Christmas 2009

Our Christmas was great this year. Crazy, but great. The Season was filled with decorating, Christmas programs, parties, family and friends. There was a lot of going here, there and everywhere. Very tiring, but so very worth it!

Matty's Elementary Christmas Program was adorable. The music was wonderful and Matty did such a great job! We were very proud.

We had a couple photo shoots. One for our Christmas cards, which were late coming in. So those of you who received one probably got it well after Christmas. Sorry. I actually still have a few sitting around that never got mailed because I ran out of stamps and never remembered to go to the post office to get more. Sorry!! The other shoot was for Leithead family pics which were long over-due for an update. :)
The girls were spoiled by Santa, their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles of course. I'm not so sure this is a good thing. But they had so much fun!!!
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

The Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Our family was too busy to pick up the mouse
To give you some news or even a peek
Of what's been going on for weeks and weeks.

Kyle's been busy paying the bills
And in his free time, goes seeking thrills
Hunting and fishing, calling and riding
But not enough fun time quite for his liking!

Catherine is always feeling behind
Dishes and housework and laundry piled high
Chasing two girls who giggle and cry
Watching them grow up - time really flies by!

She also is busy all through the week
With meetings and lessons and activities
A big job, but fun - a blessing from heaven
to serve as president of the 3rd Ward Young Women.

Matty's in kindergarten and doing so well
She loves it. She's happy there and we can tell
She's learning so much and has many pals
Her teachers all love her - she makes them all smile!

Anastyn - Wow! We are so proud of her!
She decided one day to be a big girl.
She now goes potty on the toilet
And wears big-girl panties on her cute little butt!

The girls are excited for Santa to come
Their ages are perfect for magical fun.
We've been trying to teach them about Baby Jesus
And tell them about the true meaning of Christmas.

We know you are busy having a ball
So - Dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!
We hope your celebrating goes just right -
Merry Christmas to All, and to All a good night!!

Love,

The Leithead Family

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

Abraham Lincoln was a wonderful man. It was he who made Thanksgiving a national holiday! Here is part of his Thanksgiving Proclamation:

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in number, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand, which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens." - October 3, 1863

Wow! I hope we will all take time to remember where all our blessings come from this Thanksgiving.

Also, here is a great clip about Thanksgiving that I thought was neat. Enjoy! Hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!!

Leaves, Birthdays, and Spooks!

I woke up one morning. My body ached all over. I moaned and groaned and thought to myself, "I'm getting the flu - oh, I hurt so bad." But I had no other flu symptoms. Then I remembered that the day before I had raked leaves. Millions of them....

And all the while my girls frolicked in these leaves that had had the nerve to fall to the ground without first changing color.And they had the time of their lives! They rolled in them, threw them in the air, and even buried eachother in them. And Life Was Good!

Then I had this birthday. And it was okay as far as birthdays go. Just a normal day of regular stuff. But I did have something to look forward to...
An amazing overnight trip to Billings with my husband. ONLY my husband. No Children. It was a dream come true. And I didn't even feel guilty when at 11:00 p.m. I realized that I had not called to check on my kiddos. In fact, I had not given them a second thought since we left home. I think it was some sort of a break through!
I had been able to enjoy an entire meal without feeding, wiping, hushing, or pulling my hair out. I had been able to put on my swimming suit and sit in a hot tub at our hotel and thoroughly enjoy it. I actually closed my eyes and smiled as I listened to some little girls splashing and screaming in the pool...because they were not mine.
Relaxing, eating, shopping, spending time with my true love. It was Heaven - and it was the best birthday present in the whole world. I wonder if we will ever get to do it again - I hope so!
And as for Halloween, well it was fun. The girls had been excited for weeks about their costumes and trick or treating. We made it back from our weekend just in time to get the girls into their costumes and load them up to go collect their candy. I think they had fun. But I think they had even more fun handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters that came to our house. The sound of the doorbell sent them into quite a frenzie!!
Our Wicked Witch and our Little Cinderella: