2012  --  A rough year and a blessed year.  More blessings than not, but the not was bad enough for me to be glad that 2012 has come to an end while I will hold on to the blessings tightly and carry them with me into the new year.

This year, Daniel got a best friend...and not just any best friend, but a best friend that is so much like him and that comes with the added benefit of parents I adore and consider to be the best of the best as friends.  

This year, I became more involved in a Homeschool Group and have gained friendships that I value more than anything.  I have prayed for years for friendships like these and God has rewarded me greatly.  The wisdom they share, the laughs we have and the camaraderie is priceless.

This year, I have watched my daughter mature and grow.  We have become closer, if that is possible.  I attribute our relationship to homeschooling.

This year, we experienced hardly any sickness minus a cold here and there and Daniel's unfortunate Christmas day illness (I think it was food poisoning from the night before).

This year, we made adjustments in our school structure that have proven to be very beneficial to me and the kids.  Daniel is now working ahead...so far ahead that I am not sure what grade level he is really on.  Sierra is not working ahead, but she is working on mastering her skills and I could not be prouder of her progress.

This year, money was tight...tighter than we have had in years....and we never went hungry, we always had a roof over our head, we always had electricity to keep us warm/cool, we never really went without and learned a new level of dependence on God.

This year, my daughter has grown almost as tall as me and my son has begun to experience growth spurts himself.

There is more I could list....there are all the small blessings....but you get the idea.  2012.  

2013 holds a lot of promises for us...promises I can't wait to experience.  Our journey of homeschooling will continue and my expectations are high.  Sierra will start High School in 2013, which is pretty depressing.  My goal is to finish a book I have been writing for a couple years (and by a couple years, I mean I started a couple years ago and have not touched since).  Matt and I will celebrate 15 years of marriage.  Sierra will go to her first semi-formal dance.  Daniel will continue on his crazy road with his friends as will I.  Matt and I will, like so many others, endeavor to get healthier, physically and financially.

So, thank you 2012 for a year of ups and downs...but excuse me if I give you this quick goodbye as I welcome in this new year!!

So, it has become tradition for us to, each Christmas, have a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake as our Christmas dinner dessert.  I found a recipe years ago for a Olive Garden copycat that is really really great.  For the past couple years, though, we have received, as a gift from a friend, a whole White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory as a Christmas present.  This year, we did not receive the cheesecake and I asked my family if we should just buy a cheesecake which my answer was a resounding NO.  I was going to have to make it.

So, Christmas Eve was the day.  I wanted to bake the cheesecake on Christmas Eve so it would be set and ready for Christmas dinner.  It was a bit of a problem from the beginning.  I have not made this recipe in years and it has a lot of moving pieces...you have to make the raspberry sauce by cooking raspberries, cornstarch and sugar to boiling until a thick sauce is formed...then you must strain it from the seeds.  Also, you must make the white chocolate which is, in a double broiler, white chocolate and half and half.  And you also have the cheesecake mixture going in the mixer (to which you will add the white chocolate sauce to).

Everything was going great...raspberry sauce was cooking and thickening properly.  Cheesecake mixture was mixing up well.  But, the white chocolate sauce seemed so thin...almost watery.  I couldn't figure it out.  I went ahead and added the mixture to the cheesecake mix, making the cheesecake mix so liquidy.  I knew, instantly, that something was wrong.  I put the oreo mix into the bottom of the pan and pressed it in.  I added half the cheesecake mix which poured in like a thick liquid.  My heart sank as I added raspberry sauce and it just sunk right into the liquidy mixture.  Next, I added the second half of the mix and added the raspberry sauce on top.  It looked like a mess and I knew INSTANTLY that this was a mistake of some sort.  I searched my recipe over and over and could not figure it out.  What had I done wrong.  Recipe wise, I followed the directions implicitly.  Than I thought to look at the half and half container and saw that I was supposed to shake it vigorously (I am sure to mix the half cream with the half milk).  Who knew??  I do not drink coffee...  I just knew that the white chocolate was just melted with mostly milk.  I knew, without any doubt, that the cheesecake was ruined.  

I cried...I wailed...I put it in the oven declaring Christmas dinner RUINED!!  Matt, ever the optimist, said all would be fine but I knew...KNEW...it would NOT.  So, Matt went to the store and bought the same ingredients all over again.  I let the first cheesecake bake out of curiousity of how it would turn out while the second one was put together.  I shook the HECK out of that half and half and the white chocolate sauce appeared to, once again, get liquidy.  Not wanting the same thing to happen again, I only put half of the mixture into the cheesecake.  It was thicker and the raspberry mix didn't just sink and it made for a much prettier cheesecake.

Last night, Christmas night, Daniel was sick.  He was in bed by 6:30.  We, Sierra, Matt and I, decided to try the "ugly" cheesecake that while not pretty, had appeared to cook properly and set.  We saved the "pretty" one for later today.  Well, let me tell you...it was GOOOD!!  Very creamy.  Very cheesecakey.  No issues, taste wise.

