Jolly Good Times!

This was our first Christmas in our new home.  Initially I had no joy in the process... Every item of Christmas decor just sent a painful reminder of all that was lost for me and I really wanted to sleep until 2012.  But that's not an option when you're a mom so I pulled up my big girl Christmas themed pants and got to creating a mini-winter wonderland:

The kids were super excited.  On Christmas Eve we enjoyed hot chocolate, wrote letters to Santa and baked cookies. 

Christmas morning the kids woke up and were super excited to see that Santa did indeed get our change of address form in time!  Their dad came over for Christmas breakfast and enjoyed them opening all of their presents.   Later that evening I heated up made a holiday meal prepared by a most excellent cook at Kroger.

All in all it was a really wonderful Christmas with my two favorite tea-cup humans. 

Oh, and Max is already pandering for 2012:

This is an actual sign he stapled above our fireplace.

Meet Ollie

Last night I returned home from a wonderful weekend with my bestie Julie (aka Ginger) but I did not come home alone.  As Julie's generosity knows no bounds she gifted me with an incredibly special friend to help me and my kids with the transition into our new lives following the divorce.  His name is Ollivander ("Ollie") and he is a purebread ragdoll cat who is just shy of 4 years old. 

Here is my first meeting with Ollie:

I fell in love with him instantly.  And tonight when my children returned home from school they were stoked to meet the newest member of our family:

I get the sense his little paws aren't going to touch the ground very often:

 

We are all so happy to have him home. 

Movin' on...

Today we left the "marital house" after two years of living in a place that had stopped being a home.  It feels so good to be in a home once again, even if our home is now an apartment.  But I am once again providing a place where my children will see what it means to be calm, happy, at peace and deeply loved.  A safe place it shall be for us to heal and to just be.... home: