Belated pictures

Our Christmas tree featuring many Andy ornaments.
Josie wearing a dress our baby-sitter's mom made for his little sister.
Doug's shark face painting.

Our tree

I need to take a picture of this year's Christmas tree.
It has a lot of Andy made ornaments on it that he has made at school.
They are all paper shapes (a star, a gingerbread man, an angel, etc.) that are large and they all have lots of glitter. He usually comes home with things in his backpack and I have to remember to pull the stuff out and look at it. However, lately he has been emptying his own backpack to find whatever ornament was made.
He even managed to glitter himself one day because he was trying to hold his star and put on his coat and managed to shake the star upside-down above his head during this process. There was glitter everywhere.
It is not a tree that any "Martha Stewart" would love, but I think it's great.

We did it

I finally got the kids in for their second H1N1 shot. It took three tries. We went one day and were 30 minutes after they stopped giving them. We went another day and it turned out to be a day that they were not doing shots. So we finally made it today.

Josie did great. She cried a little but was okay.
Andy was a bit apprehensive but no tears.
Doug, who has been building this up and worrying about it had to be held down.

So thankfully that is over. I don't know whether I am glad or not that I have not heard of any of the regular flu shots available around here or not. I think I could get one for Josie but our pediatrician will not do them for older children unless they get more doses in.

Are you real?

I don't know that it is exactly that Andy thinks people become pretend if they die, but he knows that they are not here with us any more. Somehow rather than asking if someone is still alive he will ask if someone is real.
Often the kids will play that bad guys are coming and sometimes one of them will get shot and require a medic.

This is all information to frame what I heard today.
I'm sort of bad about letting the kids get hooked on watching something on TV while I fix lunch and then we often end up watching it while we eat.
Today I ran downstairs to do something on the computer while the kids were eating lunch watching TV. As I came up the steps I could hear Andy say "Josie are you real?"

I assumed he was trying to check to see if she was faking death.
However she was not.
She must have been very busy at preschool today because she had fallen asleep in front of the TV after eating most of her lunch.

Birthday Parties

I had not really thought about if Doug and Andy are in different classes that they would get invited to different birthday parties. It had occurred to me that we would have two classes to invite to their birthday party when that rolls around, but the reverse had not occurred to me until recently.
So far my tact has been to call and say "You might not be aware of it but Doug/Andy has a twin in the other four-year old class..." and both boys have ended up going. Today was the first party that was in a home (rather than at a place like a church or an event place) so the mother was worried about space.
So Doug went by himself. He was fine with this. Andy and Josie were not. However, we went and did something special and then picked him up. He had a marvelous shark painted on his face. I will have to get the pictures of it off the camera.
These pictures of Josie are from a previous party that had a carnival theme. All three children went to it but Josie had the most elaborate face painting. There were bouncies, games, the face painter, a clown doing balloon things, a pinata, and so much cake/junk food. I think one of my goals when we have our birthdays in May will be to not feed children cake and ice cream and then send them home with more candy.

There be pirates here

I do not remember quite where it started, but my boys (and Josie too) like pirates. Nana and Pop have ten acres with sections that have many trees and have put up some faces on some of the trees. One of those faces happens to be a pirate face.
So recently the pirates "visited" the farm, ran their flag up the flag pole, and left treasure. They were careless pirates and dropped their map and left provisions along the path to the treasure. These pictures are of Doug and Pop discussing the map prior to the treasure hunt.
The treasure was eventually found (and apparently the provisions were delicious, fresh, and kid friendly).
Doug keeps hunting for more treasure but the pirates have not finished their plundering and looting yet and therefore have not dropped any off recently.
I have a feeling they will visit again some time.

The three H's for the Holidays

We went to the "Hanging of the Greens" service at church on Sunday. It was the first time we have been to it at our current church. Usually we have been traveling back from relatives, but this year we came back on Saturday and were able to go to the service.

