Love from home!

  For quite a while now, Mr. Lacy Life has been having a tough time at work, mostly due to the fact that there just seems to be a complete lack of integrity, lack of respect, and lack of work ethic with certain employees on his job.  One person in particular went out for a job/promotion, which just happens to be the same  job/promotion that Mr. Lacy Life was seeking.  Well, I am disappointed to report that this other employee got the job instead.  Honestly, if it would have been ANYONE else, we could have seen the logic of it.  But because of this co-workers track record, lack of integrity, lack of respect, and lack of a strong work ethic, it really boggles the mind of a thinking person!  

  It is tough enough to go to work for 11-12 hours a day, and be away from your family for all of that time, but when you see things like this go on in the work place, it tends to wear down your resolve.  Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly obvious that there are office politics and selfish ambitions that precede and over ride integrity, respect, a strong work ethic, a strong commitment, and a solid track record on his job.

  My dear husband is such a hard worker, such a great provider, and such a wonderful and dedicated father and husband that he deserves SO much!  Not to mention the fact that he is such a good, hard worker with such an unbelievable track record of integrity that he deserves to have any and every promotion and more!  And, well, since I can't give him the respect, the promotions, or the accolades in the work place that he SO obviously deserves, the kiddos and I do what we can do to make his days at work more tolerable by showing him much love and appreciation when he gets home from a long day! 

  So today, when we got wind of the sad news that not only did he NOT get the job/promotion, but that another, undeserving co-worker did, we decided to surprise my dear husband with some L-O-V-E from home!!!  I rallied our "troops" (our brood of 4 children and myself) and told them that we were going to make daddy a special dinner and show him how much we love and appreciate him with a special night! 

  We treated him to his Favorite meal, which is meatloaf, mashed potatoes  with gravy, and veggies for this meat-n'-patada's man!  The kiddos and I also surprised him with a balloon, a banner, cards, and lots of love and hugs from our hearts for all that he does for this family!  We ate together, talked, relaxed and just basically tried to take his mind off of the unfortunate set of circumstances that he has to wake up and go face again tomorrow!

  Thank God that this job is not our source, and that the one who is, our God, can bring us through any and all circumstances that we face in this life.  He is able, He gives us the strength, and the grace to bring us through when things get tough.  Praise God that His mercies are new every morning, and when my dear husband has to go face this situation again tomorrow, I can have comfort and be assured that he is not alone, but our God will be with him!  :)

Here's hoping that you are appreciating one another today, too,

It's a Lacy Life

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting, and Finally...SNOW!!!

  Okay, so just so you know, this is a post that I originally began back in February.  This is not what things looked like here today in Minnesota!

  I don't know what the weather has been like in your neck of the woods, but around these parts, it has been an unseasonably warm winter with little to no snow!  Really!  I know when people think of Minnesota they automatically think of cold weather with LOTS and LOTS of snow.  Like- you can't even leave your house amount of snow!  Well, even those of us that live here would have to admit that it's not quite THAT bad, even though it does get kind of old day after week after month of it!  Ugh!  However, we usually do live up to that reputation of LOTS of snow and really cold weather in the winter time, but this year has been quite different, indeed.  So different that I have never, ever seen the likes of this kind of winter in all my thirty-(ah-hem)-some years!  :)
 

  We have gotten some snow in the past few months, it's just that every time we've gotten a little snow, it has been melting almost right away due to our warm temperatures.  So, with all that being said, the children have been hoping, and praying, and...well...really BEGGING God for some snow to play in!!!  All except for one particular child who realizes that with all that snow comes the work of shoveling all of that snow!  :)

  Although we have gotten some small amounts of snow, up until now there have been no snowmen guarding our front yard, no snowball fights, and very little snow playing, because of this lack of a good snowfall.  So the other day God graciously blessed them with a little bit of the "white stuff", as we so "affectionately" call it here.  After the kiddos did all of the shoveling, they played, and they played, and then they played some more!  They were so thankful for the snow to play in, and even that child I mentioned earlier had a blast playing in all that beautiful snow!  :)

Enjoying the "white stuff" on THIS day,
It's a Lacy Life

No Cabin Fever here!

