My Baby Is Two...

... Can that be right?

Ian has grown so quickly! He continues to be the most mild mannered, enjoyable little guy we could ever have asked for... although he's wasn't too interested in taking his birthday pictures! Still... here they are:



Ian asked for cheese pizza and fries for his birthday dinner... and cookie "didi" ice cream... all of which he got! He loved his duck birthday cake... but he tried to blow the ducks out instead of the candle... hehehe... Daddy eventually had to help!

Present time was lots of fun, but Ian really enjoyed the opening process more on Christmas. The birthday presents he wanted to rip through as quickly as possible in order to play with them! And play he did... with his pile full of loot... just as soon as Mommy snapped one more pic.

I love this child! He brings so much joy to our family, and even though he is just two years old, it seems like he has been a part of us forever! Happy Birthday Ian!

Lisa

I Pretty Much Hate Forwarded E-mail...

... However...

This morning I got an e-mail that had a quote from Rick Warren in it (by the way, I am not a huge Warren fanatic, although I did read "Purpose Driven Life", and I think he's a good guy). Here's what it said:

"God didn't put me on Earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings."

I liked that. And to be honest, it's exactly what I needed to read this morning.

Speaking of what I'm doing... blogging at 8am... As it turns out, we stayed out kinda late last night, enjoying the Illuminate/Journey Christmas Party, which was the most relaxing party I've experienced this season! The kids were supposed to have a Christmas party this morning for music class (well, actually I guess it was Caleb's party, but everyone was invited). However, there is a sheet of ice covering... well... everything! So, of course, the party has been canceled. The kids are going to be totally bummed out about this when they wake up (they are still asleep... amazingly... due to the late night), but it's actually kind of a blessing, because now I don't have anywhere to go today, so we can just stay home and hang out!

I do have one little (uh...) problem. For the upcoming Super Seek-ret Sleepover, we are supposed to be making knot blankets. However, the fleece I ordered has still not arrived! This is not (or knot... hehehe) good! I am going to have to make a run to Wal-mart... or Hobby Lobby... or somewhere to get fleece if it doesn't get here today. That is, if the ice clears. If not, I am clearly not going anywhere!

Lisa

PS I am going to try to get some pics. up from the zoo. Check back at the zoo post (a few days ago) later today! L.

Really Could've Used Nana Today...

There are many times in which I stop and remember my grandparents. Perhaps you read the tributes I wrote to each one some months ago. I miss Nana the most at Christmas cookie baking time, each year.

Me, Julie, Amy, and Nana Making Cookies:
(I'm not sure why the quality of this scan is so bad. The picture, itself, is great.)

Every year Nan made tons of dough for all of us, and then she let us create in only the way three little (uh... sometimes devious) girls can! I'm tellin' you, we made dozens and dozens of cookies!

Today I made cookies with my kids. I made two batches of cookie dough each, but I didn't let them use it all! Instead, I saved a whole bunch for the upcoming sleepover and snagged some, myself, for the Christmas party tonight. All in all, Seth, Grace, and Caleb each made around a dozen cookies... and we let Ian carry an empty bowl around...

If Nana was still alive, she'd be 92 years old. And I would have called her. And I hope she would have come to make cookies with us. And I hope she would have brought her own dough!

I don't really know for sure if people can look back on Earth once their lives here are finished. If Nana can, she is surely laughing at me today, maybe even shaking her head and remembering the fillings that were lost on the incredible "cookie bombs" over the years. I am sure she would agree that I deserve Caleb's creation shown below, and look... his little hands are still sprinkling:

Seriously, how many sprinkles can you put on one cookie? At least there are none inside:
(Actually, the picture doesn't do this justice, either. The sprinkles are like an inch thick!)

Ah... memories... The stuff life is made of...

Lisa

Totally Burned Out...

... And so ends another semester.

My grades are going to show it this time around. For a long time now, I have been able to "squeak by", bringing in pretty good final grades, even in the midst of complete chaos, but that will not be the case this term...

You know... I'm really tired of not even being able to sit down and compose an e-mail without starting off by apologizing profusely for being so late to respond, because my life is so busy or ending with a rushed explanation about what I have to run to do next.

Something has to give...

I am completely and totally burned out, and the things I'm doing that keep me so busy are not the things I want to remember as the way life was in this stage...

I want to finish playing Super Mario Brothers with Seth so we can move on to Super Mario Brothers Two...

I want to schedule "girl time" with Grace again, so she'll learn how to paint her nails and use her spirograph...

I want to spend hours building outrageous duplo train layouts with Caleb before he's too big for "baby" toys...

I want to cuddle with Ian and read him book... after book... after book...

I want to go out with my husband...

I want to read my Bible...

And as I sit here with tears streaming down my face... and as I think about all the stupid things I've done in the last few weeks... and as I am distracted, wondering when the last time I fed the fish was... Well, like I said before, something has to give...

And it's not going to be what's important anymore...

Lisa

We Made It To The Zoo This Time!

We had a wonderful adventure at the zoo with our friends!

Some Highlights:
*Aubrie liked "swimming" with the fish...
*It was almost more fun to watch Amber pet the sharks than the kids...
*The Christmas lights were amazingly beautiful...
*The holiday train exhibit was really fun (especially for Phil and Caleb)...
*We learned that if you pretend you didn't read the "no strollers" sign you can bring your strollers into the dolphin underwater viewing area...

Some... uh... Lowlights:
*It was cold...
*The Zoo's Christmas activities were mostly Santa Claus related (which... I mean... Santa's OK and everything... I'm just gettin' a little burned out on him...), and they all cost additional money...
*We kept waiting for the dolphin show to start... and then it was over...

We seriously had a great time, though, including the 2 + hours it took us to get there (we did a little bit of shopping along the way), and the yummy dinner we had at Chilis afterward (where Ian did an encore presentation of the "shrieking baby" show)...

A picture's worth a thousand words:

Robert, Amber, Avalyn, and Aubrie

The Six of Us... Sort of posing in front of the Christmas Tree...

A collage of some of the highlights...
Oh, did I forget to mention we tied Seth to the train tracks?

Lisa

Take Two...

... Tryin' To Make It To The Zoo Again!

So... last Saturday we set off for the zoo, among other things. All that happened were the other things! We went to mall in search of some elusive Christmas gifts for Grace... which remained elusive... And, in the end, all we bought at the mall was lunch... at Chick-Fil-A...

It was so cold... and so snowy... and so late by the time we left the mall, there was really no point in driving over to the zoo for a couple of frigid hours!

So... off we go again today! Can't say there aren't a couple of stops we have to make along the way, but it's pretty much a lock this time around that the main attraction will be the zoo!

By the way... one party down, five to go. I thought the FNF party last night went rather well... better than last year, for sure!

And did I forget to mention it's finals week? I am so going to love next week, but the grass is always greener, right?

Lisa

And So The Week Of The Everlasting Christmas Party Begins...

... Here I am:

Don't I look Christmassy?

Anybody want to place bets on whether the smile or the curls fall first?

'Cause I really doubt they're both going to endure 8 days... and 6 parties...

Christmas really isn't supposed to be this hectic, is it?

Lisa

So Sick and Tired...

... Of Being Sick and Tired!

If it's not one thing around here, it's another. I have had a splitting headache for a couple of days and found that I was in good company last night, because pretty much everyone at Illuminate has had a splitting headache all week... It's not helping that I am exhausted, and there is so much to do in the next couple of weeks!

We are going to Christmas at the Zoo tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to finish our Christmas shopping. Then there's the rejoicing service on Sunday night (and Grace doesn't even know the words for her solo yet).

Next week there's a Christmas party for the kids on Wednesday, A Christmas party for Illuminate and the Journey on Thursday, A concert on Friday night, A Christmas Party/Sleepover for Seek-rets on Saturday-Sunday, and the Christmas cantata on Sunday morning (which I am not in... which is good... because I love to sing, but there's no way I could have crammed one more thing into this schedule)! Uh... followed by the Transform Christmas party on Sunday night...

And then, BOOM, it's Christmas week! And to tell you the truth, I think it's going to be a rather relaxed kind of Christmas, and I'm pleased by that, because we are going to need a few minutes to catch our breath after all of the proceeding activity!

This, of course, does not even take into account the regular aspects of life... like finishing up my school semester... and the kids' school semester... and keyboard lessons... and play dates... and throwing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches around...

And so I continue to rant about all of the things that make life way too busy, never stopping to think about how very blessed I am to do such things...

Lisa

Another Post Today...

... Just Because My Kids Are So Awesome!

So... I decided today was as good a day as any to take the kids Christmas pics. The family ones will come later, as I am currently wearing a sweatshirt and hat, and there's no hope of things gettin' better!

Hey... if you read this blog and I don't have a snail mail address for you, please send one my way, as it is almost time for Christmas letters, and I do intend to send them this year (last year was a major oops in that department)!

Here's the pics:

Lisa

The Urgent vs. The Important...

Time management... I've never been very good at it, and the older I get... well... I'm not getting any better...

I remember reading about the urgent vs. the important in some class of mine. I also learned quite a bit about the non-urgent... and the unimportant... and the truth is, I just can't seem to get it balanced...

Seems that I often come to a point in life that feels a little bit like "the eleventh hour" (have written about this before), and then I get really stressed, because there are a trillion and one things bearing down on me... and they're all "urgent"... and I can't get any of them done in time... so, instead, I focus my energy on something completely non-urgent, and often unimportant, to boot...

Ah...

I waste so much time!

