Merry Christmas

Gabby tore the ligaments in her ankle on Friday night, so we spent the whole day in the ER on Saturday.  They put her in a soft cast and on crutches with strict instructions to stay off her foot for five days at least.  We will go back in on Thursday to see if she has to stay in the cast longer.

We are almost ready for Christmas...just a few more gifts left to wrap and picking up our Subway platters in about an hour.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!  Remember the reason we celebrate! 

It is about a Mother.  It must be so difficult watching your child lying in a feed trough.  I know all you mothers out there know how it feels when you deliver a baby.  There is nothing in this world that can describe the love that is there.  Imagine knowing his sole purpose was to die.  Not just to die, which we all do, but to die a gruesome death, a death that was meant to save, murderers, rapist, thieves, drug dealers, drunk drivers and all sinners of every sort.  It would be difficult as a mother to face something that horrifying.  Not to selfishly beg for it not to happen.  I can imagine her holding him close to her and weeping for joy for the baby she was holding, yet some of those tears that were falling down her cheek were tears of sheer pain knowing what was going to happen to him.

It is about a carpenter, knowing the child wasn't his, but standing by the mother.  Watching as this beautiful child was born, taking him as his own and loving him and raising him.  Being a Daddy is no easy task and I am sure there were so many things that Joseph managed to teach this child.

It is about a child.  Imagine Jesus as a child growing up, knowing what he was going to do.  He had a whole lifetime to contemplate and worry, but he didn't spend it doing that.  He spent it saving people.  He had all that time to back out, but he freely gave his life when the time came. 

Let's take time this Christmas to remember what it is all about.  Simply put, it is about a mother, a carpenter father, and a baby child, born for one reason...so we could live!

Merry Christmas to you all!

A few questions

1.  What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Every day with my family spending time together.

2.  What is your greatest fear?
Losing one of the girls or David, and secondly, dying and leaving them motherless.

3.  Which living person do you most admire?
I have so many...My Granmother, My Mother and my Mother -in -law are at the top of the list.

4.  What trait do you most deplore in yourself?
My impatience.

5.  What trait do you most deplore in others?
Intolerance

6.  What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
I don't think there is ann overrated virtue.  Every virtue has it's purpose.

7.  On what occasion do you lie?
When the truth would unnecessarily hurt someone.

8.  What do you dislike most about your appearance?
blemishes on my face

9.  What is your greatest regret?
I have no regrets, maybe some apologies, but everything that has happened in my life has brought me to where I am.

10.  What or who is the greatest love of your life?
David

11.  Which talent would you most like to have?
The ability to be able to better understand people and why they do things.

12.  What is your current state of mind?
Happy

13.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would try and keep myself from raising my voice at my kids so often.

14.  What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My Children are by far the greatest thing I have ever done!

15.  If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
A dog, they are patient, loving, and loyal

16.  What is your most treasured possession?
My Bible, secondly my camera and photographs

17.  What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Losing a child.

18.  Where would you like to live?
Colorado mountains, Wyoming...somewhere out west

19.  What are your most marked characteristics?
Outgoing,  friendly, understanding, easy to talk to

20.  Who are your favourite writers?
Willa Cather, Mark Twain,  Frank Peretti, Dean Koontz

21.  Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
Aragorn (Lord of the Rings)

22.  Who are your heroes in real life?
My Mother, my Grandma, my Aunt Beth

23.  What is it that you most dislike?
abortion

24.  What is your motto?
The beauty of a woman is in her children's hearts

25.  Favourite journey?
The journey to England when we moved there.

26.  What do you most value in your friends?
Kindness and honesty.

27.  Which word or phrase do you most overuse?
"Really????"

28.  Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Laura Ingalls Wilder

29.  What is your greatest extravagance?
Books and movies if you count something I buy all the time or probably our biggest extravagant buy lately is our big 50 inch HDTV

30.  If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
I wouldn't.

31.  What is your favourite occupation?
Photography, counseling

32.  What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Kindness.

33.  What is the quality you most like in a man?
Sensitivity.

34.  How would you like to die?
Fall asleep and never wake up.

35.  If you could choose what you want to come back as, what would it be?
Myself

Christmas Party

The Christmas party was excellent.  Brittany took these pictures of us before we headed out.  I spent most of the day getting my hair and nails done.  What do you think about my new hair?  It's a bit dark and will take some getting used to, but it is closer to my natural color (which apparently includes quite a bit of gray now).

The girls and I are meant to sing first thing in the morning, at church.  It is pouring down rain and beginning to freeze, not to mention the fact that my throat hurts and I almost have no voice left.  We shall see if we actually manage to get to church let alone get to sing.  Maybe the girls will have to go it alone this time.

