Christmas while grieving is incredibly hard.  

I have to keep reminding myself of whose birthday this is.   

Christmas Eve

We gathered most of my siblings and their families together for Christmas Eve per family tradition dating about two decades now.  It was a night of laughter, games, presents, and birthday celebration.  

I used to love to bake.  I don't really have the time or patience for it anymore.  I am grateful Savannah likes it as I love gingerbread cookies.  These were a hit Christmas Eve.

I wrapped the last of Julia's presents as she popped in and out of the room.  I was convinced she had seen it, but I was apparently wrong.  She cracked me up when she picked it up and tried to get it to speak to her and tell her what it is. The funny thing is that it was actually a wrapped picture of her gift which I ordered December 6th, but it won't arrive until January 3rd.  Grr- First world problems.

I had to take a picture of the calm before the chaos.

goofiness - Jonathan and Logan

Regan spent a lot of time on Julia's shoulders.

Kallie loves everybody, and Andy is great with kids, so this is a sweet combination.

Ira is silly.

Time for birthday cake!

round cake to represent God's never-ending love and to represent the world

chocolate cake to represent our sin

white frosting to represent Christ's purity which covers our sin

red candles for the blood he shed

12 candles to represent our sin covered all year long

light from candles to represent the light of the world

evergreens for continual growth and everlasting life

An angel to represent the glad tidings and good news brought by angels to the world.

Jonathan had fun photobombing.

Kallie just climbed up on the presents to have herself a party.  She's driving Tessa crazy with all her climbing, but she does not seem to ever stop smiling.

Come on let's take a picture - the kind you have to shake.  - Miranda Lambert Automatic (I love that song.)

Julia has wanted one of those Fujifilm polaroid type cameras for months.  All of her friends have them.  Her aunts and uncles came through with one for her, and she loves it.  So far, I am not impressed with the quality of the pictures.  I did not expect stunning, just fun, but they are so dark and hard to see.

Game time! Joshua loves and collects board games, so his wish list included a few.  The kids had fun with them.

serious concentration

working together - possibly the two comedians of the bunch - Logan and Julia are hilarious!

The little kids and old adults had an impromptu dance party during game time.  I love that I captured Isaac's smile.  I wish he had a shirt on, but hey, he's three.

It was a really fun night in spite of the grief we all bear right now.  We definitely miss Dad lots, and missing him means missing Mom more too, but with so many people, it's easy to distract ourselves for the actual holiday.

P.S. Joshua really liked the framed articles from Dad's service.  He even posted them on FB, so I know he liked them.

Land of the Free because of the Brave

It seems surreal that it has been a month since my dad changed his address to the home God has been preparing for him.  So much is left undone because we don't have the paperwork to process anything yet.  I have two brothers (both younger than me).  The older of the two received the flag that draped Dad's coffin and will receive the replacement bronze star when it arrives.  My dad was proud of his military service, and I wanted to be able to give something to my younger brother.  My cousin found articles that were printed in Dad's hometown paper when he was awarded the bronze star.  Someone in the family had cut them out and saved them.  I made photocopies for all of Dad's children and grandchildren and decided to give the originals to Joshua.  I laminated them and then planned to frame them.  It became quickly apparent when I went to frame them that it needed something more.  I trekked out to Hobby Lobby for some ARMY scrapbook stickers to give it a finishing touch.  I did this on Friday, December 23rd.  (Can I just say that I do not recommend a trip anywhere when Christmas Eve Eve falls on a Friday?  Fortunately, I survived.  It was worse than my black Friday experience.) We have Dad's dog-tags, but I couldn't put my hands on them without going through Joshua.  He can easily replace the dog-tag sticker with the actual tags if he wants to.  My siblings and I will gather tonight for Christmas together, and I will give this to Joshua.  Tara recommended that I wrap it and send it home with him to open on Christmas day as he will spend much of that day alone, but I don't think that is appropriate, I will not wrap it and will just give it to him.  I hope he likes it.

Cityscapes

Savannah arrived home last week drained from the semester. My attempt to pick her up was pretty awful.  I was just under halfway through the 1.5 hour drive to her dorm when I stopped for gas.  I realized as soon as I shut the car door that I had just locked my phone and keys inside. I asked to use the phone in the gas station and called Andy.  I got his voicemail, so I had no idea if he was coming or not.  It had been a tough day for him.  He was working from home because Julia was sick, and he took her to the doctor around 1:30.  He still needed to finish his workday, so I knew my mistake would cost him.  The gas station employees were very helpful.  They pulled mechanics who tried to use tools to open my car.  In the end Andy arrived and insisted that he would make the drive to get Savannah.  He said we could park my car, and I could get in his car or I could go home, but he was pretty adamant that I would not be driving. (In hindsight I wish I had quipped "you're not the boss of me!")  I was going on very little sleep as the dog had kept me up the whole night before.  A friend of mine referred to my mistake as grief brain.  Very few people know that that was not my first mistake in the last few weeks.  One morning when moving cars to go to work, I put Zach's car in reverse instead of park and then watched in horror as it rolled down the street and into our neighbor's tree.  Fortunately, there was no damage to the car or the tree, and disaster was avoided.  It could have hit the neighbors' cars that are always parked on the street behind my driveway or a person out for a morning walk.  

