Katie's Obituary

Katie died this morning.  She was killed in her house by the Wild Beast.  Apparently the Wild Beast "eated her and never spit her out.  Her wand went out of batteries" leaving her defenseless.  When questioned, Katie's mother said she "was busy talking on the phone while all of this happened."  Katie is now in heaven and there is no hope of bringing her back to life.

Katie is survived by her loyal friend, Mattison, her 12 siblings and 40 other friends.  Katie is most well known for bringing 11 of her 12 siblings back to life after this same wild beast chopped them up into little pieces several months ago.  Katie has brought much joy to Mattison's life, and her family is quite interested to see how this will all pan out!  Mattie did say she was sure to send an e-mail apology to Katie's mother.

Mattie does have a new sister, Sarah, who may fill this void.  Sarah is known to "love everybody in the whole wide world except bad guys.  She didn't like [Mattie] at first, but now she does."

For more information on Katie, feel free to read past accounts here and here.  She has been a large part of our life for two years now!  Mattie was actually crying this morning upon hearing the news, leaving her mother a bit at a loss as to how to handle this new development.

My boy is growing up.

Jacob does not have the "I can do it myself" gene. Not one ounce of it anywhere in his body.  I'm fairly certain he would be happy for me to do ev-er-y-thing for him forever.  

So following perfect Jacob form, he also had no interest in tying his shoes.  Combine this with the personality characteristic that does "not like to try if I can't do it perfectly the first time," and you don't have a very enthusiastic child about shoe tying!  But alas, he learned in just two days!

Jacob also loves colorful things.  His bedroom has colorful stripes and red walls.  He loves things that are primary colors and tie dye.  And has asked before why only girls get to wear colorful shoes and boys' have to be brown and gray and dull.

He's also been working hard at changing a lot of things lately, and I thought he could use some tangible encouragement.

So I decided it was high time the boy got some red shoes now that he can tie them himself.
And his mama is a sucker for Chuck Taylors and blue jeans on a little boy.

Love those big boy feet!

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave me a link to yours and then head over to SouleMama and leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for others to find and see. 

Bible in 90 Days

Well, I'm in.  I've made the commitment and made it publicly!  I'm going to read the Bible through in its entirety in ninety days beginning January 3, 2011.  Here is an official website that shares all about the ministry's roots.

For a while now I've wanted to read all the way through the Bible again, but when I don't have a plan I seem to just wander aimlessly.  I've prayed about joining in on one of the Bible in 90 Days groups, but wanted to be ready for the commitment so I could fulfill it. 

I'm going to be reading through with other people, having a mentor/encourager and blogging to share what I'm learning.  If you go to Mom's Toolbox you can get connected in this way too.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the Bible as a whole instead of just lots of little pieces.  I'm looking forward to this amount of time in His word.  And I'm looking forward to the change His word will have in my heart!  I can't possibly spend this much time in His word without some sort of change for the better, right?

I'd love to have you join me!  I think it's good for all of us to have encouragement when we take on a big task.  Let me know if you pray about it and want to join in! 

Our first snow!

 

"It snowed, Mom!!

 

 

It was minimal, but it was enough to scrape together some snow-handfuls

and sled a few times... as long as you didn't choose the same path twice!

It was certainly enough to bring joy!

The Battle

The kids have been setting up this battle in the basement for a couple of days now.  Jacob built the city walls and they both keep adding reinforcements and changing the situation.

So today was the day the battle was to occur.  Notice the two babies providing security on the East wall!  Only Mattie kept putting him off and saying she wanted to add one more thing... then another...   Then I heard Jacob getting very frustrated at her procrastination.  (Understandably, as she was definitely dragging it out.)  I asked Jacob why he was so frustrated and with a straight face and an exasperated voice he said, "We're building an ice skating rink because she says she has to train her soldiers to ice skate before we do that battle so they'll fight better.  The horses too!  ICE SKATE!!" 

Oh, my imaginative girl!  I am still laughing.  We can't help but love her.

In case anyone cares, I did set the time to begin and Jacob's mutant Bionicles obliterated the city.  I guess the East wall babies needed a few more ice skating lessons.

Do you like it?

So I know there's really no point in having a cute blog if one never posts on it, but just humor me!  I have several things to post about, but they will be big, long posts that require a lot of focus and energy, and I haven't had the time to put into them.  But there are great things happening in our house, and I can't wait to share them!  They are affording me a lot more free time and emotional energy!  But I digress... So in June I got this Scrapbooking software with high hopes, but have only done two small projects for a friend so far.  I realized I could make my own perfectly unique collage for our Christmas card this year!  So like a terribly irresponsible parent, I stayed up until almost 3:00 last night playing with it and ended up with this really cute card, but couldn't find any place that would print it for less than 80 cents per print.  (I thought all of the sites that had 4x8 cards would print it with no problem, but that's not the case, apparently.)  So that's just more than I'm going to spend on Christmas cards.  I found a different site where I could upload my own creation, re-did it and then realized this one is the perfect size for a happy header!  So here it is!  (If you're on a feed reader you've got to come see it.)  I've so enjoyed playing with this software and making this.  Almost as much as I've enjoyed decorating my house this week for Christmas! 

I love going through my boxes of familiar things.  Christmas decorations have always been a favorite of mine, I think because with all of our moving, they were consistent.  The red eyelet tree skirt has always been the same, the Oak Ridge Boys Christmas cassette, the angel at the top of the tree (and a really funny had-to-be-there story about the year her lights died and we rigged her up to work), our stockings that our grandmother made, the ceramic nativity set, the cardboard my grandpa used to wrap the Christmas lights around...  I don't even use it anymore but it's in the bottom of my box because it has his handwriting on it, and I can't bear to pitch it.  All of those things remind me that tradition offers us security and identity. I love that my kids already have these things that they look forward to.  We are keeping some of the traditions I want to savor, shaping them into a good fit for our family, and beginning some new traditions of our own.  And I hope I'm building a solid foundation of love and security in my children that they will want to relish each December.

I'm thankful for the changes around here.  They have come none too soon and have enabled us to slow down and enjoy this season of waiting.  For school each day we're doing math, language arts, piano practice, a creative activity and then just reading together on the couch.  We have so needed this time!   Some intentional reconnection opportunities and moments for the kids and I to like each other again after a hard season, and God is giving us those in abundance.  I'm so thankful.