Merry Christmas to me...

Okay, so we'd been planning that we'd go visit my family after Christmas this year. My mom's side of the family was having their get together at my mom's Saturday and Natalie's birthday is today, so I thought we'd stay and do a little party for her before we came back home.

Mark starting feeling sick on Thursday, but we chalked it up too much dairy (he's a little sensitive) in the Christmas Morning brunch. Friday he felt like crap and pretty much laid around all day, but everyone else seemed to be doing okay. Ethan didn't have much of an appetite, but I chalked it up to be preoccupied with all the new goodies he was playing with. After much hassle and debate I decided, at the last minute, to take the kids by myself to my parent's in hopes of getting a little help and seeing some family I haven't seen in over a year!

Here's how the weekend turned out:

Saturday: Natalie finally goes to bed after 11.
Natalie wakes up at 1am.
Natalie wakes up Levi.
I get Levi back to sleep while my mom calm Natalie.
Natalie will only stop crying if I walk around with her...until 2:30am
Levi wakes up at 5 and it takes me a half hour to get him back to sleep.

Sunday: Natalie is up at 7.
Ethan pukes up his donut all over the bathroom floor.
I do get to take a nap (thank you mom, dad, sisters)
Levi is up several times throughout the night...the only way to keep him quiet is to put
him in bed with me, which means no sleep for me.

Monday: Natalie is up at 5:30.
My mom takes Natalie so I can go back to bed.
Levi wakes up at 6.
Ethan poops his pants.
Debate about whether to leave before anyone else gets sick or stay so no one gets sick
on the way home.
Sing "Happy Birthday" Natalie.
Pack the van.
Get on 271S express lanes.
Levi starts crying.
Ethan poops his pants.
I cry.
I can't get off the highway for 20 minutes and end up stopping in the "ghetto" at a gas station with a bunch of black guys standing outside.
Dig through the pile of stuff in the van to find a change of clothes.
Levi wants to eat so I nurse in the van in the parking lot with a bunch of black guys staring at me.
Levi still cries when I put him back in his seat.
Get on the road and hear a cough/gag from Natalie.
Turn around to see her birthday cake down her front.
I cry.
She's crying.
Levi's screaming.
I make it to Lodi and dig for another change of clothes.
I nurse Levi again in the parking lot.
Back on the road with Levi still screaming and me about to pee my pants.

We made it home. I think I'm a little mentally unstable. Mark is still sick. I think we have this intestinal virus that can last up to ten days. Sweet!! So far Karis and I are okay.

I'm praying that I'll LET God fill me up...I hope you'll pray for me, too. I know he wants to, but I'm having a hard time saying yes to him. It's been a really long month. I don't think I've slept more than three consecutive hours in the last 30 days. That said, I'm off to bed...hopefully...

It's Christmas Eve!

I've been up early this morning with Natalie and Levi (apparently they didn't get the memo that we're supposed to sleep in on Christmas break).

Anyway, after reading my Proverbs 31 devotional this morning, I've been sipping some mocha chocolate with peppermint (also changing poopy diapers and poopy clothes) and thinking...

There are finally a few presents under our tree. The kids wrapped the gifts that got for each other and I wrapped their Christmas Eve jammies. The kids love having a couple things to open after dinner. It seems to hold them over until morning!

Tomorrow morning there will be three gifts under our tree for each child. For us, three gifts is a number that represents the three gifts the wise men brought to Jesus and also a number that keeps Christmas within our budget. There will be a couple more gifts like books and games that will be for all the kids. I'm excited to see the twinkle in our kids' eyes as they see the little pile under tree (It probably helps that besides their birthdays, this is really the only time we ever buy them anything besides food and clothes!!). I know it will be much more than some families will have this year, but to many others I'm sure it would look like a meager display for a family of six! Sometimes I wonder if we had the money to buy more, would we? I hope not.

I have been perplexed this year by how they can say that our economy is in trouble, yet everywhere I turn I see people spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Christmas presents. Families rack up credit card bills that they won't be able pay off until next December and parents are taking on extra jobs just so they can fill the room with a huge pile of presents Christmas morning. I hope our kids will learn to be satisfied with ENOUGH, and not need to be overindulged in order to be happy. And I hope WE don't feel like we HAVE to GIVE a lot in order for our kids to be happy or make the day special.

On another note...

I was struck by something in my devotional this morning that pondered the idea of whether receivers realize what their gifts cost the giver. Here is what I'm meditating on today:

"I considered a gift I was given 2000 years ago as God sent His son into the world as a baby, knowing Jesus would die on a cross for me. Do I truly understand the sacrifice of that gift? Do I understand the anguish God the Father must have felt?"

