A Child's Perspective

A few weeks ago, we went to the new Chinese buffet in town because my boys love a grand buffet. Not that they necessarily eat enough to make a buffet a good deal (though that day is fast approaching), they just love the extravagence of it...the ability to try a million things and then to ditch their plate and try even more. And Jello. Jello is always a must have at Chinese buffets. Go figure.

This particular buffet was decorated in grand, over-the-top, dare I say it, gaudy style. Fancy Nancy does Chinese decor. Lots of gold plating and two ginormous chandeliers.

Part way through our meal, I noticed Jenna had abandoned her plate and was turned backwards in her chair entranced by something. I asked her what she was looking at and she said with a blissful, breathy sigh, "That light is amazing."

She was right. In all the garishness of the room, I had overlooked the stunning glittery-ness and graceful curves of the monstrous chandelier in the center of the room. But Jenna didn't. She was so taken with it that she had to push aside her dinner and stare.

This time of year, I always like to re-read Max Lucado's classic, "God came near." It gets me every time. In the opening prologue, Max tells the story of a blind man who underwent a complicated surgery, and at age 51, gained his sight. he is utterly amazed and overwhelmed by what he sees. Colors astound him. Stars and sunsets dazzle. Even the simple vapor trail of a passing jet stops him in his tracks.

Max uses this story to illustrate how we can be near something for a lifetime and never really see it. We can see a thousand rainbows yet never marvel at their beauty, or live with a spouse for forty years and never truly glimpse their soul. A person can be good, and moral, and religious and never come face to face with Jesus.

Jesus.

Have you seen Him? With your own eyes and heart? He invites us to come to Him, you know. To see Him for ourselves. To spend time with Him. He even left the glory of Heaven to open a doorway through which we, the lowly can see and experience Him, the author of life.

Wow.

He invites us to take our blinders off, to stop what we are doing, to interrupt our meal just as Jenna did to gaze upward and to bask in His ultimate beauty and grandeour and to blissfully sigh, "Oh, He is amazing!"

An Interesting Observation...

"Hee, Hee, Hee! Grant has a tail!"

...was Jenna's surprised exclamation after seriously studying him while he was doing his business in the family restroom at T*rg%t.

Our Photo Shoot

Well, hopefully you have gotten our Christmas card and seen our latest family photo, but I wanted to share a few more that are posted on the photographer's blog. The individual shots of my kiddos just make me smile...

P.S. Please, please forgive me if I missed you on our card send-out. With all the moving/storing/remodeling crazyness of late, I have misplaced my address book (yes, I still have an old-fashioned paper one), so I had to try to assemble addresses from past cards from you guys. And just in case you are wondering, yes, I save Christmas cards (especially the picture kind). Don't ask me why...I mean, I don't save any other type of card. I guess I just like seeing how y'all change over the years.

Love and hugs...

Stick a fork in me...I'm done!

Whooo-wee! We're done! Three programs, 5 parties, 2 sick kids, lots of shopping, putting up our decorations and Christmas lights as well as helping both sets of Grandparents do the same...No wonder I'm tired!

But that's it! No school, parties, or plans for the next few days. Just some sweet time with my kiddos making memories and relaxing. Can't wait!

Our Weekend

It's not like we have a thrill-a-minute life, so don't ask me why I'm posting about our weekend, other than I find myself up earlier than usual, and I managed to take a few pictures this weekend and don't know what to do with them, so I'll share them here with the three people who actually read my drivel.

Friday night, we went to my neice's 8th birthday party at Going Bonkers. Fun was had by all, but no pictures to prove it. You can go down a few posts to the one about Jenna's birthday to get an idea of how it went since J had her party there too.

Saturday morning was fine and fair, so David decided to play barber and give M and G a haircut. (One of our new plans to cut back on expenses.) We (me and the boys) were all amazed at how well they turned out! Luckily, Daddy has practiced a couple of times on one of his firemen buddies.

Saturday night we decided on the spur of the moment to go to a live nativity in a nearby town that we had heard about. Note to self, next year, don't go on Saturday night. We waited for close to an hour and a half, but it wasn't so bad because after a half hour, you made it far enough up the line that you got to go into the sanctuary and could sit and watch the entertainment which was, amazingly enough, actually entertaining.

Then the walking tour began. We were all given passports that we had to keep at the ready at all times because Roman soldiers on horseback would charge up and demand to see them. We walked through the grounds and passed the Three Wise Men on their journey to follow the star, we met some shepherds at their campfire and were amazed by an angel appearing with a heavenly message. We were attacked by robbers on our journey to Bethlehem, but the Roman soldiers saved us just in time. When we got to Bethlehem, we were counted in the census and our passports were stamped. Then we got to explore the Bethlehem marketplace and finally saw baby Jesus in a stable on the outskirts of town. It was an amazing production (and totally free!) and something the kids and I are still talking about. We will definitly do this again next year. Call if you want to come with us!

