I decided it was time to give the blog a slightly updated look. So, I created some snowflake graphics to make a new header. What do you think? Now that I have my art out of my system, I can move on.... ;-)

Gray Days

Oh, winter days can be SO gray! I am amazed how dark it still looks outside even at mid morning. Days like this make me want to curl up under an afghan with a cup of tea and a good book and just forget about everything else! But life doesn't usually allow this, so I am plugging on.

Now that the busy-ness of Christmas is passing (but I do still have decorations to pack away), I am feeling like it is time to take stock in how we utilize the hours of our day. I haven't had much time to think about this for months between building, moving, and Christmas preparations. Now is the time to sit back, take a deep breath, and ask God for Wisdom. I want Him to order our days. I want to know how He needs me to teach and direct our children. I don't know why, but sometimes I can feel SO lost in this area. Perhaps that is because God desires me to turn to Him. I have to do this because I feel like I cannot do it on my own.

Do you ever feel like the days are just slipping away and you have wasted them? I look at my children and see how fast they are growing and worry that I am not making the most of the time that I have with them. There is so much for them to learn - that God has appointed me to teach them. I feel so overwhelmed and inadequate when I really think about it! So, I guess that means I need to take some time and spend it in quiet conversation with God. A time that I can ask Him these questions (oh SO many questions) and time to just "be still and know that He is God" - to listen to what He has to say.

BTW, this my lovely daughter, Anna. It was taken during our Christmas celebration with Barry's side of the family. I am not sure if it is a self-portrait or if her big sister snapped it. I'll have to ask them, but either way, I think it came out nice and really shows Anna's sweet and tender disposition.

Merry Christmas!!!

Yes I realize that Christmas day was two days ago, but I still consider this time "Christmas." Technically it is still during the 12 days of Christmas and I actually find this time more peaceful than that hub-bub and busy-ness of the Advent season. It is a time to reflect and take stock in life's blessings.

I decided to give myself a few minutes to surf the web this afternoon while there was a moment of quiet in the house and came across this wonderful essay on Stacy Julian's blog titled "One Solitary Life."

He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman,
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty.

He never wrote a book,
He never held an office,
He never went to college,
or owned a house.
He never visited a big city,
In fact, he never travelled more than
two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness;
He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty three when the
Tide of public opinion turned against him.

His friends ran away
One of them even denied him.
He was turned over to his enemies,
And went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing,
The only property he had on earth.

When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone;
And today he is still the central figure of the human race,
and our perfect example in all things.
All the armies that have ever marched,
All the navies that have ever sailed,
All the parliaments that have ever sat,
All the kings that ever reigned, put together,
Have not affected the life of man on this earth
As much as this one solitary life.

Loved this and had to post it if nothing more than just for myself so that I could easily find it to read it again.

Hope Christmas has been a special time for everyone else - a time to remember that no matter who we are, we have been blessed beyond measure!

Fa la la la la....

Yesterday was officially "cookie day!" Officially, there were 10 of us with our fingers in the cookie dough (me and my 4 children, my friend, Wendy and her 3 daughters and my friend, Laura). We turned out sugar cookie cut-outs, thumbprints, and candy cane cookies. Wendy brought some candy fixin's and we made bun bars and turtles, too. I had never tried this and was amazed at how easy they were to do. I will probably try this again next year, too.

I can't believe that my I forgot to bring out my camera ALL day. I didn't snap even ONE picture! Ugh! So, I decided to take a picture of all of our goodies piled high on my stove. This is just my portion! I think we will be sharing!!!

Last evening was my husbands work Christmas party. All the guys got a half day off and the boss took them all to an indoor go-cart track for the afternoon where they all had a blast! Then we ladies got to join in the fun for a dinner party in the evening which was at the Summit Club. It is located downtown on the top floor (25th) of one of our town's tallest buildings. The view was spectacular and you could see much of the downtown Christmas lights. It is a beautiful place and the food was excellent! It felt very pampering!

Barry has the day off today, so we will probably have a relatively lazy morning. I have been thinking about the things to get accomplished today and the list is still pretty long:

Sadly, although I have gotten my Christmas cards made, I still need to write them out and address them. I send out about 90.

Most of our wrapping still needs to be done yet. BUT, I think all of the shopping is complete with the exception of groceries. Yea! I ran around and did power shopping Wednesday afternoon/evening which included braving the mall. It was exhausting but proved worth it!

The children still need to be taken out shopping. I would like to let them each have the opportunity to shop for everyone in the family. For the little ones, that will probably be at the $1 store. Barry was feeling negative about letting them buy a bunch of "junk" but I pointed out that I really feel like it is important for them to get into the spirit of GIVING at this time of year and not just focus on GETTING. He did agree.

I need to plan out our menu for Christmas day and grocery shop. We will be going to church in the morning and won't be getting together with family until the next day, so it won't be our normal routine and will be just us, so I need to decide what kind of meals to prepare. Normally we just do cinnamon rolls in the morning and go over to my in-laws for a big lunch, but I don't think just rolls are gonna cut it for the whole entire day! ;-)

Also, I need to prepare the images for worship that will go on the screen for our church's Christmas Eve and Christmas day services.

Oh, and I forgot that I have a little bit of sewing to complete a couple of gifts. I won't elaborate here just in case one of the gift receivers is lurking!

