The cooks in the kitchen

The adventure of the day was allowing Samuel (!), McKenna (!), and Anna to help Laura and I bake sugar cookies after dinner!  They did remarkably well and had more fun that you should be allowed to have making cookies!  Samuel was the only one to get any flour on Laura's dark pants.  When he realized it was his doing, he kept saying, "sorry, Laura" and helped her (?) by wiping it off.  She then had flour not only at the hem of her pants but also up to her hips.  As he wiped he said, "Big.  Mess.  Laura.  Big mess."  The smile from behind those faces white with flour made the extra cleanup totally worthwhile!  By the end of the process the girls were actually doing most of it themselves.  

McKenna made us all laugh tonight when we asked her what she was thankful for before she went to bed.  The usual fare: "Mommy, Daddy, my blankie, my teddy, Pinkie Pie."  But then she closed with a frank, "That's all I got."  In her spirit, for tonight, that's all I got.  :)

Best Christmas Ever

Well, we've wrapped up (he he he) the best Christmas ever.  It was such a joy to see the kids be so excited about the baking, the fun with family, the gifts, and the general cheer around the house.  It was even better, though, to hear the girls say on more than one occasion (unprompted), "It's not about the presents...it's about celebrating Jesus' birthday!"  Amen, sisters! 

Anna was particularly bad at keeping secrets about presents.  She ended up trying, though, to get the word out without being the one to spill the beans.  She told Jordan (Chris' secret brother) that we got him something at the store (oops) and asked him what HE wanted the gift to be.  Oh, and it starts with "F".  She finally succumbed to telling him it was a squid (her idea) to throw him off track (my idea).

McKenna informed everyone that Mommy took them to the "fragile store" to pick out presents for people they loved.  The weren't allowed to touch any of the fragile things.  No, we weren't at Von Maur or Pottery Barn.  We were at Kohls.   :)

Samuel was so excited about "me choo choo!  choo choo!  choo choo!" (repeat 56 times)  Dad made him a train table and mom and dad and Chris and I got him the trains, tracks, and other accessories.  I will never, as long as I live, forget how excited my little boy was to get his first train set.  He bounced all the way around the table, just as excited as anyone has ever been about anything.  Today, might have been even better, though, because every time I left his side today he'd run after me with trains in hand and say, "play, mama, play!"  We played and played and played.  It was such a good day.  

Chris and I prefer to concentrate on gifts for the kids but it was fun to surprise him this year with a frame containing his great-grandfather's honorable discharge from the Army.  I really love family and history, so combining the two is quite fun for me.  

What a fun day...  What a reason for celebration!

What was

I just read (online, of course) that AU will no longer be making yearbooks for students to purchase.  Evidently, students just prefer to keep in touch via other methods (facebook, etc.).  I didn't know that a yearbook was a way to keep in touch, but whatever.  Funny, soon I'll be one of those people who actually had yearbooks.  It'll make me seem so old...

While it lasted

Samuel either climbed out or fell out of his crib this evening for the first time.  He was mad as a hornet when I left him in his bedroom (which is quite unusual) and crying with gusto.  I'd done no more than walk into the family room when I had to stop in my tracks.  What was that?  Is that crying A LOT louder than it was a couple steps back?  Must go check...  Then, our easy bedtime routine for the past 1 year, 11 months, and 4 days ended (minus the first year of miserable nights).  Samuel met me at the door.  It was good while it lasted.

Congrats, Tim, on your graduation today!  You worked so hard for this--we're so proud of you!

Status report

I caught McKenna singing as she helped me load the dishwasher tonight.  "Three French kids...two durtle doves..."  She just really brings me smiles every day.  It was nice to have impromptu smiles tonight because it was a really hard day.  Really, it started last night.  Neither of the girls slept well at all.  Poor McKenna was up about every 30 minutes with a crummy cough.  That, of course, also woke up Anna.  I took both of the girls to the doctor today and after hours of little tests, lots of prodding, some swabbing, and buckets of tears, and a couple of x-rays we were able to determine that McKenna has pneumonia and Anna has some icky virus.  On top of Sam's recently diagnosed double ear infections, it's been quite a week.  This mommy is very tired.  Since changing the words to songs is what we do around here, I'd promote the "three si-ick kids..." version.

Oh--I can't believe I didn't post this last week!  Anna, as we were making dinner on Wednesday, asked me if she could pray to ask Jesus to live in her heart!  Oh, what a sweet, sweet moment!  We sat on the floor in the kitchen and Anna prayed to ask Jesus to live in her heart.  She was beaming, and I was trying to hide my tears.  She caught me, though.  She just wanted to make sure they were happy tears.  Happy doesn't even come close...

Missing the Obvious

So my last post mentioned McKenna missing the obvious--horses can't fly.  It happened again yesterday.  We walked through the church lobby on the way to MDO.  As soon as she stepped into the building she gasped and then said in a high-pitched whispery voice, "Look at the beautiful flowers!"  Across the lobby on a counter sat one small arrangement of flowers.  What did she miss?  Oh, just the 15 foot Christmas tree that was glimmering with gold ornaments and white lights that was only about ten feet to her left.  I have a feeling we'll have our hands full keeping her on track for the next 20 years!

Smitten with mittens

Laura, I'm just smitten with my mittens.  On this COLD day, they are so great!  And I've got to have the cutest gear knitted by the cutest girl of anyone on campus today.  And trust me, I pay more attention to knitted hats now than I ever have--none are as great as my getup today!  Thanks!

My little McKenna just absolutely cracks me up!  Not only is she one of the funniest 3 year olds around, she's got to be one of the funniest PEOPLE around.  Last week she proudly announced in the van, "Mommy!  I figured it out!  I figured out how to count with my eyes closed!"  If only you could have seen her with her eyes squinted shut, counting on her fingers!  This weekend she was watching a "new part" of Fantasia.  (The second half is all new since she has always fallen asleep during the first part.)  She was watching the "horsepeople" fly around, commenting on how pretty the colors were.  Then, as the creatures landed in a lake and began swimming she exclaimed, "I didn't know horses could SWIM!?"  It didn't even occur to her that the more outrageous thing (the thing they really COULDN'T) do, was fly.  We laughed...  And then she referred to herself later as "Max.  Push the button Max.  You know, from the 'Gweat Wace'."  She's comic relief for me every day.  

A few other thoughts...

I'm SO excited about Christmas this year.  And not about the gifts--receiving OR giving them.  Not even about the great food and general spirit of cheer.  It's been particularly refreshing for me to focus on the celebration of Christ's birth.  The simple truth that the Bible is true-it's real-it's living...  The events that are recorded in the Gospels (and the rest of the Bible) happened a long time ago.  But they've never been more real to me.   I am so grateful for the women's Bible study at church for encouraging me to go deeper in my study at home...and coaching me through that.  So as we've studied Daniel there, and marriage in our small group and prayer in Sunday school, it's just all coming together in a new and refreshing way.  It's all related.  You just have to believe what the Bible says about marriage and the events in Daniel and the whole thing if you're going to believe any of it at all.  And when you do, it can be nothing less than transforming.