Checking out the Wise Men's camels.

Jenna clutching her passport. Need to get that girl some red mittens!

The amazing Bethlehem marketplace.

The Unibomber, aka Cole, petting a mini goat.

The star of the show.

Sunday was church, a heartbreaking Cowboy game, and thankfully, a quiet evening at home. There was an old Mr. Bean movie on T.V. that we had never seen, so we DVR'd it (so we could skip the commercials) and made popcorn.

What is so funny you ask?

Why making popcorn in a Stir Crazy popper! Seriously. The kids were all lined up in eager expectation and cracking up at the popping crazyness. They were amazed to find out that in our pre-microwave youth, this is how we always made popcorn. Hilarious! Wait til I tell them about turning the knob (click, click, click) on the T.V. to change the channel.

The Dog House

Okay, I don't agree with the actual idea of putting your man in the doghouse (not exactly a picture of the P31 woman), but the actual footage inside the doghouse cracked me up. Take a peek...

Win a $500 giftcard to Home Depot!

Ok...I'm not actually giving away $500.00, but I totally would if I had the extra dough because how fun would that be to make someone's day? No, the wonderful ladies at 5 minutes for Mom are! I'm just spreading the word. Go here to enter and start dreaming about your new dishwasher, or organized closet, or Spring landscaping, or who you could give it to for Christmas. The possibilities are endless. Me? You know we never finish remodeling...

Not so Wordless Wednesday

Mini-Elvis says...

I'll have a blue, blue, blue Christmas without you~

And because Jenna can't stand not getting to do whatever Grant is doing, here is a pic of her. (I realize there is food on her face, but she is minutes away from bathtime...the water is running and she is clutching her bathtoys.)

A little bit of funny for ya...

I've posted a link to this lovely woman's site before, but here are two more that are worthy of your time. She's an intern at an inner city teaching hospital and her posts about her day to day interactions with patients are well written and often truly touching and at other times laugh-out-loud funny. These two made me laugh today. Enjoy!

Check out the first half of this post and then this one which is actually funny and sad at the same time.

My Little Pilgrim...

Because David was home and available to watch the kids, I got to go to Grant's little Thanksgiving feast at school all by myself. (I love having my kids all around, but I truly cherish the one-on-one moments with them when I can just revel in their cuteness.) The kids did a little mini-program with a skit and a couple of songs and then they FEASTED. Here are a few photos...

( Yes, I gave birth to that head!)

After the feast, he showed me the little book he made about Thanksgiving, and I asked him to tell me about each page. Here's our conversation regarding the first page...

Me: "What is this a picture of, Grant?"

Grant: "That's a battleship."

Me: "Really? I kinda thought it might be the ship the pilgrims sailed to America on."

Grant: "Oh yeah. That's what it is."

Me: "Do you remember the name of the ship they sailed on?"

Grant: "Um...The Cauliflower?"

Close, sweetie. Very, very close.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all! May you gather some sweet, sweet memories.

Poor babies...

My babies are both sick...Grant, Jenna and I have had a cold for days and days. Mine has gotten better, but their colds have degenerated a bit. On Friday, Grant was diagnosed with an ear infection. The Dr. said it was so bad that she didn't even need to use the pointy light thing (not official doctor terminology) to see it. And yesterday, we found out that Jenna has pneumonia. Pneumonia! Doesn't that sound really bad? You'd think that a decent Mom would have known sooner that her baby was so sick. Anyhow, they are both on antibiotics that must be really strong based on the yucky-tasting factor and should be on the mend soon. Also, we'd appreciate it if you would say a little prayer for them.

I haven't posted a photo in a while so here's a picture of them in healthier times. (Thankfully, Jenna has outgrown her habit of squinting one eye when smiling.)

A beautiful story...

Way to go ES*N for advocating adoption and running a story that openly talks about G*d!

Where I've been for the last three weeks...

Can it really be that the last real update I've posted about our family was on Halloween? Life in the three weeks since then has been truly chaotic. Let me help you understand...I want you to close your eyes and imagine with me for a momont. First, visualize your house. Now pretend that you have 40 year old storm windows that are leaky and creaky and dirty. Not pretty, I know, but take heart, because you are getting new ones from the insurance overage on your roof. Yippee! To get them installed, you have to remove all of your blinds and curtains and move all of the furniture two feet away from every window in your house. A little messy, huh?

