Guess Who?

Well?  Do you have any guesses?!  Now that I put that on here, I can see that it's not too hard to guess, since you can actually read it on there...

It's five Walkers. 

Gingerbread-style.

(Thanks, Mom!)

A "Glass Is Half Empty" Kind of Girl

I often see the glass as half empty...

Especially when it comes to this.

But if I'm being totally honest about it, then I'm a "glass is totally empty" kind of girl.

Make it soon, unless you are one of those good people that is behaving and not having sugar or other evil foods right now. 

Advent, Among Other Things...Mainly the Other Things

I had several thoughts today...I know, someone better write that down quickly! 

When we left for church this morning I noticed that the plants (I am a completely uninformed plant person, so that's as specific as it's going to get) at the end of our sidewalk were dead and the long leaves which had been standing taller than Eliana were now lying low and brown on the ground.  As we walked by them Eliana said,"What this happened?!" in the saddest little voice I ever heard.  I would have taken a picture of them this afternoon but it was rainy.

I only noticed them today; I have no idea if they've been like that for a week, or a couple of days, or if it just happened last night.  As we passed them, headed to church on this second Sunday of Advent, I thought,"Isn't it funny that the season in which we celebrate the birth of our Lord is the same season in which we see things in a state of decay all around us."  I continued thinking about it, and realized that we remember his death at the very time when things are coming back to life everywhere we look. 

And then it comes full circle, since during that same time where all things are being renewed we also celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his conquering of death, and the final promise we are given for life, both now and forever. 

Even the seasons hear and answer the call to bring glory to the Creator of the entire universe! 

When I look at those brown, lackluster plants that are stooped low, they seem pitiful.  I am that way, too.  Sometimes I feel as though I want to curl up on the floor just like those plants.  I feel shrivelly and ugly.  But there is another way to see them.  As they lost their own life they were forced to bow down, lying on the concrete with their faces, as it were, in the most humble of positions.  This is a position in which I could find myself as well, humbly bowing down.  Instead of being pitiful I could be worshipful.  Mindful of the One who made me.  In awe of the One who loves me.  Grateful for the One who saves me. 

I'm looking forward to Christmas and I'm enjoying the season; I love the beautiful music, the glorious lights, the lovely garlands, the bright berries.  I love thinking about the hope that we have because of a King who came into the world in the most humble way and then went on to live and die and live again so that all things could be made new.  I love that my children sing his praises, too, and know hymns by heart that I never did. 

I sat in on a class that Mike taught this morning and he said something that struck me; I thought it was so simple and yet so profound.  He said that the character of a king determines the path of the nation.  I thought of how our King is righteous, good, loving, humble, compassionate, and faithful.  And everything he does is for the Father's glory.  There are so many ways that I fall short, every day...sometimes every minute of every day.  I have questioned whether or not I could possibly be a Christian because my heart is so rebellious.  There are people who might say,"Stop that!  Don't be so hard on yourself!"  But I know what's in there, and so does he.  And the miracle is, if what I read in the Bible is true, that he loves me anyway.  He loved me already.  He loved me when I was his enemy.  These things are true for each of us.

Where am I going with this?  I don't know...I was thinking about the King.  And how I don't measure up, but how he is still leading.  His character is stronger than my flaws.  His faithfulness doesn't depend upon my obedience.  And even though I waver, or feel so far away from him at times, I still follow.  Stumbling and scraping my knees, diverting down the wrong path momentarily, scrambling to see him once again, I follow. 

A little note, lest anyone be worried about my theology...these are things that I feel (remember?  I'm a right-brained person!); I realize that my experience doesn't always reflect reality.  I also would say that while the Lord calls, and the people follow, in some mysterious way he also enables and even carries those whom he calls.  I can only speak to so many things at once!  For now, it's the falling-behind-scurrying-to-catch-up feeling. 

Anyway, the main point isn't my own waywardness, but his steady leading.  He is strong.  He is good.  He is loving.  He is perfect.  He is leading his people to their home, and their home is with the Father.  His character determines the path of his people.  We can trust to follow on the path because of his character; it never changes.  What a gift we have been given, that we can know our King the way that we can!  How I need to take advantage of that gift! 