Someone replaced my baby today

SOMETIMES, when I am not feeling well, the girls get up a little before me.  MOST of the time they are sooo good, but something unusual happened this morning.  Danijela, who literally NEVER does anything wrong, wrote her name on the wrist pad of my keyboard.  NOT ONLY that, but when I asked who wrote on my wristpad...NOBODY answered. 

I asked Brittany...NOOOOO
I asked Gabby...NOOOOO
I asked Kassie...NOOOOO
I asked Bela...NOOOOO
(By the way, I knew it wasn't them)

I asked Dani...NOOOO (tears in her eyes)
"Are you sure it wasn't you???" I asked her.
"I'm sure!" (sobbing and crying now)

I showed her the wristpad.  "Whose name is this?"

Through her tears, "MIIIINEEE!"

I wondered out loud, "And why do you think that ANY of your other sisters would write your name here?"

LONG PAUSE!

I repeated the question.

Silence for a moment. and then..."I did it, I tried to unrase it."

I spoke, taking a moment to keep myself composed,  because what I really wanted to do was  LAUGH .  I am thinking, what in the world possessed this little girl, who NEVER, her whole life, has done ANYTHING remotely disobedient, to all of a sudden, not only write her name on something that doesn't belong to her, but also to LIE about it.  I was beginning to wonder if someone had replaced her with an alien drone or something. 

So I sat with her and asked her how she would feel about me breaking her Leapster.  Then I explained one of our biggest rules...something I have never had to explain to her before, but she has heard me tell her sisters hundreds of times.  "IF YOU LIE YOU WILL GET IN MUCH, MUCH MORE TROUBLE!" followed by the lesser"IF IT'S NOT YOURS DON'T TOUCH IT WITHOUT ASKING"

We then hugged and she stopped crying long enough to say she was sorry. 

Moral of the story: If you are going to write on something that belongs to someone else...don't write your own name!

Luckily, for me the crayon rubbed off really well and there is only an indentation of the name of the little one, a reminder that EVERYONE makes mistakes, and how we all can use a little forgiveness now and then.

It's Snowing!

The concert was beautiful, amazing, astounding, awesome and any other wonderful word you can find to describe listening to children singing.  Their teacher has done amazing things with them.  They blended wonderfully.  Okay, okay enough bragging about my kids (Kassie and Brittany had solos and they sang beautifully!), now I am really done.

We woke up to snow this morning and the whole world it white for a few moments.  It's not, however, enough snow to cover the mounds and mounds of leaves in my front yard that have blown in from all the neighbor's yards.  You wouldn't believe it if you saw it.  I REFUSE to rake till spring because they just keep coming all winter.  Since our yard is surrounded by trees and brush, they get stuck in our yard and go no further till we remove them.

Anyway if it keeps snowing they will cancel the girl's trip to the homeless shelter.  They are hoping it slows down soon.  It really isn't a lot, but I have noticed that Virginians don't know how to drive in the snow. 

A few pictures of my beautiful girls

Christmas Fun

Christmas is such a blessed time of year, but it is also our busiest.  I am happy for the being busy.  Last Saturday night we spend the evening at a friend's house in our old neighborhood.  It was such a wonderful time.  She cooked and cooked and cooked for us there was a huge amount of food.  The we had karaoke.  It was a blast!

The girls and I joined the choir in church and last Sunday was our first Sunday singing.  It was lots of fun, we really enjoy being up there.  On the 16th Brittany, Gabby, Kassie and I will be singing a quartet of "The Coventry Carol" for Sunday service.  We have been practicing and I think it sounds really good.

Last Saturday night we spend the evening at a friend's house in our old neighborhood.  It was such a wonderful time.  She cooked and cooked and cooked for us there was a huge amount of food.  The we had karaoke.  It was a blast!

The girls also have a voice concert tonight, they have spent months preparing for this and it is going to be so beautiful.  We are all looking forward to it!

Tomorrow night Brittany and Gabby are going back to the homeless shelter with their youth group to do something fun with the children there, and next Sunday they will be ringing the bell for the Salvation Army at Wal Mart.  They keep me running being teens and all.

Within the next couple of weeks we have a birthday party to attend, David's company Christmas party, shopping for angel tree gifts, Christmas program at church, the girls have a cookie exchange, and we will be helping pack the Community Christmas Baskets at church. 

We have been so busy with all the running around that I haven't taken much time to sit down and post.  I will post pictures of the girls in their Christmas outfits tonight after the concert.