My heart sings

Rachel LOVES her dance class. The little "Petite Feet" class she attends each Monday evening is such a delight to her that she sings as we drive to her class and she runs as fast as she can to the room where she dances. She always announces to the dance instructor, Miss Bethany, "I here!!!." I can't get her shoes and socks off fast enough. Last night, as soon as I took off her shoes and socks she took off ready to begin! I started talking to one of the other parents and about a minute later, Rachel ran out and said "Mommy, I need to give you a kiss." Oh how my heart sang. I was so incredibly touched and didn't want to let her go when she ran back into my arms. She is such a sweetie and my heart just sings from her sweetness. Thank you God for this blessing! I just had to share and document this tender moment between mother and daughter.

"I feel like a woman"

Have I mentioned that I think Rachel is well beyond her years! Well, she really is! I mean, her speaking ability and thinking is that of someone years beyond her 2 years of life. She has blown us away with the things that she says. First off, this little girl hasn't even heard the English language until she was almost 9 months old and she is almost 29 months old now and you can already have a full blown conversation with her. She understands everything you say to her (and to others for that matter) and one can understand almost everything she says. Let me just give you an example of our conversation this morning on the way to mommom’s for the day:

Dave was playing with Rachel in the kitchen while I was getting ready for work this morning. He was holding her in a position that I couldn't necessarily do and Dave teased saying that "mommy's old." She thought that was funny and said, "Mommy older?" I say, "Yes, mommy is older." LOL. Now we are on our way to mommom's this morning in the car and she says "mommy, I older." I say, "No honey, you still mommy's baby." We go back and forth like that for a little bit and the next thing she sings out is "I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN!" OMG, I laughed so hard and since I'm dealing with bronchitis had a major coughing spell while laughing. Where does she come up with this stuff? The only time I can remember her hearing Shania Twain is when we were watching American Idol the other night and she was a guest judge and they played clips of some of her hits. Seriously, to understand this and use it in the right context at the age of 2 is amazing to me!

I had to share this little story, because every time I think about it I start to laugh. Rachel is amazing and “the things that come out of the mouths of babes” crack me up! I hope this little tidbit of Rachel’s life put a smile on your face this morning because she sure does make me smile.

HOLIDAY FESTIVITIES

Aunt Sandy & Uncle Marion cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

Uncle Marion

Dave and Rachel waiting for dinner.

Jake just got his birthday present...a cell phone!

Rachel and PopPop O'Neal

MomMom O'Neal

MomMom & PopPop O'Neal with Jake and Rachel

My niece, Mary & Jake

Rachel hanging her first Christmas ornament...chinese lomein w/chopsticks

Rachel loved decorating the tree!

Jake makes sure he hangs all his special ornaments too!

What a beautiful smile.

Excited!

Mommy and Rachel

Jake always helps put the star on top of the tree. Of course Dad needs to assist.

Sweet.

Happy Birthday to Mommy.

A special moment.

MomMom and PopPop spoils these kids!

Our first snow fall in December, 2009.

Handsome.

Mmm Mmm good!

Our blessings!

This snow wasn't very good for sledding!

Wipe out! I've fallen and I can't get up!

Our sweet snow bunny.

Wipe out!

Rachel is not happy about snowtime ending.

Ready for school. We are having our Christmas party today.

Beauty.

She is so posing!

Finally! It's Christmas morning.

Yep, Santa was here!

Running into the living room to see what Santa left.

They are so excited! Can you tell by the smiles?

This microphone is one of Rachel's favorites.

Just what I asked Santa for!

Brother and Sister share a moment.

We got lots of these performances.

Our stocking picture.

I love this on Christmas morning. Everyone is happy.

Rachel with her new mp3 player and headphones.

MomMom and PopPop Crist celebrated Christmas with us!

I guess someone was a good girl!

Aunt Debbie and Rachel.

Our house New Year's Eve with friends.

Tina, Zack and Peter! Friends forever!

Wow, the cliché “time flies when you’re having fun” rings so true these days. I can’t believe we said good-bye to 2009 and hello to 2010 already. We have so much to thank God for and this time of year it seems to be even more evident as we think of those who don’t have jobs or who are about to lose their homes and those who can barely put food on their table. I tried harder this year to give to those less fortunate, because no matter how you look at it, there is always someone less fortunate than we are. We take so much for granted in this country. I am reminded of the ministry outreach our church participated in this past Christmas season and that is collecting money to provide wells that will dispense fresh clean water to villages in India. Clean water, something we don’t even think about in this country when we turn our faucet on to wash our face or to just quench our thirst. There are more people than not that don’t have fresh clean water. The “Fresh Water” ministry put some perspective in my life because I’m sure someone out there would love to have my job right now! No matter how we look at it, we are truly blessed.

This time of year is always so crazy for us, because we aren’t just celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, our November and December is bursting with birthday celebrations as well. Between family and friends, I have 15+ birthdays on my calendar and that includes Jake and my birthday too. It’s hard to believe that Jake turned 12 years old this year. He’s officially a tween and I’m not sure what I think about that. I think it’s very bittersweet for Dave and me. Jake is an awesome young man and has been a great son and brother too. It’s amazing to watch him morph into this young man and to see him blossom as a brother, son, friend, grandson and nephew. Jake is funny in so many ways and when you are trying to be serious, you can’t help laugh at his goofiness. As silly and goofy as he may be, he has such a warm heart and is so incredibly compassionate. He made a Christmas storybook for Dave and me as a Christmas gift and for the first time, he touched his father to tears. Dave and I read this book together on Christmas Day and it moved both of us to unspeakable tears. Thank you God for this amazing kid! I pray that he will continue to grow into a God fearing, loving and compassionate man and that he will always remember that we love him more than life itself.