  Okay, okay, so I know that some of you that are closest to us are waiting for a "certain" blog post about our recent vacation, and I will get to that, but I really feel like I need to finish up on some older posts that I started months ago, to get everyone and my blog (for the sake of a family record of events as they actually happened, and for the sake of some sense of chronological order) caught up on things that have been happening and the order in which they actually happened.  :) 

  So with that being said, here is a blog post I began at the end of January about fun things we had been up to over the winter.  I hope you enjoy it even though it was a while ago!  :)

  As many of you know, winters here in Minnesota can get EXTREMELY LONG!!!  We are couped up for several months and we can begin to feel as if the walls are closing in on us!  Okay, for those of you out there that do not live in Minnesota, and those that buy into the idea that we really are "snowed-in" over the winter, I assure you that we are not!  We just generally spend much more time indoors, more than any other time of the year, and all the snow and cold can tend to make things a little tricky being and going outside.  But we ARE Minnesotans after all, and we don't cower under the pressure of wind-chills and blizzards (ha! ha!)!  No, we embrace it and play in it!  Uh...either that or we find warm indoor places to play while it's freezing outside!   

  We've been busy doing many fun things with our friends lately, and creating lots of great memories!  It has been absolutely wonderful, and I have been feeling very blessed by the great people we have in our lives!  I love and appreciate our friends so much, and it is great to spend time with them and have the opportunity to create these amazing memories with them!  

  One of the things that we did is go to a place called Sky Zone.  Basically this place has trampolines, trampolines, and more trampolines!  They have one area where you can play dodge-ball in a dodge-ball trampoline court, and this is where All Star Boy spent ALL of his time!  Then they had a regular jumping area where they had tons of trampolines lined up, I think there was about 5 or 6 deep and about 15 across.  There were also trampolines on the sides (walls).  They also had an area for younger kiddos and another area where you could run, and jump, jump, jump, and dive into a pit of brick-sized foam! 

  My children had a blast at Sky Zone!!!  Mr. Lacy Life had probably an equal amount of fun, and even I tried jumping!  It just wasn't my thing, with the motion-sickness issues I have and all!  Here are some pictures to give you a glimpse at the fun they had.  That big group picture is all of the children that were there with our group for the fun day-4 families in all and lots of smiling, bouncing children! 

                                               

Doesn't that look fun!!!

  Another thing we've been doing is going to the Minnesota Children's Museum.  Pretty much every year we get a yearly membership, and we have been going there for several years now.  It ends up paying for itself, because just for the 4 children and I to pay the admission to go one time is almost the same as buying a yearly membership.  And we can go as much as we want in that years time, so for us it's a great deal! 

  Our friends the "Taffy's" and us began going, I'm thinking about 8 years ago, and all these years later, we still enjoy going there together!  Even my oldest can find some fun things to do there.  I do realize that any day now he will decide it's no longer fun, but I will enjoy it and indulge it as long as I can!  I love doing things that make my children smile and happy!  :)

  Here are a few recent pictures of our visit to the Children's Museum.  

 

  Another fun thing that we did this winter was that we tried Broom ball with some friends for the first time.  Well, I should say, that Mr. Lacy Life and the children tried it, I chose to visit with a friend in the warming house and stay warm (and take pictures, of course)!  Everyone really seemed to enjoy it and although we have had, hands down, the warmest winter I have ever experienced in my lifetime here in Minnesota, I think it was the coldest day of the winter this year!  It was freezing, but that didn't stop us die-hard Minnesotans, and these excited children! 

  Here are a few pictures, but you may have a hard time recognizing anyone in them, as they were all bundled up for the cold day.  :)

   One thing that the boys and Mr. Lacy Life did was they went to something called Twinsfest.  They have always wanted to check it out, and thanks to a friend, who gave us 2 free tickets, they were able to go this year.  And, it just so happened, that when my dear husband went up to buy one more ticket, someone came up to him and offered him yet another free ticket!  So they all ended up getting in for free!  Twinsfest is an event put on by our local professional baseball team, the Minnesota Twins, where there are opportunities for people to be on the field, play on the field, possibly meet some of the players and/or other former Twins baseball players, they can get autographs, etc. 

