HeatherB

Merry Christmas

Perhaps this isn't the best time to write about our Christmas, as it's well-past the end of a very long day, and I'm exhausted.  But, I doubt I'll get to it another time, and so, here goes...

We've had an altogether very nice Christmas.  My father-in-law (FIL) and his wife were here for a couple of days and then went to visit other family, returning on Christmas Eve.  Because they weren't feeling well and had things that needed doing here, they opted to stay home rather than come with us to our Christmas Eve service.  We were thrilled to have some good friends from out of town join us at church, as they are in the area visiting family for the holidays.  J and I knew they were going to try to make it, but the boys didn't, and were ecstatic when the walked in to find them there!  It's the first time we've had any Christmas-ing together since the big boys (both families now have 3!) were 2.5 years old!  After the service (which was a bit difficult to get through - though excellent in and of itself - due to Judah being wiggly and loud), the kids ran around and enjoyed being together.  There was quite a pack of boys, with some of G's buddy's other old friends joining in, too.  Hopefully we'll see G's buddy this weekend, too.

Following church, some of our friends, plus my family and J's family (already here), came for dinner and some gifts.  (Our dear friends have a tradition of doing gifts on Christmas Eve, so we do ours with them on Christmas Eve, and the rest in the morning.)  We had a great meal of fried shrimp, fries, broiled shrimp, rice, cheese, crackers, and nuts.  J made homemade egg nog - yum!  When it was finally time for gifts, the big boys opened a HUGE box (well over their heads), from which emerged their first BMW.  Yes, I said BMW.  A beautiful silver 3-series convertible (well, not exactly convertible - there's no roof at all!).  It's a pedal car, which as our friend said, goes much faster than a battery-powered car!  LOL  As you might guess, they were unbelievably excited.  When baby-J woke up, he was in love with it, too, and wouldn't stop trying to climb in (he succeeded without much trouble).  Today, J finished assembling it and the boys took it out for a spin.  While neither one can pedal it quite perfectly (one's legs are a tad too long, the other's a tad too short), they came up with many methods of propulsion and had a fabulous time tearing it up on the sidewalk.

We were finally done with the pre-Christmas festivities, and got the kids to bed (not so easy), at which point my work began.  I had to finish wrapping all of the gifts (thankfully I had gotten a very good head start on that), fill stockings, and then completely rearrange the gifts under the tree to include not only my own newly wrapped gifts, but all those that were shipped to or came from my parents' house.  It's a long, though worthwhile process, which includes sorting gifts by size and carefully replacing them, all the while assorting the various wrapping papers, recipients, and types of gifts, to create an attractive scene.  Putting out the unwrapped gifts (including two rocking chairs and a big train, this year) and stockings and stuffed animals finishes it off.  It gets tweaked just a bit in the morning when the family brings in their own last-minute additions, so even I get a surprise when I get up for Christmas morning.

Needless to say, if there really were a Santa, I'd be up to see him.  I think I got to bed around 4 this time.

I was up about 8:30, once everyone was here and ready to go.  Getting the kids up was more difficult this year than most, though.  G had made his way to our bed, but apparently didn't remember that in his early-morning-fogginess.  I scooped up baby-J and walked G back through the "tunnel" to his own room so we could get I' up.  But he wouldn't wake up!  Silly boy didn't do our traditional "march" to the tree, and was instead carried by Daddy and held until he decided to wake up and see what was in his stocking.  Of course, the rest of us were quite done by then!

Baby-J wasn't really sure what to do with all of the gifts that had suddenly appeared, though he knew what to do with the rocking chairs.  G already had one with his name on it, and this year both I' and baby-J got ones with theirs.  Baby-J adores G's, but managed to pick out I's instead of his own to rock in.  LOL  He really loved his Erzi wooden cell phone that I just had to get him from Oompa.  I'm glad I chose to put it in his stocking, rather than wrap it, because he still has presents left to open!  He was so enthralled with the various activities going on that he wandered around, peeked at one thing and another, and kept going...  He was not all that into unwrapping his own things, but thankfully he has really liked the ones he did unwrap.

I had a great system this year - well, mostly.  Each of the boys had their own big laundry basket - pretty ones I'd picked up at Target made of wicker - to put their own gifts in.  Of course there are the "share toys" that are hard to figure where to place, but I loved how this gave us a home for everything they opened.  By the end of the morning, they were overflowing!  Still, it was such a great improvement from "piles" of toys and things that would get mixed up and were always in danger of landing in the garbage bag.  It wasn't my original idea, but I loved it!  J said we should have had ones for everyone!

