More pics in 2006!

Yay! I figured out how to post pictures to my blog! It's really not that hard...I think my big problem was that my camera was not transferring pictures to the computer as easily as it used to and I wasn't sure what was wrong. Our friend, Jon, is here and he used our digital camera alot in Germany so I enlisted his help in figuring out my software problem and he sat down to work on it and of course, it made a liar out of me! It worked just like it used to before it started giving me trouble, kind of like a car when you take it to the shop. It never makes "the noise" for the mechanic! But either way, I think my camera is now functioning properly again so you should see more pics on this blog in 2006!

This picture was taken yesterday morning, December 30.

Christmas

Yesterday was Christmas and that makes today my Grandpa Burton's birthday. He is 82 years young...Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

When my sisters and I were little, my mom would sometimes say, after we had opened an especially nice gift or enjoyed some holiday time with friends or family, "We could stop right here and say we had a good Christmas." She said this exact sentence every year at least once and it became a family joke of sorts, to the point that even now, my brother-in-law keeps a running count of how many times it is said during our family Christmas celebration each year. (Was it 11 or 12 this year, Jeph?) She is not the only one who says it now and even though it is partly said in fun, it helps us all remember the real reason we are together and what we are celebrating. This year, I think we all felt the truth of that simple statement on a new level. We had three little family members celebrating their first Christmas this year and Michael was not in Iraq, like last year, but here with us. These are just two things that come to mind but the best part of Christmas truly is just being together and enjoying each other as we remember the wondrous gift that God gave us in Christ. Without Him, we would have nothing, much less anything worth celebrating. We really could stop right there and say we had a good Christmas!

And now for a humorous story...my grandmother sent an interactive nativity for the kids this year. The point of it was to remind the kids that what God wants for Christmas is US. There are seven small boxes to open. The first 6 boxes each contain one nativity figurine and the last box has a mirror. We did this all together on Christmas Eve with the adults taking turns reading the poems from the book to go with each box. The suspense was building as Alley and Liam anxiously waited to see what it was that God wanted for Christmas. They opened the last box and Mom said, "What does God want for Christmas?" and Liam looked in the box and said, " A mirror?" He was quite surprised at God's Christmas wishlist! We had to explain that it was actually him (and all of us) that He wants.

Even though I could have stopped right there and had a good Christmas post, no Christmas post would be complete without mentioning some of the gifts we received. :) I got the FlyLady feather duster set and a Southern Living cookbook I had been wanting for a long time and a much needed gift card to IKEA!!!!! Alley got a Cabbage Patch doll and a few things to assist her in her pursuit of theater, Liam got assorted Star Wars and Spiderman toys, and Dresden got blocks, balls, and stuffed animals. Michael got a personalized book stamp for his growing library and some cool T-shirts and cds. These are just a few of many. It really was a good Christmas!

God's Gracious Gift

I have been sorting through ALOT of papers in my office room lately. Most of them have something to do with the four and a half years we spent in the Army. As I look at the enormous stack of paper and manila file folders, I have to agree with Michael, the Army does kill ALOT of trees!

At times I am tempted to throw all the papers in a box and forget about them for a very long time but instead, I was plodding through a rather thick pile the other night and came across a single sheet of paper that reminded me of a very special gift that God gave us two years ago.

On November 15, 2003, Michael was notified of the Stop Loss put on his Unit which would require him to be deployed to Iraq for a year and then spend several more "recovery" weeks in the Army before he would be allowed to get out. This was going to add an unexpected year onto our time in the service. Upon hearing the news, Michael said that if it was at all possible, he wanted to go home to Bristol for Christmas before heading off to the desert. I really did not think it was going to be possible with international plane tickets costing so much, especially on fairly short notice and during the Christmas season. I did my best to find the cheapest flights I could and they were still about $2800 for all four of us and going up by the minute. That was about $2800 more than we had but I didn't let that stop me, at least at first. I looked into every possible option to try to make it happen for Michael.

Finally, we realized that it was not going to happen. Every door we had tried to open was promptly shut. So, we were trying to trust God even though we couldn't see why He was doing what He was doing. One evening during this time, Michael called to tell his guardian parents in Bristol that he was going to be deployed. When he called, they told him that Bob, his dad, was going to be having serious surgery on his neck on December 23. This just made it that much harder for Michael to be so far away, without a chance to go home.

