Gettin' our requests on the "big man's" list

We got to go see Santa last night. On John's list...a new bow and arrow (he already has one, but evidently isn't satisfied). For Ashley, a book...she doesn't really care which one. The quotes of the night come from Sara and Nathan. Sara attempted to explain to Santa what an MP3 player is. Nathan had the following conversation:

Santa: What would you like for Christmas?

Nathan: Whatever you bring me

Santa: What if I bring you a rock?

Nathan: That is fine. I like rocks.

Santa: Are you sure?

Nathan: Yes, you can bring me a rock.

Ashley's Christmas wish list

Ashley brought home her Christmas wishes for our family yesterday. And I quote:

I sure hope my family to recieve these gifts for Christmas. I want Sara to get new art books. She could use them. John could use a new friend. I want Nathan to get drums. I want my mom to get a new oven. I want my dad to get a deer.

I must admit I'd love a convection oven. How did she know??

Christmas Bells

So I have a new favorite Christmas carol this year. It started to grow on me last year and this year it is what my kids have heard the most...I heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It was originally a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the American Civil War. The poem speaks of the despair felt within the world at Christmas and then his last line is full of our faith and hope. I've included 3 stanzas of the poem...the first, next to last and last...so you can get the gist of it. I'm sure many of you have heard the song but maybe, like me, never paid much attention to the lyrics:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Christmas Bells
I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Why I've been AWOL

My husband keenly observed the other day that I have been AWOL from my blog. Not sure why exactly. I honestly haven't been that busy. "What?!" I hear voices saying, "Not very busy?! Surely not this time of year!" But that is a true statement. I haven't been baking, caroling, doing Christmas cards, or any of that stuff. I haven't even been partying much...only one. For the first time in several years we didn't even do an open house. It's not that I planned it this way. It just kind of happened. I've been on the couch on and off since Thanksgiving and in some significant pain on and off. Most of that time we self-diagnosed it as a kidney stone. Here recently we've discovered that it is actually a couple of cysts that decided to show up and give me an early Christmas present that will include some surgery. This last week I wasn't even allowed to drive because of the pain medication. Joe got familiar with the carpool to and from school and I ran out of excuses for not doing the laundry. I was going to blog then, but seeing as it was difficult for me to even complete a sentence talking at times, I didn't think it so wise to post something while I was under the influence (so to speak). So this structured, planning person has had to be fairly flexible...including adjusting our travel plans. We'll be home sweet home this Christmas. It hasn't been as much of a bummer as it sounds. We have had some good times:

• Lots of cups of homemade chocolate have gotten made and enjoyed around the dining room table.
• We've read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever together. It is one of my all time favorite Christmas stories. Thanks to Sara's teacher, we got to borrow the movie and watch it tonight.
• John and Ashley had their Christmas program at school this last week. Hopefully pictures will be forthcoming.
• All the kids participated in our church's version of "the Christmas pageant". Nathan managed to stay on stage the entire time, not knock over any microphones or burn the church down with the advent candles, and entertain everyone so I call it a success.
• Our tree is loaded with ornaments and memories of our kids. I am really starting to love our Christmas tree.
• We've watched our share of all the Christmas specials. We've been saving A Charlie Brown Christmas for this weekend.
• I've been so blessed by my "family" here who have come alongside and helped with the kids so much
• And I cannot say enough good things about my husband...working his job and doing mine all at the same time. Not sure how he's kept all the balls in the air the last few weeks. He's doing an AWESOME job though!

So that's what's been going on with the Horn herd. I hope to get some pictures posted soon. Wishing you all a snuggly, snowy weekend before Christmas!

Way to go John!

And he did it all by himself. He was wondering if this warranted a story in the newspaper with his picture. Since, sadly, it doesn't, I did the next best thing by letting you know.

Among the children we currently have three more loose teeth. It could be a costly month!