The devotion didn't share more than this on the idea, and I often hear about the Christmas story from the perspective of Mary or Joseph, or even the shepherds. But I don't really recall thinking about the what was happening in Heaven on Christmas Eve. What was it like for God to say that "good-bye" to His Son? Did they embrace? Did they shed tears? What about the angels? Although they were singing praises to God on Christmas Day, what was it like for them as they watched the Son of God leave His throne of grace?

As I hold my baby boy close today, I'll be thinking of what my Heavenly Father did this day so many years ago, and praying that EVERYday I'll remember what it cost Him to give me the gift of His Son.

Merry Christmas!

Sick baby = Tired Mama

We stayed healthy for so long, but I knew it was inevitable that someone would come down with something...especially since the holidays were approaching. I just wish it wasn't Levi. The boy doesn't sleep well as it is! Last week he ran a fever over 103 for three days. Of course, tylenol kept it lower than that most of the time, but he was pretty miserable...and still is. He's congested, raspy, and doesn't have much of an appetite...and he's up three to five times a night! I thought I'd be able to take advantage of Mark being on break and let him get up with him here and there, but Levi will have no part in that! The boy is living up to the meaning of his name, which means "attached". Part of me is eating that up and trying so hard to enjoy every minute that he just wants to be with me. The other part of me is so exhausted!

Amidst all of this, I feel like God is continuing to grow in some important areas. Lately I've been working so hard to reprioritize and be okay with imperfection (the key words here are "be okay"...I've always known I was imperfect, but I've hardly ever been okay with that fact!). That picture in my last post of the family room...that's pretty much what my entire house has looked like for the last few days. And I'm okay with that. And I'd still be okay with it if you came to my house and walked through my door and saw it...and I think I'm almost to the point where I wouldn't even make an excuse for it...

I Must Have Missed the Sirens...

I never heard any sirens, but I'm pretty sure a tornado hit our house today:

It was one of those days where I had to just let the mess happen! Mark had a snow day, which normally would have allowed me to get tons of stuff done, but Levi is sick and was attached to my hip pretty much all day. Karis got the surprise of having Mark come into to school for her Birthday Party for Jesus. I think that made her week!

Here is some goofiness that happened today while Ethan and Karis tried to stay entertained and out of trouble:

The Holidays: Traditions

I love keeping Christmas traditions. There are certain things that stick in my memory about Christmas growing up. I loved making the same cookies every year, that my mom put out chips and french onion dip in same dish every year on Christmas eve, going to my great grandma's high rise apartment and looking out over the city to see the lights come on, my dad reading the Luke 2 before bed, putting baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning before opening presents...I could probably go on and on...

Some of the traditions our family is becoming attached to:

Christmas Eve PJ's...every year the kids get a new pair of wintery/christmasy pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve.

Sibling Exchange and Daddy dates...the kids exchange names and then go on a "date" with Mark to pick out a present and grab a bite to eat.

Christmas Ornaments...each year the kids get a new Christmas ornament in their stocking, so someday when they are out on their own they will have a good start on decorating their own tree.

Christmas Trees...the kids get to decorate their own Christmas tree with all of their homemade ornaments and also the ones they get each year in their stockings. We get a live tree for the living room that I get to decorate. The kids also have little Christmas trees in their bedrooms.

Christmas Eve...we have meatball sandwiches, pepperoni pasta salad, and potato chips & dip; we go to the Candlelight Christmas Eve service and we light a Bayberry Candle in an eastern window to light the way for the Christ child; we read the Christmas story before bed and Mark and I wrap all the presents and fill the stockings after the kids are in bed.

Christmas Morning...the kids do stockings first then presents; we have egg casserole, monkey bread, bacon, and fresh fruit for breakfast; at some point in the day we head to Mark's grandma's for dinner

Some Random Things...

Well, as usual I've barely had a minute to breath lately, but I wanted to share a couple things:

Karis had her Christmas program at school last week. The music teacher does such a great job putting together this program and Karis has loved sharing the songs and motions with us over the past few weeks. I was so happy to see her smiling face up there, since she is usually so quiet in those types of settings.

We got a new camera for Christmas and I have been having some playing around with it. We have been wanting to upgrade from our point and shoot digital to something that actually has a zoom lens for quite a while. I got a good deal since our Circuit City was closing and wish we had had the money for something like this when we had our first babies!

Here are some of my favorite shots so far:

Our little bookworm...

Taste-testing my new favorite cookie recipe...

My sweet baby boy...

For any of you real photographers out there, I'd love some tips. I'm also shopping for new photo software to do touch-ups, etc. Any recommendations?