We were trying to make the most of another Christmas in Germany and so we walked the three blocks from our apartment building to the little German grocery store and picked out our tree. We took it home, set it up, and began untangling and stringing lights. In the middle of this, our phone rang. It was Michael's 1st Sgt telling us that a Red Cross message had just come in, requesting Michael's presence during the surgery since it was a critical and possibly life threatening procedure. It took a couple days for all the details to be worked out but on Tuesday, December 16, Michael came home from work with 4 plane tickets from Frankfurt, Germany to Knoxville, TN--completely paid for by the Army Emergency Fund. We could hardly believe it. It was one of those situations that seemed totally hopeless but then God provided in an amazing way at the last minute.

Michael had almost 3 weeks of leave and then he was going to return to Germany to prepare for the deployment. We knew those days would be very hectic with him hardly at home so we made the decision that the kids and I would not return with him at the end of his leave but stay in Bristol. So, I had two days to prepare to be gone for an unknown length of time. On Thursday night, December 18, we went to the Battery Christmas party and then came home and tried to sleep. At 2 am on Friday, December 19, our good friend Jon came to our apartment in an Army vehicle to drive us to the airport. (When you travel due to a Red Cross message, the Army even provides your transportation to the airport. Jon was an approved driver and he got permission to take us.) We left our apartment around 3 am and drove the two hours to Frankfurt. Needless to say it was a long and tiring day with two layovers and three flights. We finally arrived in Knoxville where my family came to pick us up. The weather was bad and it took us a long time to get back to Bristol but we were so glad to be home!

We went to the Branson family Christmas on December 22 and then Bob Branson had surgery the following morning. He made it through okay and was released on Christmas Day, I think. A night or two later, he aspirated in his sleep and had to be rushed back to the hospital. He was in the hospital for several days, hooked up to machines and the entire family was in the waiting room for hours at a time, waiting for a word of improvement. Emotions were high and differing opinions were abundant but finally on January 1, 2004, Bob Branson passed away, shortly before his wife had to make the difficult decision to turn off the machines. We spent the next few days in the activites that accompany the death of a family member, thanking God again for his gracious gift of bringing us home. Another reminder that God does "accomplish what concerns us" Psalm 138:8, and He does it so much better than we can!

The paper I found the other night was a copy of the Red Cross message that was sent by Bob and Connie Branson. It reminded me once again of the gracious gift that God gave to all of us, but especially to Michael, in making a way for us to be home not only for Christmas that year but also to be there for his family in their time of sorrow before facing the hard days that were ahead in Iraq. God is good.

Handwriting and a Super Hero

Today marked a "first" in my life as a homeschooling mother. Alley wrote me a note all on her own! She has been writing for awhile but nothing all on her own. She usually copies from a piece of paper, from the chalkboard, or asks me to tell her how to spell things a few letters at a time as she writes a letter or card to a friend or family member. But today, I gave her a Scripture verse to copy and she went to her room to sit at her little table, which she has lately been referring to as her "office". A little later she came out and handed me the paper. I looked over it and when I turned it over, I saw that at the bottom she had written,

"Momy, I hop uow leac my prnt. Love, Alley"

Then, you might have imagined, the first thing she said was, " Did I spell everything right?" I smiled at her and said, "No, but that's not the important thing right now. The important thing right now is that you did it all on your own and you sounded it out in your head and wrote down what you thought and I am VERY, VERY proud of you."

I went to the chalkboard then and showed her each word with the correct spelling and explained why it was spelled that way but also told her that she did well at guessing. (I'm not sure how she got "leac" for "like", though.) Later, she brought me the paper with another line on it, the same note spelled right. It was very sweet.

Also, Dresden got a visit from Batman today. She was laying on the floor and I was changing her diaper and Liam, disguised as Batman, leaned over her face and looked at her. She looked up and I thought she might cry but she was very brave. She closed her eyes for a brief second and lifted her shoulders up as though preparing for something unexpected. ( I guess she will need her big brother to teach her that Batman is a good guy! ) Liam leaned down and kissed her and then he said to me, " It's a good thing Batman has a place to kiss even when he is wearing his mask." I agreed with him, it is a very good thing and a benefit that Bruce Wayne himself might not have even thought of yet!

