New Year's Celebrations?

Happy Holidays to you all! Feels like ages since I've updated my blog. It's been a welcome hiatus as our household has struggled through viruses and colds amidst the Christmas festivities. Plus, it just feels good to be lazy and tinker with our Christmas gifts during this post-Christmas week. Chloe calls them "pajama days".

I'll most definitely sum up our memorable Christmas activities in weeks to come but for today I have a question for you in regards to New Year's Eve.

I know most of you have offspring so I'm guessing if you're like us, your new year's celebrations have changed considerably. Our kids are both in bed by 8 (depending on Chloe's nap that is) and they're so little there's absolutely no way I'd consider keeping them up until midnight. I'm struggling with a head cold and painful cough so an early bedtime is in order for me. And Matt doesn't care about these rituals so he'll probably just read himself into the new year.

So, how do you plan to ring in the new year? Can you believe 2009 is just around the corner? When we get to 2010 I'm going to feel like we're in an episode of the Jestons. The number just seems so high and future-y.

Family is HERE!

We are rejoicing that my family is here with us to celebrate Christmas. Woo-hoo and hallelujahs!

And celebrate we will indeed. With yummy food, games, shopping, laughter, and loads of gifts. Provided I can get the rest of my gifts finished and wrapped on time that is . . . Clive's interest in all-things-shiny-and-crinkly doesn't add to my productivity.

How about you all? Do you travel to see family or are the relatives coming to you?

So, I'll be blogging even less regularly this coming week. :)

Until next post, happiest of Christmases to you all! Remember to rest in Jesus and keep Him the center of your joyous festivities!

Chloe sings a Christmas carol

The stomach flu has hit our household this past week so I've been delinquent on many things - not just blogging. Thankfully, Clive was the only hit hard by the virus (though it was so rough to see him sick!) and he needed lots of extra cuddling and baths. Both fun activities! The cleaning-up-vomit, not so much fun. But he's over it now and back to his jolly self. Anyone else struggling with the flu this season? I'm CONVINCED that the flu mist which Chloe and I received has helped us stay healthy.

Seems like this year our Christmas carol of focus is O Come, O Come Emmanuel. We've been singing a Christmas carol after supper each night and Chloe is vvvvvvvvery proud of herself for knowing all the words. So much so that she insisted I do a video of her singing. The way she says "Emmanuel" and "Israel" is so darling! Be sure to listen for Clive's babbling contributions in the background. :)

What Christmas carols are you humming this season?

Moving ahead slowy on Christmas preparations

Whew.

Can you believe we're already entering the second week of December?

We have our Christmas decorations all up and the Christmas cards are getting written slowly. They're all addressed and I'm writing personal messages a little at a time so the task isn't so overwhelming.

I have one Christmas package completely done and ready to mail. Christmas pictures of the kids are scheduled for tomorrow.

I still have cookies to bake and several homemade gifts to make. And yes, I'm still delusional enough to think I'll get them all done in time. :)

Thankfully, God is helping me have a spirit of rest this holiday season. I'm working a little each night on Christmas projects and that's helping my brain feel productive and not stressed. Plus, we know the gifts aren't really what matter this Christmas. Enjoying our family and reflecting on the glorious good news of Jesus coming to earth is what it's all about.

What's on your Christmas to-do list?

It's that time of year again: Christmas card time

We received our first Christmas card of the season a few days ago. The first card is always the signal to me that I need to haul out our Christmas bin and start the whole card sending process.

I L-O-V-E pulling out the Christmas bin and rediscovering our Christmas treasures. The much-longed for (by me, not Matt) Christmas cds, decorations, Christmas cards that I snagged for cheap during last year's after-holiday sales, the family of styrofoam snowmen, the ornaments, the teddy bear calendar, nativity set, and stockings. Ah.

The extra fun part this year is to watch how excited Chloe is getting about it all. She literally studied the teddy bear calendar for most of the morning yesterday. (You can see it in the background of the posted picture. And if you're wondering, yes, that picture is from last year.)

What was I writing about? Oh, yeah, Christmas cards. Forgive me. I have chronic wandering mommy brain.

Every year Christmas cards are a pain and a joy to me. The postage is an obvious expense and the time and effort exerted seems unending. Part of that is my fault because I insist on writing a personal little note in each card. And last year we sent out more than 50 cards so it got ridiculous. 50 cards?!? How does that happen?!?

Last year I could focus on the Christmas card task while only managing one little girl and one big pregnant belly. That belly has shrunk slightly and become the most active 11-month old ever and now my time is a precious commodity. I'm taking the following drastic measures with this year's cards.

1. Cut, cut, cut. Ruthless cutting of my Christmas card address list. I'm no longer obeying the guilty mantra of I-must-send-a-card-to-everyone-who-sends-me-one.
2. E-cards. Several of my extended family members would truly be happier if I went green with their Christmas correspondence. And do you know how much faster I can type a message than hand-write one?
3. Consolidate. Each year we send out 2-3 Christmas gift packages to long-distance family. Why not toss in the Christmas cards for family in the area? My in-laws can easily pass along the cards to nearby aunts. My dad can drop off my aunt's and cousins' cards. And we'll save a few bucks in postage. The important thing is that our loved ones get the cards not that the cards arrive via the mailbox.

