december bits and pieces...finally finishing 2014 ;)

Love the cozy early morning views all month...

Sister silliness :))

An example of the daily expressions of love from this one...

And their friendship is so sweet..."Gotta tell you a secret!" 

Gehrig and Greer's Santas from art class :)

And a fever nap early in the month :(

Sweet obsession with the "princess" at a friend's wedding...

And they made themselves cozy, doing schoolwork by the fire one morning

IEW (Institute of Excellence in Writing) has helped his enjoyment of writing so much.  He used to get so upset when it was time for a creative writing assignment and this course (and Mrs. Wiley) has made a huge difference.  He whipped a poem out for her quickly and without complaint this day...

It had to follow certain rules for syllables etc.  I loved it :)

Oh the love ;)

And a bonfire always make yardwork more exciting for everyone :)

Sweet visiting with the Gibbs...Gehrig brought snowflakes to share and teach with :)

And Greer loves their chickens!

Sweet Rucker boys spending the night...and listening to our Jotham's Journey reading

And being silly ;)

Greer crocheted a blanket for Chad and we enjoyed a 5-kid outing to the post office to send it off :)

We got this sweet pic a few days later...love so much :))

Massey-Link playtime

And sweet swinging for these...

Found on Greer's wall by her bottom bunk.  I love her :)

And Daddy playtime for the girls while Gehr hangs with Gentry again :)

Documenting this sweet and fun time of life...

And fun with all the Rucker kiddos the next day!  So thankful for some extra time with them over the holiday break :)

From Gehrig to Daddy...

...and where Daddy landed with the flu a day or two before Christmas :(

Back home from Atlanta traveling, Greer loved bringing along her doll highchair from Bebe

And Gehrig never gets tired of drawing :)

How we watch our speed now when we travel with a broken spedometer ;)

And a nice rest from all the fun :)

So so many blessings of this season, but we pray that we never rush over the beauty and love that God displayed for us in sending Jesus.  The older B and I get, the more deeply we realize our need for a Savior.  We so long to love Him well and live our lives for Him...and pray that we will earnestly run after Him in this coming new year.  Thank you Father for SO much grace for our family in 2014, and mostly just for Your presence.  It is truly all that we need.

throwing it way back...and ringing in the new year

It's been a lot of lot of years since we have been in my hometown, where B started his college baseball playing and where we met.  When we realized it wasn't terribly out of the way from the Watsons' to NYE plans at the Dormans', we couldn't resist the opportunity to spend the afternoon there.

First stop: reliving the old days...we both settled into our old positions at the baseball field to remake the scenes of long ago.  He is seriously even cuter today than back then :))

Dugout reminiscing...I was always too scared of the coaches to get anywhere near there when he played ;)

Love :).  We also visited my old neighborhood, favorite eatery and rode around for a good while.  So crazy that our kids have never been there and neat to share some of our history with them :)

Later, we headed on to the Dormans for our 10th annual NYE celebration together.  So so love this time with them every year!

And our favorite part of all may be the New Year's morning visiting...love this family so!

Happy 2015!  One more December miscellaneous post and we are starting January's :))