Holiday Cheer

The holiday season is winding down, and we topped it off by visiting the temple to see the lights. It was beautiful as always. I am happy to live so near the temple. Tonight is new year's eve and I am eschewing resolutions in favor of looking back briefly to savor this past year. Resolutions sometimes have a faint undertone of implied inadequacy. It is good to set goals and all, but sometimes I need to just remember that while I'm a work in progress, life is good right now. I have a hard enough time staying in an abundance mentaility and counting my blessings. I don't need to dwell too hard on what I don't have because my brain is pretty good at reminding me of what I lack in times of weakness. All the to-do lists for 2007 will come soon enough.

In the meantime, here is my ta-da list for 2006:

Watched my oldest son choose to serve a mission (not really my accomplishment, but I am savoring it nonetheless)
Put an addition on the house (choosing this option instead of buying a bigger house has allowed us to look forward to paying off the house in about 8 more years instead of 20 or 30!)
Finished teaching all four courses of study in seminary
Celebrated my 20th anniversary
Celebrated my 40th birthday
Used the word "celebrated" for both those milestones and meant it!
Made it back to Maine and loved it.
Started teaching my fifth year of seminary
Spent almost 60 hours alone with Eric for the first time in about 7 years.
Made precious new friends
Kept precious old friends
Joined a book club with no meetings and remembered that I am pretty good at reading and writing and thinking about things beyond seminary lessons and my kids' homework!
Continued teaching knitting lessons and at the Stitches conferences
Gained confidence in my photography skills and took opportunities to get better
Enjoyed my family and watched them all grow taller and more beautiful

So, before you jump into next year and start feeling like there's already too much to do, remember what you've accomplished. You're pretty amazing!

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I did not pose these!

Okay, so these are the moments that make all the challenges of mothering worth it. We got our lovely tall Christmas tree yesterday, got out the ornaments, put out the nativities, hung some garland, and generally made the house festive. In the midst of it all, one of the things Evan and Sara paid most attention to was the stack of christmas books that are always under our tree. They get stored all year with the decorations, so they are fresh every year. I started collecting them when Jeff was born. I captured these images yesterday while we were decorating and today after church. It is a sweet thing to catch your child in the glow of a sunbeam, curled up with a good book.

Another moment that gives me hope that I've actually had an influence on my kids happened late last evening. Eric and I got home from a date around 9:30 pm. As we walked into the house, I noticed an enormous ring around the moon. I ran in the house and told the kids there was something cool to see outside. Bless their hearts if they didn't all just come running out, look up and start oohing and ahhing over the moon ring. Johnathan even wanted to take a picture but we couldn't get the tripod set up fast enough and it was gone. They thought it was as cool as I did. They love the skies and sense in them the same messages of love and evidences of God's grandeur that I do. That makes me so happy.

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