The other day I was thinking about this as I installed a new toilet seat in our upstairs bathroom. Our old toilet seat came with the house. It was squishy (which I totally do not prefer)... and it was cheap... and it was broken! Well, I bought a new toilet seat several months ago, and it has been sitting on the bathroom floor ever since. When I finally sat down to make the replacement, I was shocked to find that it took me less than five minutes... FIVE! We have been sliding around on a broken toilet seat for months now, with a brand new one sitting at our feet, and all I had to do was carve out five minutes to fix the problem! But I was too busy... I guess... but with what? It was five stinkin' minutes! As I threw the old toilet seat away, I said to myself, "why did I wait so long to do this?" And there's something deeper here to be learned...

There are so many things in life that I just keep putting off... Granted, they are far more important than replacing broken toilet seats, and they are far more time consuming, too... But that's the point. I need to focus on what's important, because I don't want to wait longer than I should and then find myself staring at the trash and wondering why I wasted all this time...

Reevaluating is tough. We all get 24 hours every day. That's it. But somehow I have to find a way to put my 24 to better use, because I'm sick of wasting time...

Lisa

My First Casserole...

... So, to tell you the truth, I never thought I'd see this day... but here's what happened...

We had this dinner, tonight, for all of the church staff. And I knew several weeks ago that I was supposed to ask Ruth what I should bring, but I kinda kept forgetting, because I am not real up with it when it comes to "pitch in" dinners...

When I finally did remember to ask, Ruth listed everything that everyone else was bringing and then told me I could bring a vegetable (this was after I offered to bring PBJ, but I was only kidding... sort of)... Now, vegetables are those things that grow in the ground or something, right? hehehe... Seriously, though... when we eat veggies at our house (which we do), they are usually in the frozen mixed veggies boiled in a pot variety or the hey go grab a carrot stick form. They don't look all that pretty, and I don't think you take that kind of thing to a "pitch in" dinner when asked to bring a vegetable dish...

So, I looked for recipes on-line... and I came up with a sweet potato casserole... yeah... It was made with orange juice, so I figured it couldn't be all bad...

My family's reaction to all of this was quite funny, but Seth's was the best. I had just pulled the sweet potato casserole out of the oven when he wandered through the kitchen and asked, "Mommy, what's that?" I told him it was the sweet potatoes, and he proceeded to cautiously ask, "Could you please not put any of that on my plate when we go to dinner, because it doesn't look like something I would like!" And then I laughed and promised not to put any on his plate (because he knows if I put something on his plate, he has to eat it... especially when we are in public)!

To tell you the truth, I thought it turned out pretty good. I'm not sure you're really supposed to add so much sugar or pumpkin pie spice to sweet potatoes, and I'm relatively positive that I went way overboard on the marshmallows, but hey... it looked pretty (and I did, indeed, take pictures, although I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet, so I won't be posting them... at least not tonite).

But I'm just not much of a casserole kind of girl... Except I guess I will be this week, because there is half a pan of the stuff left...

Lisa

Did I Just Watch A Movie...

... Because I don't think that qualifies!

Alright... I really do have some actual real thoughts that I want to share sometime soon, but for now... another... uh... movie review?

Several years ago, I met some people who thought that Napoleon Dynamite was basically the greatest film to ever hit the shelves... For me... well... that's where it's going to stay... because seriously... who could I even give it away to?

Wow... Now, to be fair, it had some redeeming qualities in the some 6-8 minutes that actually played out like a movie. Really... there was a lot of potential there for a plot. Napoleon, Pedro, and Deb had an endearing friendship going on, and I think they could have worked with that to further examine life in High School. But they didn't.

Why did people enjoy this movie? I am seriously perplexed. Was it enjoyable because they were making fun of Napoleon... just like his classmates... and his family (if you can call it that... totally could have done without the creepy uncle)? Did they somehow relate to this guy, because if they did, I'd think they would have liked to have seen a plot develop. And please... somebody tell me... how could someone actually prefer this film (again, if you can call it that) to High School Musical? I mean... come on... I know I'm a dork and everything and caught up in the HSM craze, because I think the movies are really cute, but I really can't understand how anyone who thinks HSM is stupid could also find Napoleon Dynamite amusing. I'm sure there are lots of people out there who don't like either. That's normal. What I watched last night definitely delved into the abnormal.

Serious moral issues with the movie? It's hard to put into words, but I definitely would not allow my kids to see this, and I won't encourage it when they're older either. When the farmer guy shoots the cow... that's disturbing. And let's not even get into "Bust Must"... any movie with a freaky character who attempts to sell such a thing to teenage girls... well, that's disturbing, too. There wasn't anything overtly "bad" I guess, as in I wouldn't totally flip out if your teenager saw this at some point in a moment of idiocy. I think we hear gosh, heck, darn, flippin, freakin, etc. about... well... to be honest I stopped counting, but other than that there is only one slightly more crude word, and most people probably don't consider it profanity, either (think strong form of "ticked"). I just don't like it.

But really... this movie was a waste of my time... Not worth it's weight in... uh... tater tots? Except that it has confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt that I will continue to be very happy being a dork. I do not like to wail mournfully. I like to sing...

Lisa