So, how is this a metaphor?  Well, this Christmas season has been our most challenging one.  As so many others throughout the country, the recession has made life challenging.  We knew this Christmas would be hard to do all we wanted to do and so we made plans...had it all sorted out.  Knew with what paycheck we would do what.  As what happens, life got in the way.  Unexpected bills....an illness that blocked a week of overtime...etc.  There was doubt that we would be able to do half of what we wanted to do and many things did get lost (outside decorating did not happen this year....oddly due to not finding what we wanted...but a blessing to not spend money on something so frivolous).

I spent much time feeling in despair over how this was going to work...calling Christmas RUINED.  I am such a pessimist.

But, just like the "ugly" cheesecake, Christmas had it's ugly parts, but turned out sweet (though the day itself was full of despair with Daniel being sick....).  We did all we wanted for the kids....no one was disappointed....Christmas was creamy, sweet and delightful...not ruined at all.

There are many favorite things that we love about Christmas.  The music.  The lights.  The decorations.  The warm fuzzies.  The hot chocolate.  The fudge.  The parties.  The tree.  The ornaments.  And....the MOVIES!!  I love Christmas movies from the cheesiest Lifetime/Hallmark movie to the blockbusters.  There is nothing better than cozying up in a nice warm blankie while watching a Christmas movie.

One of our favorites are all the ones featuring the mascot of Christmas, Santa Claus.  When I first became a mom, we decided we didn't want to "do" the Santa thing...that is have our kids write Santa a letter, tell them stories of Santa coming down the chimney, and leaving cookies and milk out as payment for presents.  We struggled with the movies featuring this jolly old guy...fearing confusing our children on whether he is real.  We must've really thought our kids were dumb seeing how they would watch things like Barney or Elmo or any number of Disney characters and love them in all their fictional, fantastical glory.  It didn't take long to break out those great classics about a reindeer with a shiny nose, a living snowman that is confused about birthdays, a kid who is left at home by himself, and all the rest of these great movies.

So, who made the best Santa??  What is your favorite Christmas movie??  

If you are like me, you have a hard time nailing it down.  I love so many of them.  Here is a list of our must watch movies each year:

Home Alone
Rudolph
Frosty the Snowman
Christmas Vacation
It's a Wonderful Life
Charlie Brown Christmas
Prep and Landing 1&2
The Toy That Saved Christmas (VeggieTales)
The Nativity Story
Mickey's Christmas Carol
Small One
Mickey's Christmas Shorts
The Grinch (animated ONLY)
Scrooged
Miracle on 34th Street
The Santa Clause (first one only)

(For me and my daugther) Little Women and White Christmas
(For me)  Little House on the Prairie: Christmas at Plum Creek

It is one of the things that makes me so sad...Christmas Eve night, we will watch It's a Wonderful Life....it is our Grand Finale.  No more Christmas movies for another year.  Don't even get me started on the music.  I could go on and on with that one.

In the hustle and bustle of Christmas...the parties and the shopping....the stress and the fuss....don't forget to take time to sit together as a family....pop some popcorn....bake some cookies....and enjoy time spent together with a great Christmas movie.

My favorite Santa:  Tim Allen in The Santa Clause

My favorite Christmas movie:  It's a Wonderful Life or Grinch or Rudolph or Miracle on 34th Street, or The Santa Clause or .....

Everyone has a nighttime routine, right?  If you have kids, you certainly have a routine.  Maybe you have the kids take a bath, brush their teeth, get into their jammies, and read them a story before kissing them and letting them go to sleep. Maybe not?  

Well, we have our routines.  With 2 kids that are 5 1/2 years apart, the bed time routines take place hours apart.  Daniel, who's 7, goes to bed much earlier than Sierra, who's 13.  Daniel's bed time routine is one of CRAZY amounts of love.  Once he is ready for bed, I go in and tuck him all in.  I will sit with him and chat about the day we had...the day we will have tomorrow...and shower him with kisses and love.  Next, Sierra comes in and spends about 10-15 minutes making him laugh.  It is loud and crazy and makes him SO happy.  She makes up stories with sound effects or challenges him to all sorts of weird tasks.  I could never explain what she does with him, but I can say that you have never seen a happier kid than when she is done.  Matt gets the final tuck in.  He sets his music for him (Daniel likes sleeping to music).  They exchange their guy like good nights and he makes sure there are no animals lurking in the room before shutting off his light and closing the door.  Daniel's nighttime routine is long, crazy, and he loves it.

Sierra tends to go to bed after me...I'm a night wimp.  She usually will come into my room and tuck me in at night.  We will sit together and talk a bit and than she kisses me and is off to her room.  Lately, however, our routine has changed and Matt slaps his forehead each night as we partake in what he calls "The Mommy and Daughter Show".  I am not sure how or why this happened, but I will be about to fall asleep sitting up, I will be so exhausted, but the next thing you know, Sierra and I are exchanging the funniest, wittiest comments between each other and Matt just sits and listens to it all in wonder at the two of us.

