On Believing

We have various levels of "believing" in our household--in Santa, that is. I don't think Scott has ever really been fully convinced, since it doesn't really make sense to him. For the last three years, though, he has reconciled it all by saying he believes in Santa, but not in the flying reindeer. He can't let it all go yet. I won't rush him.
Sweet Emma has never questioned it at all--any itty bitty part of it. It is real, and it probably will be for a while still. She did say to me, though, at the beginning of the season when we had pulled out our Nativity sets, "Mom, Jesus is real, right?" Yes, yes, yes, Emma! It made me commit to reminding them every day that Jesus is the reason for Christmas. And I think we did that.

Gracie is a thinker. She asked me a couple times this year if Santa is real. My standard answer to that is, "What do you think?" She would say, "I think he's real. But is he?" After Christmas, she said, "Santa is real because he ate all his cookies." (So glad I remembered to take care of that!)

Caytie hates Santa. On Christmas morning, she was the last one in bed. Ben said, "Santa came! Do you want to go see what Santa brought?" She was not interested at all. When I told her Santa was gone, but there were presents, she decided she would come out. I think next year she'll have a better opinion of the jolly old elf.

I don't remember believing in Santa. I was the 5th of eight kids, and the secret was out fast. But it's fun to share the tradition with my family. I had some stocking holders made for our family this year. They are wooden blocks with the word "We" on one, and the letters of the word BELIEVE on the others. (Those ones have the nails in them to hang the stockings--seven letters for seven of us. How did we get so many so fast?) I like the sentiment of the statement, because we share in the Santa tradition, but I also have a nativity set on top of the blocks, to remind us of the more important belief in our Savior. We do believe. We are so grateful for his gift for us--the gift of his love and his life. It brings our family hope, and joy, and peace. Those are the things that I hope my family remembers as our tradition of Christmas.

On Sleep

*I love to sleep in. It is the thing I look forward to most when I know a vacation is coming. But it doesn't happen very often, when you have kids around. Their clocks go off at the same time, vacation or not. I was planning to sleep in for my birthday last week, but we had a "situation" with our fire alarm at 6:15 am. (Ben will tell the story if you ask...) So instead of sleeping, I ran out half dressed with my Tessa to see what was going on. (Ben apologized profusely for that one.) I did not get to sleep in that day. But the day after Christmas was lovely. Everyone woke up and went out to play the new Wii. I got to stay in bed, and after feeding Tess, we just chatted with each other for a relaxing half hour. It made up for the adrenaline rush of the birthday morning.

*Tessa is my best sleeper. I think it has to do with the fact that she is my first one to suck on her fingers. (Usually her first two, on either hand.) Whatever the reason, I am amazed that she can ever fall asleep, with all the noise that goes on around here.

*Caytie (now 2 1/2) is my worst sleeper. She has Ben and me trained. She has no problems falling asleep on her own for naps or when babysitters are here, but on normal nights, she won't fall asleep without one of us staying by her side. She says things like, "Stay wi' me for a little bit" or "I scared of my room." And about 50 percent of the time, she finds her way down to our bed during the middle of the night. While this is frustrating, I try to remember that it won't last forever--and there are worse things than her having the memory of me or Ben by her side while she is falling asleep.

*Gracie had a rough Christmas Eve. She has had a cold, and was coughing a LOT during the night. At about 12:30, and then again at about 2 am, she coughed so much that she threw up. Uggh! It made a long night for her, me, and Ben--with an early start, when the kids woke up at 5:30 the next morning.

*Every night after I turn off her light, Emma yells out of her room to me--"Mommy, is Abe with you?" Abe is our evil cat, who loves Scott and barely tolerates the rest of us. However, he likes to sleep under Emma's bed. She hates that. So she has to make sure he's gone, or she won't settle down. I can't really blame her, but it kind of makes me laugh each night that she remembers and is so concerned that the cat is not there.

