What a merry Christmas we had.... and what a happy new year to come!

Christmas Morning, BEFORE

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Christmas morning, AFTER

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It has been a while since I posted.  It has been a busy time.  Trying to keep up with all of the kids during Christmas break when I am healthy is hard enough, but being tired from radiation and all of the hustle and bustle of this busy time, I haven't had the energy to post.

I wanted to take a moment to share what an amazing, blessed, overwhelming Christmas we had.....
The Burlison family (Blake's paternal grandparents' family) wanted to Christmas for us.  Kris (Blake's grammy) insisted that with all of my treatment and surgery, and exhaustion, she wanted to do all of our shopping and wrapping.  She insisted I send her a list of what the kids wanted for Christmas, and told me she would take care of it. So I wrote the kids clothings sizes, and a couple of toys that they liked, and was immensely grateful that we wouldn't have to worry about Christmas this year.  The money we would normally have spent on Christmas presents, we put towards paying off my oncologist and doctor bills.

Well, Kris warned me not to be overwhelmed.  They got a "little" more that what I had written on the list.  So on a beautiful snowy Christmas Eve night, Kris and Craig drove up to our house.  They unloaded the back of their pickup truck into our home. Bag after bag of presents, beautifully wrapped soon filled our family room.  But wait, they all wouldn't fit.  There were still bags and bags of gifts out in the garage.  Piles and piles of presents.  I was so overwhelmed, and could hardly keep the tears from flowing. 

We had told the kids that we wouldn't be doing much for Christmas because of doctor bills, so imagine their surprise and utter delight when they entered the living room Christmas morning, and saw the piles and piles of gifts.  They were jumping up and down, squealing with happiness, and more excited than I have seen them in a long time.  It took almost 3 hours to unwrap all of the presents.  It was simply amazing. 

People are good.  I am continually awestruck at the big hearted and kind things that people do for our family. 

In fact, just last week, some families purchased and installed new blinds in our kitchen, my sister in law helped me redecorate my kitchen, some kind soul from our church gave us a cash gift anonymously with a simple "Merry Christmas".  Someone from Dan's work gave us some money and told us Merry Christmas.  With this we are able to pay off the rest of my doctor bills from 2007 and start the new year with all of my doctor bills paid off. 

It seems like all I am every doing on this blog is saying thank you, but no matter how many times I say it, it can never be enough.   So once again, thank you!!!!  I thank God and all of you for lifting our burdens and serving us. 

Happy new year!!!!