I feel blessed that is all that is on my list! It still looks pretty doable and not overwhelming! I am going to try really hard to keep the joy in our home. I hate to admit it, but usually about this time of year the grumpy, stressed-out Trish makes her appearance. She is no fun to be around and I am praying and trying to keep clear focus on Christ this Christmas so that she is not tempted to show up and spoil the fun!

That's the way the cookie crumbles...

Ugh! why does the Christmas season always have to get stressful? No matter what, there is so much to do that at some point I catch myself getting "scroogey." I really do NOT want it to be this way! Today I plan on doing some last minute power shopping to wrap a few odds and ends. I pray that I can then be done and can check purchasing gifts off of my mental list of things to do.

Besides checking things off my list, one way I fight the "scroogies" is to put in my "Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas" video and sing along with all of the songs. Of course, to do this I have entire the groans and rolling of the eyes from my children, but it is definitely worth it!

Tomorrow should prove to be fun. A couple of my oldest and dearest friends and their wonderful children are coming over to bake Christmas cookies. We had originally planned to do this last week, but the night before the big day, 2 of my kids came down with a stomach flu and I had to cancel. Our entire household ended up getting sick. :( Hopefully, we are done with sickness for a while now! My friends and I always have difficulty finding a day that works for everyone, so I was so happy that we were able to reschedule for this week. This works even better because all the kids can come because they are now on Christmas break.

Last week, I made up a couple of batches of master dough from my "One Dough, Fifty Cookies" cookbook (which by itself is a wonderful butter cookie!) which is enough to make 4 different types of cookies. Since I needed to take cookies to a party, I used one batch to make coconut macaroons and chocolate toffee cookies. Anna helped with the former and from the photo above, you can see that Abi helped with the latter. (Somebody has GOT to taste the dough to make sure they will taste OK!)

One last note, I have been sitting here listening to some lovely Christmas music from this site: Pandora You tell the site the name of a song or a musical artist you like and it will create a "station" that plays similar songs. I typed in "What Child is This?" and it came up with several versions to choose from. I chose the Zoe Girl version and ended up with some great new Christian Christmas music. A very fun way to battle the scroogies!

Happy Birthday!!!

Yesterday was my baby girl's 2nd birthday! Her birthday began with birthday breakfast in bed consisting of 2 mini muffins decked out with birthday candles. This photo was taken at cake time in the evening which you can tell made her very happy!

From Henry David Thoreau:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only
the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

From the Bible:

"Give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs!
For if I grow rich, I may become content without God. And if I am too poor, I
may steal, and thus insult God’s holy name." Proverbs 30:8-9 (LB)

Direction for Today:

What would your life look like if you really had a simple life?

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life
in your years." -- Abraham Lincoln

(Taken from this article)

Just for kicks, I googled myself today to see what I came up with and discovered I was mentioned in this nice little article about the Photos of Faith contest I am involved with. Kind of fun!

I saw this on another blog (LOVED the dancing video, Lisa!) and I had to try it for myself. So here is a little spontaneous video I took this morning of my train-lovin' son being the conductor of our newly set up Christmas train.

The true meaning of Christmas: teaching our little ones about "Baby Jetaw" (as Abi would say).

Interesting article I stumbled upon this morning. (click on the image above to read it)
According to this article, there is a growing trend for business owners to become restrictive towards children in their establishments. The cafe in Chicago that is receiving so much publicity over this posted a cute sign saying, “Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices.” And if that rule is broken, the parent will be chastised.

So, is this a symptom of a anti-child trend in society or merely a symptom of low expectations of behavior for our children? I am thinking that perhaps it is a little of both. Many business owners that are following this trend are in areas of cities where fewer families live and childless adults are the majority. I can say from my own experience, those who don't have children are FAR less tolerant of them. But, I am sad to say that far too often when I am out in public, I have witnessed atrocious behavior out of children and am amazed that their parent witnesses it and ignores it.

Now, I do not want to be accused of being the pot calling the kettle black. As a parent of 4 children, I have had more occasions than I would like to admit to where my own unruly children have been the culprits of public disturbances. But, through the experience of my 11 years of parenting I have (hopefully) gotten a bit better about keeping a rein on my children and have taught them about what kinds of behavior is expected in certain circumstances. Through these years I have also felt the icy chill of judgment when I walk into a public establishment with my 4 children in tow. I have had people judge me for even HAVING four children and also see them immediately assume that they will be misbehaved.

Since we have allowed God to dictate the size of our family, I really feel like we have to work hard not to be an embarrassment to Him. Perhaps that is why I can be keenly aware of uncontrolled children when we are out. Because I continually work on training my own little ones, I cringe when I see other parents letting their children call the shots and run wild. I have been there myself. It is A LOT of work to keep children in line. Especially when you are out trying to get something accomplished, it is exhausting to have to focus a large portion of your energy on disciplining your children.

I am seeing that training children while they are young has its benefits. A year or so ago, I was listening to a woman speak about home organization and child training. She was a funny lady told how often other parents would come up to her and say, "But your children are so much more well behaved. It is easier for you." She would laugh and ask them, "Well, where do you think I got them? Well-Behaved Children R Us? No, I trained them to be this way!" That has really stuck with me. I place a much higher priority now on training my children. It is a work in progress, I still have a long way to go, and we all have much to learn. I pray daily for God's wisdom and guidance on this journey so hopefully I won't be the one that the store owner taps on the shoulder to discuss my children's bad behavior! :)