Now, you aren't able to put all the blinds and windows back up right away because your husband is crazily putting the tile floor down in the new master bath addition so that the new carpet that will be installed a few days after the windows won't get ruined. But the new windows are fabulous and you don't really need all the blinds up right now any way. Sheets will do in a pinch. Also, you will need to iron all the curtains, because hubby just kind of tossed them on the couch when he was taking them down and they are all wrinkled. That's okay though, because they were really dusty and could use a good shake when you have time.

Which you don't have. Time, I mean, because you are getting new carpet in all the bedrooms! (Hurray! Go ahead and do a happy Snoopy dance. I'll wait.) Now get moving because you have to move every single thing from all of the bedrooms and the closets to the living room. Here's where it gets really messy. Take a minute to truly picture this...ALL of the furniture and toys and things under the bed AND the closets and the floor of the closets of six people all stuffed any old haphazard way into your living areas. Say it with me now...YIKES! Oh, and since your kids are going to be switching rooms after this whole crazy upheaval and since you don't want to chance ruining the new carpet and the rooms are empty of furniture, why don't you paint a couple of rooms real quick.

Whew! Take a minute to blow your nose (you're excited because you can after being stopped up for a week) and admire your new carpet and your squeaky clean windows and the new paint colors. Isn't it lovely?

Now, have fun putting it all back!

That's where I'm at now...Putting it all back. It's a much slower process than the dump and run of emptying. I have to sort and toss out and re-arrange and organize. But we are all settled into our new rooms for the most part, and it is heavenly. David and I are in the new master room addition that he has worked so tirelessly on for forever, it seems. Cole didn't move to a new room, but we re-arranged his furniture so it sort of feels new. Mason and Grant are enjoying having more space in our old bedroom. And Miss Jenna is loving her new pink princess room as she calls it. I was worried she would have trouble transitioning to being in a bedroom by herself, but she has done great. I think we'll be able to put up her big-girl bed in the next week or so.

So maybe now you understand a bit better why I haven't called y'all. And why I forgot your birthday. And why my kids homework didn't quite get all finished. (Homeschooling gets a bit difficult when you can't get to a table!)

Our life has been in a crazy upheaval for going on two years now, but I feel like we will soon be able to turn a corner and be normal again, or at least find a new normal. I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to focus on my friends and extended family for a while now. Attaching to Jenna and trying to hold things together for our family has consumed every last ounce of energy that I have. That will be changing soon, I hope. I look forward to re-connecting with you all and having some fun! Thanks for loving me in spite of my craziness and neglect....You guys rock!

Oh and I'll be posting photos once the sheets come off the windows and we get a picture or two hung.

Verse of the Day

A wise man's heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him toward the left. --Ecclesiastes 10:2


Don't forget to vote.

Halloween Fun

You've already seen the fairy princess. Now meet Indiana Jones (Posing like the movie poster. You can't see his whip cuz his hand is too far back) and introducing...Little Elvis!

It's a crying shame I didn't get a better picture, but trust me, this costume was sweet! There were a ridiculous number of woman-hours put into it. Gran made the costume, and I applied the bling. The glasses with attached sideburns complete the look. Grant was quite a hit as he said, "Thank you. Thank you very much" in his deep Elvis voice at each house.

Cole's inspired creation.

We were all teasing Cole about the amount of effort (zero) that he put into his costume, but you wouldn't believe the number of kids that passed us that would say, "That kid has a really good ghost costume." Go figure...

Those Elvis glasses are a crack-up!

The whole crew...Elvis is playing his air guitar for you

Cutest little punkin...our niece, Sophia



The Aftermath...

Fairy Princess with a mouth full of Kit Kat


Cole found that a sheet on your head in 80 degree weather is rather stifling.

Indy with his loot.

Friday Funny

Wordless Wednesday

Preschool Fall Festival

Something to think about...

It's Great 2 B 3!

My little girl is 3! I just can't believe it. I want to write more about alll of my emotions and thoughts about the last 20 months with Jenna, but I will have to save it for another post when I have more time. For now, let me just say that Jenna is a far different little girl than she was when she first joined our family. At three, she is joyful, laughs with abandon, shys away from those she is uncomforable with (which still includes most men), has attitude to spare, is smart as a whip, and is a total girly-girl. We had her party a couple of days early and it included all of her cousins and our closest friends and their three kiddos.

Just monkeyin' around...

Waiting to blow out her Dora and Diego cake. Dora is "da bomb" in Jenna's opinion. She talked about her "Dora party, and Dora plates, and Dora cups, and Dora napkins" for weeks. When I showed her the cake I was ordering, she squealed with delight! Gosh, it's fun making someone's day!
The guests were Jenna's favorite people--her brothers and cousins and friends.

Look at all that pink. And look at her giving the evil eye to poor Garrett who just wanted to see her gift, not hi-jack it! If you enlarge the picture, you can almost hear her saying NO, NO, NO!

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

We love you