(Christmas Eve Pajama gift, super early in the day because everyone was feeling crummy)
Do you just love it when you get to the end of your day and you can sit back, let out a sigh and exclaim today was a win! Not going to lie, those days were my favorite but they always seemed fleeting until I chose to change how I saw my days. Join me as I journey through Winning Wednesday, where I share my wins. Some of the wins may be outright and obvious but more often than not my wins are something I am choosing to see in order to conquer the life before me, because losing all the time stinks!
For my inaugural Winning Wednesday will be from our woefully winning Christmas weekend. This last Christmas was laughable in areas but overall I saw God wooing me in the midst of all of the woes. Three out of four of my boys were sick the week of Christmas, fevers and coughs ruled my days and sheer exhaustion filled my nights but God. I had started reading the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp at the beginning of the week and it was a beautiful backdrop for a hard week.
One Thousand Gifts is a journey of a woman who began to choose to see the gifts in her life in the midst of hardship which was exactly what I needed to do the week of Christmas. As boys were throwing up from coughing fits I began to look for the good that surrounded me. Seeing Ian shine as a father was one I went back to often. Zealand staying well was another. Extended snuggles and being forced to just sit and be with the little lives I bore was also wonderful. Gratitude began to fill my heart while God worked on mending my soul from pain of Christmas past. Two years ago Christmas was brutal and last year it was a beautiful blur with a newborn at home; but this year I had to face the reality of the pain and impact the last few years as well as physical sickness we were dealing with God was applying a healing balm to my heart. I have chosen to actively lean in to the pain instead of shy away and I am learning once again just how faithful and kind the King of kings truly is.
Here is some beauty of this years Christmas. . .
I love that even through fevers joy radiates through each of the boys.
I have to take a moment here to brag on my wonderfully handsome husband and his cooking abilities. He made this incredible Christmas Dinner. It is totally drool worthy! 
I don’t know where you are in life or what you are facing but my challenge to you is to look for the gifts, the things you are grateful for. Another one over Christmas for us was fevers finally broke! I promise there are more blessings around you than you initially see or think. Start with how you are reading this, are you on a computer? Holding your phone? At a library? No matter the device you are on the internet and that is pretty incredible. You have access to countless articles on anything you could imagine at your finger tips. That is incredible.
What are some other things you are thankful for? Let me know! Lets spur each other on with gratitude!
Love this ! Learning to let go of the world’s expectations of what Christmas “should be”. This year we spent a very basic morning letting Brenne reopen her gifts from our extended family (she is 1, so they looked new all over again ; ). We have saved our money and are thankful for Ben’s Company sending him to Orlando where we enjoyed our own version of an Ortiz Christmas: much needed quality time together. : )
I have loved seeing the shots of your time in Orlando! We are big believers in quality time over things and would have probably been good doing what you did with Brenne and gifts with 3/4 of our dudes, one of them is a major gifts love language kid so I am not sure it would have flown with him ;). Thank YOU for sharing some things you are thankful for! <3