It may partly have been because I run around a little bit tired, which makes me more emotional, and that things have been stressful this semester, which also makes me more emotional, but I was a bit teary-eyed for much of the service.
Christmas is my favorite time of year. This is partly because I have fond memories with my family. I love the familiar music. I love the colorful Christmas lights. The food and the music and the whole atmosphere just makes me think love, coziness, closeness. Many people are more likely to smile and say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays (especially if they see a toddler dancing into a store singing Jingle Bells)...but only if the people are not falling in to rushing around and thinking of the time as a series of checklists to get done before the holiday.
I struggle with that part of it each year and especially this year. I am dieing to get started on my holiday shopping. I know what I want to do and mostly what I want to get. I know many of the things that I want to bake and put up. I know that I want to drive around and look at Christmas lights with the kids. I know I want to keep up with the advent wreath and the advent calendars. I want to donate to Toys for Tots, get an Angel off the Angel Tree, ring the bell for the Salvation Army, and do so much more.

I also know that I do not have the time to do all of that.

When I was an undergraduate I would take my last final, go back to my dorm room and put on Christmas music. Then I would wrap my Christmas presents to take home.
I sort of miss those days when it seemed pretty simple and straight forward. At one point in my life all of my shopping was done by the end of October. That is far from the case now.

I know that right now it my life I have to pick and choose.

Really, for my kids, it doesn't have to be a big grand all out holiday. They will remember the things that I choose to invest time in and the rest will not matter. We can bake a few cookies, and put out a few decorations. It will not matter that I only put out half of the Christmas decorations. They will not miss it if I bake just three different kinds of cookies instead of four.
This is the first Christmas where Doug and Andy have specific toys they want...and I have already started to prep them that Santa may not bring them exactly what they want because Santa might think that there are better toys for them that have more play potential and more potential to stir their imaginations. They must learn to appreciate what they have because there are truly many who have much less. I purposefully found an Angel Tree child who was about the same age as my children so they would be forced to give away toys they might want for themselves.
This is a good Christmas for my children to begin learning about what Christmas is truly about. Christmas is a celebration of the fact that Jesus came and was born for us.

At the end of the Hanging of the Green service the whole congregation went out to the lawn where a fire was burning. We had holly leaves that we were supposed to toss in the fire after offering three prayers.
Andy had lost his holly leaf somewhere so I gave him mine. As I watched him make prayer hands and scrunch his eyes tightly closed as he prayed I realized that there are just three things I want this holiday season...three H's for me, my family, my friends, my community, and the world.

• Health
• Happiness
• Hope

I'm thankful

I am thankful for my loving husband.
I am thankful for my goofy children.
I am thankful for my great friends who support me.
I am thankful for my family who help me out when I am in need and who love me unconditionally.
I am thankful for the many blessings that God has given to me.

Play date

We had a play date yesterday. We had Doug's best friend from his class over and then another boy who Andy likes to play with from his class.

It is interesting to see the dynamics of a bunch of four-year olds. Even with my kids being used to having other people around to play with it is still different to have friends over.
We also have the issue that our house is large enough that there are a lot of different areas. We played a little bit outside but the kids would play for a little while in one spot and then move, and move again, and move again. This seems to be a symptom of having friends over as this is not a normal thing for my kids.

Josie just kind of did her own thing. She played with the boys occasionally, but there were times she seemed to think those boys were a bit strange.

The Dougs

Jim preached his first sermon today. He went through lay speaker training and then developed a sermon and preached it today. It went great!

We had some friends and family who came to support him. We went out to lunch afterward at a Chinese buffet place.

Through the whole meal I could see this couple looking over at the kids. I couldn't tell whether they were amused or annoyed at my children's behavior.

Then is turned out that the man's name was "Doug" and so apparently every time I would say "Doug...." the man would hear his name and look over.

My Doug still talks about the pizza delivery guy who was named Doug. It's just not a very common name anymore.