As you can see our family is growing! We added puppies this year. Just one puppy really because the other four pups went to their new homes a few weeks ago. Getting a decent Christmas picture is always a challenge. Every year I tell myself the picture isn’t THAT important. I will not freak out over taking this picture and every year something arises that annihilates my good intentions and I end up freaking out. I won’t get into the details of what went wrong this year, but let’s just say I did my best not to freak out. In the end, we got our picture, though I made Scott photo shop Christian’s face, because in every family shot we took this year, Christian made a funny face. So we took his smiling face from one of the boy photos and placed it over his silly face in the family picture and ta-da!

“You’re not going to tell people we did that?” Scott asked me after I begged him to photoshop the family picture. “I don’t know why the picture has to be perfect, anyway.”

“It will never be perfect, but I don’t want goofy, at least in one picture! And of course I’m going to tell them we photo shopped it,” I said with a laugh. Every mom understands the war of the family Christmas picture.” What’s nice about a blog is I can also post other pictures we took too.

Here they are, Cami and Lacy all grown up. We are so proud of our sweet girls.

Cami is a speech therapist in a local school district. Cami’s husband Drew oversees our family’s walnut operations, which is never ending work, but Drew is a champ. And has completely embraced life as a country boy. Like Opa and Uncle Patrick, Drew now hunts when he’s not farming. Cami and Drew will be married five years this coming summer. Christian and Garry James can’t recall life before Drew. Awhile ago, Cami asked Christian who Drew was to her. “He’s your dad,” said Christian. “No, Drew is my husband. Your dad is my dad too.” Cami was laughing, but also concerned. “No, he’s not,” said Christian. “I’m your sister,” Cami said, no longer laughing. “No, Lacy’s my sister!” Christian argued.

Cami reminds Christian often now that she is his sister, and that Drew is his brother-in-law, not her dad!

Lacy is now a ward clerk in the emergency room of a nearby hospital. Come January, she leaves for nursing school up at Simpson University. To keep her job down here, she will work two days a month in the emergency room, and she’s hoping to work as a nurse there after she finishes school. She’s going to be a busy student, but I’m sure she’ll be home most every weekend, since she has fallen in love with a lumberjack.

Okay, he’s not a lumberjack, but he does teach wood shop at Sutter High School along with psychology. Jake has only been in our lives since the end of summer, but we’ve decided he must stay because he played college football, and has raised our family football games in the front yard to a whole new level. Plus he makes Lacy unbelievably happy. The only reason Jake’s not in the family Christmas photo is because we have a rule: you have to be married to take part in the torture of the Christmas picture. Since Jake was here with Lacy on picture day, we threw him into the fray just to see how he’d do. He laughed the whole time so he passed the test.

Scott is very proud of his man picture, as you can see. And if you compare Christian’s face in this picture and the family picture you will realize this is the face we photo shopped. Christian loves being one of the men, and his smile is the real deal here.

I kind of like our girl picture below with the puppies, except there’s a boy in the picture. Lacy is holding one of our male lab puppies. Cami and I are holding our girl puppies. We kept a girl and she is now adjusting to life with just her mom and dad, Nala and Buck, our faithful labs we love so much. Buck is camera shy. We tried to get him in the picture too, but he freaked out. Must take after me.

It took us three years, too much money, and an embarrassing procedure to get these golden pups. Buck doesn’t know how to breed. I know! So weird for a dog! So it was off to the vet each time Nala came into heat. When it was all said and done, we only ended up with five living pups, but the timing of their arrival was perfect. I petted a puppy every day to get me through the presidential election. So glad that mud-slinging mess is over!

Our boys are getting so big. Luke actually voted in his first presidential election. A freshman in college, Luke is living in Chico, and attending Butte Community college, where he enrolled at the last minute this past August. He was supposed to go to University Nevada-Reno, but in the end, it would have taken a $25,000 dollar school loan and wisely, Luke agreed with Scott that a couple years at a community college in California was the way to go.

