Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Christmas Pictures

Greetings

Yes, I realize I should have had these posted day of, as so many of you have been kind enough to point out. But let me tell you, it has been a busy week, and I just plain forgot to download the pictures to the computer.

We have had ear infections, late night visits to after hours clinics, early morning visits for outpatient surgery, lots of naps, lots of antibiotics, a little bit of codeine, a lot of Tylenol, more than our fair share of dirty duds, crabby kids, tired parents, and other assorted ailments that come from being sick or having sick kids. Sarah Grace did fine with her little outpatient procedure, and other than a bit of residual pain, is a mostly cheerful, if not sleepier than normal, child. Thomas is still struggling with nasty double ear infections, but will recover and be his perky self soon, as well. At any rate, Joshua and I are a tad sleep deprived, but it's a long weekend!

As for the pictures, enjoy! The kids had a blast ripping into their Santa gifts and playing with all their grandparents Christmas Day. There was much no-ing and mine-ing coming from the mouths of my babes in their own toyland, and the jury is still out as to weather or not Santa Claus is coming to town again. Let us have a little more recovery time and we will talk about it at a later date.

It was, despite my whining, a very Merry Christmas. After their afternoon naps, the kids snapped out of it and were much friendlier to each other the rest of the day. Joshua and I were able to enjoy some sweet time with all of our parents, as well as just some 'nuclear' family time and still feel rested enough to return to our usual routines the next day.

Our home is in the midst of de-Christmassing now. The tree got gone today, and I would imagine that the lights and the rest of the decorations will find their way back to the attic for the next eleven months. However, the celebration of the miracle of Christ's birth will not be stored away, but rather something that we try to instill in our children's lives everyday. I hope homes across the country remember not to forget or put up until next year the wonder and the true reasoning behind the celebration of CHRISTmas.

PePop & MeMum's - Thomas

It was unseasonably warm the weekend we were with Mom and Dad, so Thomas was allowed to shed his sweater and play outside in his undershirt. And he was still a tad too warm. He was also introduced to the pool table, where he happily spent an hour here and an hour there chasing balls around the table with a cue stick. (Sounds like his mommy's pool tactics...) He would cheer with glee each time one bonked into a pocket, then grab it out and throw it back on the table. I think he won...several times over!

PePop & MeMum's - Sarah Grace

We shared Christmas with my family the weekend before Christmas. There were lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmother, grandfather, great grandmother, dogs, cats, and a few strays...(people and animals, both!) There was also lots of great food, laughter, catching up, and even a few presents exchanged! As I am sure you can imagine, Sarah was intrigued with opening all the packages she could get her hands on, no matter who they belonged to!

The Witching Hour

It's that time of day. Thomas and Sarah Grace are whining at my feet as I prepare dinner, causing me to trip as I cross from one side of the kitchen to the other, things are slightly haywire, my nerves are coming unraveled. We call it the witching hour around here. From about 4:45 until whenever dinner makes it to the table.

Enter stage front door, my knight in shining armor. Joshua comes home and the kids immediately flock to him for hugs, loves, and wrestling until dinner is ready. And here is a pretty good picture of what those first coming home moments look like for him.

Mostly Sarah

We spent last night and all day today with Granny and Papa Joe in Cullman. The kids love to visit with their grandparents, and the fun was doubled this time due to 'prez-a-nents' and sweet stuff on hand in preparation for the holidays!

Sarah Grace found a flower pot that quickly became a much loved piece of headgear, and was quiet charming as she pranced around peeking up at us from below the hat. During a Diaper Time, she donned the hat and took off streaking around the house causing us all to laugh at her antics.

While Sarah Grace was dancing around in her birthday suit, Thomas was busying himself with one of those glorious toys that has about a ga-billion pieces to it. When he tired of this toy, he jumped up and announced to Sarah Grace to 'cween up'. To my amusing dismay, she marched right over to obey her brother's bidding (naked, I might add) as he stole away to play with another toy! After a quick reprimand from Mom, Thomas went to help Sarah Grace clean up the mess he made in the first place
and then thanked his sister for her help. Kids these days.