A couple of months back, I bought some small Lodge Cookware cast iron pans, a set of six with the idea of doing individual frittatas for Christmas breakfast.  A couple of them broke, though, and I was down to four.  I've also never made a frittata, or quiche - what I eventually decided on - before, so it was all new and quite the experiment.  Thankfully, the tomato, basil, and goat cheese quiche (with puff pastry shells) turned out rather well.  Not perfect (some of the shells could've been more done, etc.), but quite nice and tasty.  Though I think baked goat cheese will have that effect on most anything!  (Blame my husband, but I really like the stuff now!)  So that was a good success for the day, and not something I typically have time or energy for.  And even with only 4 pans, we had one slice left over.  Perfect!

I even managed to take a nice nap with baby-J, to awake to the smells of cooking.  Our beef rib roast was in the oven and J was on his way to making our delicious Christmas meal.  We had enough help, with my mom and my FIL's wife, to allow me to work on things like decorating the table with my new runner, napkin rings, and candle holders.  My mom gave us the decorations, and I really loved how it all looked together!

Dinner was wonderful, save for baby-J squawking and screaming nearly constantly.  I ate what I could, and then gave up to try to calm him.  I think he just doesn't like sitting at the table.  It's hard to tell.  But let's just say that eating with him has been next to impossible for some time!  It will make it much easier for us to resist the urge to dine out, that's for sure...

But dinner.  It was very good!  We had the prime rib; Yorkshire pudding (which is kind of like a giant popover); asparagus; mashed potatoes; sweet potatoes; green salad with pears, cranberries, and pistachios (and goat cheese!); and homemade yeast rolls.  I just wish I'd had more time to focus on enjoying it, rather than on scarfing down as much as I could before I had to remove baby-J from the table.  For dessert, J made a Panettone bread pudding and I made baked apples stuffed with a yummy streusel.  And, once again, we forgot the Christmas crackers.  Perhaps we'll call them New Year's crackers, instead?

Unfortunately, the oven mitts I've been telling J we needed to replace for a while, finally gave out.  As I grabbed the searing-hot oven rack.  Ugh.  We actually discovered, after the fact, that one of them came apart at the seam all along the thumb, which is what burned.  They've been failing for a while, but then again they're 9.5 years old and were a wedding gift from my parents.  So, I'm sending J to use his Williams-Sonoma gift card on a new set tomorrow!  The burn was small but pretty painful for quite a while, which made it difficult to do things like enjoy the yummy apples I made.  But, it's feeling much better now.

We topped off the night with a bit of Wii Music, a gift from the boys to Jeremey, and got everyone to sleep much later than we should've.  Tired we are, yes, hmmm...

So there are lots of good things about this day, but the bizarre thing, to me, is it didn't really feel like Christmas.  I'm not sure why not, either.  I don't know if it was the changes to tradition; the amount of work that had to be done; the strangely warm weather; the stress inherent with house guests; or something else altogether.  I do think that having it be chilly would have helped a lot, as I felt a lot of Christmasy mood even at Thanksgiving and the days after, when it was nippy and crisp out.  It's really very disappointing to have Christmas when it's in the 70s and humid!

I'm waiting for the transfer of pictures and videos (including 20 minutes of this morning's activities) from my beautiful new camera - an early Christmas gift from J - to iPhoto.  Then I can hopefully post a few pics to go along with this lengthy diatribe.  (A couple have now been added, clearly!)

So, if you've gotten this far, help me out with this question...  

What traditions do you and your family have, on Christmas Day, to help keep the focus on Jesus?  We do lots of things before Christmas Day, but I'd love to hear new ideas for focusing our attention on Christmas, itself.

Merry Christmas!

True Songs

My kids listen to many different types of music, because they pretty much listen to what we listen to. A few months back, J started playing Phil Wickham's album in the car, and it didn't take long for Gabriel to pick up on the song True Love (watch it below). I still remember clearly his exclamation over the part of the song that repeats, "Jesus is alive, Jesus is alive," which was easy for him to hear and pick up on. "Do you know why this is my favorite song, Mom?" he called from the back seat. "No, why?" "Because it's true! Jesus is alive! It's a true song, Mom!" Insert mama-heart-melting here. They ask for True Love over, and over, and over again! I hope you'll enjoy this video. He's pretty amazing even with only the acoustic!

