Sleepover

Here's what I love:

Two sisters who decide to have a Friday night sleepover in one of their rooms including making Christmas paper chains, listening to Adventures in Odyssey, reading, and listening to music. -Especially when they also happen to be my daughters.

Date Night

Abby finished knitting her hat - Congratulations, Abby!!

In the mornings I am going through a great product by Family Life called What God Wants for Christmas (www.whatgodwantsforchristmas.com) with Grace. Mom and Dad bought this for us last year to stash away for this Christmas.

Each morning there is a new little gift box for Grace to open that adds a new character to our nativity set and a new part to a poem for me to read to her that introduces that character and their part to play in the Christmas story. We are enjoying it very much, and Grace loves to play with the characters in the little stable scene included.

Today Grace opened Baby Jesus to join Joseph, Mary, and the angel Gabriel. Right away, after I read the poem to Grace, I heard her begin to role-play with the characters. I saw her put Gabriel right next to Baby Jesus' manger bed. "I'll stay here and watch you," Gabriel (in a very Grace-like voice) said.

"Where are Joseph and Mary, Grace?" I asked her.

"Well, they're here." I noticed Grace had the two of them over on the yellow chair. "They're on a date."

Kelly's Deep Thought

I love the passage in Matthew 23:37 that is also repeated elsewhere in Scripture where Christ talks about God's love for Israel. He shows God as a loving Father longing to tenderly care for His children. As children of the New Covenant because of faith in Jesus, we can also be children of our Father and cared for in this way...

"How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings..."

Greg talked about this passage (the Luke version) on Sunday and actually said, "God protects His chicks." (Referring to His care for His children)

My deep thought in response...

That would be an awesome Women's Ministry t-shirt (albeit slightly out of context)-

God protects His chicks!

Winter Wonderland

SNOW! We woke up this morning to a glorious, beautiful blanket of snow. The girls all bundled up to get out and play in it before it melts away...

We have some serious Christmas spirit going on with snow on the ground the weekend after Thanksgiving and my Christmas cactus about to bloom. I love this thing! I just received it as a gift last year, and I am absolutely amazed at how it knows when Christmas is coming. Last year at Christmas time it was blooming beautifully, and now after a whole year of waiting with nothing but green cactus to look at (although it's a nice green cactus), now, it is filled with red buds again. It's quite symbolic, really, like a year-long advent calendar. Anyway, it makes me happy!

And now for the rest of my exciting news... Greg finished our beautiful bed!! Yesterday, a good friend from church came to spend the day with the girls, so Greg and I could have a day together. We took the truck down to Wichita to go...

MATTRESS SHOPPING.

I truly really hate mattress shopping, but when you need a mattress, well, you have to go mattress shopping. The mattress salespeople know this, so they don't care that they are actually more obnoxious than used car salesmen, because if you do indeed need a mattress, you'll be coming.

Our mattress salesman was an incredibly friendly fellow named Troy. Troy was so friendly that he followed us all around the furniture store, really. I think Troy wanted to play tag or something, because Greg and I kept trying to run away from Troy, and Troy kept chasing us so that he could be really friendly. We had things to discuss that we didn't necessarily want Troy to overhear, because Troy had exceptional hearing and had lots of strong opinions and not much concern for whether anyone was actually talking to him.

Greg and I ran away to the living room section and sat down on a couch and chair to try to have a secret meeting. In a few minutes, there was Troy to see if we were okay, he didn't want us to feel neglected. "O, neglected is NOT what we feel," Greg told him. Then Toy sat down in our little living room with us. He leaned back in the chair and made himself comfortable, I think he really thought he was invited.

"This is a nice set, isn't it. We can..." Both of us started to snap.

"We're just sitting here, actually; trying to discuss our mattress decision. You see, Troy, we have stuff, too much stuff. I'm trying to clear out our storage room, and right now we don't just want more stuff. We need a mattress, and as for this deal you're offering of $100 in furniture when we make a $499 purchase, we've looked all around, and there's nothing here we want. Could you just take that $100 off our mattress purchase?" I knew the answer; I already heard Troy tell someone else that was not possible.

The idea, see is to make you spend much more than 100 extra dollars in other furniture purchases, because VERY little in that place cost $100 or less. We almost fell for it; we looked all around thinking about how maybe we should have a cushier chair in the living room, and with $100 off, that chair would only be $299. The problem is we weren't feeling the need for a chair before we got in there, and we certainly hadn't budgeted for one. They were forcing an impulse buy, and it made me mad.

I looked right at Troy when I said those things. Then Troy looked down and was quiet for a long moment, obviously greatly struggling deep within. It was quite dramatic. "Well, what I can do is give you 10% off your mattress purchase, if you'd rather have that."

"Thanks, Troy, we'll take it."

We're quite happy with the set, and I love the new bed my talented hubby built, and the rest of our day was delightful. We went out to lunch and saw an amazing movie callled Bella. After the movie, I was so touched I had to go sit in a bathroom stall at the theater for a bit to have a good cry. For more on the movie, you'll have to visit Greg's blog - coming soon.

