the year of the key chain

Feeling much better today. What a difference a day can make.

Anyway, I am just baffled as I sit here and think about how fast Christmas came and went! I feel kind of like I missed it! Part of it was that we had to jump into action the day after Christmas, start packing, etc, for our trip to Massachusetts. Like I said earlier, the wedding was great, and we had a riot at the reception watching our kids (as Bryce put it) "bust some moves". Bryce and Lily (my niece) sure are 'crowd pleasers' to say the least! We are sort of wondering how and when we're going to need to reign this in! :)

This Christmas must have been the year of the 'key chain' - I got three of them. One that Bryce picked out that is metal and says "I Love You Mom" with a nice little poem on the other side, and then a set from Seth - 2 fuzzy, pastel unicorns.

I questioned Todd about how he came up with this particular gift and he was as clueless as I. He said as they entered the store Seth's idea was to get me a sweater (perfect!), but once he saw his brother pick a key chain, he absolutely HAD to do the same. (When I casually asked Seth why he picked the unicorns he said "What are unicorns?" I told him that was what the key chains he gave me were, and he replied "Oh. I thought they were ponies." He was still unfazed and had no explanation for the sudden draw to them.) Todd said he tried to steer him back to the sweater department, but he burst into tears, insisting upon the key chains. So unicorns it was, and a candle. Which, after seeing Seth pick a candle, Luke insisted upon the same thing, so I got 2 keychains, and 2 white pillar candles.


It was one of those Christmases that, as a mom, you just see past the actual gift to the sentiment behind it, and try to be as excited as you can! Kate, on the other hand, got me wonderfully warm fuzzy PJ's, which I wish I could LIVE in all the time!! And my husband got me a salon gift card. (I also had a gift certificate for a massage somewhere that I've been saving, plus some Christmas cash - put all that together and I see a day of relaxation & shopping in my future - and I'm sure that using my keys now hanging from the fuzzy unicorn key chain will make the whole day simply magical!)

Well, today I started cleaning up some of the Christmas decorations, and hopefully will do the rest tomorrow. I want to start out the New Year, and get back into the swing of school without having half-done jobs hanging over my head. An upcoming post will be about my reflections of the past year and/or my goals (don't like 'resolutions') for the new year. This will make me actually think through them!

And I am STILL working on trying to change my blog look... One of these days I WILL get it to look the way I want!! (Sneak peek - it's one of my goals for 2008!!) :)

Have an awesome New Year's Eve!

just one of those days

Ever have one of those days where you wake up with a few things you want to do, about a million you should do, but all you can do is curl into a ball and whimper? Yeah, well, that's me today. No particular reason...lots of irrational emotions coursing through my veins with no legitimate cause...I'm glad days like this are few and far between, cuz they really take me out at the knees!

But this made me smile...

(In case it's too small for you to read, here's what it says:
"Depression: When eating your own vomit sounds like it might be kind of fun")

we're baaaack

OK, so I've been trying to figure out how to give this blog a fun, new, exciting look...and am being quite unsuccessful! So, since several people have been amused by my counting down to something...here's the last countdown for the year. At least there's a cute little New Year baby there until I can get something better! (And if anyone has words of wisdom how I can change my blogger template, please have compassion on me and share your knowledge!)

By the way, we're back home from Massachusetts. All went well, and it was a beautiful wedding, and we had great fun at the reception. Of course, we're 'plumb tuckered out', so heading off to bed. Will be back to my old blogging self tomorrow!

just checkin' in...

Well, amazingly, Christmas came and is gone already! We had a wonderful holiday, with no glitches. I've wanted to post things several times, but we have had an unbelievably crazy past week or so, and, though I'd like to share more, this post will have to be a quick update.

I wanted to thank all of you who prayed for my niece, Eva. She is home and doing fine and dandy, thought is having to sleep hooked up to a device that monitors her breathing and heart rate. Looks like she'll have to put up with that for 2 months. It's become quite the joke when we see her getting ready for bed or waking with wires coming out from her clothing. She's earned such names as "Robot Baby" and "Bionic Baby". She's such a good natured little dolly that she seems to be rolling with it quite well.

Our other friend who had the open heart surgery is doing well, though he did suffer a mini-stroke on Sunday. He seems to be alright though - still having movement, etc., and from what I hear his sense of humor is still in tact. Of course, the recovery process from the whole ordeal is long and difficult, so this remains a top prayer priority for us.

Our family is in the process of scattering in different directions due to a wedding we are participating in up in Massachusetts. My 3 adorable nieces, (Eva's big sisters, pictured earlier) are flower girls in the wedding, so my sister asked for Kate to be able to help her out with them and with the baby, as she (my sis) is also doing hair for the bride and a few bridesmaids! So Kaitlyn is heading up with them. We are dropping off the 2 youngest boys with Todd's mom tomorrow morning and heading out ourselves with just Bryce. That's something unusual - traveling with just 1!! (We get to take the compact car instead of the mini-van! Yeah! Can you save MAJOR savings on gas!) Anyway, it's up tomorrow for rehearsal, wedding Friday, and home again on Saturday, but having to pull together my thoughts for the last message in my Christmas series on Sunday! What a week! All that to say, I have hopes of posting, as well as re-doing the look of the blog to welcome the new year...but we'll have to see what time allows. I'd love to share some of my Christmas photos as well, but it may be a few days before they appear. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and aren't too stuffed from all the goodies!

See you in a few days (or maybe sooner!)

Eva update

Here's a quick update on our little Eva... I just spoke to Betsy a little bit ago and they are being discharged and heading home. Her tests are all coming back showing everything normal, and she is feeling better, so they are being released. She will have to be on a monitor, like I said in the last post, which Bets & Joe learned this afternoon what to do with that whole deal. They also had to take a CPR class this morning. (Makes me think it's something I should probably do too...this is a really scary thing to have happen. I took a class when I was pregnant with Kate, but since that was 12 years ago, I really don't remember anything!)

It was planned that their family was going to come hang with our kids tonight so Todd & I could go to his work Christmas dinner party...I had assumed that the plans were off, of course, but when I talked to Bets she said she desperately wanted to get back to some 'normalcy' and her older girls would be happy to be able to come and play, so they are headed here this evening.

Can't wait to get my hands on Miss Evie and squeeze her and kiss her all over!! Thanks so much for your prayers!

much prayer needed

It's been such a tumultuous week. First of all, we found out a good friend of ours, who also goes to our church, was going to have to have heart surgery. In a matter of about 2 days he found out there was a problem, which turns out to have been his heart working at about 50% capacity, to him having a triple bypass this morning. Thankfully, all went well. Of course we are still praying.

Then, last night my sister experienced a nightmare situation...rather than trying to re-tell it, I'll post a portion of an e-mail my brother-in-law sent out:

Last night at about 11:50 we heard Eva (the baby who is 6 months old) made some noise in her bed and thought that maybe she was wanting to get up to eat. So I went in to check on her and she wasn’t still fussing nor had she flipped herself over which she normally does when she wants to get up to eat, so at first I was just going to walk back out of the room and thought maybe she was going to be falling back to sleep, but instead decided to possibly get her up anyway. When I went to pick her up I noticed that she was all wet as if she had possibly peed out, but then quickly realized that it was spit up and that she was trying to throw up again so I quickly rushed her to the sink, where we then realized (in better lighting) that she had no color in her face and her lips were turning purply-greyish, and that she really wasn’t breathing quite right, she was very unresponsive and decided to call for 911. While on the phone Eva began to really struggle to maintain consciousness and started becoming like a rag doll, while we were waiting for the ambulance to arrive God gave us the idea of getting her down to Grandma’s house and get her on oxygen. 2 of the girls from our small group were still at our house playing games since we were having our Christmas party, and they stayed with our 3 older girls. We woke up Uncle Dave and Aunt Beth and they helped keep Eva awake. Aunt Beth had to continue to poke Eva’s feet with sharp objects to try and keep her conscious. At 12:10 there was a turning point when she then started to try and pull the oxygen away from her face and she tried to start holding herself up, she then began to open her eyes farther and be more alert. Some of the best relief was when she smiled at Uncle Dave. The ambulance arrived a minute later and they were very relived to see her status changing for the best, they were prepared for a 'scoop and run'. She did start to slowly get her color back and by 2:00 had only spit up 2 more times and she seemed to be breathing and all vital signs seemed to be great. Around 4:00 they were going to be admitting her upstairs to be able to monitor her for a few more hours to see if anything like this would happen again.

