Friday, December 18, 2015

A Christmas Letter


  

In the Christmas cards that I sent, I promised a Christmas letter on my blog. That was such a silly idea. I've sat down at least five times trying to write this without success. But today, people are starting to receive our cards in the mail, and they just might follow the suggestion to read a Christmas blog. So here goes a 2015 recap:

 

Super thankful.


Having little kids is crazy and really hard a lot of days. (Who knew they could whine for an entire day straight!? Anyone with advice on kicking the whining habit, comment below.) But, I've been so aware that these are blessed times. Life is not easy with the littles, but I wouldn't trade my time at home with them for anything. I love doing graphic design work, but there are a lot of good designers in the world. I am the only person in the entire world that can fulfill the job of being mom of my three kids. All this to say, I am so thankful for Tim and how hard he works to support our family. (He is a senior marketing manager at The Members Group. I feel like you're supposed to put stuff like that in your Christmas letter, right?)

I am so thankful for you. I am often overwhelmed by our family and friends and their commitment to and support of us. I'm thankful for smartphones and the group text I have with my sisters – one in Minnesota, one in Argentina. I'm thankful for my parents who took us to Florida in February, and we got to spend a whole week together. They also came down to Iowa to take care of my kids when Dailia was born. My in-laws love to hop over to Des Moines when they have a free day to give me a break.

Especially as our family grows and my title as stay-at-home-mom becomes a more literal description of my life (because I just don't get out much anymore), I am sad that I don't get to see so many friends who are near and dear to my heart. But I am so encouraged by so many of our friends who take God seriously and make real sacrifices to love and serve people

In addition to our friends that go way back, we are constantly growing our circle of friends and it is so much fun. The community group we belong to through our church is growing, and it is so fun to build those relationships.

I'm also thankful that we are healthy. Dailia was born in June without any complications. She is a bright eyed, cabbage patch kid (seriously, that baldy looks just like one). Other than these Christmastime colds, we are healthy, and we are not guaranteed any of this. It's all just a blessing.


What we're working on. 


Whining. All of us. Tim doesn't really whine. He's a rockstar. The rest of us, we whine.

Contentment. There is a sign in a small town in Missouri that says, "Gratitude makes what I have enough." And I love that. It's really easy for me to want the freedom and flexibility I had before I had kids. But wanting that makes me miss out on these days that fly by with my kids, so I'm trying to pursue contentment.

Just because it's hard doesn't make it bad. I'm not naturally a hard worker. When something gets hard, I like to quit. Coincidentally, the last step of any task is the most difficult for me. But I'm trying to learn to embrace difficulty, and teach Penelope to work hard, too.

Tim is working on being the best dad in the whole world. And he's doing a really good job. His job is demanding, and his role as a community group leader at our church takes time, too. But he protects his time with the kids. Often, you will find him and Penelope at Caribou on Sunday afternoons working on her workbook for the Awana kids' class at church. He also just finished doing water babies swim lessons with August.

Getting to know our neighbors. We have lived in our house just shy of five years, but we had really only gotten to know our next door neighbors. But this fall, a neighbor down the street invited everyone to a little party at his house. Since that night, we look at our street completely differently. Knowing your neighbors is so great, and it turns out there are quite a few young families on our street. A couple of weeks ago, we hosted a Christmas party for our street, and it was a lot of fun.

 

He dwelt among us.


I spent a lot of time reading and memorizing John 1 this fall, and I like to think of it as John's Christmas story.




And then the Word became flesh and dwelt among us—as a little, frail baby on the first Christmas. It is so crazy that God would love us so much to live among those who rejected him. But our Lord was willing to do whatever it took to prove his love for us. Christmas was the first step of that proof. He became flesh and dwelt among us, and ultimately proved his love by dying on the cross to pay the penalty of our sin.

Our prayer is that you would know the love of God and experience the blessings of a life submitted to his perfect plan.

Merry Christmas!

Love, The Laehns

We can just pretend Penelope (4) is smiling and that you can see Dailia's (6 months) face. August (2) looks like a lumberjack.