Archive for December, 2008

We finished our shopping and wrapping yesterday, so we have mostly relaxed today. This afternoon we went to see Mimi and took her a present…a double frame with the kids' school portraits in it. The kids sang her some Christmas songs, which she loved. Then we walked her to the dining room, where the nice lady at the nursing home let James and Eliza sing for the people eating supper. They sang "Feliz Navidad", accompanied by another lady on the piano. It was great!

We left the nursing home to go to the Christmas Eve service at our church. It was a great time of singing and listening to the Christmas story, which was acted out by some kids. Some of the songs made me cry (like the one entitled, "Christmas makes me cry"...why would they want to do that to me?) Then we lit candles and sang "Silent Night", but Eliza's candle dripped wax on her hand, which she was not happy about ("It burned me, Mama!"), so I ended up holding both of them.

After the service, we wanted something to eat, so we went over to McDonald's for a Christmas Eve treat. Of course the kids loved it…they got the food they wanted, a toy, and time to play on the PlayPlace. It seems kind of weird, but we had plenty of company! There were even more people in the drive-thru. My theory is that some of them had been shopping at Walgreens down the street (just about the only place still open) and probably had gone to pick something up to eat while their shopping partner stood in line! Anyway, it was a good Christmas Eve!

I have to go put the kids in bed now, but Jay and I still have miles to go and cookies to bake. But I just want to go ahead and say, "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

It's a lot of fun to title my blogs with the beginning line of Christmas songs! We are almost finished with our Christmas shopping (we got a lot done today!), and we still have a couple of days left to wrap and relax! Unfortunately, we have all caught colds, but we are surviving with lots of Sudafed and Tylenol. It has been a busy couple of days, but with plenty of downtime, too.

Saturday night we invited my family over for supper, and we ate barbecue sandwiches on my Christmas china (yay, that's twice!) We also played the Wii some, and my mom read James and Eliza a Christmas book before they went to bed. Yesterday we got to teach the Christmas story to our 3- and 4-year-old Sunday School class, and they listened like they had never heard it before (even though I know they have!) We made little wooden manger scenes and ate donuts to celebrate Jesus' birth (I think that was their favorite part). After church we ate lunch at my parent's house and went out on a shopping date, leaving the kids with my mom. We even ate supper while we were out. It was so nice not having to drag the kids along!

We did have to drag the kids out in the cold for shopping today, which they weren't excited about. Eliza decided it wasn't too bad when we let her ride in the cart and eat popcorn, but James refused the popcorn and the free ride; he wanted to be miserable. Tonight we had a preschool pajama party at church. We all wore our Christmassy pajamas and got to participate: Jay took pictures of each child to put into a mug, and I took the kids to each "station". In addition to making mugs, they used stickers to create their own manger scene, and also decorated and ate cookies. Afterward, Ms. Stephanie read a book to all the kids. The kids had fun, even though they didn't feel all that great. Hopefully we will be mostly over these colds by Christmas!

Last night Jay surprised me with an early Christmas present…a new camera! I have been complaining just a little (I really try not to be a complainer!) about my old one, even though it's not a bad camera. It just has some focusing issues (possibly user error, but still annoying) and I wanted something with just a little more flexibility. Jay bought me a Canon PowerShot SX10 IS, which is about as nice a camera you can get that doesn't have interchangeable lenses. It is a good bit bigger than my old one, so I will have to get used to that, but most of the controls are similar to my Canon PowerShot A630. Here are some shots I got today while playing around with it:

Here we are enjoying the freak 70-degree weather we had today. The camera focused on James instead of Eliza, but I kind of like it. :)

Not a great expression, but you work with what you got. :)

There were lots of interesting clouds in the sky today, which made for an interesting sunset.

Hopefully I will get better at choosing the right settings. It does a great job in auto mode, but there are even more possibilities if you know what you're doing. Thankfully I have a great teacher. :) Thanks for my new camera, Jay! I love you!

