Holiday Cheer

There is so much to catch up on.

I hope that like me, you had a wonderful holiday. I also hope, that like me, you have now had an adequate amount of time to recuperate from your wonderful time. I misplaced my camera's battery charger and didn't get many pictures at all this year. Imagine my surprise when I found it late Christmas eve exactly where it was supposed to be but where I never in a million years imagined it actually was.

Anyways.

Our Holiday was everything you would imagine it should be in a family of ten, and it has left me feeling rather humbled and hollowed. We have so much to be thankful for, and so much to rejoice in, and so much to laugh about and, well, just SO MUCH.

And before this turns into one of those sappy Christmas lectures let me just say that I am completely aware of how incredibly lucky I am and I am thankful everyday for all that I, for all that WE have, and I hope that I will never take it for granted.

The past 6 years have seen me through incredible growth as a woman and a mother and I credit my family for seeing me through this, and I can't wait to see what lies ahead for us. I can only hope that during the next part of our journey together I will continue to grow and learn along the way. There is so much my family has already taught me, but much MUCH more to learn!

There is a great story that accompanies this adorable apple. A few years ago when we were doing some spring cleaning I happened upon this apple toy, it was from Finn, Sidhe and Ruari's toddler hoods, and set it aside in the "give away" pile. As we were hauling stuff out to make a Goodwill run you could hear it chiming away at the bottom of one of the bags (it is a rolly polly sort of toy that makes a very pleasant chiming sound as you push it around the floor) and Brendan was clearly taken aback by the fact that the apple was clearly en route to someone else's home. This was way ahead of the twins and so we didn't have any apple users left in the house at that point, which of course prompted me to scoff at his wince of hesitation (in my ever so graceful "I'm right, you're wrong" eye roll type of way. Which if you must know I have been working on over the years....). So of course the apple went to Goodwill and our house very nearly got clean and close to clutter free that year, and I never really thought about it again. Until we had the twins that is and I began pulling out all sorts of memorabilia from Micah and Maija's younger years. You know, a few cute outfits, some fancy shoes that Maija wore during her first Easter, Micah's favorite rattle, the blanket I absolutely LOVED from his infancy. I had a story for each item and memories to go along with them, and ohhh how I started to miss that apple and to of course realize the extent of my error.

Fast forward to last week when Brendan and I were exploring an antique shop downtown where lo and behold on the top floor, in the less crowded, less poked through section of the shop I stumbled upon the VERY same apple!!! Well, ok, probably not the exact same one, but an exact duplicate!!!! Woohoooooooo. Had I been thinking straight I would have wrapped it up for him, but at the time I was just too excited and couldn't wait to show it to him. So there you have it and we've already decided to stow it away for our future grand kids (gulp).