The Bunker Bed

Yesterday I was talking to my friend on iChat. She was very excited as she'd just bought a great set of beds for her girls off of craigslist. My boys really need a set of bunk beds, too, as the trundle plan just hasn't worked out so well. There's just not enough space in their little room!

But, what do you know? This seller has TWO sets of bunk beds for what seems a steal of a price! So I called and went to see them last night.

The sets are nice, though probably not quite as good quality as I had originally thought. Still, they're a form I really like and have some features that I think would work well for our family.

So, despite hating to make on the fly decisions, I handed over a pile of cash for the beds, that Iain calls "bunker beds." Assuming it's not raining tonight, we'll all go pick up and deliver both sets.

I keep telling myself that if it doesn't work, I can sell it again. I'm not ready to get rid of their old bed set yet, though. I'm planning to take pictures of it before we take it down in case I decide to sell. It's a very nice bed and was G's first (well,Iain's too, I guess!), so it has some sentiment.

Until the big bed is here and set up I won't know for sure if it was the right thing - but I'm really hoping it was!

Sweet Day

Judah has been unbelievably cute today. It's been a looong day, too, so you'd figure he'd be tired and cranky. But, for some reason, he's been amazing.

The picture is this tired-but-sweet boy playing peekaboo from afar. He started playing it while nearby, and carried it on while exploring across the room. You can't beat the smile every time you "catch" him while he's looking at you!

The long part of today is due to the annual BIRTH Fair, which I volunteered with. I led the Houston Baby Wearers booth, giving out tons of info and advice on safely wearing your little one. In addition to the great time at the booth, I saw many people I know but rarely see. It was great to be in a large community of predominantly like-minded people!

The very best part of the day was having my whole family around, though! J brought Iain and Judah at the start of the fair. As requested, J wore Judah in his pouch sling. Judah didn't even want to see me when they got there, as he was so happy with daddy! Iain had a great time playing with other kids there, all of whom seemed appropriately rambunctious. Iain even talked to other people! Judah was a hit in the "fashion show." He walked with J while modeling a cloth diaper cover (which wasn't half as cute as he!). One of the fair's organizers was particularly taken with him.

Gabriel came up after his Chinese school (thanks, Mom!) and really enjoyed hanging out, helping, and trying out baby carriers. LOL

The second best thing was seeing my midwife. I haven't seen her since Christmas, and it was so refreshing! I'm a bit jealous of my newly pregnant friend who gets to see her regularly for the next 8 months! I'm so blessed to have a midwife that I could just sit and talk with -about anything - for hours! Now, I just need to find the opportunities to do just that.

My ankle that I sprained Tuesday is doing much better, and I was able to walk today without too much trouble.

The little sweetheart isn't half as happy now, so, good night!

Updates

We still have no power at the house. It's been three full days now. More and more areas around us have gotten theirs restored, but a large area is still out. I know at least a handful of families outside of that area still without power, too.

Thankfully we do have friends with lights and air. We spent yesterday afternoon and evening with one family, then had a pretty good night's sleep near the windows where it got progressively cooler until morning. Other friends invited us over this morning, and we hung out there all day. Did I mention the superb meals both places? Mmm...

Tonight we're holing up in another family's vacant house. They evacuated but have power, and aren't home until tomorrow. So we're really grateful to have a great spot to stay in and relax!

Watching more reports on the destruction. Unreal. We can at least be grateful it was not any worse here.

yIkes

Well we've survived our first real family hurricane. Still without power after 24 hours, though we did not have major damage. We did get rain through both front end back doors and lost one of our only big, healthy plants out front. A little fence fell, but nothing like our neighbors with bigger yards. The front yard is covered in leaves and small branches.

Around town some areas are virtually unscathed, and other areas have tremendous loss of trees and fences. Some of my favorite trees lining Lexington have split or toppled. The second time we went out we saw a family sitting on the felled tree, which opened their yard to the main intersection, laughing and playing guitar!

Most of the areas around us have power now and I'm hopeful ours will be back on soon. Supposedly there's power at the church and services there tomorrow, which may be a nice break.

Savvy Rest

Our new bed arrived last week! Doesn't it look comfy?

It's actually still sitting in the boxes, awaiting the arrival of the frame that will be here in a couple of weeks. Once that's here, we'll have a lovely organic latex mattress along with organic bedding and pillows that we got at great deals. I'm so excited to see it all come together! Should be much more appealing than the mattress in its current state. LOL.

