Dear 2018

Ok so I'm going to be completely honest. Writing this post was a bit challenging and at one point, I was on the verge of giving up. I kept getting stuck and I couldn't figure out why until I realized that I was trying to write about the whole entire year of 2018 in one post. Once that finally hit I was just completely overwhelmed. Because 2018 has been b.u.s.y. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually...the whole lot of 'em. I also have trouble writing more "serious" posts because I either ramble or feel like giving up cause it just doesn't sound like me at all. Add on top of that the fact that I have to be kind of vague (I still go under a pseudonym for goodness' sake) and it gets quite crazy. So! I have decided I'd just tackle a part of my year instead of attempting the whole 365 days of 2018. Here goes...

Wow. It's hard to believe you have finally come to an end. I had mixed feelings about saying goodbye to you honestly. You were one of the worst years of my life...and yet at the same time, you were one of the best.

I've learned a lot. I've learned that a smile can hide a breaking heart, but I also know that it's one of the most awful feelings a person could ever experience. I've learned that people come and go but it's when people give up and leave that you see who you can truly trust. I've learned that life is not always black and white (much as I sometimes wish it could be) and we need to find a way to see through the grey. I've cried so hard I thought my heart was going to burst into a million pieces. I've despaired and fallen into darkness that I thought was impossible to escape. There is so much pain and hurt and confusion...but there is also clarity.

On Christmas Eve a man asked me if I was happy. I almost broke down right there in our church lobby. Because it made me realize that no, I'm not happy. I'm hurting. It wasn't all "merry". But you know what? That is completely, totally, absolutely ok. It's ok to hurt. It's ok to have pain. You don't have to be happy just because people expect you to be happy. And I mean, trust me, I was happy about the meaning of Christmas. I am thankful that Christ came to earth in human form to save us from our sins and to give us the gift of salvation and eternal life. But there can be pain with joy. One of the most important things I learned this semester at school is that lament is part of wisdom. Lament. Pain. Hurt. It's ok to ask why. To cry out to God and demand why, why was life this way? Why did it have to be so hard? Why can't it be some other way? Just why, why, why?

I've messed up. I've made mistakes. I've been broken. But despite all the challenges you held, 2018, it's taught me so many things. I've learned to view things from a different perspective. I've learned that there really is such a thing as unconditional love. I've learned more about what true friendships actually look like. I've seen first-hand people my own age on fire for God and honestly, I admire them so much. I've learned that opening up with people helps SO much. Along with truth and understanding comes clarity. And with clarity comes well - changes. And confusion, strangely enough. It's hard to figure out what to do when you want to be respectful but at the same time, you want to be able to do what you believe God is calling you to do. There's going to be trouble and conflict ahead, I'm fairly certain. I don't know what 2019 holds for me, but I suspect it's going to be hard. And I only pray that God gives me the strength to do what's right. There will be changes. Many, many changes. 

Life is hard. And you've definitely shown me that. And I know that life is only going to get harder. But I know that along with the darkness comes light. No matter how hard it gets, there's always gonna be hope in something better. No matter how hard life may break me, I'm still gonna get back up again because this life is SO worth living. Not for myself, but for the one and only God of the universe.

"Now I'm just a beggar in the presence of a King

I wish I could bring so much more

But if it's trueYou use broken things

Then here I am, Lord, I'm All Yours"

~ 

"Broken Things" - Matthew West

Dear 2018...

Thank you. 

Our Christmas Holiday!

Good morning/afternoon/evening all! Hope you're looking forward to this brand new week!

Anyway, today I thought I'd share with you some photos from our Christmas holiday! We managed to do a fair amount of fun stuff together as a family, and of course, I had my camera pretty much the whole time! :)

Soooo.....here goes! :)

The first day of break...or maybe it was the second. . . Mom and Dad brought Spiderman, Ironman, Snow White, and yes, even Dare Devil to see the new Star Wars episode, The Force Awakens. Tiger Lily and I gladly stayed behind to babysit Toblerone. The reason...dare I admit it?. . . it's too scary for me!! Tiger Lily and I prefer funny (or sometimes sad) movies. I mean, if you're going to watch a movie, you might as well watch one that's funny, not one that scares the living daylights out of ya! :P 

So while the rest of the family were off at the theatre, Tiger Lily and I cleaned up the house and Toblerone contentedly watched a bit of Chuggington before taking his nap! 

 The next day, the whole family went bowling!

So calmly watching all of his pins crashing down. Seriously don't understand
why he isn't more excited!!! This ended up being a strike too!!! 

 The balls were a little bit too heavy for Snow White and Dare Devil, but they were able to roll them down the alley.

 It was kind of funny because their ball would move sooo slowly, but a lot of the times, it hit down quite a few pins! Once, one of them got a strike!! I can't remember who it was...or maybe it was both of them? Whoever it was, they were SUPER excited! :D

 Toblerone on the other hand couldn't handle the balls at all. So he wandered around until he found something very interesting.

A fan.

 It kept him busy for at least half of an hour :P

 There was also quite a bit of cooking going on. Lots of little helpers too :)

 And then... CHRISTMAS DAY!!

