Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Sorry it is late, but better late than never. We had a wonderful, but busy, Christmas. It was so nice to be with almost all of our family. Billie had a wonderful time, of course. Her favorite gift was her new bike. Now she will not hit her knees on the handle bars when she tries to pedal, hehe! That really made riding hard for her, go figure. She got wonderful baby dolls that she has been busy taking care of the last few days, too. She loves baby dolls just like I did when I was little, and they keep her busy for hours. She especially likes to wrap them in blankets and take them when we run errands or go somewhere. It is so cute. She is going to be an exceptional Mommy one day... a long, long time from now. She loves real babies, too, and is so good and careful with them. She wishes still so bad for a baby brother or sister. We always tell her it has to be in God's time. She usually says something like "OH! But I have been waiting soooo long!" It is so sweet, she will be an excellent big sister. She is enjoying her winter break. We are going to take her to a movie tonight, she is very excited. She absolutely loves movies, and especially getting to see them at the theater.

Christmas was wonderful, but it was hard, too. We couldn't help but think about Joshua and Caleb and how this would have been our first Christmas with them. I guess they still had their first Christmas, but in a totally different way that I know I can not even imagine. I know it was beautiful and spectacular and fantastic, though. We did miss them so much. We managed to include them in little and big ways, through special gifts for our family and each other that included pictures of them. We made special ornaments with their pictures in them and hung them on our tree. We had a little tiny tree in their room and we made picture ornaments for that tree, too. We had a total of three for that tree, and each had a picture of one of us kissing the boys. It turned out very cute, and made us feel closer to them. We also took a photo album that I made for Matt for Christmas with all of the pictures from our photographer in it around with us to each house we visited that day and shared that with everyone. All of those things helped us feel closer to them. We also went to the cemetery and visited Michael and the boys on Christmas morning. There are always a lot of people at the cemetery on Christmas, so I guess that wasn't too weird. We have done that every year since Michael died, so it seems very normal to Billie.

Enough of that sad stuff. I hope everyone has a very safe and happy New Year's celebration. We are planning on sharing it together playing Wii and just having a good, fun and relaxing time. Billie and I have become very much addicted to the Wii. It is so much fun to play together. I will embarrassingly admit that my favorite game is American Idol. I know everyone is laughing at me, and that's OK. Billie and I just sing at the top of our lungs and belt those songs out! I am sure our neighbor is looking for a good realtor. Matt hooked it up to the surround sound this weekend, but I have been sick and haven't tried it yet. I am sure all of you will be able to hear it when I do. I think that catches everyone up for now. I have to get started on dinner so we can make our movie! Love to you all!