For anyone wondering, the mattress is customiseable with three layers of latex. So we will build it (literally) in the configuration we want, currently planned for firm (bottom), medium, medium (top). Because we can access the layers, we can rearrange them to see if other configurations work better, and swap out pieces with the company. It's a great system, especially when there aren't any of these beds within 3 hours to try out.

Sleepy Head

Cleaning house while wearing Judah in my new Dream Carrier half wrap buckle. We've never successfully used a sleep hood until now, but be definitely needed it!  The carrier was super-comfy, too.  In fact, it was virtually weightless on my shoulders.  I definitely felt him on my hips more, which might've been shifted a bit if I'd tried.  It was great, though, especially as my shoulders tend to be my trouble spot these days.  And he was, obviously, very happy!

Apologies for the fuzzy camera phone picture, but it is at least easy to post with the TypePad for iPhone App!

Change without Notice

I'm a little frustrated.  I have been trying to figure out things to do for Iain's birthday, and in my search came across the Texas State Railroad, which is about 3.5 hours from where we live.  I decided that we ought to drive up there the day before his birthday, and ride the train on his birthday as a big surprise.  It seemed perfect, as the website said the steam train would be running that day from one of the two stations.  So I've researched lodging in that area and had our trip pretty well planned out.  Then, we'd be able to come home and have his party here the following day.

So, last night I sent a reservation request to have someone call back to buy tickets.  The girl told me that the steam train won't be running that day, despite what their website said a month or so ago when I first looked.  Only the diesel train will run, from the opposite station, though on the following day (Saturday - party day), the steam train will run.

And, whadya know, their schedule on their site looks completely different than it did when I first looked, and there's a great little note: Please Note: Schedule, price, engines & equipment are subject to change without notice.

So now I am at a loss as to what to do.  Do we go on his birthday, but ride the diesel from the other town?  Or do we go on the following day, and ride the steam train, but not have his party that day?  I suppose leaving town on his birthday would be exciting, too, but I had these plans of giving him the "real trains" he'd asked for while riding the "real" train - on his birthday.  Not that a diesel train is all bad - but steam is certainly better.  Or, so J and I strongly feel.

If you have any wisdom to share, please do!  We've only got a few weeks to get this all sorted out.  Yikes.

This and That

There's been a lot going on here lately. I've been teaching a class at the church for kids. My friend has been helping me out, and we've done 4 weeks of stamping and paper crafts for these 6-10 year olds. It was a good class, I think, and the kids enjoyed it. Of course, it was also rather stressful at times, and by last night, I was glad to be DONE! I told my friend that four weeks was definitely enough for the next year. Next summer, I'll consider it again, but likely not before. LOL

I've also been working on a bulk order discount with a great organic clothing company. They've been really good to us, and the stress of putting the order together is finally over! Woohoo! I sent off a check to them today and the order will be here within two weeks, including time for payment to get there and the box to ship. I am really eager to see these goodies! I was able to order several things for my boys, as well. The sizes go up to 8y, so even Gabriel, who generally misses out on these sorts of things, gets stuff, too.

I have so much I need to get done around here in the next couple of weeks. We just got a new bed - woohoo! Actually, only the mattress is here, and it's still sitting in boxes in the front room. But in one week I have people over here for a meeting, and in 10 days my FIL and his wife show up to stay with us. So the house needs to be company ready very soon! So, tonight I looked at several charities and picked one that I really like, and told my boys about it. We then boxed up several boxes of things that have been sitting in the "garage sale" pile in the master bedroom, and will take them over to donate tomorrow. Hooray! I'm so happy! I told the boys it was silly to sell things and then have money to do what with? Buy more stuff? The charity we're taking it to gives everything to families in a free store. So their toys will go to kids who need them, as the birthday and Christmas gifts their parents can't buy. We'll have even more to take but I'm really excited, especially with the fact that THEY got excited about it. Now hopefully I can haul these boxes in with three kids in tow. LOL

I really need stamina and energy these days. I have many things in mind to do, but finding the mental energy and physical stamina is hard! I envy those who have no health issues and can do whatever they want, whenever they want. I have to remind myself sometimes that there really are differences between me and "them," despite my deep desires that there not be. I've also got to get back to the gym, which I'll be doing tomorrow, after we drop off at Second Mile. Despite not having seen any significant benefit from all of the effort I've put in thus far, I know I need to go - and hopefully I can work hard enough to get an energy boost, and no so hard as to wear myself out completely!