So far we're all living happily ever after.

Thank you

Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done, In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mothers' arms, Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.

For Your amazing love that seems always to me, when I think about it, too good to be true;
That it is true, in spite of me, even because of me.

That You are faithful, always faithful, in pain, faithful, in hope and joy, faithful, in loneliness, nonetheless faithful, in confusion, faithful, in bitter disappointment, faithful, in doubt, faithful, in great provision, faithful, in need, faithful...
For You know pain and joy. You know me, and still, You love me.

For Your grace that loves me in the midst of my sinfulness and selfishness and reaches down to me, through Jesus - because of Jesus, to offer to me a relationship with the God of the universe, with You. It shouldn't be, but it is, and that is grace.

Thank You; I am amazed.

A little Grace

Grace's latest quips, starting in bed way too early on Sunday morning:

"Mommy, Mooooommyyyyyyyy! I can't see!! Mommy, I can't see!!!!"

Enter very tired, slightly irritable, and a touch worried Mommy, "Grace, what do you mean you can't see? Look at me; you can see me."

Grace, with fingers pressed over closed eyes, "Mommy, I can't see when my eyes are closed."

Later that morning in the middle of church and in the middle of a beautiful song being sung by our choir, Grace got up as tall as she could on her knees next to me in our pew. A good friend of ours had just sung a solo in the song, and Grace wanted to see. Stretching as high as she could at a quiet, rather poignant moment in the song, she let out a huge belch from her soul. Her head was perfectly positioned right between the older couple sitting in front of us, so that each of them got one perfect earful. Abby and Emma got the giggles something fierce, so I looked straight ahead as if nothing unusual had happened to keep my composure. After church, I looked right at the lady in front of us and said, "It wasn't me."

Today at lunch, "That is the goodest lunch I ever seen! Thank you, Mommy!"

Later this afternoon she described something as "Gimungus!"

And finally, always one to cover all her bases, she called me to her room after she had been put to bed tonight, "Mommy, I need milk and brefek in the morning, with cereal. Remember that, O.K.?"

Carpe Diem

I haven't made any progress on the storage room since my last post; I am sorry...

But we did have a fabulous fall day yesterday. It is quite nice when God condescends to give a hint of insight to the weathermen who actually get it right, thus allowing me to make plans accordingly. I noticed that we had one good day coming. One. On this day it was supposed to be perfect: sunny, cool but not a bit cold, a calm breeze, and gorgeous colors still hanging on to most of the trees. The days before were gray and windy; the days after looked cold and windy.

We did it... The whole Carpe Diem thing. We took that day, and we lived fully within it. We doubled up on school on Monday so we could spend all day yesterday in Hutchinson. We spent the morning at a fun free zoo, ate lunch at a big park, and spent the afternoon at the Dillon Nature Center. It couldn't have been more beautiful. My thinking led me to believe that this could be one of the last full days that we could comfortably enjoy being completely outdoors 'til spring.

Highlights of our day included:

• visiting the llama (in the petting zoo) that spit right in Abby's hair over a year ago


• watching the otter dance for us while he tried to dry and fluff his soggy tail


• getting to know an attention hungry goat that reminded us a bit of Rosie


• Grace crouching down in front of an aquarium that held a turtle who pressed his little face up against the glass as if he wanted to tell us something. Without missing a beat, Grace said, "What, turtle?" and pressed her ear right up next to the glass. "O, thank you." "Mommy, the turtle said he loves me." I think he probably did.


• seeing the most majestic looking bald eagles I've ever seen up close
  
• picking out little treasures from the gift shop (which, of course nullifies this actually being the totally "free" trip I proudly told Greg we would be taking. O yeah, and gas too)


• feeling as if we had stumbled upon a magical fairy-land at the nature center. We followed a "hidden stream" surrounded by a carpet of golden leaves with perfect fairy dwellings in niches everywhere we looked.

After our day, we capped off the evening by watching Chariots of Fire with Greg. We've been reading about Eric Liddell in one of our readers for school; I love that movie. The girls enjoyed it too, believe it or not. They followed it pretty well (except for Grace; she was in bed).

As for pictures of hip hair in response to my comments, I'm feeling a little insecure about that, seeing as how I think ALL of you have hipper hair than me. This one is hard to see, but once I get my batteries recharged in my camera after yesterday, we'll see.

Insecurity

YES, I've started on the storage room, O.K.?! But, that's all the information you're getting on that right now.

Insecurity.

It is an interesting thing. I am so ridiculously affected by it. In fact, I spend a large amount of mental, emotional, and physical energy trying to appease this monster in my life.

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You see, I'm growing gray hairs. I have these long, wiry, doingy white hairs growing right out of the middle of my part. I keep pulling them out, but I notice at least one every day. I am not emotionally ready for lots of gray hairs. I was also feeling slightly dumpy in the hair department in general, so I decided it was time to make a hair appointment.