That was as of this morning; since then they had decided to keep her longer, until tomorrow to keep doing tests. They were concerned about her unresponsiveness last night, so today she had a series of tests including cat scan, EKG, EEG, blood & urine tests. Everything so far is coming back good, but she is now throwing up again and having diarrhea. They are still planning to send her home tomorrow, but she will have a monitor that she will need to be hooked up to any time she is sleeping, or might fall asleep - like in the carseat, stroller, etc - for the next 2 months. My sister is understandably quite shaken, and, I know, nervous about bringing the baby home. She said she's actually glad for the monitor, to know at least she will be alerted if something would happen again.

At this point, I would really appreciate any and all prayers for Baby Eva, for perfect health and never another episode like this, and also for Bets, Joe and their 3 little girls - that God would grant them peace in place of fear and that he would reassure them of his watchful protection. These are my precious nieces, and I ask again that you'd pray for the whole family.
Kaitlyn made a really cool picture for them tonight - it's of a very large hand, and she cut out a picture of Eva and pasted it in the center of the hand. She wrote "Eva is a gift from God. She is in the Shadow of His Hand." It's really cool, and I can't wait for her to show it to Bets. I'm gonna see if I can scan it and post it tomorrow.

holiday FUN!

We had to change family night to Monday this week; we did our annual 'sleep-in-the-livingroom-with-the-tree-lights-on' night. We dragged out the futon mattress, sleeping bags, pillows and all snuggled up to watch "The Nativity Story" together. It was a pretty good movie - some parts were a little scary for Seth & Luke (like when Herods soldiers are going house to house to kill all the baby boys...), and we did have to have an interesting discussion about circumcision as a result of one scene... but it was all good.

I'm now trying to tie-up the final details of getting ready for Christmas... have a few more things to post from this week, but not sure if time will allow. Hope you all aren't so busy with the holidays that you aren't being able to enjoy them. I'm trying to make a conscious effort to keep reflection and enjoyment central to all that I'm scurry around doing. To be completely honest, I don't think I won that battle today, but tomorrow's a new day, so I can start with a fresh effort.

Remember to have fun!!

holiday cheer

Well, we didn't get the snow I was hoping for (which made my sister happy since she had planned a lovely bridal shower for yesterday afternoon that she didn't want to have to cancel - so we had the whole "competing prayers" thing goin' on!), but we did have an absolutely perfect weekend getaway in every other aspect. I got the large majority of my Christmas shopping done (and wrapped most of it last night too! - I think I'll actually get to bed BEFORE 2 am this Christmas Eve - what a novel idea!), only a few things left to buy, and we had 2 nice, relaxing dinnners, and spent all of Saturday doing NOTHING at all but being toasty warm in our little cottage just reading, talking, watching movies...etc...

And to top off the perfect weekend, Betsy & I won a drawing contest on another blog that we read called "Confessions of a Tired Supergirl". The drawing was the "happy 100th post sparkle-mint i love my friend giveaway" and it was a random drawing with a prize of "full of sparkly and minty goodness". I love sparkle, and I LOVE mint even more, so I really wanted to win...but I've never won a random drawing before. Betsy nominated me, and I nominated her; unbeknownst to us, there was a suprise twist to the contest that there were actually 2 prizes, one for the nominee and one for the person who nominated them! My entry was actually drawn, so Bets & I BOTH get a prize. We are so excited! Here's what Susanna says we will be watching for the postman to be bringing us very soon to make our holidays all sparkly and minty!