I'm pretty sure that this makes not much sense...and I'm not sure how I got from dead plants on the sidewalk to the glorious future that awaits us one day...I'm tricky like that.  I wonder if the trees and the flowers look forward to spring as much as I'm looking forward to the new heavens and the new earth?  Or as much as you might be looking forward to the end of this crazy post?

I walk down the sidewalk every day.  I will pass those plants and I will watch for that miraculous renewal that is sure to come.  The amazing thing is this...as I walk down the path that Jesus has determined for his people I am invited to be a part of the miraculous renewal.  The question is how will I choose to do it.  How will I respond to such a weighty and awesome invitation?  What do you think about that?  What part do you play, or will you play?  I would love to hear your thoughts, because mine are a jumbled mess, and it seems like they should be as clear as the most beautiful and heavenly of bells...

Lows and Highs (Some Sugar Induced...)

You know how it goes...you return from vacation and have to face the regularly scheduled program.  There is the early morning rush to get to school the next day (after a very late night), there are at least three mountains of laundry to conquer, there is a refrigerator to restock.  On top of all that, there are NO cousins to entertain your children, there are NO mothers-in-law (or mothers, depending on where you've been!) to cook the meals, there are NO sisters-in-law with which to laugh, and share stupid stories, and run around pulling off crazy shenanigans like getting all six of the younger cousins to a portrait studio just hours before your flight since that is the last chance you have to do it on this particular trip and you forgot until today.  (We thought we had already said our goodbyes the day before, and so they were wild.  I'm sure the photographer closed the studio once we left so she could go home and take a shower.  She had to work for her money during that shoot...)

Grandma also let them help her decorate the Christmas tree and then made cookies the day we left...we squeezed in a lot before heading to the airport.  It was a lot of fun, but on the heels of such good times quickly follows...

THE VALLEY.

This week has been a long one, and not entirely awful, but definitely hard.  It's hard to go from sunny Florida to...

snowy Dallas!  The morning after we got home, we were greeted with a little snowfall.  It was very pretty, really, but so cold outside!  Even though we only live a few houses down from Christian's school, Mike drove us over that morning.

**Fast forward through the week-lots of laundry, a run to the grocery store, crock-pot cooking**

Christian had a little boy over this afternoon, which was a spontaneous thing...he was supposed to come over just before we left for our trip, but Michaela had a fever, so we postponed the playdate.  Today during the class stitching the two boys asked their respective mothers if they could,"Please, please, please have a playdate?!?!?!"  I told her that it was fine if her little man came home with me for a bit after school, and so it was arranged.

Later I took the girls to a craft store in order to get some more thread for the stitching and some yarn for a project Michaela had in mind.  Whilst walking down the aisle a little cake pan caught my eye and suddenly I was given a vision of what to do this afternoon with those boys.  The pan was a mini-cake pan, with Christmas trees and gingerbread men and it seemed like the perfect idea to bake the little cakes and let the boys decorate them.  Michaela, too.  Not that they would decorate Michaela, but that Michaela would also decorate the cakes.

Aren't you glad I clarify these things?

We got to the cash register only to notice that we had the wrapper for the yarn, but no yarn.  Eliana had apparently left it behind somewhere in the store.  Since I had the bar code, I was able to go ahead and pay for everything and then go look for the yarn.  This is my life...I am the master of efficiency.

When we got home I got the cake batter ready. 

I went and picked the guys up from school, and they played for a bit while I finished baking.  Once the cakes were done, they decorated to their hearts' content.  When they were done the conversation went something like this (regarding the gingerbread men):

Christian (pointing to all the red parts):  This is the blood.  (I guess he had been wounded.)

Christian's friend:  Mine has lots of blood!  (I suppose he, too, had been injured.)

Michaela:  There is no blood on mine.  (He was missing a leg, though, since she had daintily eaten that part.)

Ah, no gender related stereotypical behavior going on here.  Uh-uh, no way.  And then right after they finished decorating the boys took off, shooting their finger-guns at all the bad guys, and sneaking around looking like they were doing something very bad (I never found out what).  Michaela went back to cutting out snowflakes and decorating those with glitter glue.  

Speaking of glitter glue, we had to give Eliana a lesson on how glitter glue is not the same thing as decorative icing, since both were on the table in similar tubes, yet only one is edible. (Well, according to some.  The glue might taste better than the decorative icing.  I didn't do a full-blown experiment, though, so I have no definitive answer as far as the debate might go.)  She's a quick study, so everything was all right.  

