Days Eight and Nine: A Weekend of Celebration

 My baby girl's worship dance program was this weekend.

An exhausting schedule of tech and dress rehearsals plus four performances

turned out to be a tremendous blessing.

Sitting through that many services 

with beautiful worship music and dance uplifted my bruised soul.  

What is it about family attitudes/behavior/patterns that can wound so quickly? 

Nevertheless, a determination and declaration rose up from my heart:

"Choose for yourself this day who you will serve...

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."  Joshua 24:15

Yes to His ways.

No to ways that are not of God.

My butterfly gave her all to the Lord and was breathtaking to behold.

It fills my heart with joy to see my children shine in the gifts God has given them.

Celebrating Him.

 The blessing of each child.

Wanting to build up, not tear down.

Living our family values.

Day Seven: Christmas Vignettes from Our Tree and Home

Dress rehearsal and preparations for my daughter's Christmas Dance Program continue

through this weekend, so I thought I'd share glimpses of our Christmas tree and home.

 An angel from my childhood tree.

 The true meaning of Christmas.

 A 12 Days of Christmas garland.

Advent stockings I made from fleece...here's a link of how I did it.

 Glimpses of our tree:

 Christmas Books

 A Dancing and Singing Santa Claus

(and one that plays football)

Day Six: Art and Gifts

My art teacher is a lovely lady from my church who is amazingly talented 

and so generous with her time.

She pours of herself into me and encourages me tremendously.

She is a gift to me.

 Speaking of gifts,

Grandma brought coats for everyone!

We are ready to go sledding, snowshoeing, skiing - 

ready for any of the winter activities that Colorado has to offer!

Day Six...waiting in eager anticipation for Grandma to arrive.

Lots of hugs and exclamations!

Art class for me while the kids tried to beat Grandma in Sequence.

It's their favorite game to play together.

The evening wrapped up with cozy time chatting after dinner.

Day Five: Preparation and Practice

We have a special guest arriving on Thursday.

Grandma is flying in for an early holiday visit and to see her granddaughter's recital.

We spent last winter with her and miss her tremendously.

Grandma lives across the bridge from NYC, and the we enjoyed numerous adventures there!

Today was a quiet day of preparation for her visit and rest.

The evening had us going different directions -

Barnabas had a swim class and practice for the Christmas play at church.

Mireille had tech rehearsals for her recital.

 Here are pictures from my baby girl's first recital when she was five.

 I just started a new painting of the her in the picture above.  

My beautiful butterfly.

It's important to take time for rest.

To refuel in order to finish strong.

(This is my precious Barnaboo at age four.  He was dressed as a football superhero,

a combination of his favorite things.  He took this race very seriously.)

Day Four: Elf Hunting, Cookies and Conversation

This was posted on Facebook yesterday and described my sentiments exactly:

"I'm trying to be Fabulous today,

but I'm exhausted from being 

so freakin' Fabulous yesterday!"

So I'm a little late with this blog post...apologies :-)

Day Four of our month long adventure found us running an errand in Boulder.

I have a love-hate relationship with that place -

I love it because it's funky, and I hate it because it's funky.

It's the combination of hippie culture mixed with wealth and privilege.

Lots of cool shops and events, people-who-honk-incessantly-when-you-don't-do 

what-they-think-you-should-do-at-the-moment-they-think-you-should.

It's artsy and liberating but also leans way over the edge at times.

After our errand, we decided to go into Whole Foods for lunch.  

This sign immediately grabbed our attention.  

(One think you should know about us is that we love scavenger hunts.  In fact, we won 1st place at the Baltimore Inner Harbor Scavenger Hunt a few years ago, dressed as pirates.  

Here's the link to a Youtube video of the event...we start showing up at 30 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R1lVOMvSM4  

Ever ready for action, the Elf Hunting crew gathered their materials and went off to search.

Aha!  Found one!

 And another hiding out in the Deli section.  

There were some lovely Whole Foods employees who made our time there enjoyable.  

One lady kept checking up on the kids to make sure they were finding the elves,

and the lady at the Deli counter offered them samples of anything they wanted to try.

That made up for the number of shoppers who almost rammed into us with their carts and behaved so snooty in the store.  

 Barnabas suggested that we grab some bread and cheese for lunch -

very European!  So we did.

Crusty Ciabatta Bread with Gouda Cheese and Irish Butter

 Cheddar bunnies and natural soda.  A special treat.

The munchkin had his last swim class in the afternoon.

  As cute as the games are, I think we're going to avoid classes with animal names in the future.

I need him to know how to swim!
And I'm not so keen about the two little girls who chased him around the whole time.
Back off, girlies!

Our Rec Center is an awesome facilitiy including a large shallow area and slide for little ones,

two indoor slides, a lazy river with big tubes to float around on (my favorite), 

a hot tub, steam room and sauna.  

 Day Four concluded with the celebration of National Cookie Day - 

we sat around the kitchen table chatting while munching on Oatmeal Scotchies, White Chocolate Chip Macadamia and Chocolate-Caramel Turtle Cookies.
A delicious way to end the day.   

Day Three: Brotherly Love and Gingerbread Houses

A life lesson we've been pushing, insisting upon, fussing about, emphasizing with the kids is family loyalty. God chose each child to be born into this family, and they are each a gift and a blessing.  

I recall too many incidents in my growing up years of sibling battles that were never resolved and the distrust and distance that has carried over into adulthood. I want my children to remain close, to have one another's backs and that their families when they are grown would be close. I believe we have to be intentional about this and not dismiss squabbles and mean behaviors as "sibling rivalry." We have been teaching the kids that love, patience, attitudes of the heart, character, etc. are developed at home - though it may seem easier to be kind to a friend than a sibling, eventually any behaviors that we exercise consistently will manifest outside of the home. It takes self-control and choosing to do right over what we feel, especially at home!  

Today, on Day Three of the 25 Days, we had back-to-back swim classes. The boys started out playing well while waiting for their sister's class to end...then started the downward slide into teasing and frustrating one another. Weary, so very very weary, of lecturing, hushing and getting riled up myself, I pulled out my camera phone.  And asked them to show me love.  It worked.  They started giggling.  hugging. tickling and smiling at each other.  loving.  Thank You, Lord.       

After swim classes, we dashed over to our awesome public library for a Gingerbread House Making Party. They have fantastic programs throughout the year, and we have gotten to know the librarians and several other families that are "regulars."  

Who can pass up an opportunity for messy fun, especially when it's not at my own house??? The children have chipmunk cheeks in their pics because of the candy canes and peppermints that somehow bypassed the houses into their mouths. I had a wipe in one hand and my phone in the other, trying desperately to not get frosting on myself while capturing their gorgeous creations.  I'm realizing this Christmas season that I really enjoy the simple. Though glitz and glam are wonderful, they often add an element of stress to me.  Getting back to the heart of this season has been life-altering, even three days in.  And the kids even told me on the drive home that they think they want to keep the 25 Days of Christmas tradition going.  We'll talk about it once Christmas Day arrives and see what has happened in all of our hearts.