Christmas Photos

In the photo marathon to get a couple of decent pictures for the Christmas photo card, I came up with a few keepers! It's just hard to get all 3 looking and smiling at the same time...those of you with 3 know what I mean!

Merry Christmas!!

Thank you for your prayers

Gerald's first chemo treatment went fairly well. He is tired and had a couple of days of feeling sick. Of course his immune system is weak, so he's got a cold on top of things. But overall he is doing well, it's just a long, slow process. Please continue to remember him as he goes for the 2nd treatment before Christmas. We love you, Grandaddy!

Prayers for Aunt Mildred

Aunt Mildred is in Louisville today where the doctors continue testing to find out where her cancer is. She is tired and frustrated and just in need of some answers. Pray this procedure will reveal the source and that it will be treatable. Thank you!

The Hunt siblings, L-R: Trigger, Shirley*, Mildred, Lou, Mary Nell, & Bill

*my sweet mom-in-law

Breakfast with Santa

Our church had it's annual "Breakfast with Santa" this past Saturday. First we met in the auditorium for caroling and a Christmas book read by our preacher, then there's the grand entrance of Santa and Mrs. Claus. Next, we enjoyed a breakfast of holiday favorites--donut holes, Christmas cookies, fruit, cheese, and the ever-popular pigs-in-a-blanket (with about 600 of our closest friends crammed into the Family Life Center--aka "gym").









Then there were of course pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Which of course I did not get my own pictures of. They had someone there taking photos, so we have that copy but I don't have a scanner (yet...hint, hint, Jared).

The last part was Christmas crafts. Here are a couple of those photos:

Madeline making "Reindeer food"--mostly chee.rios, which I think she ate!

Jack & Noah making Christmas cards...they made them to themselves...don't think they quite got the idea, but they did a good job anyway!

Merry Christmas!!

Catching up and Sunday Night Traditions

One of my 2 digital camera memory cards has unformatted itself--full of pictures I can't get off of it, of course. I'm going to take it to the camera store and see if they can save it. There wasn't anything critical on there, so I'm thankful for that but it always stinks to lose pictures.


So, here are the ones from the other memory card...

Jack and Maddy built this block tower together. Nothing amazing, except that Jack resisted the urge to knock it down long enough for me to get a picture!

If you know me at all, you probably know I love to remember (although I have a terrible memory, so I guess I really like to "be reminded"), to look back, and I love traditions. I love the "White-isms" from when my brothers and I were kids--the cute things we said that have stuck--and the new "Smalling-isms" that my own kids have brought to our vocabulary (sometime I'll have to blog on that). As much as I love traditions, I'm not that great at making them on purpose. I guess because I don't plan ahead all that well, or even when I do plan, I don't always follow through. But one of the coolest things to me is when I see the spontaneous (meaning not-contrived-by-me) traditions that emerge in our family. Little silly things, like this one:

Daddy and the kids watching "Nature" together on PBS Sunday nights when we get home from church. We miss the first few minutes, but they rush to get pjs on so they can watch. They get to stay up until 8 (instead of 7:30). I occasionally join them, but it's not my favorite, so usually it's just a Daddy thing. Just one of those little things that make life predictable, that are comforting because you're together just being. That to me is so precious! I am very grateful.