Lunchtime Laughter

A few days ago, I was reading a book outloud to Alley and a character in the story was described as having red eyes and slurred speech. Alley wasn't sure what that meant so I explained to her that sometimes when people have had too much alcohol to drink, their eyes are red. Today at lunch, Alley noticed that one of Liam's eyes was slightly bloodshot. She said, "Mommy, Liam's eye looks red...I wonder if he's drunk." The look on poor Liam's face told me I had to assure him he wasn't before I explained to them both that a slightly red eye once in awhile was a completely normal occurence and not necessarily a sign of drunkenness, at least not in a four year old!

Yummy Advent

This year we are not having a Christmas tree. The reason is simple...not enough room! We feel bad about this since our kids love decorating a tree but thankfully, Mimi and Grandpa are all too happy to have help with theirs and they are close enough that we will enjoy theirs almost daily, when we go by for Alley to practice the piano as well as other visits.

Since we are not having a tree at home, we are trying to do some other fun things to make the holiday season special. One of those is making a gingerbread house. We are doing that tonight as well as making gingerbread boys that we can actually eat! We are also putting up our advent tree that Mimi made for us about five years ago. It is a felt tree about 3 feet tall and you put it on the wall and then each day you read a Scripture passage pointing to the birth of Jesus and then you place the felt ornament for that day on the tree. The ornaments are symbols from each Scripture passage (an ark, a burning bush, Joseph's coat of many colors, etc). If I was a bit more savvy with posting pictures on my blog, I would post a pic here. :)

About now you are probably wondering what the gingerbread has to do with advent or what the tree has to do with food, and the answer is....nothing! Our "yummy" advent is actually another project that we did last night. I got the idea from a book and I was hoping it would be a success. You roll out about 3 feet of plastic wrap and then you give each child 25 Hershey kisses. You lay the Hershey kisses down the middle of the plastic wrap about one inch apart. Then you carefully lay each side of the plastic wrap over the kisses. Then you cut 25 little pieces of ribbon about 6 inches long and then you tie one between each kiss. You can curl the ends of the ribbon so it doesn't look so much like a centipede! Then you attach another piece of ribbon for a loop to hang somewhere. You let your child eat one kiss each day until Christmas, if they give you a kiss first, of course! We made one for Alley and one for Liam but next year I might try to get away with putting 3 kisses in each section to avoid cutting, tying and curling so much ribbon! I wish you could see how cute and festive they look...maybe my New Year's resolution should be to learn to post pics on my blog!

Merry Christmas!

A Few Funny Stories

Kids say the cutest things! I do realize that stories about the things other people's kids say or do may not be high on the reading list of some people but since part of the purpose of this blog is to serve as a "baby book" for my kids and since I assume that most of the people who care enough to read this blog know us fairly well, here goes!

Liam, age 4, is becoming very interested in computer games. He has a few that he is pretty good at and a few that he plays with Daddy. They have one that is about the Civil War. At some points during the game, you can hear "Stonewall Jackson" say, "D_mn the Yanks!" Liam does not know that word and so he doesn't hear that word. Every time he hears the computerized version of Jackson yell out, he laughs and says, with his arm held high in the air, "Down the Yanks!" We just smile and say it too.

The other day we were driving and I heard Liam saying something quietly to himself. As I listened closer I could tell he was trying to figure out the correct way to say a word. He was saying, " Franch, French, Frunch..." Then he finally said, "Mom, how do you speak Franch?"

Last night Alley and I were talking about a situation where someone did something unexpected for another person. Alley said, " Did he do it surprisily?" Who knows, maybe that will be in the next edition of Webster's Dictionary!

Yesterday when the kids and I were doing our Bible lesson, we were discussing 1 Corinthians 10:31 "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." Alley asked how we can glorify God when we eat. That led to a discussion about gluttony and trying to eat healthy to take good care of our bodies, as well as manners. Liam pipes up and says, " I LOVE chicken nuggets, they are so CHICKENY!" I guess that's as good a word as any!

Dresden will be 7 months old tomorrow and it seems like just last week she was as tiny (well, not quite as tiny) as my new niece Mara Kate. But even though she is unable to entertain us with witty words, she is doing other things, like attempting to play "pattycake" and crawling on her belly all over the place! She is sitting up very well now and can easily get to her belly from a sitting position and she can also turn herself around in circles. She is proving to be a very determined little girl...when she sees something she wants, she goes after it! I think we can safely say that her adventures will be the subject of many future posts!