Christmas Catch Up

We were able to come HOME for Christmas, and what a time of joy it was! We started a new tradition on New Years Day! This was at a free family fun run after church on Sunday. It was a blast and we were so proud of everyone that came. My sister Laura and I have been running lots in 2011 and completed our first 15k in October. Our other sister Becki and our daddy said they would run it with us next year, so we thought this would be a great way to kick off that goal. AND, Laura and I registered for our first HALF MARATHON!!! She is flying to Atlanta to run it with me and I feel like the luckiest most blessed gal on earth!
The boys had so much fun and actually CHOSE to do the 4 mile run! They regretted that about one block past the 2 mile turn though!!! Those Grunewald boys are great athletes.

Noonie and Papa ran most of the way pushing the girls!!!

Oh man...this was right as we were leaving Tulsa and saying good-bye. The kids were all so sad. Less than 5 months guys! We can do it!

We were able to see old friends and man did it fill our love tanks!!! We are so blessed to have friends that have prayed for us while we've been gone.

We had fun with our cousins...

Our daddy even got to fly in for 5 days!!! Oh how we needed that time with him. We were so thankful.

Waiting to come down stairs on Christmas morning! Man, are we blessed! We opened WAY too many gifts. But enjoyed a new tradition of giving a gift to Jesus this year. The kids got money from us and got to choose (which meant the boys chose, the girls didn't get it) how they wanted to give something to Jesus. They chose to help our dear friend Joey Armstrong. Please take a minute to check out his blog. He is a wonderfully talented writer, and lives his life for Jesus. We were so thankful that our kids know a little bit more about all the ways to love on Jesus on HIS BIRTHDAY!!!

(Please excuse that the pics are out of order, but I couldn't move them for some reason). This is our rescue trip home. My mom selflessly flew out to Atlanta on December 12th, stayed with us and packed us up and DROVE us home on December 15th! This pic was taken at lunch when we were almost to Oklahoma!!!

My grandmother took us to see the incredible lights at Rhema. We were dying to see lights because in Atlanta, if the lights are worth looking at they cost a fortune to view!

She is so silly and LOVED these sunglasses her sister got for Christmas.

Emery got her first American Girl bitty baby! She immediately kissed all over her!

Owen's "Holiday" program at school. He sure does love his new teacher and has made so many wonderful friends!

Then my mama drove us all.the.way.back.here. Seriously, how blessed are we to have family that loves on us so well. I got to spend almost 4 weeks with my mama!!! Oh how my heart needed that. As wonderful as it feels to be here with Blake, we are all looking forward to our final return Memorial Day weekend. Both boys kept warning us they were not coming back to Atlanta with us! And even Sadie told Noonie she wanted to go with her when we dropped her off at the Marta yesterday.

So proud of our Cooper

Some of you may have already seen this, but I had to post it here so that our first families could see it too.

Cooper worked so hard to memorize these verses, and I cried just about every time he's said it.

There is just something about a child knowing the Bible and the real reason that we celebrate Christmas. May this always be our focus, not just during this time of year!

Do You Love Jesus?

This is my absolute favorite time of year. I get teary hearing certain Christmas songs about the birth of our Savior...how He became human for us.

This song is my new all time favorite because it keeps reminding me of such truth of the season...



And something I hardly ever do is steer you to another site. But there is something that has been stirring in my heart for years. My first youth pastor and his wife have have had the same stirring. Jen has written about it and I pray you will take a minute to read what she says about Christmas. She writes so much better than I ever could. She is so bold and honest. If you love Jesus, please please read what she writes.

My prayer is that our children always know that Jesus is what Christmas is about, not Santa, not gifts.

Our Christmas celebration!

Well in our last post I talked about how Blake had been working lots, and I had shared about how we didn't really get to have a family Christmas celebration.

I didn't want to get my hopes up, but Blake told me that he saw something in the paper that he thought we might like. God is so good because even though Blake was on call yesterday, he got home around 4 0'clock! We loaded up and drove into town to ride the gondola up the mountain for dinner and dancing! The view of the mountain and city at night was simply breath taking. The boys were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. They had been dying to take the lift up the mountain and they couldn't believe the sights on the mountain. It's so cool to see life through the eyes of your children!

The boys look out the gondola.
Blake and the kids at the top of the mountain! Sadie wasn't really sure of the gondola, but part of it could have been that she couldn't see a darn thing!

Just watching the boys was enough to make Blake and I burst with joy! So we rode up, the guys let Sadie and I pick seats by the fire while they got our dinner. My sweet husband got me my favorite dinner and wine (what a treat!) and he got a steak and pizza for the kids. I know it's silly that I am telling you what we ate, but when you've been living with a stove and microwave we were gettin' hungry for our favorites!!!! Oh the simple things in life!

Of course, we got lots of people talking about our family and adorable kiddos. When Sadie was finished eating she got up and started shaking her booty. It's like she knows that people think she's a princess and even though she's quiet...she's very social and loves the stares!

We were desperate to get a picture of all of us ON the mountain so we asked the guy working the gondola. Oops, he got his finger in it! Oh well!

After we got to the bottom of the mountain, we walked to the shops in the snow. It was a nice beautiful sparkly snow! The boys found this Santa and since we really don't do Santa I made them stand here so that we could count this as our pic! It was a night I won't forget and I thank God for providing us the time to get away. Needless to say, someone decided to drink and go sledding at midnight last night so Blake had to go in to repair a femur fracture (ouch dude) at 1am. Isn't it selfish that I was just glad this didn't interupt our family time? I was...sorry hun!