Since she arrived at home Savannah has baked with friends on two different occasions.  After a particularly rough day for me, we opted for some Tuesday (cheap movie day) distraction, and saw Rogue One. After seeing the movie, Savannah pulled out the old Star Wars series and started re-watching them all.

While watching the movies, she drew, and when I saw what she was doing, I knew I had to share.

St. Louis skyline

On the very day that she finished her St. Louis skyline, this picture from two years ago popped up on my FB memories.

I am sad that Dad is not here to see her this Christmas.  He has not seen her since July, and I know he would give her a hard time about her boyfriend- asking all kinds of questions about him.  I believe that he would have already gotten those answers on Thanksgiving and would have rehashed them.  I know he would also ask about her best friend Emily.  Emily and Dad really took to each other, so he always checked up on her whenever I saw him after they met.  Christmas is so different this year.  There is no way to even try to have normal.

I hoped to go to Nashville over the break and see the Opryland Hotel all decorated, but life changed dramatically a few weeks ago.  I spent the first three days of my break sleeping.  It takes a lot to catch up from a whole semester, so I don't know if I have it in me to drive to Nashville alone as Andy cannot take off work.  I doubt that my second week plans of painting three bedrooms will happen.  I feel like I am wasting a lot of time, but I don't really have the energy to care.

P.S. Did I mention that Savannah finished her first semester of college with one B, and the rest of her grades are As?  One of those As happens to be in a chemistry class designed to weed students out of science heavy programs.  She's not a girl who squanders that gifts God has given her.

Birthday Boy!

We celebrated Wyatt's 14th (yes 14th!) birthday yesterday.  Normally we celebrate earlier so that we can put more distance between his birthday and Christmas, but this year we felt it important to have Savannah home.  I thought that we had confirmed that everyone except Tara could make the date we chose, but that was apparently not the case. Unfortunately, we have many members of the family who are working in their peak season, so Wyatt's birthday is not well attended. We splurged on good pizza this year and bought far too much as we expected more people.  Fortunately, Wyatt is  pretty laid back about it, so it does not bother him to have a smaller party.  I struggled through it as I missed having Dad here.

DQ cake--woo hoo!!

A highlight- Julia teaches Jonathan how to dance.

I loved how Isaac photobombed this picture with Tessa's family.

Isaac flashed gang signs with his own family. Say what?!

Another fun moment was when we were discussing the sale of Dad's cars. Someone said that he's probably regretting buying those cars now.  Jonathan pointed out that he's not thinking about his cars.  My response, "No. He's too busy quizzing Abraham on the twelve tribes of Israel."

One day at a time.

Humor

Julia took the ACT last Saturday as part of the Duke TIP program.  After completing her test, she texted her aunts, uncles, and cousins, and siblings to share her opinion.  Her text read as follows:

The act was so hard.  I would not recommend it to anyone. (followed by a crying emoji)

and this is the kind of thing I find on my phone after Julia has had it--- and Musical.lies, lots of Musical.lies

Follow up on the ACT - the scores arrived the week after Christmas, and Julia scored a 17.  She's a competitive girl, so she looked up how that compared to other students involved with Duke TIP, and it is slightly above average - not bad at all for a girl who was sick when taking the test.

Dad's Obituary

Ronald David "Ron" Todd was welcomed home by his Savior on November 23, 2016.  He loved college sports and studying the Bible. He was a big kid at heart who enjoyed getting the neighborhood kids together for kickball or softball during his younger years. Ron loved his family and enjoyed spoiling his grandkids. He worked hard to provide for his children until his last breath. His most fervent prayer was that his children would all know Christ from his oldest child to his youngest grandchild.

Ron graduated Madison High School in Richmond, Kentucky and received his commission to the Army after graduation from Eastern Kentucky University. He served as a First Lieutenant and Captain in the US Army from 1966-1969 where he spent a year on active duty in Vietnam serving as a forward observer and earning a Bronze Star for heroism in connection with military operations. He spent his career working as a train master for Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Ron was born June 29, 1943 to the late Stanley and Jewell Todd. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife of 41 years, Annette; his daughter, Tasha Todd, and son-in-law, Tony Dorsey.

He was much loved by the family and friends he left behind including, his brother Ed (Judy) Todd; his children, Tamara (Andy), Tiffany, Tara, Jonathan (Danielle), Tessa (John), Joshua and his grandchildren; Zachary, Savannah, Wyatt, and Julia; Austin and Logan; Regan, Ira, and Isaac; and Kinsley and Kallie, a particularly close cousin Susie (Eric) and several nieces and nephews.