Hello December

I'm so thankful that November is over! It was not a good month for me.

It started with my baby turning 5. We usually don't do big parties for our kids unless it's for an important birthdays like their 1st and 5th. The place we picked for Houston's big 5th birthday was perfect! It has a few bounce houses, some video games, and a little train that the kids could drive around. The best part though was when you rent this place you have it all to yourself! So while the kids played the adults were able to just sit and chat and not have to worry about some creep or creepy kid bothering our kids.

Houston and the other kids had a great time and I was able to hold back my tears (my BABY turned 5!) and not embarrass my family :) His excitement about the big 5 helped my mood a lot. His birthday was at the beginning of November but he still likes to greet people we meet by informing him that he's 5 now.

Then there was our van....This van has been a pain from the beginning! This time it waited to give us trouble until right before we left for our 9 1/2 hr. drive to Indiana to see the in-laws for Thanksgiving. I told my husband we shouldn't go because I was worried about something breaking during the long drive. Oh no! He insured me over and over again that a mechanic looked at it and it would be fine.

About 3 hours into our drive, in the middle OF A SNOW STORM, our windshield wipers stopped working. It wasn't just a quick fix either. The motor died and all the auto part places were either closed or didn't have the part we needed. So instead of stopping early for the night my husband decided to just drive through it until we got to our hotel in Ohio...Let's just say that didn't go over very well with me. What should have been about a 5 hour drive turned into a 9 hour, seat gripping, yelling (I may have done a little) drive.

I was sooo relieved when we got to our hotel without getting into an accident!...Or I was until my husband realized he left his car parked on the street at home. We live in the city and every few hrs. you have to switch your car to the other side of the street or you could get ticketed. Usually those people are right on top of it and we've gotten tickets for missing the switch by a half hour. We were going to be gone for 4 days :/

The next morning my husband called to see if he could get someone in parking enforcement to have mercy on us. The lady that they transferred his call to said she didn't have the power to help us but she said she would pray...We prayed too.

The visit it's self was fun. The older all of our kids get the more relaxing our visits get. There was lots of just hanging out and catching up and even more eating. We were also able to get everyone together for family pictures.

My sweet family

The drive home was pretty uneventful and one of the first things we did when we got home was check how many tickets we had on the car. We didn't find any! Not even one. What we did find was that our neighbors had cleared our driveway of snow and brought up our garbage bins. Those simple acts of kindness made start to feel a little better and grateful that we made it through the craziness and everything was going to be OK....Then we walked into our house and it was FREEZING! The battery had died on our thermostat and the temperature inside dropped to 40 degrees.

So thank God November is over! The calendar for this month is filled with banquets, celebrations, and Christmas. And I'm filled with thankfulness :)