The Holidays: A Gift for Jesus

I have been working on finding a way we can work in giving a gift to Jesus into our Christmas morning festivities. After our MOPS meeting yesterday, we've decided on an idea that I LOVE! I'll be wrapping a box with a removable lid that we will put out every year for Christmas. In this box we'll put our gift to Jesus. This year we are using the World Vision site http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10395 to be Jesus' hands and feet by donating a gift to someone in need. The kids are having a hard time deciding on one thing to give. This year, I'm not sure where we will find the money to do this, so I think one is all we'll do. In the years to come I hope that we will be able to give more than one gift. I'm going to print out a copy of whatever we decide on and put into our box. On Christmas morning we'll give it to Jesus, along with a prayer for the family or families that our item touches. We'll pray that God uses our gift to teach us about giving and to bless those who receive it.

In the future I see us giving Jesus other things, too...things that are more personal...maybe a gift of our time and service in a particular ministry for the year, a commitment to family devotional time, or a renewed desire to move deeper in our relationship with Him.

We'll keep our gifts in the box from year to year. I think it will be neat, down the road, to look back and see what things we've given and how God has used them.

The Holidays: The Real St. Nick

Mark and I have had a bit of a hard time deciding how we were going to deal with Santa. I came from a family where we played up Santa...left out the cookies and a note...and he'd always write one back. I'm not sure how we didn't recognize my mom's writing!?!? She tried to disguise it, but looking back, it seems so obvious! Mark's family didn't really do the whole Santa thing, so it was easy for him to lean more towards not doing it when I brought up the idea.

I don't think it's bad to allow your kids to believe in Santa, and I'm thankful to my parents for putting in the effort to make things so magical for us. I think we live in a much different world today, though. It is so much harder to keep the Truth in celebration when we are constantly bombarded with materialism and secularism. Without going on and on, we've decided to teach the kids about the real Saint Nicholas. If after hearing that story, and taking in everything around them during this season, they choose to believe that Santa is real, we're okay with that. We're not going to stifle their imaginations. I'm pretty sure that not matter what we say to Karis she is going to believe. We realized Ethan was a little too "practical" for that kind of thing last year, although sometimes I think he wants to believe...it just doesn't make sense in his analytical mind.

At first I worried about losing some of the excitement and magic on Christmas morning, but I still couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve after I knew that it was just mom and dad. And some of my most vivid memories from Christmases past aren't even related to Santa Claus. I'll still take our kids to see Santa, and I don't discourage people from asking them what Santa brought them. I just felt the desire to teach them the truth and allow them to choose if they would believe...

I found a really great story about the real St. Nick here: http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=167

The Holidays: Celebrating Advent

As I've been getting a ton of work done around the house for the past few days, I've been thinking about all things related to the holidays...everything from talking to the kids about Santa to family get-togethers to the overwhelming onslaught of "stuff" we'll be bringing into our house. So, since I don't have time to write about it all at once I thought I'd do a "series" of posts. Kind of makes me feel like a real "blogger"...er, something like that :O).

Something I started last Christmas was doing an Advent countdown. Advent is the tradition of waiting on Christ and preparing for the day of his birth during the Christmas season. I loved our pastor's sermon on Advent this past Sunday. I think focusing on the preparation for the Christ-child is so important and he reiterated that, but he also brought in the idea that we should be in a spirit of Advent all throughout the year as we wait on Christ's second return. I want my family to be one that focuses on what we can do to prepare ourselves and others for Christ's return, rather than on the temporary "stuff" of this earth that will only fade away.

I know it's next to impossible to completely take the kids' minds off of the presents, but we are going to make every effort to teach them what Christmas is truly about. I made our countdown last year by breaking down the Christmas story, along with John 3:16 at the beginning and Revelation 1:8 at the end, into 24 pieces. Each night we flip over a numbered card and read the verses on the back to uncover the whole Christmas story. So far Ethan and Karis love it, and I hope my cards hold up for years to come!

The Lord Must Have Known...

...I needed a break today. Somehow He performed a small miracle and allowed both Natalie and Levi to nap at the same time today! It makes me so jealous of you moms who get that break everyday...not really, but I can only imagine all of the wonderful things I will accomplish when this happens on a regular basis. I remember when Ethan and Karis (who both quit napping around the age of two!) started napping at the same time...it was like two hours of heaven on earth some days! Granted, I now have two older children who will require my attention during these breaks, but I still got sooo much done this afternoon! My house was "picked up" (notice I do not use the word clean, as that would require an insane investment of time around here) for a whole 12 minutes, I think! I even dusted my bedroom...and I can't remember the last time I did that!?!?

Funny story: Natalie heard a loud airplane fly over the house tonight while Mark was reading the bedtime Bible story. She turned into a nervous wreck and would not stop talking about this airplane in the sky and we needed to fix the house and it went bye-bye and on and on. It reminded me of the time when she accidentally turned the volume way up on the tv when she was about 9 months old. For weeks, she wouldn't even go in the living room alone and if I carried her in she clung to me like a quivering leaf! So sweet and innocent that these are the things they fear!