I seriously enjoy the Christmas card experience. It's a blast to get lovely cards in the mail through out the month of December. And we re-use old cards for the next year's gift tags so we appreciate the cards two years in a row. But I don't want my entire month to be consumed with pressure over something so trivial. I'd much rather relish the festivities of the season with less stress!

If you've made it thus far through my ramblings, answer me a few questions on your own Christmas card practices . . . .

1. How many Christmas cards do you mail out?
2. Do you include a family letter or pictures?
3. Do you write a note or just a generic salutation?
4. How many Christmas cards do you typically receive?
5. What practical budget-cutting tips do you have for the Christmas card process?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you all a very happy and restful Thanksgiving weekend!


"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." [Psalm 107:1]

Victory over brown rice!

I have to share a personal victory with you all. I finally figured out how to successfully cook long grain brown rice!!! Thank you, Lord!

Until now my brown rice has always turned out too crunchy or too soggy and underdone. So, I gave up trying to cook brown rice for awhile. I bought instant brown rice for a bit and then even went back to white rice [gasp!].

Here's the secret: soak the grains for 15-20 minutes before cooking.

Why did I never know this?!? It's definitely made the difference in my brown rice. And my family (Matt especially) is very happy that I finally make rice that actually tastes like rice.

Do you all have any cooking giants to overcome?

We are still alive and kicking

Seems like every time I write a new blog post I begin by apologizing for my blogging delinquency. Arggh! I just can not figure out how to juggle my responsibilities well enough to make my blog-writing consistent. Any one have any suggestions?

November has flown by like a supersonic jet. We've had family here to visit and the calendar is full of activities, preschool co-op, birthday parties, and Bible study.

Clive is on the brink of his 11 month milestone. He's fearless. Who ever heard of a baby who climbed before he could walk?

Chloe is a pretending queen lately. Every game of note includes imagining somehow. Her latest fancy is to be a wonder pet and to rescue animals in distress. Playing school, princess, and train are standards too.

Now I can sleep in peace that I've put to rest that nagging you-should-update-the-blog feeling. :)

[If you'd like to see pictures of our busy fall activities, check out my recent facebook photo album.]

What have you been up to this fall?

Grandma's here!

My mom is in town visiting - YAY! We're busy enjoying grandma time and soaking up her presence during the holiday weekend.

Here are some recent fall photos of the kids to keep you happy during my blogging absence. :)

We spent an afternoon doing fall-y leaf things. And Chloe has informed me that raking leaves is hard work. Tell me about it. We raked and raked and raked and then she only did one jump into the pile. And Clive attempted eating the crunchy moldy leaves several times (only successful once though!). I'm learning quickly that baby boys are tough little creatures.

How'd your leaf-raking go this year?

How was your voting experience?

I voted early this year and waited 3 hours to vote! Turns out I needn't have made such efforts to vote early as our local polls were not overly crowded today.

Oh well! I got some much-needed quiet time to sit and work on a Christmas cross-stitch project while I waited my turn at the polls. It also gave me time to reflect on how fortunate we are in America. We have the right to vote and we can vote without oppression or fear of persecution.

How was your voting experience? Check out my mini-poll on the right hand side bar. Happy voting!

We're mighty popular!

Are you all getting inundated with political phone calls too? Yikes, seems like we get 3-4 phone calls a day endorsing various candidates. We haven't even been answering our phone the past few days; it's been seriously annoying.

The funniest one was a call we got last night, the female voice began her schpiel with the words, "I know you've been getting a lot of phone calls these days . . . " That was all we listened to before hitting the delete button. :)

How many political calls have you received during this pre-election phase?

Addicted to bloggy giveaways

Have you all been participating in this fall's Bloggy Giveaways Carnival? I've noticed it before but never seriously entered to win. Until last night that is!

As I was killing time online (waiting for things to upload or checking audio lectures for my online job responsibilities) I began entering the giveaways listed on Money Saving Mom.

And today I found the motherload of giveaways at the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival! Over 1,000 bloggers out there in the blogosphere have posted links to their blogs where they are giving something away. Free stuff? I'm so there!

Of course I certainly don't have hours to spend online entering my name and comments at all these blogs. So I'll have to be selective in my entering. But the prospect of winning free goodies is so alluring! As I work this afternoon I have a Bloggy Giveaways tab open at all times so I can keep peeking at what's up for grabs.

Besides the huge thrill of getting free stuff I would LOVE to win so I can score some unique Christmas gifts. Did I mention this stuff is FREE? Free!!! My heart dances to the sound of that lovely word!

That said, let me encourage you to enter and waste some time with me. :) Let me know if you're participating and if you win something!

I'm a softie

So, we were all set to have Chloe be a doctor for Halloween. As you can see from the picture at left, she went as an angel instead. She so sweetly asked to be an angel on Wednesday that my heart melted. I mean, how likely is it that she's going to want to be an angel (in any respect of the word) in coming years?

