Hurting for the holidays

This year's Christmas will be unlike any Christmas I have ever experienced before.  This year I grieve over the baby I got to carry for just a short while and was due to be in my arms on Christmas Eve.  This year I celebrate one last Christmas in my home.  This year I struggle to make things as normal as possible for Graesen, to give him one last Christmas with a family that is whole.  This year I do my best to take a deep breath and turn my focus to Jesus.  Never before have the holidays been so painful, and I hope they will never again be so hard.  There are reasons to rejoice and give thanks.  There are always reasons to praise God for all that he does.  I just have to remember that this is just a season of my life.  A year from now the pain will dull and I will likely be celebrating without tears.
I am so grateful that God entrusted me with Graesen.  It is a blessing to get to raise him.  On my hardest days I still have reason to get up and embrace the day.
Today Graesen was so funny to me.  He was sneaky and got a yogurt out at my parents' house all by himself.  He sat down, got a spoon out, and opened it (I added the bib when I saw what he was doing).

When I noticed he had some yogurt left on his face I asked him to bring me a wipe, towel, or a piece of toilet paper to get the little bit of yogurt off.  At home he is pretty good at running to grab his wipes if I ask.  Today he decided to go for the toilet paper.  This is what happened:

Miss Addison got to get all dolled up to go out on the town with my grandparents today.

Tonight my sister, Rachae, and I went out to eat.  I had a gift card that I didn't want to have to use alone now, so my aunt offered to watch the kids while we went out.  We came back to find two kids in their pajamas and watching Veggie Tales.

Before heading home for the night we went out to look at Christmas lights for a while.  This house does a different theme every year and it is always so pretty:

Graesen fell asleep while we were looking at lights and stayed asleep when we got inside.  I saw some pictures that other people have done this year with their kids in dark rooms with white Christmas lights.  I wanted to do that with Graesen and decided to practice a little tonight.  I am hoping to do some more tomorrow night while he is awake since that would probably be much cuter.  As it was, I was trying to lay the lights around/over him without waking him up.  (Don't worry, he's in his bed now.  I just laid him on the couch when we first got in the house and he stayed out).

I made a birthday cake for Jesus tonight so we can eat it this weekend.  Graesen and I have been talking a lot about how it is Jesus' birthday.