Hello again

So it has been half a year since I have posted on here.  Wow!!  Time flies.

2012 is coming to an end, but not without the usual hustle and bustle of Thanksgiving and Christmas and all that they entail.  Programs, Christmas baking, carols, decorating, some more baking, excited children, hopefully snow!

I am thankful that December has come at last.  November was a long and difficult month, ushered in with two funerals of dear church members and ushered out with the passing of Jeff's Beppe.
A month of contrasts.  A wedding and three funerals (yes, I know that one was October 31st, but that's pretty much November!).  A couple united in marriage and two couples united in heaven.  Mourning the loss of loved ones yet rejoicing that they are with the Lord.  Delighted to visit with family that we haven't seen in a long time yet knowing the visits were due to death. 

Tears flowed.  Hugs were given all around. Whispered words of encouragement. Our Lord gives life and He takes it.  He is our life.  In Him we have a sure and certain future.  So we can smile through the tears.  We can laugh though we are sad.  We can rejoice in the Lord, giving thanks in all things, because we have Hope.
Beppe's house is quiet now during the day.  There is no car outside telling me which caregiver is here today, loving Beppe in her weakness and frailty.  Ministering to her every need.  There is no one there when I pop over to borrow or return things.

Time continues on, unmindful of our sorrows or joys.

And so we find ourselves in December.  Summer asks everyday if tonight is Christmas.  The children sing and play carols on the piano, bake special Christmas cookies, argue and bicker, tease and giggle.  Each day begins with a flurry of getting the three oldest off to school and ends with us all around the dinner table.   The hours between are filled with barn work for Jeff, housework and baking and mothering for me, math and reading and Christmas program practicing for the big kids.  The little girls spend their days playing, helping Mommy, napping and having tea parties.

Thanks to cousin Ana, we have some beautiful pictures from November:

Jeff and I at his cousin's wedding

                           

Daddy and his little girls

Troy

Kate

Emily

Jordyn

Summer