Yes Thanksgiving

Yes, I am this far behind that I am just now posting about Thanksgiving. It was SO great this year!! Cassie and Landon surprised us and came into town to spend Thanksgiving with us! They got to meet baby Elise for the first time, and Cass got to come shopping with us for Black Friday YIPEE!!!! I love my family and could not imagine spending holidays without my parents, brothers, sisters, husband and kids. I know it won't always be this way.....I know the day will come that all of us will have grown children that had children and we will want to have our own Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations with just them and us getting together as brothers and sisters wont always happen, but for now I cherish every single time we get together and hope it lasts as long as possible!!!

Christmas 2010

Its time for some catching up!! We had an amazing Christmas this year.....Devin told the kids at the beginning of the month we wanted to focus more on Christ, so every night with scripture study we either read a story about Christ, or found a little video to watch. It was so wonderful, it really helped all of us focus on the true meaning of Christmas this year.
One of the FUNNEST parts of having a lot of kids, is even if they only get afew gifts each it looks like SO much stuff when it is all under the tree! It makes for a really FUN grand entrance! We have a couple of traditions on Christmas......Santa always leaves some sort of decoration, usually lights all the way up the stairs, its really fun for the kids to wake up and find the stairs lit up! Then they all get to come downstairs and see what was in their stockings, THEN the youngest gets to come in and see the gifts around the tree before everyone else. All the other kids squeal with excitement when they hear the ooohs, ahhhhs and squeals coming from the other room. It might be silly, but it is SUPER fun.....not sure what we are going to do when all our kids are grown and its not this fun anymore??
Merry Christmas my babies!

Valentines Day to me

I think Valentines Day will always be a little different for me since last year this is what I was doing!  Spending Valentines Day in the hospital with Devin after almost dying, king of gives you something to reflect on.....I guess adds to would be more correct. Adds to remembering what Love means to me. Last year was a tough year for this Tietjen family, Devins road to recovery was a long one. But here we are a year later, he is healthy and well with a few gnarly scars that remind us all the time just how scary this whole experience was. I adore my family, and even more, adore my role as a wife and a mother. On Valentines Day I love reflecting not on really the people in my life that love me, but how blessed I am to have so many people in my life that I love so much! I have an amazing little family (I do use the word little for humorous effects LOL) and especially on Sundays when they are all dressed perfect, with 8 cute heads of hair done and we LOOK like we are this perfect little family.....I look down the long row and think to myself "how did I get so lucky" I don't know if life will bring us any more kids, I don't know if I will ever get some fancy degree, or drive a fancy car....but I truly am the worlds luckiest gal and wouldn't change a thing. Every day I'm amazed at the gifts God has granted me; and this Valentines day, the 1 year anniversary of my hubby almost dying ;) makes me realize that even more.