  Here are a few pictures.

  Another memorable thing the boys did, is they went and did a service project for their Alert Cadets group, where they went and helped an elderly woman clear away some downed trees on her property.  They spent the day with their dads, their troop, and outside with God's glorious nature!  What a beautiful day it was, and to think this was in the middle of winter!  Look at the pictures and note the lack of snow on the ground!

  Okay, last but not least, I will mention here that Mr. Lacy Life and the kiddos have been attending a monthly breakfast at Mr. Lacy Life's mothers' senior apartment building.  This isn't really that big of a deal, but the noteworthy thing is that on one particular breakfast, one of the coordinators got wind of the fact that our children play the piano.  Well, they were invited to play for the seniors breakfast the very next month.  They ended up playing for them, and the seniors loved them!  They were really excited to bless these precious seniors this way, and the seniors really appreciated them, too.  So much so, that they actually started coming up to them and were insisting on giving them money and were praising their efforts and talking of how much they appreciated their beautiful music!  They have been invited back , and Mr. Lacy Life's mother keeps talking about all the people in her building that are coming up to her asking when they will play for them again.  What an honor to give these seniors the joy and beauty of music during this short time in their day.  Hopefully it works out next month so they can perform for them again.  I joked with the children that this is their first "official" paid musical "gig", and that all those lessons might start paying for themselves!  LOL!  Here's just a few pictures of that day.

  That's about all I have to share for now.  Of course we have been up to some more fun things, but these are the ones that I can think of right now.  We have been doing another really fun and exciting thing (for us), but I will do a blog post about that another time. 

Hoping that you are having fun fighting "cabin fever" in your family, too,

It's a Lacy Life

Love is in the Air!

  Greetings online people!  I know, I know it's been quite a while since I've posted anything on my blog.  But I actually HAVE been writing "behind the scenes", if you will.  I have partially-written several blog posts, but I just haven't had the time to edit them and finish them off for public viewing, yet.  Frankly, it makes me extremely obsessive with perfectionism about publishing my posts!!!  I want them to be " just perfect" for public viewing, so I won't sound like a babbling fool!  LOL!  I am going to try and not be SO hard on myself and from now on I am going to try and just "let it flow" a little more!  :) 
 
  This is a blog I began writing on Valentines Day, thus the title!  I never got around to finishing it, but it is often said, "better late than never"!  So with that said... here's the better late than never Valentines Day post!

  Okay, so the title may be a little misleading, but I couldn't resist- after all, IT IS Valentine's Day!!!  :)

  Around here, we don't really make a big deal out of Valentines Day.  But, just because we don't really do anything BIG doesn't necessarily mean we don't do ANYTHING either.  We just don't make any big plans, we don't have any special traditions, and we don't have any big expectations.  We may have the occasional cute little cards being spontaneously exchanged among family members throughout the day, maybe a few sweet treats being tossed to and fro, and a few "Happy Valentines Days" greetings flying around in the atmosphere.  Each person does what they feel like they want to do or what they think of to do on their own. 

  I always tell my dear husband that I don't want him to buy me something, give me a card, flowers, or whatever JUST because the date on the calendar is telling him to do so!  I tell him that I want him to do something special for me because HE WANTS TO do it, not out of some obligation from the date on the calendar! 

  So, truth be told, I have been feeling real icky the last few days... you see, I've got a head cold, and I just really wanted to be in bed resting today after the kiddos and I got done with school, and after I got done bringing the girls to their tambourine class, and running a few errands.  But in spite of the way I was feeling physically, I was feeling a strong tugging on my heart strings to put on a special meal for my family. 