"A box of the highly revered Candy Cane Joe Joe's,
(the trader joe's cookies of the gods)
A squeezy tube of my favorite mentha lip shine except - frosty style,
(mint-infused for fresh breath and with a hint of holiday
iridescence for festive looking lips...it says so on the tube)
A larger squeezy tube of holiday mint foot cream
(Do we not love Target's dollar section? Yes, we do, tsgs)
And last but not least some oh so glittery dazzling snowflake ornaments
(plastic, of course, so you need not fear your children shattering them.)"Thanks for the surprise holiday blessing Susanna!! We tsgs LOVE your blog - even if we didn't get free stuff!!

giddy

I'm absolutely giddy at the prospects of this weekend...Christmas shopping, dinner out, sleeping in and a possible nor'easter on Saturday...(getting us snowed in at the B&B???????).

Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus!!!

the boring details of my life...

Had fun with the Play Doh tonight and then watched the old version of Miracle on 34th Street with the fam. I needed to for the next part of my series, but we realized that both versions of the movie that we have are on video, and ironicially, both our VCR's died last week. So Todd made a quick WalMart run for what we thought was going to be a cheap VCR...apparently they don't sell them anymore. So we had to spend a little more than we wanted to, but apparently what we got is a digital DVD/VCR combo, and suddenly we have a whole bunch more channels! (We're a non-cable household, so more than 5 or 6 channels is a BIG deal to us!). Weird, not to mention going to make the December TV-cutback a little tougher! (We've decided that for this month, the TV isn't going on unless it's something special we are watching as a family, like a holiday movie or show, and it's going really well.) Oh, well, I have more than enough to keep me busy, that's for sure! I've been cleaning like a madwoman, and MAN does it feel good! I cleaned out/organized the laundry room yesterday, today the family room and started the boys room. Tomorrow I continue my quest to conquer the laundry, dust and other random messes!

elf yourself

This was soooo fun!! Apparently it's been around for a while, but I've never seen it before... If you've never done it, you're definitely gonna want to Elf Yourself after you see this...

(Thanks Bri!!)

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1319941009

If you do, I'd love to see yours, so either send it to me, or comment and tell me where I can click to watch your elves!

play-doh

The plan for family night tonight...building a Play Doh town. We've been playing Cadoo, but it's a little too hard for Seth and Luke, (and Todd really doesn't love it). One of the things you do in the Cadoo game is called 'Sculpturades' - making something out of playdough that everyone has to guess what it is...and once we get the dough out, then everyone wants to sit and squish it and play with it! So we decided last week that tonight would just be play-doh night. I found a double pack on sale this week for $3!! (And it's the real Play-Doh, not the cheapy stuff that dries out right away!) I would promise pics of our dough town, but our camera seems to be on the fritz...

Happy Tuesday to you all!

the weekend

We had a very full and busy weekend that has left me feeling so good, such a feeling of accomplishing things and getting somewhere. It wasn't a lot of 'task' type stuff (like my house is no where near totally cleaned up, and I am hosting a tea next weekend, so that NEEDS to get done this week! And Christmas shopping - barely started, but we are planning to knock that out next weekend when we go away for our anniversary...) But there was a lot of relational stuff that I needed to focus on and take care of, as well as some 'church stuff' that needed to be addressed, and finally was. I feel like a good shift is taking place in my life and we are starting to make time for the important things. The family is already anticipating family night tomorrow, and I'm glad to see their excitement.

Last night's message took truths from It's a Wonderful Life, and it's amazing the parallel God showed me between Isaiah 9 and the plot of the movie. I may try to post a brief overview of the message over at Koinos, so if you're interested you can check it out there. (But don't look for it until later today as I have to get moving with some other things this morning and probably won't have time to post it until later in the day). I prayed that God would have the exact people hear the message that needed to. We also had several visitors last night because we had a baby dedication, so my hope is that God spoke to someone's heart...but if not, he still spoke to mine, for which I am grateful.

today

and...



