Nubbin

We got our Christmas tree on Saturday. The kids picked it out and named it "Nubbin" because of the new little nubs on it's branches. Brandon cut it down and we brought him home. He is a little on the small side, but still a wonderful addition to the family.

I readied the room and found the perfect place to put our little Nubbin. Last year our living room seemed crowded so I wanted to rearrange the furniture to give Nubbin plenty of room to stretch out his branches without feeling cramped. I even unloaded a book case and move it to the hallway.

The room was ready for Nubbin. Brian put him in the stand, which was almost too big for the trunk but means we will be watering him less. After bringing him inside and placing him in the designated place, we soon realized that Nubbin was a runt, a late bloomer (which might be why a tree has new growth in December), and much smaller that we originally thought.

As we contemplated how to decorate Nubbin, I thought about past Christmas trees we have decorated. The last few years we have had a "travel" tree with all of the ornaments we have collected during our travels. Then there was the "santa" tree and the "snowman" tree. We have so many ornaments! Last year I bought new boxes and organized all the ornaments. I even separated out all the kid's ornaments and made each of them an ornament box. How fun it will be when they someday decorate their own trees with all the ornaments that have been given to them during Christmases past.

This year we couldn't decide how to decorate our tree. Nubbin was too small to hold all the ornaments of any one theme, so we decided to do something new. We decided to make all our ornaments. Yep...we decided to get creative with the glue gun. (Even the boys are getting into it!) This will be a project that lasts until Christmas or until we tire of burning ourselves with the hot glue. We set up a crafting station in the garage on the ping pong table. It is nice to be able to leave all the pom poms, popsicle sticks and googly eyes out and ready for someone who gets the itch to create.

Nubbin isn't glamorous. He isn't perfect. But he holds the evidence of the time we are spending together as a family this holiday season. I believe this will be one of our most memorable Christmases...and we will surely get some good laughs for years to come as we reminisce about Nubbin. (Laugh)

Black Friday

Thanks to my "friend" Michelle, my kids got the idea to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Thanks to their dad, my kids found out the outlet store opened at 12:01am.

So, at 11:15 on Thanksgiving night, we all piled into the car (with friends, Mark and Laurie) to experience the madness. It was crazy! We effortlessly took the back way into the outlet mall, but saw never- ending headlights on the freeway both directions. Passengers were getting out of their cars on the freeway, walking to the mall, and standing in parking spaces to save spots. The outlet was packed. Luckily, we didn't need anything bad enough to stand in the hour long lines.

After about an hour we headed back home. Cars were parked on the sides of the road almost a mile away. One truck we saw was a little too far in the ditch and one of his tires was actually off the ground. (I wished I could have stuck around to see how that turned out.) Neighbor, Kyndra, said she was one of those on the freeway waiting to get to the outlet for over 2 hours...madness!

A quick trip home and back into bed...for two hours. Yep, the kids wanted to go back out and hit the sales. So being the good mom that I am, blurry-eyed I drove them to 5 more stores. We were back home and in bed by 9:30am and slept until 3pm.

But it was all worth it. We saved at least forty bucks! Thanks Michelle! (Live)

Counting My Blessings

Today is Thanksgiving. My gut is stuffed, I've visited with family and friends. I've organized my Black Friday shopping list, and I've watched Christmas Vacation (a family tradition on Thanksgiving night to kick off the Season of Christmas). What better time than now to recall all the many things in my life that I thank God for. Since there are too many to write in one blog post, I will attempt to scratch the surface of all that He has blessed me with.

Above all, I am thankful that God has given me a Savior. I am thankful for His patience and forgiveness and unconditional love. And that He gave me Brian, my husband, who taught me what patience, forgiveness, and unconditional love means.

I'm thankful for...

• My kids and their unconditional love...they teach me how to be a mom everyday



• My parents, for staying married through all the difficulties and challenges in their life


• Brian's mom, Penny, for teaching me to dote on my husband and kids


• Brian's dad, Larry, for teaching me to be encouraging and proud of my kids


• Larry's wife, Carolyn, for teaching my kids (and me) to be excited about and find adventure in everything


• My friends, for their laughter, love, acceptance, advice, shoulders, and so much more


• Leslie, for listening to my parenting advice (solicited or not)


• Michelle, for being a role model and older Christian influence/friend to my daughters


• Laurie, for being the big sister I never had

It seems to go on and on...I'm thankful that...

• I have a church family and a place to worship and learn more about God freely and openly


• My kids, husband, and I will live eternally together in Heaven. whoo hoo!


• My kids love to serve others


• I have a warm bed to sleep in at night and a warm hubby to put my cold feet on


• My daughters can drive themselves (and sometime their brother) to all their extra curricular activities


• I can pray for God's protection around my kids instead of worrying about them when they are driving to all their extra curricular activities

And I'm thankful for the little things too, like...

Good health, clean water, a warm shower, electronics, warm slippers, a cozy fire, coffee, Diet Pepsi, riesling, Italian food (esp pizza), Mexican food, and CHOCOLATE!

And of course, I'm thankful for best friends and Thursday nights.

What are you thankful for? (Love)

Embarrasing My Kids

I had the privilege of hanging out with my teenage daughters, Ashley and Nicole, this weekend at The Revolve Tour - http://revolvetour.com/ (a Christian conference for teen girls). Speakers talked to the girls about topics relative to their lives and bands rocked the house. LOUD NOISES!

My girls were very excited to see Hawk Nelson in concert, along with some other bands. One of those bands was KJ-52 ...Christian rappers! (I'll get to them in a minute.) Of course I had no idea who any of these bands were, except for Hawk Nelson who I've heard only because I'm a good mom and let my kids choose the radio station in the car...oh, and my daughter, Nicole, has a t-shirt that says "Hawk Nelson is my best friend"....which confused me and made me think Hawk was a guy not a band. Evs.

So back to KJ-52, the rappers. I had no idea what any of the words were in any of the songs that they sang. Not that I didn't know the vocab, my ears just could not make out any of the words they were singing. So they taught some rapper moves, which I tried. I was trying to be a "good" mom and pretend that the music wasn't too loud...because if it's too loud, you're too old...so, I'm cool and I learned the moves, all the while they snickered at me. So far they were not too embarrassed. Afterall, we were in a suite at the Rose Garden and there were only three other's there besides us and Michelle (who gave us the tickets..thanks Michelle).

Okay, so the weekend went well. I got to spend time with my girls (and my friend). They got to hear some great advise from the speakers, hear/see some "great" bands, and even get autographs from all four of the guys in Hawk Nelson. (Even though I may have been the oldest one in the room, I too got a photo autographed for my son, Brandon...how cool am I?)

Sunday comes and I'm hanging out with some college students at church (okay, not really hanging out, just standing near them) when I tell them about the cool new moves I learned from KJ-52 (I was name-dropping), and then I demonstrate the moves...and from across the room I feel waves of embarrassment. I look over and sure enough, my daughters are watching me, no, more like glaring at me. They don't think I'm cool. They think I'm old. And I don't really know how to do the moves. And I should never do that again...especially in front of them. And if they could make me disappear, they would. Now, they didn't have to say a word. It was the looks on their faces that revealed their thoughts. I smiled and waved at them, content in the fact that they were sufficiently embarrassed.

Hand Hugs! (Laugh)

Welcome

I've finally started my blog...why not, everyone else is doing it! (Live)