{"id":36917,"date":"2013-12-16T10:01:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T16:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/?p=36917"},"modified":"2013-12-16T10:42:02","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T16:42:02","slug":"tis-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/16\/tis-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"&lsquo;Tis the Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zg-3QK3yW7Y?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_1015.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IMG_1015\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"IMG_1015\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_1015_thumb.jpg\" width=\"316\" height=\"503\" \/><\/a>&#160;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_1054.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IMG_1054\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"IMG_1054\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_1054_thumb.jpg\" width=\"314\" height=\"503\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>To catch up a little, I don\u2019t know where to start.&#160; I guess I\u2019ll start with my first love; Mike is such a wonderful father to our girls!&#160; Two days a week, this fall, I\u2019ve been out of town at the doctor.&#160; It\u2019s been really hard on us, but Mike has been amazing with the girls!&#160; He\u2019s literally my hero\u2026 and theirs.&#160; Although things have gone very smoothly, last week was the hardest week so far, mostly for my heart.&#160; To give context, I\u2019m at everything the girls do.&#160; That\u2019s just one thing I\u2019ve always managed to figure out.&#160; I don\u2019t call in sick, ever.&#160; Well, this week, Noelle\u2019s grade from her school got asked to perform at a city-wide Toys for Tots event.&#160; They have been working on this performance ever since their \u201cGo Fish\u201d play.&#160; Noelle has been beyond excited about it!&#160; However, it fell on one of my out of town days.&#160; I\u2019m in a program that is helping me manage my fibromyalgia, and I\u2019m paying it forward to take advantage of this opportunity.&#160; I was 45 minutes away, stuck in traffic, when the performance started.&#160; My heart was aching, even though deep down I knew I wouldn\u2019t make it in time, I kept hoping that I would.&#160; I just couldn\u2019t stand not being there.&#160; It literally broke my heart.&#160; However, Mike fed and got all 3 girls dressed for the cold weather and to the Christmas event.&#160; Not only that, but he recorded the whole thing for me so that when I got home, we could watch it and celebrate Noelle and her sweet enthusiasm for life together!&#160; <\/p>\n<p>After I spend a day out of town, I am literally dragging the next day.&#160; It is all I can do to keep the littles safe, clean, and fed\u2026 just the basics.&#160; Well, as the schedule turns out, Noelle had her 2nd grade field trip the very next day after this performace.&#160; I knew I wouldn\u2019t have the strength to drive to Ft. Worth to meet her group, so Mike took a vacation day off of work to be with Noelle and enjoy the day at the Ft. Worth museum with her (picture on the right).&#160; It was so awesome for them to get to spend some one-on-one time together and experience a field trip together.&#160; Things have a way of working out even better!&#160; It\u2019s always so important for Mike to be at work, while I take care of the girls, but this day for them was meant to be.&#160; It melted my heart to see all of their pictures together of all of the fun they had.&#160; You know, being a super mom, means filling back up your \u201cbucket\u201d so that you have something left to give or \u201cpour out.\u201d&#160; I\u2019m sacrificing a few things now, so that I can do even more in the future.&#160; That has been a tough lesson for me to learn, but I\u2019ve been running on E for quite some time.&#160; I\u2019m always so proud of my sweet, good, and kind family and how we work together to make it work, but last week, we seriously rose to the occasion.&#160; I\u2019m proud of the way we all worked together to be there for each other.&#160; The girls are learning to be a little more flexible, Mike is rocking it out, and I\u2019m using all the energy I have to get well.&#160; <\/p>\n<p>As far as this video of Noelle\u2019s Toys for Tots performance, it kept me going and smiling all last week.&#160; We\u2019ve watched it so many times!&#160; I hope it brings a big smile to your Monday!&#160; Noelle is the diva wearing the shiny silver boots on the front row, to the left of the center.&#160; \u2018Tis the Season!&#160; You go girl!!!<\/p>\n<p>(If you can stick it out through the 12 minutes, they sing a Feliz Navidad song and rap song, creative choreography included!&#160; I was so impressed their amazing teacher thought all this cuteness up!&#160; They all knew they were so stinkin\u2019 cute too!)&#160; Oops!&#160; We put two of the middle songs on the video twice.&#160; My favorite song is the last one and starts at minute 10:45.&#160; I\u2019ll never hear, \u201cWe Wish you a Merry Christmas!\u201d without thinking of these cute little jolly fists!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#160; To catch up a little, I don\u2019t know where to start.&#160; I guess I\u2019ll start with my first love; Mike is such a wonderful father to our girls!&#160; Two days a week, this fall, I\u2019ve been out of town at the doctor.&#160; It\u2019s been really hard on us, but Mike has been amazing with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36917"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36921,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36917\/revisions\/36921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}