Okay, so it wasn't actually raining, but it was very misty and foggy. We went caroling last night with our church's AWANA group. In addition to the damp conditions, it was just under 40 degrees, but we were bundled up pretty well. I actually got a little warm from all the walking and singing! We were split into 3 groups, and our group walked from the church into a cove in the neighborhood across the street, and sang 3 songs at each house. The people we saw were very appreciative. We got through at the first house, though, and Eliza immediately started saying, "I need to go pee-pee!" Oh, why didn't I take her before we left? So after we sang at the second house, Jay took her back across the street to the church. They rejoined us at the last couple of houses we caroled. James really got into the caroling…he sang loud and always yelled, "Merry Christmas!" when we were done. At the last house, he yelled to the people, "Merry Christmas! Did you like me?" That boy!

After caroling we went back to the church for cookies and hot chocolate, and watched a rousing game of Christmas Family Feud. After that, Jay and I had a choir Christmas party to go to, so we dropped the kids at the nursery and went down the hall to our party. We ate some appetizers and more dessert, then Jay got to help some other guys lift the piano back on the stage. What a night!

I finally got my Christmas cards mailed today, so I hope you get yours in time for Christmas! Now if I can just get my shopping done! I did manage to buy a few things yesterday, so that's a start. Tomorrow I'll be busy with class Christmas parties for both kids!

Oh, and one more thing:
Merry Christmas! Did you like me?

This morning I woke up and checked my email to discover that James did not have school today. Apparently road conditions were bad somewhere, but at our house the roads were dry. Just a few miles north of us in Little Rock, the roads were very bad. My mom said they had about a quarter of an inch of ice covering the roads, and the kids were taking turns sledding down their hilly street. Jay didn't have to go to work, either, because the UALR campus was closed. So we all stayed home!

Even with everyone home, we did manage to get a few things done. I made a casserole for my neighbor who just had a baby, and made us one, too, while I was at it. I also let the kids help me bake cookies, with the help of my cookie-baking gift basket I won at the cookie exchange (thanks, Stephanie!) The kids were ecstatic, and they did a pretty good job of helping. Eliza is no longer allowed to help with icing the cookies, though, because of her inability to resist licking the spoon! Next time, I think I might give her a couple of cookies, a small bowl of icing, and her own spoon, and just not watch her. Maybe I can handle that! The cookies turned out really cute. Maybe we'll make this a "snow-day" tradition! Here is a picture of the finished product:

Pictures of the cookie-making process can be found on Jay's flickr. Even Jay got into the decorating fun!

"...The goose is getting fat. Please put a penny in the old man's hat." I remember singing that song in elementary school, but I think I've made up my own melody to go with it because I could never quite remember exactly how it went. Anyway, Christmas is rapidly approaching and I am not very ready. In fact, I spent most of the past week trying to get my house ready to have community group here. Yes, it was that bad, and getting it all clean and decorated (plus my inherent laziness) took everything I had this week. So no shopping was done, no Christmas cards, no merry-making. Only normal stuff like going to see Mimi, choir practice/AWANA Wednesday night, and Bible Study Thursday morning. Actually, I did do a little shopping, but only for the kids' class parties, which are this Friday. I had to buy a little gift for all 20 of the kids in James' class, and for Eliza's class, I was in charge of making goodie bags (at least there are only 9 in her class). Those are all done, so I don't have to worry about that this week!

Yesterday Jay took the kids to a birthday party so I could continue working to get the house ready for community group. Our friend Seth turned 6 last week! My mom used to keep Seth from the time he was a baby until he went to preschool, so he is like part of the family. The kids had fun at the Star-Wars themed party, and I got a lot done while they were gone!