All of us were wearing the PJ's that Mom pretty much always buys for us
for Christmas  :D 

 There was no snow :( but then who said you needed snow to celebrate Christmas? I learned this especially this year, Christmas is SO much more than just gifts and snow. And, though I didn't realize before just how much having family at Christmas meant, this year, I definitely realized it. Something occurred just before Christmas and Dad was almost going to leave to attend it. That's when I got really scared that he was going to leave and that's when I realized just how much my family meant to me. In the end, Dad didn't go, but you can be sure I was praising God for letting Dad stay at home!!! :D

After a big brunch, we opened our presents. This year, we decided to do it in a more . . . what shall I call it, a more orderly fashion. Most times, everyone just dives for their presents, opens them and then BAM! everything's unwrapped. But this time, we did it so that only one person opened their present at a time, that way they could appreciate the gift and ...okay, it made for more and better pictures too ;)

The three girls in our PJ's :) Thanks Dad, for taking the picture! 

Later on in the afternoon, we headed over to our cousins' house for some family time before heading out to a restaurant for dinner.

Princess A. and Snow White with their matching headbands and doll dresses, which Tiger Lily and I tried our best in making. Snow White asked if I could make matching headbands for them both, and she made matching hair bows for the dolls :)

 We also had a mini photo shoot with Princess E. She had this very pretty black and white dress that was ever so slightly too big for her. So I kind of improvised and used the sash to tie the back of the dress and lift it higher. So....yeah, though it looked very nice in the front, the back looked a little....weird :P But the front was very pretty, and here are some of the photos from the shoot.

 Two days after Christmas it snowed. Praise the Lord! And it stayed. It stuck to the ground, it piled up, and we got 10 cm.

I rushed outside and Toblerone followed. I guess he didn't remember what snow was, 'cause he just stared at it and at first wouldn't even step into it. But he got used to it!

"umm....help me, please. There's no in my hair!" *"no" is is way of saying snow ;) 

After there was a fair amount of snow on the ground, the boys went sledding. Nice rosy cheeks afterwards! 

 We also celebrated Tiger Lily's 14th and Ironman's 10th (DOUBLE DIGITS!!) birthday! HHHAAAAPPPPPYYYY BIRTHDAY!!

 We went to a laser tag "place" (what do you call it, arena?!?) with our extended family. Lots of fun!

 Ooohhh yeah! AND, at the last game, we decided to do teams. All of the boys (except for Dad and our uncle) were on the blue team (by the way, the boys were the best ones at the game. In case you haven't guessed ;)) and then mostly all the girls and Dad and our uncle were on the red team. The odds were not in our favour! Buuuutttttt.....wanna guess who won?

You got it! THE RED TEAM!!!! YA HOO!!!!! I'm so happy :D Don't know how it happened, but I'm happy just the same. We were SOO excited when we first saw the score board! :D

And you should have seen Princess A. and Snow White. They stuck together like flypaper and they were so small that they could hide pretty much anywhere and no one could see them. I saw them quite a few times  hiding behind barrels and shooting the "enemy" whenever they passed by. And the boys couldn't' find out who shot them because they were so well hidden! :D

 We had our cousins stay over for New Year's Eve, and one of the things we did was sledding! Well, I didn't sled (just once), mostly took pictures. And *gasp* I had a fellow photographer! FINALLY!! :D  So...here are some photos from the sledding, taken by either my cousin or me.

Credit: My cousin
Sorry, I promise I won't do this for every picture, but I just had to point out who took the photo!!
 Isn't this just an awesome picture of Toblerone?!?

My fellow photographer! Do you know how nice it is to finally have someone else
take pictures too? :) 

AHHHH.....he's just SO cute! He's like a big fluffy marshmallow in that outfit. And when he falls, he rolls :P 

Later that night, we played cards. Pretty much just round after round after round after round of President. Lots of fun!

Again, the following photos are not all mine. Some are taken by my cousin! :)

The later it got, the umm.....goofier we got :P 

Happy New Year! 

Yeah, we had lots of fun together! :)

A couple of days into the new year, we had some old friends over. I took lots of pictures, but for privacy reasons, can't share them all with you. The only ones are the ones where there are no faces shown in 'em. Like the three below :)

Oh yes! Here are some pictures of the cards that I won from Olivia's give-away. The cards are absolutely beautiful! I've already used both of them :D Thanks again, Olivia!

And then some other things we've been up to...

Skating! Once it was cold enough, we dashed out onto the ice. And skated pretty much every possible day we could! :)

Sorry, not the best picture...

Also been playing with Dare Devil and Toblerone. Made puzzles with foam shapes!

Helped Snow White make a cape for this really cool Superwoman that she "made". See, a nice thing about Lego is that you can make pretty much anything you want from it. Even if the pieces are from sets doesn't mean you have to use it in the set. And the boys and Snow White definitely don't always keep their pieces in each individual set. It's more like a "mix and match" ;) 

Oh yes! And some BIG news!!! Dare Devil can skate!! He was begging me to teach him so that he could go out with the others, so we went out and he learned in one day. It was so cool! He's a really fast learner! And now he's zipping around like nobody's business ;)

I hope you enjoyed this post! 

What did you do for Christmas/New Year? 

Do you like skating? What is your favourite winter sport? 

Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you! :)