Good tidings...

You know what's the absolute BEST about the holidays? Well, besides the celebration of the birth of Christ.  The best thing is all the people that you get to spend time with. No matter for how long, just seeing each other makes me so happy and seeing certain people make my kids OVERJOYED.

Like KK and Ryan... Emmy and Radley just light up when they are around. 

What a blessing we have been given in friends like them. No matter the distance or time spent apart, I am 100% sure that they would both do anything for us. KK drove to CS to take care of the kids after Fely passed away so Ryan and I could take care of things in Sherman. She is pure gold and I love watching her and Ryan grow as a married couple. 

And, soon, Baby G will be in the mix of all the crazy!

We also got to spend time with Miss Shanon!!! When she walked in our door on Friday night they were speechless...when she said she was staying for a slumber party, they were ECSTATIC, when she made them a pallet to sleep on the floor... I could hear the squeals all the way at dinner!

We have been surrounded by such amazing people in our lives and the holidays are a great reminder of that blessing. I am filled with gladness to know such wonderful people, but I am humbled beyond belief to know that those people, those friends, love my KIDS with so much selflessness. 

(Radley was clearly happy to take a picture)

They don't just share in our lives, they are part of our story - all of it. They are here for the fun and the hard and the silly. 

We have been given the kind of friends that will drive 70 miles for a semi-good lunch at a questionable stop on Hwy 6 for a 90 minute, kid-interupted conversation filled with potty breaks, messy faces, sticky hands and cold queso. The kind of friends that will happily carry an extra passenger on their trek back to Waco so a little boy can spend some time with Gigi and Pops. 

These are the friends that carols are made of... the Good Tidings friends, and I am so thankful for all the tidings they constantly bring to our lives!