This morning after we taught Sunday School, our choir presented "Joy Joy Joy", our Christmas cantata. Jay and I were both singing in it, so our kids got to sit with my family. On the way to church, we listened to our practice CD, and the kids were both belting out the songs that they knew. (You can tell I've been practicing in the car!) I had to warn them that if they wanted to sing along during the service, they would have to do so quietly! My parents and siblings assured me that James and Eliza did a good job of singing quietly; Eliza was even mouthing the words to one song!

Community group went really well. We had bunk-house stew, which is similar to chili, but has corn and is less spicy. We got to use our Christmas china, which I was really excited about! This is the first time we have gotten to use it while entertaining, even though we've had it for 6 years. I didn't even mind having to wash it all by hand afterwards! Our house is mostly clean and we finally finished decorating this afternoon before our guests arrived. I bought new red place mats for the table this year, and they looked great with my Christmas dishes! But I didn't want to put them on the table until after lunch today; I was sure the kids would spill something on them before community group.

It has been a crazy day! I'm kind of glad it's over…now I can think about all the other stuff I have to do before Christmas!

Christmas is upon us! It was a busy weekend already with lots of holiday-related activities. Friday night I went to a cookie exchange at church, where I brought some gingersnaps (which didn't turn out just right, but oh, well!) I even won a door prize of kids' baking supplies, complete with cookie mix and icing. I guess I actually have to make cookies with my kids now! (I really should…Eliza's been begging for a while now…I just don't feel ready to take that on!)

Saturday afternoon we headed to downtown Little Rock for the Big Jingle Jubilee Christmas Parade. We have made it a tradition to meet my family there to watch the parade go by. We wore our Santa hats and took up a pretty wide swath of curb. We got lots of candy, which the kids loved, and I took some pictures of our group. Jay has more pictures of the parade on his flickr.

Our Sunday school lesson was on John the Baptist, so Jay put on his bathrobe and our 3- and 4-year-olds watched as he ate bug-shaped graham crackers dipped in honey. We talked about how John told everyone that Jesus was coming, but later when I asked the kids what John's job was, they all responded, "He ate bugs!" Well, I guess at least we made some impression?

Sunday night we went to the children's musical at church. They did such a great job! The musical was about some angels who weren't exactly thrilled at the prospect of going to the sleepy little town of Bethlehem, that is, until they knew the reason for their trip! James and Eliza sat with us in the audience, but they sang along when they knew the song, and were doing all the motions right along with the choir. Next year James will be up there with them!

James was chosen by his teacher to be this month's Wildcat Award winner from his class. He was very excited, and told everyone that this was his first trophy! His teacher, Mrs. Doan, just had a baby, so another teacher read the note that Mrs. Doan had written about James. She said he has never had to move his name card for bad behavior, and he is a creative writer and good friend. James' current teacher, Mrs. Morehart, handed him his award. I am very proud of James for being such a good student!

Eliza wanted to play the computer today, but when she turned on the monitor, the computer wasn't working. She yelled for me: "Mom! It's not working!" So I leaned over her and turned the computer on, and it began to boot up. Eliza looked up at me and said, "Mom! You got it to work! You're kind of like a superhero!"

You may think this post is about James, but, alas, you would be wrong! It is Eliza who has all of a sudden taken a liking to numbers and the manipulation thereof. (Why am I talking like this? I have no idea…but it's kind of fun!) When I picked her up from the nursery tonight after choir, Mrs. Stephanie (our children's minister at church) said, "Eliza is a little mathematician!" Stephanie had counted the kids in the class, and Eliza apparently took note of this. Whenever one or two left, Eliza would say, "Now there's only (blank) kids!", correctly subtracting the kids who had just left. She really does enjoy that sort of thing! When I was making James practice math problems like, "Johnny has 5 balls. If his mom gives him 2 more balls, how many does he have?", Eliza would always beg for me to give her a problem, too, and sometimes would answer before James got a chance! Don't get me wrong, James is good at numbers, too, but he doesn't seem to have quite the fascination with them that Eliza has. We shall see what she does with it!