Counting more gifts:
7. Delicious, hot beef stew.
8. Seeing Tyler win and be rewarded for his talent.
9. A broken camera suddenly working again.
10. Kids liked the tuna once they tried it.
11. Tucker while I rock him. “Song, mommy. Please mommy.”
12. Remembering that all things are more delicious when you’ve been deprived of them. Deprivation is the secret to freshened appreciation.
13. Learning how to disagree with love.
14. Parmesean rolls rising on the counter.
15. Clean white tile floors (a blessing only once clean!!!)
16. Playing “Angels we have heard on high” on the piano while children stand on couches, with arms outstretched, pretending to be angels and sing “Gloria!” to the top of their lungs.
17. Lubs and kisses from Tuck. Requests for me to kiss his fire truck, its wheels, its windows, and his stuffed buffalo.
18. Kids begging me at night to read just one more page of “Farmer Boy” , Laura Ingalls Wilder.
19. Turning over the question of how to point out disrespect without losing connection.
20. Happy Tucker for four hours of shopping. Yes four.
21. Using leftover butternut squash soup to make curry sauce. It worked. Don’t tell Freeman.
22. Volunteering at Ty’s school and feeling like a real Mom.
Blink and December is half over.
Journey to Bethlehem will be a new tradition for us. A Methodist church in the area puts on a nativity, but to such a scale! There are dozens of costumed participants, and you are invited to travel with a Jewish family from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. We encountered thieves in the forest and wise men. Bethlehem was an actual city with a wall! We wandered through the city inside with period merchants, children, soldiers…it was amazing. We found a young couple in a stable behind the city with a baby. It was an awesome visual for the kids. Fun to go with a new friend, an amazing Christian woman in my neighborhood.
Last week was, well, bursting with children. On Friday night we hosted a cousin Polar Express Party with 10 kids. We decorated cookies, read the book, watched the movie, and enjoyed general mayhem. The next weekend we enjoyed having cousins Ava and Dovie stay. We went to the Flower Mound Christmas parade (in Texas you can do such things in December). We brought home ridiculous amounts of candy and the kids were in heaven.
The temperatures have been in the mid 70s for the last couple weeks. Crazy. Its nice. Maybe if I keep telling myself that, I will stop pining to wear sweaters?
Tucker is killing me these days. Goodness babies are cute and fun. The other two kids donned aprons and were painting this afternoon. Tucker marched over to the apron hook and insisted until I put one on him. Then he looked me in the eye, pointed to the paint project and said, “Make! Make!” Tyler was sweet to let him sit on his lap and guide his hand with a painbrush in it. It is such a thrill to see a little person progress.
Aren't they wonderful?
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