*Scott said the cutest thing to Ben, if eight-year olds are still allowed to say "cute" things. It was the night of Christmas. Ben usually reads with him at night, and then turns out the light. Scott asked Ben, "Can you leave the light on for just a little bit longer? I don't want this day to end yet." That was the sign of one happy kid, who quickly fell asleep, despite the light.

Merry Christmas!

(An advantage of living in the heart of the Bible Belt is some great Christian music radio stations. I have really enjoyed this song this season. Hope you do too!)

How Many Kings, by Downhome

Follow the star to a place unexpected
Would you believe after all we’ve projected
A child in a manger

Lowly and small, the weakest of all
Unlikeliness hero, wrapped in his mothers shawl
Just a child
Is this who we’ve waited for?

Cause how many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?

Bringing our gifts for the newborn savior
All that we have whether costly or meek
Because we believe
Gold for his honor and frankincense for his pleasure
And myrrh for the cross he’ll suffer
Do you believe, is this who we’ve waited for?
It’s who we’ve waited for

How many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?
Only one did that for me

All for me
All for you
All for me
All for you

Watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iSivQmzJ_w

Any ideas?

In an effort to stay sane, we're going to have "Christmas School" for the next few days around here. I have some craft, treat, and service ideas that we're going to try, but I was wondering if anyone out there has some fun activites or foods that they do to that they'd like to share.

Thanks...and Merry Christmas!

We are Southern now

It happened.

I shouldn't be surprised. We've lived in Texas for four and a half years now, and over half of my children have been born here. But still, I was not expecting it when Gracie said...y'all.

I asked her a question. Her answer was, "Y'all can do it." And then she repeated her sentence, almost testing it out, to make sure it was right. And it was.

In a related story, Scott was telling me about something he was going to do, and then changed his mind about. He said, "I was fixin' to do it, but then I didn't." I laughed, and said, "Scott, you're sounding like you're from Texas." He asked me what I meant. I said, "Daddy and I aren't from Texas, so we don't say 'fixin' to.'" He thought about it, and said, "Well, it's hard to say the 'g' for 'fixing to.'" I still chuckle about that.

We gather together

We got to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving! Someone told Ben that eight hours is a long way to go for a turkey, but it was worth it. (Even with that last hour of the trip home when Tessa could not be calmed...)

We went to their little town square and took a tour of the fire station for Scott's Cub Scout requirement (but our pictures were fuzzy). We also saw their big trains. All the kids were impressed.
We also got to go to the zoo with the cousins. They have an incredible polar bear display, and this guy was happily swimming around and around. We could have watched him for hours.

Of course, we made the apple turkeys with gumdrops. No Thanksgiving would be complete for my kids now without them.

Tessa played with her cousin Jeremiah, who is only a couple weeks older than she is. They kept touching each others' ears. Very cute. (And PS--remind me to stop blinking, because somehow, she is growing up way too fast.)

The meal on Thursday was fabulous, filling, and lacking nothing. I was so thankful that we could be together with so much family, because usually it's just us. After a few hours shopping the next day and lots more visiting (plus reading one of those books which was not highly recommended by the person who gave it to me, and I didn't really like, but had to keep reading to see how it would all end...) our trip was over too soon. Thanks again, Mom and Dad, for being our ever-gracious hosts!

Halloweeners

Halloween was great--in Gracie's words, it was "the best day ever!" We had a few parties to get us through. Our church playgroup had one for our ballerina, bunny, and Supergirl. (Caytie was really not into putting on a costume. She wore something different at every event. She was a princess for the actual trick-or-treating.)

The school had a carnival on the day of Halloween, as well. Batman was there, with his evil zombie and a really cute mean kitty.

Here are our little pumpkins. (Ben did find some larger ones at a store in the town next to us...)

Scott decided that this year, he had to be something scary, instead of his customary superhero. Wouldn't you know it--he won first place for his costume at the school contest! (That is definitely due to his dad's Halloween genes. I don't have any.) He limped himself onto the stage, and the judges really liked the "bullet hole" in the back of his neck.

We also had trunk-or-treating at the church, and a nice warm night for trick-or-treating. Yay for free candy (and kids who don't keep track of what they have)!