Christmas Encouragement

From "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"
O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

When you're in school (seminary or middle school) there is a crushing load filled with slow steps leading up to Christmas. So these last two lines, "Oh rest beside the weary road/ And hear the angels sing" are my song of hope today.

WHAT IF # 457

What if I was stuck inside a top forever?

What if I had 8 arms?

Both said by Isaiah tonight.

Milestones

Some people run a marathon.

Others lose 100 pounds.

Children learn to walk or crawl.

I throw away a 7 year old baby monitor.

I woke up this morning to a strange breathing in the room. After determining that it wasn't Eric, I noticed a small lump on the couch and yes, it was the source of the raspy breathing. Isaiah must have gotten up sometime in the night, come into our room, and snuggled onto our couch. He even made himself a pillow out of a blanket and covered up with another one. I had no idea.

It was an obvious sign that he has grown. I'm sure he'll still yell for his mommy another time or two in his life, but basically it occurred to me that he now knows how to get what he needs without much help from me. And when he needs help he'll ask, but for the most part, he's pretty independent. The youngest. The baby.

And the monitor has been struggling for a while now, buzzing, zapping, barely picking up sounds anymore, yet every time I've tried to cease its use, I couldn't sleep well.

But tonight, I believe its gone for good.

Milestone.

Thanksgiving in IN

The boys with their great-grandma! She's such an amazing lady! We love you Grandma!

Christmas in Wilmore

Isaiah preparing to blow out his candle. He held this pose for a good 2 minutes. Eric thought he was having a seizure. :)

We sat in the balcony, AKA kids' area. Pretty sure kids outnumbered adults up there, but everyone was great. Advent service was tonight, and the next pictures are from Saturday night at the annual Christmas event downtown in Wilmore.
Too Many Drummers, our band friends, totally rocked it at Solomon's. Love those guys!
On our way back to the van after a very short visit to Main St. for Old Fashioned Christmas this year. Either we're getting softer, or it was colder than usual.

Halloween Costumes

(I'm catching up since I just now downloaded pictures.) Isaiah can be such an enigma. I'm still not sure about that kid- just who he will be or how to best to handle him. But I know one thing for sure. He LOVES to be in control. I know all toddler/preschoolers like to control whatever aspects of their environment that they can, but Isaiah takes this game to a whole new level. Halloween was a perfect example. He had wanted a wizard costume for weeks. We picked out fabric together, made it together, hot-glued beads on the cape together, and he even wore it around the house all day a few times. Then, the big day comes around and all of a sudden he decides he no longer wants the wizard costume. He has no idea what he wants. It wasn't a battle worth fighting, so I just let it go, let him wear whatever he wanted and painted his face for him at his request. I still have no idea what happened, and no one really asked about his interesting "costume". Oh well.

Coming Home

I love coming home to my family these days. There is a song in my heart the whole way. I love it that Micah helps me cook or set the table. I love it that Isaiah usually has his shirt off- man that kid loves his bare chest. I love it that Elijah is exercising his creativity- literally monkeying around. I just have to stop, take a breath and freeze frames every now and then, and tonight was one of those nights. We played Scene It Disney after dinner, together, all five of us. Everyone's personality contributed uniquely and beautifully. Elijah found that he was especially good at the game and was in heaven. Micah showed more maturity than I've ever seen from him when he didn't win every turn, and Isaiah was happy to be included even though he didn't know the answers to hardly any of the questions. I'd whisper in his ear and he'd happily contribute.

Bedtime was quick and easy and I'm looking forward to our day tomorrow. These are the kinds of days that I want to slow down and live in for years instead of hours.

Wilmore Old fashioned Christmas, Basketball for Micah and a Too Many Drummers concert tomorrow. Maybe some decorating in there too. Can't wait!

Blurb

We turned our blog from the beginning until July 2009 into a book through www.blurb.com software. It turned out beautifully. If you have a family blog, I highly recommend it. It takes a lot of time to reformat the posts, but the finished product looks great. Ours is a 240 page softcover, full color book and the total cost was about $40. The best scrapbooking I've ever done. :)