  However, the thought of putting on a special meal sounded a little like having a root canal right about now!!!  You know how it is when your sick, right?  When your sick, and when your a momma, you push through a whole day despite feeling really bad, and all day you are looking forward to getting take out or deli and resting and relaxing, right?  But I really felt like I should do something special for my family and I felt that I was supposed to bless them in this way.  So I did!  I decided to suck it up, and decided that I would go ahead and push myself a little more and make a wonderful large, homemade meal for my family...for no other reason except that I LOVE them and that I really ENJOY cooking for them and serving them in this way!  After all, isn't that what Valentine's Day is supposed to be all about?  It's not about the gifts bought or the money spent, but about doing something special for the people you love and being together, right? 

  So, I decided to make a full turkey dinner!  We had stocked up on turkeys when they had them cheap around the holidays, so this sounded like a great idea, mostly because I happened to have all of the ingredients, except potatoes, on hand (which I could easily pick up while we were out).  On the menu was turkey, dressing (or stuffing), mashed potatoes, Normandy mixed vegetables, roasted corn, and jellied cranberries.  For dessert was blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry shortcake with whipped cream, also because I had the ingredients on hand.

  Well, I am happy to report that "I" am the one who was blessed that I decided to serve my family in this way!  I am blessed because I know how much they appreciated all of it, and because I was paid back a hundred times over for my efforts in hugs, kisses, "oh, thank you mom"('s), "oh, mom, this is SO good" ('s), in "wow, honey, this is great", and on and on!  :) 

  I must say, it feels great to be appreciated and it truly IS more blessed to give than to receive!  :)  I got so much more joy out of doing this for my family than any flowers, gifts, or box of chocolates I could have bought or received for Valentine's Day!  So, maybe the title wasn't so deceiving, maybe love really is in the air, just not in the way the saying would lead you to believe!  :)

Hoping love is in the air in your home, too,
It's a Lacy Life

A Celebration!

   The other day and today we celebrated our first born child.  All Star Boy turned 14 years old this week!  Yes...14!!!  Sometimes it seems like just yesterday when we were just getting to know this wonderful little baby boy, and now he's almost a man!  He is such a blessing to our family!  When he was born I was overwhelmed by the feelings of love that I felt for this child.  I never even knew that it was possible to love anyone else as much as I loved this baby boy.  He was the light of my life and the joy in my heart!  (Well, he still is, I just have more lights in my life and more joys in my heart, now!)  Seeing him grow up has been such a pleasure.  Don't get me wrong, we have our ups and downs, and life is not all sunshine and roses, but in retrospect, he's a great kid and I'm proud to call him my son!  :)

  To say that this child is a Lego fanatic would be an understatement!  He eats, sleeps, and breathes...Lego's!  Yes he loves balls, and bouncing them, and all things sports and baseball, but other that that, Lego's is where it's at for this kid!  He was abundantly blessed with lots of love and lots of Lego's for his birthday.  His daddy and I didn't buy him any Lego's, I'll have you know!  We focused on his passion for baseball, and bought him baseball stuff that he loves just as much as Lego's, and some books (okay, okay, the 2 books we got him were Lego's collectors books, though).

      The other day we celebrated him by talking him out and doing all the things he wanted to do including, among other things, going to get donuts, going shopping for the perfect Lego set, and going to eat as a family at Olive Garden.  Then today we had a few of his friends over to hang out with him.  They played Lego's, snacked out, played pool, snacked out, played more games, and did I say snacked out!?!?  Wow, those growing boys can eat!  LOL!  

  It was a great day and a great week celebrating him and thinking about this great kid and what he means to us and what he adds to this very grateful family!  I consider myself richly blessed to be the mother to such a wonderful... dare I say...young man?!?!

Feeling very blessed,
It's a Lacy Life

Christmas and Holiday Traditions.

  Recently, at a Christmas party that my family attended, we were asked to go around the room and tell about our Christmas traditions.  As I thought about it for a few moments, I drew nothing but a blank!  I couldn't think of ONE SINGLE Christmas tradition that our family had!  I was so nervous as it was getting closer to our turn to speak, for fear that we actually didn't have any traditions!  We were listening to many wonderful traditions that other families were involved in.  Some families were telling of making traditional meals that had been passed down from generation to generation, or other special traditions that spanned many years.  Even after hearing some of the other traditions, hoping something would trigger my memory, I was still drawing a blank!  

