Happy New Year 2015!

One of my school friends and her husband traveled to New York City a few days ago to take part in the famous New Year’s Eve countdown in Times Square. She posted a short video of the countdown and the midnight celebrating, complete with Frank Sinatra crooning “New York, New York” in the background. It gave me a pretty amazing eye-level feel for what it must’ve been like to be there at that moment. She and her husband were having the time of their lives, singing along with everybody else. It was fun to watch!

Lots of crazies in NYC.  Lots of crazies here, too.

(Trivia: One of the balloons popped right before the camera went off for this picture.  :-D )

Things were a little different at the Worley homestead at midnight. Lights dimmed, fire in the fireplace, Christmas tree still up and on (we always leave it up past New Year’s Day), glo-sticks being held and worn, about 40-50  balloons scattered on the kitchen and dining room floor. Yes, very different from my friend’s celebration – but pretty much perfect. Sure, there was a teenager with strep throat, but other than that – perfect. ;-)

We spent much of the afternoon working on the food: Breaded Chicken Fingers, meatballs in barbecue sauce, Twice-Baked Potatoes, my friend Brit’s Mexican Cheese Dip, fruit plate and homemade brownies. I also roasted 2 chickens (and Mick de-boned them) for the White Chicken Chili we planned to have on New Year’s Day. The girls helped with the food and dish-washing, while Erica and Sarah put together a photo album of pictures from 2014. I don’t know why this is, but it’s so nice to be able to hold and look through an actual photo album, rather than just digital images on a screen. It just seems more relaxing.

Late in the afternoon, Sarah blew up nearly all the balloons for the balloon drop by herself. I don’t know how she did it without hyperventilating! She said she felt a “little dizzy” toward the end. HA! Meanwhile, after a phone call to the doctor’s office, Mick had to make a quick run to get some antibiotics for poor Rachel; she spent most of the evening on the couch. :-(

Us looking sad because Rachel was sick.  I love Claire’s pose! 

After we ate dinner, interrupted by toast after toast (I think someone toasted to “toasts” :-D ), we played “Big Boggle” (25 letters instead of 16), the dice game and charades. Always fun to play charades with kids; the ever-helpful Trent told us what he was going to be before he acted it out. Ha!

The countdown, as always, ended up with lots of rushing around at the last minute, trying to get the glo-gear unwrapped and assembled. Some of those things were pretty complicated!! So, we ended up counting down about 10 minutes after we intended to. HA! Oh well – the balloons still dropped and everybody was happy. :-)

 

Happy New Year to all!

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Profoundly Thankful

I love looking through old pictures. It’s especially fun to find a really good one that you don’t remember ever seeing. This morning, I found this one of Trent taken two years ago, just past his second birthday.

There have been many moments since he was hospitalized that I’ve been particularly struck with thankfulness that he is still with us. Often, it happens during special occasions: his birthday, of course, watching him open his Christmas gifts, toasting the old and new years last night. And then, unexpectedly, this morning, when I came across this picture of him that I don’t remember ever seeing. I had two immediate reactions:

Awwwww … look how gorgeous he is, and

Wow … I’m so very thankful he’s still with us.

Thankful that I wasn’t looking at this picture of his little face in an “In Memoriam” kind of way … wondering what he might look like as a four-year-old.

To many, that might sound strange and maybe even a little macabre, but that is how my thought processes tend to go these days.

I know our older girls have a changed perspective, too. Not long after Trent came home, as Courtney was stepping over his toys, she suddenly said “I’m so glad we still have his little toddler messes!” More thankfulness. Were we ever thankful for his messes before last August?

Sometimes, it surprises and disappoints me that I can still have times of anger, frustration and discontent over things that are so minor compared to what we went through. It’s just more evidence of our fallen natures, of course. But thankfully, God gives us all these moments -- the big milestone events and the little things like the discovery of a photograph -- to remind of us His goodness and mercy. And we are profoundly thankful for all those moments … and for our healthy little boy.