We made our way down south for Thanksgiving to visit my family. We stayed with my sister, Sandy, and her husband, Marion. They are such great hostess’s. For the first time in a long time, we were able to stay at my sister’s home. She is in the process of quitting smoking! How awesome is that? Sandy has smoked since high school and was up to two packs of cigarettes a day. Cigarette smoke is very bothersome to me and truthfully, is unhealthy for my family, so we’ve been unable to stay in her home where we then had to spend money on a hotel. She is down to about 3-5 cigarettes a day and is now only smoking outside her home. I am looking forward to the day when she tells me that she is 100% cigarette free, but until then, I am so proud of her for working towards a very challenging goal. She is hoping that she and Marion will become parents soon through foster care adoption, and so far, she is already proving to be a great parent by giving up smoking for her future child! You go girl!

It was great seeing my family in North Carolina. Rachel did fairly well with the drive back and forth. We visited my parents a couple of times while there. Of course they couldn’t believe how big the kids got. I think my dad is completely smitten by Rachel, even with all her feistiness. I’m amazed how well she does with them since we don’t see them often. My niece, Mary, is turning into such a young lady. Hard to believe she will be 16 in March! Wow, that is crazy to even think about! My brother Paul could use our prayers. He’s been battling a horrible infection in his leg and because of his obesity, the doctors are very limited in how they can treat him. The doctors want to do surgery to remove pins from a prior break in his ankle, but because of his weight, they don’t think he will make it through the anesthesia. I pray that the Lord will give him the will and strength to lose the weight so that he can be a healthier person.

In December, we celebrated my twin nieces’ 8th birthday and horses were the theme this year. My sister and her husband, Mark, adopted them domestically and have been in their lives full-time since they were two years old. Hard to believe they are 8 years old now and in second grade this year. Gabriella and Miranda are beautiful girls with a spunky personality. Rachel adores them to death and they won’t leave Jake alone! They love wrestling with their big cousin. My nephew Johnny, my sister’s oldest, is 20 years old and is serving his country in the Army Reserves. He is hoping to go active sometime this year. Again, “time flies when you’re having fun.” I can’t believe how grown they all are!

We celebrated Christmas differently this year. Normally we spend the morning and early afternoon at home and then head to mom and dad’s for the rest of the day. My sister in-law, Kelley’s father came into town for Christmas this year and she wanted to spend Christmas day at home with him. Sure can’t blame her! With that, we had Christmas with mom and dad and Dave’s brother’s family on Christmas Eve following church service. The kids were so anxious to open their gifts. Mommom and Poppop go completely overboard every single year. Mommom just loves giving the kids what they want and she does a very good job at it too! Seriously, it looked like a toy store exploded in her living room. Rachel absolutely had a ball opening presents. She was such a pro at it too. It was funny to watch. Even my niece, Addison who is a year and half, had a ball. Jake was incredibly spoiled with all the Wii accessories and games he got. Rachel absolutely LOVES her new doll house. The thing is almost as big as her. She didn’t understand what it was in the box, but once it was put together, nothing else matters. It’s not fun pulling her away from it these days. We have major meltdowns. Not only do the little ones get spoiled, but so do the adult kids. Mom really goes out of her way to make Christmas special for all of us.

Christmas day was spent at home where we started the day around 7:00 AM. I couldn’t wait to see the kids’ reaction when they walked into the living room. I knew this year would be more fun for Rachel because she completely understands this year. She even kissed Santa on his cheek when we paid him a visit earlier in the month. Jake was thrilled with his new watch and bike and Rachel loved her guitar and microphone with stand. She put on quite the performances Christmas morning. The kids of course were spoiled, even though we promised we weren’t going to go overboard. Some how it still seems to happen! We spent about 2 ½ hours opening and playing with presents and then I started breakfast where Mom, Dad and my friend, Andrea, joined us. I made eggs, potatoes, pancakes, bacon and biscuits. It was mmm mmm yummy. It was incredibly nice and warming to be home and not have to go anywhere. I mean, I love getting out and about, but it was just so nice to be home with my family. Dave and I did not exchange gifts again this year, although Dave did sneak in a very nice family tree necklace with all of our names inscribed on it, and this year I wasn’t sad about it. I’m just happy and grateful that we can still provide a Christmas for our kids and I was truly reminded how blessed we are while I sat on the couch drinking my coffee and watching Dave help put toys together for our two beautiful kids. It truly brought me to tears. Thank you, God, for giving us a reason to celebrate Christmas…your son, Jesus Christ.

New Year’s Eve was a blast again this year. We always have such a great time with our friends, the Townsend’s and our friend, Andrea. This is our fourth year getting together and the Townsend’s even sleep over which the kids love. We always make surf and turf for dinner…Pete is such a great chef (I think he missed his calling!). When dinner was over, we enjoyed some wine and played games. OMG, we laughed so hard. We played a new game called Polish Uno and I can’t even tell you how much we laughed. We laughed so hard that some even wet their pants! LOL. Believe it or not, all the kids, except Rachel, rang in the New Year with the adults. But we were all in bed shortly after! We always have a nice big breakfast the next morning and then we usually get together again later for dinner. It was so much fun and I really enjoy our New Year’s tradition. I hope it continues for years to come!

I hope this post finds you all happy, healthy and blessed. Happy New Year to you and your family! One of my New Years resolutions is to be better about posting more comments and pictures. Hey, if I posted more, I wouldn’t have to write a book all at once.

Blessings!