There have been several frustrating yet amusing incidents such as this today. Thomas found Granny's bags of sewing thread (lots of thread, since Diane sews beautifully!) and dumped them right at her feet just as she was saying not to. She has them neatly sorted into color families, and as she and Thomas were cleaning up the green spools, Thomas lost interest and pulled the red family out to add to the mix. A festive assortment, at the very least.

Another major attraction for the day was Tinkerbell's (their Chihuahua) water and food bowls. After the initial dumping, pulled off by my Dynamic Duo children, we decided to only leave Tinker's water bowl down. Sarah Grace dumped it not long after we had cleaned up the original mess. We laughed and shook our heads as this mess was cleaned. She does this regularly, so it
was kind of expected. Then, believe it or not, after Gracie had
gone down for her nap, Thomas emptied the bowl for the third
time. We took the hint and Tinker was relegated to the back of the house for her water bowl for the rest of the day.

Tinker had another trial today. Thomas has one of those Little Tykes cars that lives on the deck at Granny's house. He had been begging essentially since we got there last night to go out and play with it. Finally, it warmed up enough and the moisture was absorbed enough that we turned him loose about mid morning today. He happily Flintstone-ed his way all over the deck, occasionally stopping to inspect some aspect of the 'road-way' more closely. In the mean time, Tinkerbell wanted to go out, too. So, she was turned out to the deck for some fresh air and exercise with Thomas. Tom steered his way over to her, and as we watched all this take place from inside the warmth of the kitchen, we casually mentioned that shortly he would be targeting Tinkerbell instead of making his way so gingerly around her. What do you suppose happens next? Yep. You guessed it. He took aim, and Tinker decided she would rather be
inside!
The day is full of funnies such as this, as Joshua and I try to be more relaxed when we are at Grandparents' homes. I could regale you with a few more antics, but it is late, I am tired, and tomorrow is Christmas Eve. (Trust me, these three things really do tie in with one another. Santa pulls late nights, I hear...) As you can see, there was some cuddle time was snuck in between all the merry making and trouble making. Papa Joe was especially happy to get some of those sweet, fresh from nap time cuddles!

So, if I don't talk to you between now and then, Merry Christmas!!!

Thomas

We are alive! We are alive! I have several posts that I would like to do, but I think I will start with today... I remember it the best.

We woke up to the kids laughing and screaming at about 6:15 this morning. (This after an extremely long weekend) I could not believe they were up. I still had 15 minutes left to sleep! I am filling in at the school this week, so the kids are getting lots of exposure to other children. They both have some anxiety about morning parting when I drop them in their classrooms, but it doesn't last. When I check in on them 15 to 20 minutes later, they are happily playing or singing or coloring or whatever the activity of the moment is.

Today I got to watch my son. I know this sounds silly, but watching your kid in a daycare setting when he doesn't know you are watching is eye opening. Fortunately, it was a good kind of eye opener. My heart swelled with pride and thankfulness as I watched him. First of all, he was just cute. And so big. I mean, when did he go and get that grown up?

So, after watching him stroll along for a few minutes, he chose to sit down on this little car toy that has steering wheels on it. The kids his age love this toy. There are four seats and four steering wheels. There was only one little girl sitting on it playing, and Thomas went over and sat down and started spinning the steering wheel. The little girl went nuts on my son. Seriously, unbiased Mommy talking here. I was a teacher today, after all. I watched as she pushed him with her hands and feet and hit him and kicked him and yelled at him. Just plain upset that he was there. I kept waiting for some other teacher to notice, because I did not want to clue Thomas into my presence, but they were busy with other toddler antics. As I watched, I decided to let it go. Kids do this kind of stuff.

Then, to my great pleasure, Thomas decided he'd had enough. He stood up, kind looked at the little girl like she was a loon (and she was acting that way!) and walked off. I was so PROUD of him. This is the point where kids usually just lash right back at the person who is after them. Not my son. (not today, anyway) He walked away, and busied himself elsewhere.

All those days of repetitive admonishments of 'she's a lady', 'we don't hit', 'have a sweet spirit, even if they don't', ' be kind', 'be gentle'. He heard it. He really heard it. It's one of those inspirational moments when you just have to stop and praise God for letting you see this little episode. The Lord gave me encouragement through that simple act of my son walking away and letting the little girl alone.