We seized our angel opportunity and I whipped up a quick costume using an old bed sheet on Friday. The wings and halo came from a local discount store and combined with the gold ribbon belt we spent a total of $5 on the costume. SHE LOOKED SO PRECIOUS! We got countless comments on her angelic get-up.

Clive looked equally cute in his homemade pumpkin costume. There's a lot of history in his pumpkin outfit. It was my first halloween costume too! He was a darling drooling pumpkin.

I know I'm biased, but I think homemade costumes are so much cuter looking than store-bought ones. What do you think?

And now we're dealing with mountains of luscious candy. I'm strictly adhering to the one-piece-per-day rule for Chloe. Me, I'm lucky if I make it through the day only eating 3 or 4! Hopefully I can make some cookies out of the chocolatey goodies so it stops screaming my name . . . What do you do with your leftover candy?

Am I the only one?

Matt is headed out to St. Louis this weekend to present at a conference (sidenote: I am SO PROUD of all the scholarly work Matt is doing in the midst of writing his dissertation AND teaching four classes at Kent State).

He'll be gone Saturday and Sunday. The big bummer is he'll miss trick-or-treating in our neighborhood on Saturday night. The bonus is I'll finally get to watch the much-hyped Disney blockbuster High School Musical.

Which leads me to my question for you . . . am I the only one out there that hasn't seen this flick yet? I have some gal pals from Bible study who RAVE about how good HSM is. They know most of the songs and even some dance moves. What's your take on the HSM craze?

What does a doctor carry?

This year we're dressing Chloe up as a doctor for trick-or-treating. And that's mainly because we have all sorts of doctor stuff already and time is running out!

So that brings me to my question for you all . . . What does a doctor carry that Chloe can use to gather her treats? My first thought is a little black doctor bag but where does one find such a thing? Any ideas?!?

What are your munchkins dressing up as this year?

(Clive is going as a pumpkin. He'll be wearing the same costume that I wore when I was his age! Don't worry, I'll be sure to take LOTS of pictures.)

Smiles for your Friday

Here's a reason to smile today! Isn't his smile contagious? I took Clive out for a quick grocery outing tonight and almost every person we walked past stopped to smile and coo at him.

I don't have a smiley picture of Chloe to share but I have a few anecdotes that should deliver grins. :)

Yesterday morning I was hurriedly getting clothes out to dress Chloe for the day. I chose her adorable denim overalls with embroidered cherries. This was Chloe's response . . . .

"Mommy, I am not happy right now."

Apparently she doesn't like wearing overalls. In fact she told me this morning that she'd rather wear only a shirt and undies. Hmm.

:: :: :: :: ::

While out for lunch with a friend of mine and her kids, Chloe held Bryan's hand as they walked across the parking lot. Here's a snippet of the conversation I overheard . . .

Bryan: "When I hurt myself, my sister laughs at me."
Chloe: "When I hurt myself I pray. I pray to GOD." (said emphatically)

:: :: :: :: ::

Last night Chloe colored while I prepared dinner and we both waited anxiously for Matt to return home from school. Chloe asked where daddy was and then said sincerely . . .

"Mommy, I want my daddy back."

Awww! It's deeply touching to see the sweet relationship Chloe and Matt have.

Hug and cherish the little ones in your life today!

Laundry basket cuties

Wow, I have really been a delinquent blogger as of late! What with working lots of hours at my online job and getting ready to leave home for the weekend (I'll be attending the truewoman08 conference in Chicago), I've not spared much time for blogging.

I snapped the picture at left of Clive a few days back and it reminded me of a similar pose I shot of Chloe when she was a wee babe.

I think it's pretty obvious by comparing these two photos that besides coloring, my two kids look very un-alike. It always makes me chuckle inside when strangers see their similar hair color and automatically coo and comment at their resemblance to each other. What?!? Chloe's face shape is exactly like my square-jawed hubby's. Clive's face is longer and less cheeky. We'll have to see if Clive resembles me more as he grows older.

Who do your kids resemble most?

My Clivey-poo

My little Clive just reached the 9 month mark!

Here are some cute (albeit long) videos of his latest antics. I think he's going for a world record in being the youngest baby ever to walk. In my mommy book it's just not natural for a 9 month old baby to be walking yet. And this mommy is NOT ready.

Enjoy you some baby cuteness!

Anyone goin'?

It's hard to believe that next weekend is the truewoman08 conference already!

The truewoman08 conference is a Bible-based conference being held in the Chicago area next weekend with speakers such as Nancy Leigh DeMoss and John Piper. John Piper is my all time favorite Christian speaker so I'm pumped! Nevermind the fact that I'll be escaping the demands of caring for two children for 3 entire days. I can not even comprehend the enormity of that fact right now but I am eager to sleep late and use the bathroom by alone. :)

I'm going with some gals from my church. Anyone else attending? According to the website, 6,000 women have registered and are attending. Let me know in the comment area and hopefully we can meet up and have a bloggy good time!

Some new photos

How do I have a 9 month old baby already?!? Time is flying and Clive is growing. And he's causing trouble.

Why didn't any of you warn me about the activity level of boys? :)

And no one informed me of how completely a baby boy can steal his mama's heart either.

Enjoy these new kiddie photos and a happy Friday to you all!