I already prayed for him to come to me to give me a hug but I haven't seen him yet and I really need a hug from him." So I tried to explain to you that sometimes the hugs we get from Jesus we feel in our hearts more than we see him with our eyes. You thought about that quite a bit and seemed satisfied for a little while with that answer.

You will think about that answer a lot and then you will come to me again with your thoughts about it. Because that is how you are. You are an intense boy when it comes to what you feel.

You are building legos like crazy. The stuff you are building is AMAZING. It is really advanced stuff. I think you have an amazing engineering mind. We shall see how it unfolds and what you show your natural desires and talents are. But they are starting to come out and I love seeing that!

I love you,

Your Mom

Rambles for Processing

Dear Kids,

So there are a lot of things that your dad and I have yet to learn. A HUGE one for our relationship is money. Communication about money. Dealing with money. Not procrastinating money. Being wise in our expenditures... there are so many ways that both of us are very weak in this category.

Unfortunately, we have yet to learn so many lessons because here we are at Christmas time again and we are in the same place we have been for the last 6 years. So it is time to look inward and see what is going on inside of our souls and habits that is causing this horrible pattern to happen again and again.

But the point of going into this is because I want to tell you about an experience that I had yesterday. A couple experiences actually. I mismanaged some things in my account and I overdrew us a couple of times and we received a 50$ fee for it. I tried to talk to the bank about taking even just one of the charges off, but they were unwilling to work with me. I was devastated, especially because we don't have an extra 50$ to give right now. We just don't have it. When I was pulling away from the bank after not getting help from their manager I just started hitting the steering wheel and then I screamed as loud as I could in the car.

The bad part about this is that Gabe and Elijah were in the car with me when this happened. It scared them terribly. Poor Gabe... he was so aware of my BIG emotions and he was very scared about what was going on. I know I made a huge dent in his memory bank with that reaction. I was so upset because of all the building pressure and problems with money, I had to get it out of my system and it just came sailing right out of me. We don't have a lot for Christmas and I hope that we are able to make it through the holidays with as stress free environment as we can.

The last night I sat down to sew Talia a shirt and I messed up the sleeve. When that happened I just started sobbing again. Here I am trying to make something for my daughter because I can't afford to go get her anything right now and I messed it up.

Needless to say I have had a lot of really big emotions lately. Really big. I have been crying and praying a lot. There are so many things in life that are interesting to learn. and we just have to do some work on the inside of our lives to figure out why we keep allowing this to happen.

I know part of my issue is that I have been pointing a lot of fingers. When in reality I need to take responsibility for my part in the whole picture. I have also been unsatisfied because of my expectations not being met. Learning how to "Come what may and love it" is a huge lesson for me. My expectations get me into a lot of trouble. It is a confusing road for me because I don't think I should lower my expectations to something horribly low, but if I keep them so high then I am disappointed when things don't happen in my time frame.

There are so many dreams and things that your dad and have talked about and want for our lives, but getting there has been a hugely rocky road for us. I feel like there is so much talk, when in reality there must be more action involved in order for things to happen. I want to be optimistic, but I want to live my life happy and not stressed out everyday. The hardest part of it all is that I have had no one to process with it all but the Lord. The big details in our lives only the Lord knows about... which I do think is appropriate at this point.

It has come down to just living everyday very much in the present. If I think too far in the future then I get stuck and I get impatient. If I think about the past then I get fearful that it will be like this forever. I have to just stay in the present moment all the time. I have to be present and not try to worry too much about what is going on around me. I know I should be journaling more of the day to day experiences that I have and sometimes it is impossible to capture the emotion of what I feel  and try to really portray what it all looks like and means to me.

Most of all, I hope that I can help to break this pattern for my kids. I hope that I didn't cause too much trauma for Gabe! I will explain it to you if you ask me and do my best to help you know how I feel in a more healthy way.

I love you guy,

Your Mom