First, me and the boys made a sudden trip to California to purchase a camera from an old friend for my boss and also stay with Great Grandma, Great Grandpa and Great Aunt Suzy Garner . They were very loving and welcoming... and forgiving when the boys discovered the little porcelain town was not a toy! Thank you for such a warm and loving Christmas!
This year will be no easier than the past, I'm afraid. I sure do hope it brings every member of our little family MORE happiness and MORE comfort and MORE success than ever before.
I don't know how the future will unfold, but I hope everyone understands that we're doing our best and thinking everything through. We talked about the goal-making process in church today as part of a lesson, and the first step is to evaluate. An unwilling, bitter part of me has NO desire to look to the past year, or the past several years, for that matter. But, that would be ungrateful and childish. Just because things don't go as I planned, doesn't mean it wasn't meant to happen and there's nothing I can gain from it.
I gained a lot of good from the past, and the good comes with bad. Matthew is a great father and I know it hurt him to be away from the boys for four months. We're looking forward to having the kids back with him for 2 weeks starting Tuesday! The boys have been amazing to me and they've helped me grow more than I ever thought was possible.
Patrick is into quoting lines from Toy Story, Cars and Polar Express... some things don't come out so clear and sound pretty bad - we're working on enunciation!
Stephen screamed when he was sick and realized the immediate response he got from me and used it the last few days. I'm attempting to time-out it out of him, we'll see how that goes. He's still catching onto words very quickly and I witnessed Patrick calmly repeating a word to Stephen 3 or 4 times while Stephen repeated it back, trying to say it right each time. It was awesome to witness Stephen's will to get it exactly right and Patrick being such a great teacher. No wonder he's speaking so well!
I love you all and wish you a Happy New Year!
