Christmas 2011

I know God is trying really hard to detach me from certain things in my life in order that I may be drawn closer to Him. Like most mothers, one of my main attachments is to my children, their lives, capturing their lives, remembering their lives, etc. God has provided several opportunities this past year that I can almost feel Him winking at me saying "I am trying to help you let me detach you."

The first major one came by order of my pictures. The pictures I take of our children and their daily life events are something I hold very dear to my heart. I covet them and have a crazy hard time deleting ANY pictures even if I did take 45 pictures of Clairvaux eating her first candy cane. I loved ALL of them.

We have our computer cleaned once or twice a year. We have TWO external hard drives, a great anti-virus system, and I usually save all our pictures to an outside source SO between all of that we thought we were safe having everything saved about 5 times. WRONG. We don't know what happened, but around August after having our computer cleaned, we discovered we lost almost two YEARS worth of pictures. Yes, years not months or weeks. I was heartbroken. My dear cousin spent two full days taking our hard drive a part and rebuilding it trying to find the pictures. He even took a day off work to help us. God Bless him. He stayed up all night, but to no avail. He found a few videos, but the pictures were lost.

So sad. I was mostly sad because I can never, ever get those thousands of memories back. Clairvaux's birth, birthdays, my family, John's family, events, games, homeschooling activities all were gone. I am grateful I had our blog to remember the highlights, but it was still very heartbreaking especially Clairvaux's birth.

With that said, I know the good Lord is trying to help me because it seems that my camera or some other odd event always seems to occur at the most important events like baptisms, birthdays, and Christmas.

During Christmas this year, most of my pictures were coming out blurry no matter what I did to the settings, lighting, or what not. I know He was trying to help me because I was SO excited to capture all the wonderful things I had planned this year. I know He just wanted me to sit back and watch. After about 20 minutes of realizing what was going on, I did. I put my camera down and just watched them. I know that is what He wanted me to do. I didn't get to capture their faces like I wanted to opening the gifts that I so meticulously planned for, wrapped, and delighted with glee in the nights before Christmas because I KNEW how much they were going to love IT.

I will remember Zellie this year talking really loud and shaking due to her excitement. She wasn't even aware of her voice. She was overwhelmed with the wonder of Christmas.

I will remember Vianney this year ripping open packages just because that is what she saw her siblings doing. What I didn't capture was her opening her updated version of her favorite literary work "Go Dog Go." She whipped out a new vocabulary we didn't even know she had. She was saying words we didn't know she even knew because she was so excited. We both found that one of the best parts of Christmas this year. Vianney opening that silly book.

Dominic has wanted walkie-talkies forever. He loves mystery novels and spy books so he has talked often about how a set of walkie-talkies would be so helpful to catch robbers and help with his detective work.

Zellie=glittzy. I have written often about how she loves jewelry. She uses hair ties for a watch so we got her a watch this year. Oh My, delight! I am a bit sad though because I miss her little homemade jewelry concoctions now that she has the real thing. I might hide her watch for a while.

Rose reminds me often of my memory of my childhood self. She is sentimental, aware, and nostalgic. We were at Barnes and Noble together a while back and I watched her discover this stuffed rabbit. It went on forever. I couldn't tell if she thought it was real or not, but she loved it. She talked about it forever. Her face was precious when she opened this little soft rabbit.

Camera. sigh. The only picture I have of Lillie opening her new doll. What I want to remember about her that night was watching her sleep with her new doll. She had her all tucked in next to her.

One of our favorite memories of our Christmas celebrations will always be watching each child delight in their sibling's gifts. It is adorable. They hug each other and shriek with excitement. I want to remember Clairvaux in awe of the Christmas lights on Sheridan Blvd. as we drove around Christmas Eve night. ooooooohhhhhhhh!!!!!! aaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! over and over.