  As I sat there, I began to wonder what was wrong with us and why we didn't make traditional meals from our ancestral homelands like some of the other families?  There must be something we do, some worthwhile tradition, right?!?!  Were we creating those memories and traditions that our children would remember well into adulthood?  Would they have anything to pass down to their own children, our traditions (if we even had any!?!?), because they had such fond memories of them from their own childhood?  Or were we just succumbing to the commercialism of the season and letting materialism seep into our home, and the holiday really was all about "the gifts" for our family?!?!  My heart sank as I thought of that possibility! 

  Well, thanks to one of the women there, and time constraints, all of the families didn't end up having to share, thank goodness, because at that moment, I thought that we were a family without any traditions!  The rest of the party went fine, but I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe we were in fact a family without any traditions!  

  After that moment, I was on a mission to find out just what our traditions were...and I am happy to report that we DO have some traditions after all!  Whew!  Granted our traditions may not involve making meals that grandma, great-grandma, and great-great grandma before her made, and they do not span generation after generation and years of history, but we have managed to create some traditions over the years for our family.  Some of them we've only just begun in the last few years, some we've started and stopped, and some we've been doing for several years and many we very well may do for years to come.  We have the usual family traditions of seeing mom's family on Christmas Eve, and dads family on Christmas Day, but we also have some that are just unique to what our immediate family have created and we hold them very dear.  They are traditions that the children ask about and look forward to every year.
 

  I named this post "Christmas and Holiday Traditions", because we've done a few things for Thanksgiving and New Years as well, and I thought they were noteworthy as great family fun that our family enjoys, too. 

  Our Thanksgiving traditions that we have is that we always have Thanksgiving dinner at my aunts house as well as at my husbands mom's house.  Also, the Macy's Day Parade is a big hit at our house, as we get ready to spend the rest of the day with loved ones!  Another thing that we've done for about 4 or 5 years (or times) now is that we go over to our dear friends house for desert and visiting after our other stops.  This has been a wonderful tradition that we value along with seeing our biological family, these special people are like family to us.  We certainly enjoy this time of fun and fellowship with these special people.  Although we missed this tradition this year due to sickness, bad time management, and planning on our behalf, we look forward to this tradition in the years to come!  :) 

                                                Another tradition that we have is actually a New Years Eve tradition. We do the family thing and stay home to watch the ball drop (yes-the kiddos stay up until midnight, too) as a family.  I allow each of the kiddos to pick out their very own treat-which is quite a fun thing in a family with many children- that we buy or I make for us.  We put out all the treats for everyone to share and enjoy, along with another family favorite -PIZZA!  This year "All Star Boy" choose Christmas Cookies as his treat, "Amish Girl" choose mom's famous Chili-Cheese Dip with tortilla chips, "Nature Girl" choose Cheetos (her new favorite snack), and "The Entertainer" choose mom's famous Pickle-Dip with crackers.  We usually have special drinks as well, this year we had Cherry 7up, Egg Nog, and Warm Spiced Apple Cider.  We set out all of the snacks and graze on them all evening while we play games, watch movies, talk, and pray in the new year.  Oh, and of course we always have  a nice warm fire compliments of my dear husband, which keeps us warm and cozy all night.

  
  One of the Christmas traditions that we have is that we always take time to go driving around looking at Christmas lights displays.  What fun!  I absolutely love Christmas lights, and my children seem to, too!  Even my husband has learned to appreciate the beauty of the Christmas light displays!  :)  I always try and make a point to do some sort of display at our home as well, so others can experience that same joy we do, when they pass by our home.  I never manage to quite get that over-the-top, gaudy-but-tasteful Christmas light display accomplished that I would like to, but it's not easy to talk my husband onto a ladder in the winter!  We've been doing this for as long as we've been a family.  I used to do this even before I got married, it's just something I've always liked to do.

