You Don't See That Every Day

This is what happens when you take a nap if your 2 year old got stickers for Christmas at this time last year: Run

I went for a run this afternoon. The first time in two weeks. Oh.My. It hurt -- my shins, my shoulders, my lungs. As I psyched myself up for it all day long, I would think, "I'll do 2 miles today" and then I modified it to 1, because really, why push myself too hard. And then later in the day I would think, "Oh, maybe I can go to 2 and see how I feel, and push it to 3 miles. Yeah, that would be a great come-back." So I started out on my run and got to 1/4 mile and thought, "forget it! I am going only 1 mile!!" I made it a mile. Then I forced myself to leash up the dog and take her for a run too. And I had planned on going another mile. Until I got to the turn where I either kept going for the mile, or turned to go back home. Guess what won? Yeah, we turned and headed back towards the house. And then *horror* I walked. Hey, at least I got out there and ran! Now to sign up for a race so I will keep running. Thoughts as I ran today: I need to wear b...

 Thirty six people; Grandparents, cousins, siblings, fiances, a soon to be born baby; Lots of love and laughter in the house. We spent Christmas at my brother and sister in law's house. Which was great, because there is plenty of room for all of us,  and some years there is the joy of snow (although not this year!)  We did something a little differently this year. I spent a few weeks putting together a family trivia game, gathering little known facts/ experiences from family members. I put them in random order, printed out a copy for everyone, along with the names (because keeping track of that many is not easy!) Then people spent dinner talking, and guessing who was the beauty pageant entry, and who was the one to eat mushrooms out of the yard, among other things. It was fun to listen to and hear the stories behind them once the answers were revealed. I'm already thinking ahead to next year ... maybe baby pictures.  

When I was a kid, Christmas Eve was a magical day, full of anticipation, and occasionally snowy fun. As an adult, and mom, it's just not quite the same. I was still fixing up presents and writing out cards this year on Christmas Eve. I had it in my mind to paint candles for a gift. But my attempts, my rough drafts, turned out horribly. So I knew that wouldn't work. Then my husband suggested melting them down and making a candle. So we did some Internet research and tried it. Using an old pot, some chop sticks, and (thankfully it was in the cupboard!) wicks, we tried our hand at candle-making. I wouldn't have made it too far in the pioneer days if my life depended on candles. We would have been the family in the dark. Thankfully, again, my husband came to my rescue. He actually got into the 'craft' more than I did, trying different colors, and forms. We melted a bunch of wax and crayons to make colors. The kids were in charge of peeling the crayon paper....

The holiday was busy this year. Even though I made a point of not stressing out, I still did. I didn't send cards out on time, but am doing a little every day this week. So, my blog posts suffered, but I'm back to share how our Christmas went. In installments, Because all at once might put you to sleep. So on the 23rd, even though one child had a cold, we went caroling. Oh My Word, that was fun! We joined a group from church and went to a local grocery store to sing. It was kind of like a flash mob, only the manager knew we were coming. It was so cool. We moved on from there to a retirement home and sang to the residents. This was my favorite part. The smiles on their faces when we sang; some sang along with us; I fought back tears as I watched man feed his wife every bite. Afterwards we talked with the residents, handing out candy canes. They seemed to enjoy the kids the most, although there were plenty of smiles at the adult singers. At the next retirement home, a lady ...

My girls have been playing with the camera. Here's what one of them came up with, her own movie of favorites. We don't have a title for it yet. Any suggestions?

It has been a week since I last went for a run. I've walked, I've shopped! I've cleaned and scrubbed for exercise; but it isn't the same, and my body wants to run. I just haven't found the time! The days are shorter on both ends now, dark mornings, and dark afternoon/evenings are not conducive at this point to luring me out the door. I don't relish running in the rain, but I would if it was a light mist. So trying to find the time for a run in between all that has been, well, non-existent right now.  I've got the presents wrapped (finally), except for a couple of them I am making for my nieces. We just finished up with school this week, although I still need to grade the last day's work. My boss, ie. the principal of this academy, aka. my husband, asked me, "Is this a normal day?" when he saw school starting around 10 am or 11 am or 1.30 pm - depending on which day it was this week. We've not been home as much this week; I'm still try...

Do you ever have themed Christmases? The movies do that well, with trees that are all matchy-matchy, and family photos where everyone is wearing matching shirts. Or maybe everyone gets a certain theme gift(s) for Christmas. Although I think I would get some grief from my family if I gave everyone a theme gift, like stopwatches and workout videos; or action figures and comic books. Our theme this year is : Stress , er, I mean Experiences. We want this holiday to be about more than presents. We don't want the kids sitting around dreaming of what they are *getting*; I don't want to stop and think about what I may be getting! But on the other hand, I want it to be fun, and I want the family to know we love them and are thinking of them. Money feels like it is just flying out of my purse this month. I can see it, in my mind, being sucked out of the zippered pockets of my bag, *whoosh*. And so we came up with the idea to have an Experience Gift instead of having the kids unwrap a...

So, one more week until Christmas. Are you ready? Yeah, I'm about halfway there. I've got the gifts - or the makings of - for extended family members. But I don't have anything for most of my kids yet. Little K. is taken care of! She was the easiest this year, even though she doesn't really need more toys! The decorations are up, the tree is lit and pretty. G put strings of lights out on the house. The Christmas letter is drafted, and in process of being printed. I might even get it out before the Big day. And I got my Christmas haircut. What? You don't get one of those? How can you show your face around town without your Christmas haircut!? (just kiddin') I did get my hair done today. It needed a cut, and I finally gave in and had it colored. Just highlights, but still, a first for me. Way back years ago, my husband colored my hair with a box kit, but that was the one and only time (and once was enough!). So I plunged in and had a pro do my hair, and wow, I...