It often begins as most nights in the past did.  She will come into my room and plop on my bed.  She will start talking about a mundane thing like a test she has to take the next day or where she is at in the book she is reading...and it evolves.  She might say something that will remind me of something else and I will interrupt her and tell her which sparks her into something else and the next thing you know, we are laughing and talking about...well....nothing.  We will spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half just talking and laughing from subject to subject....no rhyme...no reason...but 100% hilarity...well, to us anyway.  The first night this happened, it was kind of a wow, that was a long good night.  The second time, I thought...hmmmm?  By the fifth night Matt was dying (not from laughter, but with how late this would keep going on).  Each night, she would get into the room at 10:15 and not leave until close to 11:30.  He quickly began to say we had a "Mommy and Daughter Show" going on each night.  

It is much like you may see during a comedy hour...two people just bantering back and forth.  We laughed at his calling us this show and at the same time declared we must have a theme song...and our own car...with jet engines.  I said we were a lot like Seinfeld, a show about nothing.  And really, it is all about nothing.  There is no holds barred in our conversation even if there is a man in the room...and poor Matt rarely, if ever, has a part in our show.

The thing is, this is precious, precious time.  Sierra is 13, but she always talks to me.  She tells me everything.  We are extremely close.  This is proof positive.  That we can, night after night, sit next to each other on the bed and just laugh and banter and talk.  I cannot emphasize how important this is.  She is getting more and more independent...she spends more time on her own....she spends time with friends...and yet here she is with me.  No subject is off limits.  We talk about boys, friends, love, the future, music, movies, sex, female stuff (Matt just loves when we get on that subject), animals, and on and on.  

I mentioned last night that I should get a tape recorder (duh, I know my iphone can do the job) to record our conversations...she said no.  What is spoken during this time is for our ears only.  I do not know how long the Mommy and Daughter Show will run, but as long as it does, I will enjoy that time of hilarity and bonding with my daughter...THIS will be something that we will cherish and talk about for years!!

So...you wake up with expectations and than those expectations explode either in one big blowout or in a series of little bombs that end with you being defeated and declaring that this was a bad day.  So what do you do??  Do you go to bed early, willing that the next day would be better??  Do you wallow in self-pity, crying into a glass of wine (or something stronger)?  Do you get bitter and take your frustrations out on anyone that comes within 50 feet of you??  

Today, we had a bad day.  Oh, it started well enough, but it didn't take long for things to start to explode.  First, there was a pretty medium to hefty size bombshell that had me in instant defeatist mode.  My day was ruined, my eyes filling with tears.  My husband, ever the optimist, felt that the bombshell may have been a more of a dud than a real explosion and felt that the day was not as bad as it seemed.  Well, it was.  We were bombarded throughout the day with small bombs, tiny bombs and one really large bomb.  I found myself walking through Walmart with tears in my eyes and asking God why.  It did occur to me that a bomb to me was a mere water balloon to most everyone else, but I was in full pity party mode declaring that the day had defeated me...the day had won....and I drooped my shoulders down to the floor.  I stood in Walmart ranting on and on about how unfair life could be and the eventual drive home had me ranting on about so many ways life sucks right now including our dark house on a street filled with so many beautiful lights.  Tears were a constant companion throughout the day and as soon as I walked in the door, I proclaimed to my kids about how much of a failure the day had been.

So...what to do?  To keep my shoulders drooping under the weight of a tough world?  To go hide in my room, crying and whining and shaking my fist at God?  Those are all options...options that under normal circumstances, I would have done.

An interesting thing happened on my road to self desolation...I mentioned a topic.  I spoke it out into the room where we were all gathered.  It was a simple topic, but one that elicited great emotion and had everyone speaking and the excitement level growing and growing.  I mentioned my son's upcoming birthday party.  You see, we had a plan for his party, but I started to, as the day grows closer and closer, see the flaws in the plan...so I came up with a new plan.  I tossed this out into the space of the living room, and the plans began.  Ideas began to be tossed around.  A new plan was formed and everyone was happy...cheerful...connected.

This spilled into one of the best nights ever.  We spent the evening in the glow of the Christmas tree, eating a simple dinner of rottesseirrie chicken, green beans and rolls followed by cookie brownies and watching two GREAT Christmas movies: "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and "Rudolph".  Gone were the thoughts of a failed day.  Gone was the self pity.  The shoulders had found their way back to where they belong.  We laughed.  I cried (the movie gets me every time...and no, not Rudolph).  We sang along to Rudolph.  We had a great time as a family.  The problems of the day are still there, but the feelings of despair have melted away.

You hear so often people say "I choose joy" and I often roll my eyes.  But, tonight that is what Matt and I did.  We chose joy and God honored that.  As we waited for Daniel to finish his shower so we could put him to bed, Matt said..."that was a great night."  And it was.