The Celebration of Jesus' Birthday

Katherine playing carols for us Christmas Eve afternoon.

My beautiful girls in front of the tree...used to be the tree towered over them...

All of us before church. I really like this picture.

Christmas day...the girls got iPod Touches. This is what they looked like most of the day.

Another view...

They also got the game Apples to Apples...fun game!

Ours was a very Merry Christmas. I hope yours was too. We are blessed indeed!

Christmas Dream

We just completed our first Christmas Dream experience with Ballet Magnificat! I cannot say enough what an amazing experience it was. From beginning to end, and all points in between, it was a blessing. When God prompted us almost a year ago to consider moving Banana to this Dance School, we had no idea what we were in for, or what we had been missing. This week, being a part of this production, brought it all together for us. Everything Ballet Magnificat is and stands for is centered around Jesus Christ and bringing Him Glory. I am so honored to be associated, even by way of my daughter, with this ministry. And I am thrilled that she is training under and influenced by such Godly men and women.

I cannot believe we had never seen Christmas Dream. It is magnificent. The Nutcracker doesn't hold a candle to this worship experience. Banana enjoyed it so much. She was a "Kingdom Kid"...such a cute dance! Below are a few pictures...all from dress rehearsal. Notice the bright colors, and the smiles on the girls' faces. The joy on their faces is real. It's contagious. I especially love the expression on Banana's face in the first picture...it represents for me the happiness she experiences in dance. The relationships between the girls and between the staff and the girls is priceless to me. For us, this really was a Dream.

Christmastime

It's been a nice December. We are done with school until after the New Year! We have completed Rejoice-our church Christmas concert/worship service. The music was beautiful. It really was worshipful. This coming weekend is Christmas Dream, and Banana is dancing. The differences between Nutcracker and Christmas Dream are too numerous to count. The music is the same. The story is different. Christmas Dream is completely focused on Christ. As is everything else. Rehearsals are wonderful. Our schedule for the week is wonderful. No rehearsal ends later than 5:30! No rehearsal is longer than 3 hours. I don't know what to do with myself! We can actually enjoy this!

Our low key December has allowed me to get the house completely decorated in a timely fashion and have time to really enjoy it. Thought I'd share a few pictures.









To top it all off, we have even had time for a Christmas party! The girls wanted to have a party, so I let them invite 2 friends each. We had cookies and snacks...and coffee and flavored creamers! That was a hit. I used my Christmas china and let the girls have a real party. They enjoyed eating and talking and then they played Christmas carol pictionary. That was a hoot! Here they are in front of the playroom tree...

Thanksgiving Pictures

Our little family Thanksgiving was so nice...We decided to go "all out". Banana wanted to use the good china and crystal. This was actually the first time the girls had ever used it! Isn't that sad? I guess I never felt like they were "old enough". Well, I decided that from here on out, nothing is off limits! I don't want to look back one day and wonder why we never...

Anyway...we put a table cloth on the table, and pulled out the linen napkins. Banana said "No paper." It was lovely. And fun!

Thankful

Tonight I am thankful. For more things than I could ever list. I considered trying to create a list, but this post would be infinitely long. Suffice it to say I am thankful for Jesus, for my salvation, for the world's most wonderful husband, for two beautiful, sweet daughters, for my church family, and for some precious friends.

Thanksgiving is different for us this year. A year ago, on our way home from celebrating Thanksgiving with both our families in Georgia, Kearsdad and I made a decision. We decided that in 2009, we would spend Thanksgiving at home. Our families were welcome to join us here, but we would not be traveling this year. There were a lot of reasons for that decision, and I won't go into them all. Our decision was announced to our parents and we were done.

As it turns out, no one accepted our invitation to join us. Not surprising, really. They all have their own reasons...Kearsdad's parents hate to travel, and they have already been to see us once this year. My brother and his family have never been to visit us. My parents (make that my mother, she is the decision maker) felt like they should go to my brother's since they will be here for Christmas. All of that was really ok with us.

We are really excited about this Thanksgiving. We have never spent Thanksgiving alone, just the four of us. There is something to be said for family tradition and big family gatherings. But there is also something to be said for a quiet holiday with no craziness, no exceedingly long drives, no shuffling from one family to the other. One of the greatest blessings in my life is my precious family...these three other people with whom I share my life. The fact that we love being together, love doing things together, and love adventures together is something I treasure.

So tonight we have eaten dinner, watched a movie, and eaten pumpkin bread pudding. Kearsdad has started the fire on the smoker and prepared the turkey for it's overnight smoking. Cornbread is cooked and ready to be turned into dressing. My mom came through and spend a couple of days with us on her way to my brothers. She left me some of her "dressing mix" that I will add to the cornbread. Our menu (just the things we like with none of the "extras" that my mom insists on because "we've always had them") is planned and ready to go.

Happy Thanksgiving to anyone taking the time to read this. May God bless you richly. He has certainly done so for me.

idk hahaha

The other night my bff Junebug and I were sitting at dinner having a conversation. Or, rather, trying to have a conversation. It was made difficult by the children at the other end of the table. They kept texting us. Yes, texting from one end of the table to the other. They thought it was very funny. We just thought it was annoying.

That brings up the whole issue of texting. If you have a child between the ages of...oh, say 11 and 14, you'll understand this. If yours are younger, just wait. If your are much older, they may have passed through this stage before the advent of cellular appendages.

Recently, my bff Junebug and I talked about the texting habits of said children. Being good mothers, we read our children's texts from time to time. Not that there is much to tell, because we have superior children. Ok, so I am exaggerating, but all in all they are pretty good kids. Still, you have to stay on top of these things.

My oldest child, who, for this post, we will call The Informer, tends to have more wordy texts. Her's tend to be more informative. I don't worry about her because, as her name clearly states, she is The Informer. She tells everything. Sometimes she tells more than I want to know. If she ever does anything wrong, she tells me. Like the time she cut her hair in her 4 year old Sunday School class and came out of class crying to tell me. In fact, she still tells me about that time. But, I digress...

Then there is my other child. The Free Spirited Dancer. The Other-Half-Of-The-Entity-Known-As-The-Peas. Her texts are much more...shall we say...interesting? Amusing? And here is where I was going with this...(yes, I do have a point here). Here is a fictional example of a text conversation between The Dancer and one of her friends:

R U coming 2 church?
Ya. Ha.
Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha
I no
LOL
Wat time?
IDK
KK ha
haha
ttyl
KK ha
haha

The above will only make sense to you if you have a child with a cell phone. That is really how they talk. Seriously. And that is the short version. What Junebug and I and our spouses can't figure out is why these children feel the need to insert "ha" into every conversation. Every exchange. But in self-defense, or retaliation, or as a result of the insanity to which they have driven us, the four of us have begun inserting "ha" into our own conversations, text or otherwise. So a couple of nights ago (late, like when we both should've been in bed but weren't) JB and I had this text conversataion:

Oh I so love that blog.
Haha Thanks. Ha. But now I've stayed up too late. Haha.
Ha
Idk ha

I should probably be embarrassed by that. But I'm not. I doubt JB is either. So, ha.

Images of Fall

I love the colors of fall...here are a few I found today.