  Here's a Christmas tradition that I just remembered, and that is that I really try and take the kiddos and I (and my husband-if he's available) to a Christmas show or performance of some sort.  We've gone to the Nutcracker Ballet in the past and this year, and we've also gone to Christmas performances and shows at our former church, and other churches.  This year we went and saw the Augsburg College choir and orchestra at Central Lutheran downtown with some friends, which was fabulous!  And we went back to our former church for their Christmas performance which was awesome!  We've gone to North Heights Church for their Christmas plays, as well.  So we try and do some type of plays, ballets, and concerts as the opportunities present themselves.

  Another Christmas tradition is that we go to a parade that we have locally.  The difference between this parade and your normal parade is that it is at night and the floats are all decked out with lights!  All of the floats have a theme like Santa, his sleigh, and his reindeer, or Mother Goose, or Hansel and Gretel, etc.  It's called the Holidazzle Parade, and we have went almost every year since the kiddos were babies.  We've also taken this opportunity to go and see the Macy's display at the Macy's downtown location, since that's where the parade is, too.  This is always a fun tradition for our family.  Although we haven't gone for 2 years, we will probably re-visit it next year.  The year we went with our friends the Taffy's was the best!  :)

  For the last few years, we have had the tradition of performing and attending our support groups Christmas Variety Show.  This is such a nice evening to get our minds set on the true meaning of Christmas, as well as spend some time with some of our homeschool friends, as well as our family members that attend.  We also participated in our music organizations Christmas Recital, which the children love to perform in and they really enjoy seeing the other students perform as well.  Another thing we've done is to participate in the girls' tambourine group's performances at nursing homes.  As well, the children and I have participated in our homeschool support groups Service Project performing and caroling for the seniors at a nursing home.  These things help us to serve others we know and in the community through music (piano, guitar, and singing), tambourine, and helps us keep focus on others during this "me" time of year.  This has really been a blessing for our family, seeing the smiles on the faces of the people as they see the children and families perform! 

  Another Christmas tradition that we have is decorating our home and our tree for Christmas as a family.  This is so much fun!  When we decorate the tree, the kiddos put 99% of the ornaments on the tree and I purpose not to worry about if it is "even" or how it looks!  :)  My job is to take out every ornament and decoration, look at it, give it either to it's rightful owner (one of the kiddos), or whomever needs something to put up, and tell the story about that particular ornament or decoration.  I talk about things like when we (or they) got it, what it means to me/us/them.  It might be something that belonged to one of my grandmothers or my mom, or my husband or his family.  This has become a really important part of our Christmas traditions, as it not only helps us focus on our Savior, as we have many angels, and manger-type ornaments and decorations, but it also helps us remember our loved ones past and present, our children's first Christmases, when mom and dad were married, etc.

  A tradition that we started either last year or the year before is that we do a  Christmas puzzle as a family.  Any guest that comes over during the holidays is welcome and encouraged to join us and help as well.  This had become a really fun and sweet time of working together towards a common goal, and a nice quiet time to be together.  Sometimes we sit for like an hour trying to figure it out together, and sometimes we just find a piece here or there as we pass by the puzzle table.  It's not a big important thing, just another thing the kiddos and I look forward to and another thing to bring us together as a family.  The other day as my eldest son and I were finishing up on the Christmas puzzle, I asked him if he wanted to start another one, he turned to me and said, yeah, next Christmas, I can't wait!  That was really special to me, something for the both of us to look forward to, and a time to be together again next year.  

  Last but not least, our last 2 Christmas traditions.  The first one is that we always have some sort of cake and we pray to and sing "Happy Birthday" to the one we celebrate... Jesus!  The kiddos love this tradition and they all get to blow out the candles in His honor.  The last tradition I thought of is that we read an advent story every year and every night (or at least when we remember or have the time) during advent.  Usually I read it, but this year my dear husband has read many of the stories, too.  The kiddos really look forward to this time, it brings us closer as a family, and more importantly it brings us closer to the Lord and puts our focus on the true meaning of Christmas, which is that precious baby boy that was born all those years ago in a manger...Jesus!

        
  So there you have it, we are a family of traditions after all!  It's holiday traditions "Lacy Life" style!  I hope you enjoyed hearing about our traditions, and I would love to hear about your favorite tradition in my comments!

Until next time...Happy New Year and Happy holiday traditions for you and your family,
It's a Lacy Life