Decemberrrr

Decemberrrr

*It sure has been a cold month!

This month always brings lots of craziness, but at the same time it is a month full of God's greatest gifts!  

The month began with our annual adopt a family that our basketball team does through United Way.  We skip practice for the day, shop at Kohl's for the family, and then head back to GISH to wrap up the gifts.  Coaching sports is not always about the sport, it also is about showing the girls ways to be student athletes of high character, which then hopefully carries over into their adult lives!

A snapshot of one of our timeouts!  This year so far has definitely been challenging in the area of wins.  The quote below is a great reminder of what it takes in all areas of life to reach success.  I pray for our team daily, asking God to lead me in a direction to be the best coach that I possibly can be for these girls in order that they feel/experience some success!  

Took Joden with me to the mall and of course he wanted me to take pictures of him in these seats:)

One of the greatest gifts God has blessed our family with this month is our new niece Olivia.  Mike's brother Dan and his wife Lisa are parents for the first time and are enjoying the journey so far!  Sadly we have not met her yet due to the snowy Christmas we had.  We are hopeful that we get to meet her here in the next few weeks!  

Reeve loves to dance and currently takes Hip Hop so I signed her up for the GI dance camp.  She loved it of course!

Another snapshot of the girls I spend a lot of the winter months with:)

The kids' Christmas Program at church!  This year Joden was one of the wisemen and Reeve was a shepherd. 

This was their school Christmas concerts.  Reeve is in the middle and in the second picture Joden is on the end.  

One of the last songs is pretty amazing as they bring all the students back out, turn the lights off, and turn on their fake candles while singing their hearts out to Just One Candle. 

Tried to get a good picture of them, but they decided to be goofy.  In the end these are better pictures anyway because they show their true personalities!

Since we always travel at Christmas we open our gifts a few days early before we head out.  The kids got a box filled with their ski gear for our ski trip that we will be taking during spring break week.  

The kids and I were able to squeeze in a Husker women's basketball game the Friday before Christmas because our GI teams played in Lincoln that night.  Unfortunately they lost, but we had great seats and we had a blast!

After the game we were able to get a picture for Reeve with one of the dancers and then we had time to get some Ivanna Cone:)

Enjoying time with Miles at our game!

We finally made it to my parents' place at the lake on Saturday!  Reeve was excited to see her cousin Anslee:)

The clouds were pretty incredible over the lake when we woke up on Christmas Eve morning!  Then the second picture shows the lake once they cleared.  

All the guys were working hard in the kitchen!

All ready for church!

Cousins taking their picture on the couch!  

Also, my sister with her kids.

We then opened gifts from each other on Christmas Eve and then just enjoyed what Santa brought on Christmas morning.

Reeve wanted me to snap a picture of her new bow in her hair from her grandma!

In all the years that Mike and I have been together we have not gotten all dressed up for New Years Eve.  So, this year when we heard about this event that the Grace Foundation was putting on we thought why not.  The main reason being is since both of our moms have had cancer in would be a great event to attend since all the proceeds go to patients/families in the area who are fighting cancer!  

It truly was an amazing evening full of so many wonderful moments.  God has definitely blessed us with the gift of some great friends here in Grand Island who we were able to enjoy the evening with!