Will he do it the next time? I have no way of knowing, but he did it this time and I witnessed it. And that is all I need for now. It will carry me through many frustrating moments where they don't seem to be listening to me at all. I now am assured (with my own eyesight) that my son is hearing me and it is rooting in his heart and mind.

Counting One By One

Yesterday, I went to the mail box three times before there was actually mail in it. I was hopping about, being impatient because I had no stamps and they were supposed to arrive in the mail. And I just wanted the mail guy to get there and do his job.

The kids wanted lunch and I was so busy doing other stuff that I actually got frustrated when they wanted seconds. Who does that?

Gracie had a Dr appointment at 330, and when I had the kids ready to go, the car loaded, and was set to leave, I found that I had no idea where my keys were. An hour of searching and flipping the house around found the keys IN THE CAR. I was angry because this made things such that I could not run my errands before the appointment, so the afternoon felt somehow useless. Never mind that we made it to the Dr appointment on time.

I called my Mom to check and see when the Christmas parade in Scottsboro was to be held. She said, 'Tonight at six o'clock.' I called my sweet husband to see if he was willing to jump through the hoops it would take to get us there, and he said sure. We agreed to leave Huntsville a tad before 5.

Want to know where I was at 5pm? Still sitting at the Dr office. In Madison. With rush hour traffic over Chapman Mountain between me and home.

I was mad. I was aggravated. I was fuming, quite frankly. And, I had made the grand mistake of telling Thomas that we were going to go to see PePop and MeMum. So, he was whiny about wanting to see them. Sarah was whiny because she got shots and pokes and prods from the Doctor and Nurses. And I had to drive in stand still traffic because SOMETHING was going on way ahead of us, out of my vision, but had traffic at an absolute snails pace.

It was close to six before we pulled into the driveway. I had not prepped anything for dinner. My kids thought they were starved. I knew I was. And my wonderful, sweet Joshua was patient and trying to do anything he could to make my life easier. And I was being bull headed. (I know, I know, hard to believe. But it's true.)

We loaded ourselves back into the car, drove back across town to the new Cracker Barrel, sat ourselves down and ordered a yummy meal. 20 minutes later, our drinks made it to us. 30 minutes after that, our food came out. Or at least Joshua's plate and the kids plates. Mine did not. In fact, my plate did not make it to us until my family was nearly finished with their food. I am an unusually patient person with folks in restaurants, thanks to a waitressing stint once upon a time. But this was pushing even my buttons.

I guess it was closing in on 8 pm when Joshua took the kids out to the car and I stood on line to pay the bill. Another wait because the place is fully stocked with new employees. And then, I went outside.

Did I mention it was cold yesterday?

After about 3 or 4 minutes of being in the cold, I was upset with my innocent husband for not bringing the car around to get me. Where was he? I didn't even know where we were parked, because he was kind enough to drop me at the door so I could have a few kid free moments and get us a seat. I sat down, rather huffy, if you must know and started recounting the horrible day, adding fuel to my fire.

The door to the restaurant opens, and out walk this old man and old lady. The kind of old where they are stooped and frail looking. The kind of old where you just automatically know they have seen truly hard times. Worse times than lost keys and slow traffic. And you wanna know what? They were holding hands and smiling and enjoying the moment. They both looked over in my direction and smiled at me, commenting on the cold, and the beautiful night. And then said, Merry Christmas. God bless you.

Until that moment, I had not noticed anything but the cold and my own discomfort. The moon was huge and bright and things were crisp and clear. But I had been so wrapped up in self pity for the day that I had not taken the time to notice anything good. In fact, I was probably subconsciously not looking for good. I was mad.

There is this country song that says "I just wanna be mad for a while". I was living it out, too, buddy. Not only had I had a bad day, but I was sitting around mulling over the wretched parts, making them come alive again in my memory, which only stirred me up more.

There is an old kids song that says "Count your blessings, count them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God has done." Last night, after the kids had been put to bed and Joshua was amusing himself with computer stuff, I sank into a nice hot bathtub and counted my blessings.

This morning, I am determined to make it a better day. Yucky things may come our way today, I am sure. But the sun is out, my kids are healthy, my home is warm, my husband loves me, and most importantly I have a God who will never, ever leave me nor forsake me.