Traditions

When it comes to Christmas I'm all about traditions. (Sigh, every time I think about that I start singing Fiddler on the Roof). So when I read Jill Savage's blog about blogging about your family traditions as it relates to putting up Christmas decorations, I thought "this should be easy". Then I relived putting them up this year. I thought it would be fun if we always had Chinese food on the day we put the decorations up. Fun, but impractical. We don't really have any good Chinese in town, so scratch that. We had Italian this year...it's red...maybe we'll continue that. We do always rotate who puts the star on the tree, but that also leads to the tradition of a huge "discussion" prior as to who's turn it is to do the task. I usually end up having to pull up pictures from last year to see who did it then. And then there is the tradition of me standing in the middle of the living room stating rather firmly (some would say with a raised voice, but I'm not convinced) that you CAN'T TOUCH ANY OF THE ORNAMENTS UNTIL I HAND THEM TO YOU! YOU MIGHT BREAK SOMETHING! The one tradition that we don't have and I'm rather glad to be done with is the untangling of all the lights and plugging them in and checking them one by one to see which light is out and then plugging them in again and then finally getting to put them on the tree. That doesn't mean that we don't have any related to lights....I changed out 40 bulbs on our tree and am still trying to figure out how to get the lights to hang on the front window. They hung on there last year, but I also remember going through the same dilemma as to how to get them to stay. It seems like I do that every year. Does that make it a tradition? How about the tradition of Joe and I going back to the tree after the kids have gone to bed and rearranging all the decorations? Yes, we definitely have some traditions as it relates to putting our Christmas decorations up. And they definitely aren't the ones I would choose to have, but that is what makes us our own little family. And I think the goal was somehow met this year in the words of Sara at the end of the evening "This is a special night, isn't it Mom?" Some of the best traditions are the ones we don't try to create, but just sort of happen on their own.

Nathan's moves

Nathan got some new costumes for his birthday and decided to try his bumblebee transformer outfit with his new dance moves. Thought you would enjoy... (this is the first video that I've tried on my blog. Hope it works....)

lovin' my boys

Nathan:

So I got to spend my morning with Nathan. It was fairly typical...except I was reminded this morning how much fun that kid is! We got to sing Jingle Bells at the top of our lungs in the Kroger parking lot. He was so excited you couldn't help but join in. I turned on Christmas music at home as I unloaded the car. He said to me..."watch my moves mom". So I turned and looked at "his moves" as he, in his superman outfit, jams out to Ella Fitzgerald. Awesome!

John:

John's been learning about Thanksgiving. I was so impressed yesterday when he told me the right reason that the pilgrims came to America. Today's story was little more entertaining. Evidently, since they didn't have water faucets like we do, the pilgrims went to the river to get water and it was too salty. Sara stepped in and corrected him at this point and said "no, it wasn't too salty. It was full of fish pee." I let John continue. He said that since the water was too salty they didn't have any water at the first Thanksgiving. They just had beer.

103 kids hearing about Jesus!

As most of you know Joe posed a challenge to our kids at AWANA in September. If we hit 100 kids, he would shave off his hair. We started around 60 kids. So last night in our small town we had 103 kids. It has been close to 20 years since we've had 100 kids at our Wednesday night kids' program. You may be having the same thought as some of my kids: "Why did you have to tell them you would shave your hair." (One of them was in tears on the way home because he/she was definitely not a fan!) Because, as we explained to the kids, the cost of losing one's hair is so minimal compared to the cost of someone spending eternity with God. The fruit of the challenge: ...lots (too many to count) of kids who have never been to church before, don't know what a Bible verse is, and haven't heard about Jesus. What makes it worth it all? A little girl in my group last night who's eyes literally popped open and sparkled as she heard me explain John 3:16 to her. And seeing a little kid cry after getting her first Bible. It's definitely worth a little bit different looking husband/daddy. Now to go to the store and invest in some hats....

November update

I didn't realize until the other day how long it had been since I had blogged. Where have the first few weeks of November gone? Only two weeks until Thanksgiving! Yikes! Here are some things I've learned over the past few weeks:

Joe doesn't like blow pops. He prefers tootsie pops. I didn't know this until we started going through the Halloween candy. It has sparked a huge debate that is visited daily. I mean, seriously, what is not to like about the blow pop...bubble gum surrounded by hard candy. (And I wonder why Nathan likes gum so much). Ah well, more for me!

I have come to despise strep throat. Until this year I had never had strep throat in my life. Now I am currently battling my third round of it. It is like my body reached 36 and decided "That's it. We're done. We're not fighting off strep germs anymore." And it isn't like 36 is old. I'm going to hate to see what my body decides not to fight off when I'm 70! Of course I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I have three kids that come home from school carrying their germs and all the other 20 kids in their class germs as well.

Despite the economy, there is a really, really, really hot market in used Little House on the Prairie books. I'm getting a head start on Christmas shopping and thought I would pick up a few deals on eBay. Wowzers, the bidding is not for the faint of heart.

I've been going through Romans and am really enjoying it. God's grace is amazing!

Joe blessed me with a weekend away last week. I got to worship and study my Bible with 8800 women with some insight from Beth Moore. A little taste of heaven...

Bow hunting is hard. I didn't learn this from first hand experience. Joe is trying it for the first time this fall. They make it look so easy on Whitetail Freaks. I guess there's always a muzzle loader and a shotgun that can make it happen next weekend. Ashley's been begging daddy for some more deer steak.