Along with school, Luke holds down a job washing dishes for a fancy restaurant in Chico. I think he eats his one meal a day at the restaurant. Every Sunday when he comes home with his laundry, I feed him as much as I can. College life is making him skinny! We sure miss having Luke at the dinner table, and are so grateful the Lord gave us four more boys after Luke so we aren’t empty nesters yet.

Our younger boys are big enough to play soccer and football now. Sports keep us hopping when we aren’t knee-deep in our summer fruit harvest. The boys work hard and play hard and break everything in the house. Our couch is broken. Two of our fanlights are broken. Each year when I put up the Christmas tree, numerous ornaments get broken. This year I broke the ornaments myself while putting up the tree, which really upset Christian. “You need to be careful!” he told me. “Well, I was rushing because I didn’t want you breaking the ornaments.” “You broke the ornaments! It wasn’t me!” Christian said indignantly.

This is what we hear all the time around our house, “It wasn’t me!” Practically everything gets blamed on poor Christian. He used to deserve the destruction label, but in kindergarten now, he’s become a lovely boy. Kind and caring, and a good student. Of course, in a fight with his brothers, he’s like a wolverine. He may be the smallest in the woods, but all would agree, he’s the toughest.

At eight years old, Garry James is still his funny, wonderful self. His organic sense of humor surprises and delights us. He can’t wait to join Sutter Huskies Football like his big brother, Joey. Everyone loves Garry James and he’s known as a peacemaker at school. He’s thriving in the third grade, and has just discovered the joy of reading. I usually find G2 with his nose in a book if he isn’t outside playing with his brothers. He says the longest goodnight prayers on the planet. Both President Obama and future President Trump will be happy to know they are earnestly prayed for every night, along with all the missionaries, fireman, policemen, and soldiers in the world.

Joey is now known as Joseph at his junior high school. He was a lineman on his championship football team this season, and is popular with the girls. For the past two months, he’s played double sports, going from two hours of soccer practice to two hours of football a night, and he still made the honor roll. He’s a lot like his older brother, Luke, social and athletic, a good student, and always good to his momma. His favorite saying is: “What’s for dinner, Mom?” Or, “I’m hungry!” This boy is always hungry and he loves hugs and hates to cut his hair. I have always loved his golden curls, and am happy Scott is finally letting Joey keep his hair longer.

John still has his fiery red hair, tenacious personality, and creative imagination. He’s the brother we all count on to take care of all the other brothers. Strong and protective, usually with a weapon strapped on him, John is our right-hand man. The kid does it all and works harder during harvest than most men do. He’s in his 8th grade year, and hopes to play freshman football next year at Sutter High School. Since Lacy’s boyfriend, Jake, will be coaching freshman football at Sutter, John is looking forward to learning the game from another ginger man.

Scott and I are forever grateful for God’s grace in our life. After thirty-one years together, he’s still hot and I’m still cold. We dress accordingly in the car. I wear sweaters, he wears T-shirts, and we know just where to set the heater to keep us cozy. Of course the boys are always saying in the back seat of our old suburban, “We’re dying of heat back here!”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Scott always tells the boys. “We’re keeping the momma happy.”

Speaking of happy, I’ll be spending December finishing up my second historical romance novel, which I hope to have on Amazon by the first week of January. Most of you know my first novel is on Amazon and is doing fine. Embarking on a writing career after all these years of raising little ones, for the most part, has been a joyful experience.

Scott still enjoys teaching high school history during the school year and we seem to finally be figuring out the farming thing with the never-ending support of Oma and Opa and Uncle Patrick. Nearly all of our fruit goes to Raley’s and Bel Air supermarkets now. We are so thankful to the customers who ask for West Butte Orchards’ peaches and pluots and nectarines at supermarkets from Chico to Sacramento and up to Grass Valley.

Life is full and God is good all the time. Wishing you a merry and bright Christmas and a Happy New Year.