Before all of the decorating started, Eliana taught me a lesson as well.  I should never underestimate a toddler's ability to reach all manner of heights when highly motivated.  I was at the oven and heard her say,"It's a boy!"  No one was giving birth in my kitchen so I smartly assumed that she had discovered the gingerbread men cakes.  (Just call me Sherlock, folks.)

 

She told me she was eating the boy.  "She's a man-eater!  Watch out or she'll chew you up..."  Just a little heads up for all the young fellas out there. 

While she was eating her cake I mixed up some frosting for the big kids.

Then they came running.  It was fun (for the most part!).  Christian and Michaela quarrelled about I-don't-know-what.  I'm sure that Christian's friend thought he had gone to the nut-house, between their arguing and my sweeping up the crumbs constantly (they were sticking on my socks...yuck).  He quietly decorated his cakes, glancing at the two of them every now and then. 

Once Christian's friend went home, we set about hanging up some snowflakes that Michaela and Christian had made since our real snow was long gone.

This is what Christian took...

and this is what Michaela took...

It's so fun to see the pictures they take.  Except when they're better than mine.

And now I have the biggest mess you ever saw in my kitchen to clean up.  Who knew that making mini-cakes made such a massive disaster?  I think I need to write someone about that...Wilton, maybe?  Mini-cakes should lead to mini-disasters.  Who's with me?!

I Just Flew in From Florida, and Boy are My Arms (and Legs and Back) Tired!

We flew in from Florida yesterday, and arrived a little after 8:00 p.m.  Mike got the car and then picked the rest of us up, and as we drove toward home we debated...should we go straight to Borders or go home first?  We ended up driving to the bookstore first thing, and I ran inside to see if she was even still around.

Oh, by "she" I mean The Pioneer Woman.  She was in Dallas last night, signing her cookbook. 

I don't think the employees were prepared for the onslaught.  Most of them were walking around with glazed eyes, looking either perplexed or amazed. 

I found out that the line was long (hours long), and that they were going to keep the store open until everyone had had their cookbooks signed.  Whoever was crazy enough to stay until the end.  Apparently even Ree was crazy enough to stay until the end.

Michaela had gone in with me, and we walked the line just to see how long it was, and to see PW, as well.  I felt like we were playing a live version of "Where's Waldo", but with Ree.  We finally discovered her, and I snapped a quick picture; she was all smiles and seemed so friendly.

We drove home and got Christian and Eliana settled (they were already sacked out), and then I headed back to Borders with my camera and my cookbook.

Then I waited.  And I waited.  And I waited.  It would have been a lot of fun if Michaela could have stayed or to have my mom, or some friends there.  I spoke with a few people in the line around me.  And we wound our way around the entire store.  There was a section at the back of the store that was lined with chairs and small stools; it was a relief to sit down after standing for so long.  We would sit and then everyone would shift over one or two chairs every so often.  It was like a strange and slow game of musical chairs.  Without the music.   And a lot more people than chairs.

I was pretty near the end of the line; there were about fifteen people behind me.  Since there were no more people waiting after this particular group, they decided just to move the chairs along and keep on sitting in them.  There were two women right behind me, and then a couple (like a husband and wife) just behind them.  The women discovered the couple sitting in their chairs backwards. 

The ladies asked these two why they were facing the wrong way.  They looked over their shoulders and then pushed against the floor with their feet so that their chairs scooted forward.  Or backward, however you want to look at it.  Pretty funny.  Pretty much everything is funny at one in the morning, though.

I am too lazy to move chairs and scoot them along.  I just stuck with my own two feet.  And eventually they got me to where I was headed...

It was 1:02 a.m.  At this point the signing was pretty quick, but she was just as sweet as she could be.  She never stopped smiling, and we had a brief conversation.  ("Hope you get some sleep tonight!"  "I hope you do, too!")  (I didn't say it was brilliant.)  It was fun to be there with her even though it was such a short moment.  When she first began writing in my book I said,"You are such a good sport!"  She replied,"I would never leave ya'!"  And that's how she seems...like someone who will stick it out to the end, and who cares as much about the eight hundredth person in line as the first person in line. 

Now I just need to get to the store, stock up my fridge (it's pretty empty since we were gone) and git to cookin'!