For the first time in nearly three decades of raising kids, taking our Christmas picture this year was relatively painless. The boys are old enough to behave themselves. Except for the seven-year-old who ran back to the house and changed his shirt because he didn’t like the black one I had him put on. Christian’s favorite shirt, The talent has arrived, about sums things up. Our youngest is fast, agile, and nearly fearless, but then so are his big brothers, so I guess that’s a wrap. These boys take after their dad.

We couldn’t get all of our older kids and their growing families to the farm for our Christmas photo. At first, I was disappointed about this, but after the ease of this photo shoot, I’m thinking our big kids did me a favor. I tend to want things to stay the same, and in a large family like ours nothing stays the same. Trying to keep it the same drives me crazy. In less than two years, we’ve gone from no grandkids to four babies. Yes, four by 2019. Both Cami and Lacy are pregnant. And we are thrilled!

We did all make it to the beach this past May. It would have been an amazingly fun trip had a number of us not been so ill with the flu. Christian and I were so sick, we about crawled our way back up to the beach house Opa and Oma rented for the whole family after snapping this family photo with our feet in the sand.

We also had a wonderful time at family camp in July. Both our girls made it down this year, which was such a blessing because we were able to introduce our granddaughter, Kara, to Redwood Christian Park. If you haven’t tried family camp, we highly recommend it. We actually named one of our kids after the camp. When we found out we were pregnant at the camp eight years ago, I said, we will have to call this kid, Cruz after the Santa Cruz Mountains where RCP is. When he was born, Scott didn’t want to go with Cruz. He suggested Christian. I said, “That’s better than Redwood for a boy.” So, Christian, it is. After half a dozen kids, you run out of names.

Our two sons-in-law, Jake and Drew, both had to work in July, and couldn’t go to camp with us, so I caught these bearded boys in the orchard in September to snap their pictures.  It’s hard to believe Lacy and Jake will welcome their daughter, Lily, come March. We are so proud of Lacy, though incredibly sick with this pregnancy, she has managed to remain in nursing school and will graduate with a Bachelor’s of Nursing come April. This is after Lily is born and we are so grateful Simpson University is graciously allowing Lacy to miss a few classes to deliver Lily and then return to wrap up her degree after giving birth.

Cami and Drew’s second little one is due in July, just a week or two before Kara Jordan turns two-years-old. Kara and Cameron (we call him Cam) are the darlings of our family. The boys even squabble over who gets to hold the babies. I have to say, thirteen-year-old Joey wins the prize for being the best baby whisperer. Ten-year-old Garry James is a close second at calming a fussy baby. All our kids made it to the cabin for the Fourth of July, but as you can see in the photo, the grandbabies were not impressed with camping. We are hoping for better luck next year when they are big enough to chase chipmunks around.

The stone fruit harvest on our farm brought us all together as a family again this year at West Butte Orchards, sweating in the packing shed, and scratching from the peach fuzz in the orchard. Oma, who had her knee replaced in July, only missed two weeks before she was back to the grind packing fruit with us. We had a great season, even after losing our early crop to the February freeze. Great job, Oma! We couldn’t do it without you.

Near the end of harvest season, we jumped into football. Scott and the boys went from working in the orchard until afternoon, to football practices in the evenings. Scott also accepted a full-time junior high teaching position at Brittan School in August and coached defense on two football teams this year as well. The freshman football team at Sutter and Joey’s 8th-grade midget team. Both Joey and John’s teams won their league and went on to playoffs this year. John won the Mr. Husky award on his JV team, which means not only did he play great, he showed great character as well. We are so proud of all these hard-working Bicknell boys.

We are also very proud of Luke in the Army with his full-time security position at Joint Force Headquarters in Sacramento and his National Guard weekends working for Cousin Kiley in a Military Intelligence unit. He and Alex are busy chasing Cam around and planning their September 2019 wedding.

After two years of being a published author, I’m finally settling into autumn books signings, and writing hard all winter long. I didn’t get to write during summer this year, we were too overwhelmed with fruit, but I am doing my best to finish two new books this coming year, God-willing.

Scott and I feel blessed beyond measure by our growing family and we absolutely love being grandparents, which we also find challenging with our four youngest kids keeping us overwhelmed with sports, school activities, endless laundry, and lots of cooking for these boys. This year Scott and I will celebrate 30 years of marriage, which feels like a lifetime. Considering we’ve been together since we were teenagers, it really is nearly all our lives. We can honestly say Jesus holds us together and gives us the strength to do all that we do. Without our Savior, we would have fallen apart years ago. We share our story in my new book: Farming Grace, which should hit Amazon by early spring.

We so love and appreciate all of you and wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Some years are good, some not so good, but God is always good. Christmas isn’t about breaking the bank, or decking the halls, or drinking all the eggnog, it’s about a baby in a manger.

Christ the King of Christmas.

I want to leave you with this amazing photo from a fire-ravished home in Paradise. This is all the family found that was salvageable. Their nativity scene. How did everything else burn up and yet this holy little family figurine set survived the largest, fiercest wildfire in California history? I don’t know, but the Jesus of miracles still lives. Still heals. Still grants hope. He is Emmanuel, God with us.