 Pre-Holiday weekend This girl got her braces off and is waiting for the retainer coming next week. I think it's safe to say she is thrilled to be able to eat popcorn again, and caramels, and gum.  I think those might show up on her wish list for Christmas. On Friday evening G and the Boy went to see The Hobbit movie. So the girls and I watched a movie at home and had craft time with my sister. We made ornaments. I got to color! That can be SO relaxing! And we used glitter-glue. Normally I hate glitter glue. When I taught 5 year old's, or 3 year old's at church, I was that teacher who hid the glitter-glue when it was craft time. But this time around, I kind of had fun with it. Maybe because I had older children and not as much chance of a mess. Although when Little K got a hold of the glitter glue tube ... I started twitching.     Ice cream was involved. As it should be. And this weekend the girls had their choir performances. They have been working o...

I saw this on another blog I read and it sums up much of what I am feeling. I couldn't even make it through saying grace at supper tonight. My Christmas is most likely going to be very special, and yet my heart hurts, really hurts for the people who are facing a very painful holiday. As I was praying last night for those families, others were brought to mind: The emergency responders, those who had to go into the school and take care of the bodies; those who have to perform the funerals; those who have to deal with the paperwork and details that death brings; those who have to clean up the school building before the children return. Please remember to pray for them too.

The topic of making good, or bad, choices has been coming up over and over this week. So much so that it got me to thinking, Why is this coming up so much?! We've been slowly finding out that one of children has been making poor choices in certain areas. I know all of our kids do it, and we do it for that matter, but it still came as  a bit of a surprise to us. We had thought that this was one child that we were pretty sure we could trust in all areas. But (thankfully) the child has come to us and told us what was done, and we talked about it. Now don't worry. It wasn't earth shattering, hush hush, don't tell the relatives kind of bad choices. But it pointed us in the direction of making sure we talk to our kids about making choices, and thinking before they spoke or acted. It's one thing to listen to all that's going on around you and following along; it takes a lot more courage, and wisdom, to stop and think and discern the right choice. Recently there ha...

Christmas is coming. I'm sure you've noticed. Things are getting busy around our house too. On Saturday my sister came over and made a bunch of goodies with the girls and I. We cranked out fudge, caramel oatmeal chewies, peppermint pinwheels, sugar cookies. We were going to make some others, but ran out of certain ingredients, so we'll be making those later. On Sunday, Little K got to sing in church up in front of the congregation. I was a little concerned she might freeze, or cry. But she did great. I don't think she sang at all, but she rang the little bells she was holding, and looked around at everything. And she looked super cute of course. I can still recall the older kids doing this each year in the younger years, and just how sweet they look up in front of church in their fancy Christmas clothes. We hurried home from church and put on our grubbies. Boots, hats, mittens, and scarves came our of hiding. It was time to get the tree! The girls were gid...

There are elves in our house! We got many of the Christmas decorations out this week, and even put some up around the house. The Nativity scenes are set out in various places. I'm up to 7 of them now. My girls absconded with the tree skirt shortly after it was brought out. The theme for Awanas last Wednesday was wacky tacky, and so my younger girl wore the tree skirt as as ... well, as a skirt. It was very cute actually, not really tacky, but a little wacky. So it has been in use the rest of the week. Two of the girls started basketball practice this week also. I am so thankful, beyond words thankful, that they both practice on the same day, at the same time, at the same place. Amen! Little sister wanted to come along with me to practice. She actually had a fun time playing on the bleachers. Here she is looking out to the courts from one of the walkways. And I have been attempting to come up with our family Christmas letter this week. I went through the photos of...

I really want to go run in the dark. The beautiful twinkling Christmas lights shimmering from the houses beckons me. Last year I ran a 5k in December that was at night. We ran through a neighborhood where many of the houses were decorated. It was a clear-ish, cold night, and the rain held off while we ran (this is Oregon, so it did mist a tiny bit). But the same run this year is being held on a day I can't make it, plus they are running it at 4:30 when it is hardly even dark enough to enjoy the lights. I'm just going to have to convince the kids and the husband that we should do our own family run through the surrounding neighborhoods, in the dark. I did make it 3 miles today. Haven't run that far in quite awhile. When training the kids for the Thanksgiving 5k we only went 2 miles at most, and that wasn't really a run for me, more of an enjoyable jog. So I pushed myself to go my full 3 mile loop. And even though I did it in a time that was decent enough for me, I f...

 So I wrote earlier about it being someone's 14th birthday. Since it is 'party' year, the Boy invited a ton of his school friends to his party. We decided to have it in the church gym. Best party I have hosted - in terms of ease and clean up! We had 16 boys in the gym, for 3 hours, and no one got hurt! They played basketball most of the time, a little dodge ball, and even some jump-rope and hula hoop. These boys are crazy funny; we sure enjoyed just hanging out and watching our son and his friends.  Today the Boy had his end of year football awards party. The coaches called each boy up individually and talked about him and his growth over the season. So what was it that caught the coach's memory for Sam? The shake and bake moves? The hard tackling? Nah, coach said this Boy always was 1st. First on the field, first to the line, first, first. And I thought to myself, yep, he's been like that ever since his beginning in this world. He came into the w...