Nice...

man's best friend

Some kids just seem to NEED a dog. I didn't realize until our poor old Casey was gone, that apparently Seth is one of them. Kaitlyn likes dogs, and wants one, but Seth regularly gets into a funk because of missing Casey, and wishing he had a dog. He REALLY WANTS one. He is a very affection child with a lot of love to give, and I really believe he would take care of a dog, it would help teach him responsibility and I know it would become his new 'best friend'. But I sooooo don't feel like dealing with all of the responsibility and MESS that comes along with owning canine. We had a shepherd/rottweiler mix for 12 years and I admit, though I did love her, it was really nice not having to deal with the dog hair, the poop, the chewing, and the barking after she was gone. But every time Sethy climbs into bed and comments how he wishes he could have a dog that slept in his room, or goes outside and kicks around a ball by himself, my hearstrings are definitely tugged and I contemplate whether I should just suck it up and add a furry member to our family. So many of my friends are NOT animal lovers, and would not appreciate the addition to our household, and some of their children have allergies, which I know, from my own allergies, can really be a hassle...but what do I let take precedence here? The people that we regularly welcome into our home (as part of our calling as a family) or my son's longing for 'man's best friend'?

what the world REALLY wants for Christmas Pt 1

One thing Todd & I have learned since we've been trying to figure out this whole one-flesh ministry thing and how it's supposed to work is that we both need to let go of things that we just are not good at and 'play to our sweet spots' (got that one from Andy Stanley, I believe). One of the ways this plays out is holidays...I LOVE them, and Todd - well, just doesn't get as excited about them as I do. (They tend to stress him out because he feels the weight of 'expectation'). So, I tend to get excited about teaching...(dare I say the word...'preaching') at these special times. (Now I know there are those among my readers who would disagree with whether or not I should be preaching, but please either bear with me, and continue to ask God to bring clarity to my understanding, yours or both of ours - or just skip this post!:)) I feel like holidays are such an opportunity to speak into people's hearts...especially those who might be more open around seasons like Christmas and Easter that might not at other times of the year.

For December I am doing a series called "What the world REALLY wants for Christmas" and what I'm going to do is take 4 Christmas movie favorites and taking a look at what is really going on in the plot, what the people really want - and how Jesus is the very answer to these deep human desires. Each week I will pull out of the movie what the longing of the heart is that is expressed by the story, and how Jesus came to meet each of those needs, and is represented by each of His Names as listed in Isaiah 9 - Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.

I'm starting this week with "It's a Wonderful Life", which I watched last night. My thoughts are starting to come together about how something in George Bailey represents how we all long to matter, have a purpose, and impact the world. But without the Wonderful Counselor to take the blindness from our eyes, we are blind to the purposes and plans that God has for us, and we flounder around, not knowing what to do.

I'm really excited and praying that God will be bring the exact person/people who need to hear this very message at this very time.

everything is spiritual

family night foibles

Last night in the middle of supper Kaitlyn announces "I have dibs on the marshmallow cereal for breakfast tomorrow!" (Background - I almost never buy what I consider 'junky' cereal; last week I knew was going to be a crazy week with kids being shuffled around a lot, so out of my guilt, I splurged and got the cheapy version of Lucky Charms. So it's like a mad rush to the cereal when it's down the last of it.) We took the opportunity to explain to Kaitlyn how what she was doing was not caring about others, and to make the point, Todd raised him hand and said "It's like saying 'I'm first to be SELFISH!!'" Seth's hand immediately shot up, "I'M SECOND!!!" Uh, I think the point was missed...

Then later that night we were all playing a game called Cadoo (the kids had been quick to remind me all day that it was Tuesday - Family Night. I had forgotten we even made Tuesdays family night!). We all were sitting around the table when Bryce drew a card that told him to go find something that "makes noise on its own". He jumped down, but stopped by Lucas, who was sitting at the end of the table playing with playdough (since he's a little young for Cadoo, it keeps him occupied and he still feels like he's included with the family). We didn't know what Bryce was doing standing there til Luke started screaming, and we realized Bryce was pinching his arm!! As soon as Luke started howling Bryce said "He made noise on his own!" We informed him it was NOT 'on his own' - it was because he was being pinched! While the other kids giggled, we comforted Lucas, stifling grins of our own - and Bryce forfeited that turn!

There are some days I feel like I have really dropped the ball when it comes to parenting...yesterday was one of those days!! When they display such attitudes and behavior I wonder what, if anything, I am teaching my children! I guess when I see it, there's nothing to do 'cept pick the parenting ball back up and keep on playing!

my christmas addiction

Hershey Kisses - Candy Cane!!!!!