Twas the days before Christmas...

Life is never what we expect it to be.
After the crazy summer of planning and preparing for such a big life change, 
then a busy fall with moving and beginning a new routine,
I never would have expecting to be entering winter with the same busy pace of the last two seasons!  
We moved to SD from MN at the end of September.
It's home.
Somehow, for me, it has felt so right from the moment we started.
I guess I should have expected our new place to feel like home right away.
I should have known that we would enjoy the church family here.
God just does things like that.
But still, we are caught by surprise.

We took the first two weeks off from 'life' when we moved.
No work, no school.
We just spent the time fixing up our house and unpacking.  
Here's a few before and afters for those interested. 
(The first 4 are before shots from the listing site, the rest are our afters)

It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work!
We got quite a bit done, but have quickly realized that projects never end when you are homeowners! 
Following those two weeks, my husband began his new job, and officially started school for the year.  I feel like just now we are starting to get on a better routine, two months later!  The kids have been doing well, and we've made a lot of progress.  We've pretty much stuck to the curriculum plan that I shared here, and I've been happy with it so far!
And yes, those stairs that I thought would be a good 'gate' for Raylee worked for about 1 week before she figured out how to climb up them! Now she's walking along furniture and getting into all kinds of mischief.  

Since the first week of starting school we have...
... had a dear cousin friend and her family come to visit for an extended weekend...
...another special friend and her family come for an extended weekend...
...gone back to MN for a weekend of hunting...
...had another family of friends stay nearly a week as they were in town for a funeral...
...another trip back to MN for Thanksgiving...
...been touched a bit with various flus/bugs...
...and today will welcome my Grandma as she comes to visit for a week or so!! 
My family will be coming for 10 days at Christmas time, and we plan to go back to MN for New Years weekend.  
SO... needless to say, we have not been bored!  
We've enjoyed it, and it's been really  neat to be able to share our life/home with so many already.  We love company and look forward to have more (hint hint).
But because of the crazy, I'm not sure that life has really gotten 'normal' yet.
Though I'm beginning to think that maybe it just never really does.
Also, please continue to pray for us as we face another Christmas without Skyler.  Pray for all of those who are missing loved ones this season, and for those who don't have family to fill their holidays with extra joy.  It can be a lonely season for some.  
We have felt the hole extra lately as we share the traditions we do as a family.   

God fills our lives for a reason.  He gives us seasons of rest.  He knows what we need, so much better than we do.  All we are to do is live.  
As I heard in the message this morning, we are to just live, and watch, loving others, and be ready for the day He comes again.
As we look forward to this Christmas season, and we celebrate His first coming, let us always remember that we are living for that second coming.  
May God bless you and have a very Merry Christmas! 

PS.  I'm not doing Christmas cards this year since I did Easter ones... so consider this yours!