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I called this cool hair place recommended to me by a friend. You know, some place a little edgy that can make hip hair. I was not prepared, however for my encounter with the phone answering woman at the hair place who was indeed edgy (in the extremely irritable sense of the word). After the conversation, I mustered up enough courage to actually go in there. Greg couldn't believe I still went after my encounter, but cool, edgy hair places are a little hard to come by in these parts.

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So, I went in and said, "Um, I want not real short hip hair." And she delivered, I think. I like it, but at my age who am I to define "hip"? I'm hoping Amanda with the hot pink stripe down the middle of her head of black, curly hair knew. I did not color it, if you're wondering. I supposedly have "great hair for hiding gray" at least so far.

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The sad thing is that hip hair has not conquered insecurity or "image management" as John Ortberg puts it in his book The Life You've Always Wanted. I still worry far too much about my "image." I still struggle to be one who is comfortable receiving God's grace through Christ because I actually NEED it. I really hate it when those faults and weaknesses actually show up, especially when someone else is around. So, I just keep hoping nobody notices the gray just yet.

Drive-thru

I've decided to share with the world (or at least those in it who read my blog) what I SHOULD be doing over the next week or so. I'm sharing this because nothing in me actually wants to do it, but everything in me does want it done. My purpose in sharing this is to expose it, to turn on the pressure, to MAKE ME DO IT!

I am supposed to organize the storage room.

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You've already heard about my organizing woes. The desk has got nothing on the storage room. Does anything about that phrase sound nice "STORAGE ROOM" - who wants to organize something called that?

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Anyway, I hope to share my progress over the next several days, weeks, months... No pictures, I'm not ready for extreme exposure.

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On a lighter note, I took Rosie, my bad dog whom I love to the drive-thru at Lincoln Perk today. She was very hyper in the truck, because 1) she rarely rides in the truck and 2) it's usually only to go to the vet. She began to whimper and kind of hop and dance next to me, a bundle of excited nerves all wrapped up inside a bad dog who's a little too big. The fun thing about bringing your dog through the drive-thru at Lincoln Perk is that we always keep milk-bones in a little jar to give out to any dogs who happen to come through.

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Well, since Rosie thought she was going to the vet, the first thing she did when my nice fellow employee friend opened the window was to fiercely bark at her. Thankfully my friend loves dogs and understood about the whole vet confusion. She reached across and gave Rosie (who was now standing across my lap) a milk-bone.

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Rosie thought this was the best thing she had ever experienced so far in her life, so she kept doing a hopping dance on my lap reaching her neck as far through the window as she could hoping for more. My friend gave her two more which means Rosie was so excited I couldn't even have my window down anymore to get my coffee without holding on to her collar or she would have jumped right into that place. When I finally grabbed two coffees (one for me and one for Greg who was at home with the girls) one at a time so as to keep my dog from launching through the window, I had to shove Rosie off of my lap, so I could see out of my windshield.

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All in all, I felt pretty cool driving around in a red, stick-shift pick-up truck with my big dog Rosie hop-dancing next to me. Rosie, well this was the best day of her life so far.

Memory Maker

Some days homeschooling just cracks me up, some days I love it, and some days it's just plain hard and I feel ready to quit. Today happened to be a great day that put a big deposit in the "I love it" category.

Emma started out by going to an American Girl's Class held through a home school co-op in Newton. She had a Victorian tea party today based on the Samantha books. She and I made Victorian Tea Cake (sponge layer cake with strawberry jam filling) for her to take along. She brought an antique floral tea cup, and came back with a big, satin hair bow that they made.

Well, after lunch with the beautiful hair bow donned, she and Abby proceeded to head out back to dissect two cow eyeballs. Really. We're studying anatomy and physiology this year in science and had recently studied the eye. Our book suggested getting cow eyeballs from a meat packer and we happen to have a great meat packer just a few blocks away. Although Greg enthusiastically secured the eyeballs from the meat packer and brought them home to our fridge (where I picked up the bag, mistaking them for bacon - just a bit of a shocker), he wanted nothing to do with the dissection. Maybe his own eye surgery is a little too recent.

As I was getting Gracie down for some rest time, I heard delighted exclamations: "WOW, Mom you have to get out here and see this lens I got out, it's hard! Here's where the optic nerve connected, COOL! Ew, the aqueous humor is really sticky! HEY, here's the retina with the capillaries, LOOK!"

After this bit of excitement, a wonderful woman from our church, Naomi, took us all out to a nature trail in Newton that we had never visited. She had told us at the beginning of the week that she would like to do this with us for Pastor Appreciation month. Today was absolutely beautiful here!

Naomi came over with little booklets she had made for each of the girls with their names written in them and a little poem that had been written about the Sand Creek Nature Trail attached on the front page. She is a nature lover and made sure the girls had backpacks to gather their treasures in along the way. She collected different leaves for them to have a variety of leaf rubbings to do in their books. She brought along a book to read to the girls that is also one of our favorites called God's Quiet Things.

We came home and filled my glass pumpkin with their treasures. Definitely a memory-making day!