A Christmas We'll Never Forget

I've learned so many things this Christmas.

This time in Aspen, even though it's only been two weeks, has grown me in so many ways.

I've learned that the simple life I thought I lived, really wasn't that simple.

I've learned that it's not really cramped to have 5 people in 500 square feet...we're quite comfy here.

I've learned how much my kids really are best friends. I keep telling them this, but they are actually living it out here!

Kids really do adjust well to change when they've been prayed over.

Our kids have not argued anymore than usual.

I've learned how to trust God in new ways with our family.

Yesterday, Blake was called in around 11 and didn't come home until 6:15, which meant we spent most of Christmas without our daddy.

Our plans for dinner didn't pan out as planned, so I ended up making chicken noodle soup on the stove. It made me sad that we didn't get to do anything big on Christmas. But then the fact that I got sad about the traditions of Christmas made me embarrassed. I had to constantly remind myself that Christmas was not about traditions...

The GREAT news is that we got to spend Christmas eve with Blake and we captured some cute pics of the kids Christmas day before Blake went in.

We let the boys stay up and watch Polar Express (we wanted to emphasize Jesus on Christmas eve!) and have popcorn and Hot Chocolate! Below is first thing Christmas morning before we let the kids open their stockings!

I very well might be the only mom who put whoopee cushions in her boys' stockings! They were a hit! Sadie LOVES cell phones and was tickled to get her own in her stocking! I love how easy it is to make kids smile!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Good morning family! We had a surprise visit yesterday afternoon from Laura, the woman over the program at Aspen Orthopedic Associates that brought Blake here.

I had been hoping to get to meet her and thank her for all that she did for our whole family to come to Aspen with Blake.

As simple as our lives are now, and our living situation is...this woman did SO much more than she was required to do so that all 5 of us could be here.

And then yesterday, she came all the way out to our apartment to deliver us homemade fudge, a card of thanks, and a Christmas CD that she made for us!

Can you believe that? What a doll!

Of course, our boys were only wearing underoos...so that was a bit embarrassing! But I was dressed and Sadie still had her clothes on, and at least I had picked up the apartment during naps! This place gets trashed in the blink of an eye!

So I thought you might like these pictures of our sweet, dainty, teensy girl downing fudge. She LOVED it (um, so did her mama!). She even screamed at me when I took the box away from her. She had her mouth full as well as a piece in each hand....and she still screamed!

She's going in for more! Look at how happy Cooper is! Its amazing what a little chocolate will do for ya!

Look at those lips trying so hard to keep the fudge in! Hilarious!

Blake is working all day today, but we are praying he can meet us at church tonight for Christmas eve service @ 5!

I am not going to let it get to me that I might be alone tonight, so please pray that I can keep focused on Christ and that today and tomorrow are about Him drawing near to our family and our children.

The kids watching the snow fall yesterday. The flakes were huge and you could see them sparkle in the air. It was incredible!

These are the words I will focus on today:

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking

How we need to hear from God

You’ve been promised, we’ve been waiting

Welcome Holy Child Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don’t mind our manger

How I wish we would have known

But long-awaited Holy Stranger

Make yourself at home

Please make yourself at home

Bring your peace into our violence

Bid our hungry souls be filled

Word now breaking Heaven’s silence

Welcome to our world

Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us

Tender brow prepared for thorn

Tiny heart whose blood will save us

Unto us is born Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around you

Breathe our air and walk our sod

Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God Perfect Son of God

Welcome to our world!

Weekend fun!

Sadie eating snow...a new favorite of hers!

Looks like Cooper ate the marker instead of coloring with it (then played clueless as to what was on his face!)

The group that Blake is working with takes a plane twice a month to Telluride, CO for clinic. So early Friday morning Blake took out and got to ride co-pilot! Unfortunately, they only had room for 8 which meant staff only!

He got home early that afternoon and picked us up to take us around town. Every time we'd seen the city of Aspen before this it had been after sundown, so I got to take some pics!

After letting the kids out to run around a bit....

we found a perfect little BBQ place for dinner!

Are they not adorable? Needless to say we've been getting lots of sweet comments about our kids around Aspen.

Saturday Sadie and I went to the store for groceries while the boys climbed the mountain again. One of the things that I love doing with the kids at Christmas is baking and decorating cookies. Since we don't have an oven, we had to be creative (or lazy) and just buy the cookie already baked! It was still tons of fun!

After naps Blake took us to see Princess and the Frog for Sadie. It was such a cute movie and the kids loved all of the music and bee-bopped their way through the movie.

Sadie checking out the movie poster. I know she had no clue, but she really acted excited to see it!

This is the first movie that all of the kids have lasted through! What a fun stage!

I was trying to get a picture of Sadie in her cute Christmas outfit, and this is what she did!!! Oh no! Cute belly though!

The boys keep telling Sadie that she is Princess Tiana now! Too cute! I told them they need to keep reminding her of this as she grows up!

This morning we visited a church that was so much like ours at home. It was called Crossroads Community Church! How funny is that? Ours is called Crossings Community Church. It was small, but perfect and really could not have felt more like home. What a blessing! We can't wait to go back for Christmas Eve services this week!

Hope you all are enjoying this week of Christmas and spending lots of time with family!