Maybe I never really matured to adulthood

I think I'm still a kid. Here are some recent examples that have rather proven this:

• At the recent Christmas parade I was urging, rather loudly according to my husband, my children to make sure they got the "good candy" ("Mommy, please don't push me...")
• Last night I was petitioning my husband to let my children jump and dive onto my couches in the basement. It is winter, afterall!
• I was up around 4:30am really, really hoping for a snow day. I had the TV on at 5am so I could make sure I could plan out the day with the kids. Much, much to my disappointment, it just rained here so everyone went wherever they were suppose to be. Bummer.... (Sara: "But Mommy I really want to go to school" I guess I should be thankful for that attitude...)
• And, last but definitely not least, I am perhaps the worst person in the world to give a present to before you are ready for me to open it. Yes, I still peek.

Another first for me...

Well, it is time for me to record another first in my life--the first time I have helped lead a children's Christmas program. We had our program tonight and what a wild ride it was to get there! I led the music portions. You have to remember that I am part of a smaller church so we don't have an over abundance of children. So pretty much everyone who is able to do a speaking part has a speaking part. That means if anyone gets sick we also don't really have any back-ups. So the director and I had some stressful moments before the Lord praying for sick kids and then today praying for the weather (church this morning was cancelled due to ice). But everything came through and all the kids did so awesome. I was so proud of them and what a rush it was for me. I think I'll be lucky if I'm asleep before midnight. I would share pictures with you, but since I was up front directing the music and Joe was sitting with Nathan in the back, alas we have no pictures of the kids--except John singing Jingle Bells. BTW, John was Joseph and was soooo adorable. His favorite friend got to be Mary and they really did make a cute couple for four year olds. Anyway, I know it got video taped and others had cameras so I'm hoping in the next few days to have some I can share with you. If not, I'm sure there will always be next year. And now it is time for me to kick back and enjoy my Colts whipping up on Baltimore.

My night on the town

My husband treated me to an early Christmas present last night. He bought us floor tickets to the Jars of Clay/Third Day Christmas tour at the city near us. We got ready to go and tried to be as stylish as we could be. I even chose my healed shoes versus my pratical, very comfortable shoes. We had a new babysitter so we left the house later than anticipated and I underestimated the amount of time that it would take to get there. And so at 7:30, the start time of the concert, we were driving around the arena looking for a parking space. Finally we settled on one outside of a bar (I'll spare you the name of the bar) and started making our way on the snow slick sidewalk to the concert. It was at this moment that I was seriously reconsidering my decision to look stylish--especially considering my bum toe (see my previous post). We were comforting ourselves by trying to convince ourselves that the concert wasn't going to start on time. However, as we entered the area doors, handed the doorman our tickets, and our pants started to vibrate because of the bass music we realized that the concert had indeed begun. So we made our way to our seats; I'm sure we annoyed everyone else in row fourteen as we stumbled over them trying to be graceful as we carried our soft pretzels and drinks. (My husband likes to do it right on a big date :) ) I settled into my seat and was enjoying the opening act--Jars of Clay--who could have headlined a show if they were with any other Christian band besides Third Day. I looked at Joe--his face clearly showed the sacrifice he was making on his wife's behalf. He leaned over and yelled in my ear--"My pants are still vibrating and the lady next to me is filling up half my chair." I am somewhat more of a rocker than my husband. But, even I after about 10 minutes, was feeling rather old. I kept thinking about the fact that the next day I was going to be spending 4 hours with elementary kids practicing a Christmas play and then I was going to have to clean my house for a small group party that we were going to host. On top of all that, I kept sneezing and was become more and more convinced that I was coming down with yet another cold. So, had we really made the best decision? It was seeming anticlimatic. Their final song was somewhat inspiring and I was feeling a little more encouraged--at least my feet had stopped hurting from running all the way from the truck for about 5 blocks. We finished our snack during intermission and then enjoyed sometime chatting. I took an opportunity to look around a little and realized that I wasn't as old as I thought I was--pretty much everyone else in our area of the arena was my age. At least that was encouraging. And then Third Day came out and I have to say--IT WAS SOOOOO WORTH IT!!!!! Even now as I sit here completely sleep deprived (we didn't get home until midnight), with a new cold, a completely dirty house that will be full of guests this evening, and facing 4 hours with singing elementary kids--it was still so worth it. I'm not really sure what my favorite part was--the highlights were Born in Bethlehem (Joe's favorite), Show me Your Glory (my favorite), the fact that they mixed in their classic worship songs in with their Christmas music, they had all the words projected on the screen so everyone could sing along, and all of this done by the very, very talented Mac Powell and his band. It was by far the best concert either Joe or I had been too. And, even Joe who remember is not really my rocker husband, wants to sign up for their fan club just so he can relive the concert. (You can watch it online if you join.) He even gave me permission to buy whatever tickets I wanted to get the next time they come into town. And so, thank you, my dear husband for giving me a very, very good Christmas present.

My injured toe

I whacked my toe on Wednesday. I was cleaning and accidently kicked the chair as I was passing through the living room--obviously I was walking too fast. So I hit my toe, said ouch and went about my business. Then about 5 minutes later I realized that my toe still hurt--really, really hurt. So I sat down, took my sock off, and examined my hurting toe. It looked very normal, so I put my sock back on and continued picking up the boys' rooms. Finally, around lunchtime, I was convinced that I had seriously hurt my toe. I couldn't really walk on it. So I looked at it again hoping for some swelling or blackness. You see, I figure if I injure myself, it might as well look really, really bad so that I have something to show for it. Now it is two days later and still no really black or gross looking toe. Joe & I determined that I jammed it. It did turn quite purple at the base of it, but not cool enough for a picture. Aren't you thankful?

They're baaaack.....

I had a child shooting my Christmas tree this morning. I stepped on 4 cars on our living room carpet last night. We had to read a dinosaur book 4 times last night. My deal of a train is no longer underneath the Christmas tree and my vacuum cleaner is out of its hiding place wandering around the house somewhere. Yep, my boys are back home from their vacation at Grandpa & Grandma Horns. And it is great!

My Christmas movie list

There is an ice storm outside, a fire in the fireplace and an awesome movie in the DVD player--White Christmas. (We only briefly lost power this afternoon--kind of a bummer. I was prepared for it to be out all evening. I was looking forward to the adventure. I wonder if I really could have made chicken noodle soup in the dark? I guess now we'll never know.) Anyway, it made me think of what great Christmas movies there are. So here are a few of my favorites (in no particular order--not sure I could put them in an order...):

• White Christmas (of course! maybe someday I'll convice my sister to sing the sister song with me)
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Lost in Paradise (love this one!)
• The Christmas Story (and no, it does not involve a nativity scene--only a really ugly leg lamp)
• The Santa Clause
• Home Alone (we watched this one this afternoon before we lost power)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original--not Jim Carrey's version)

Well, I'm sure I've missed some good ones, but we are almost to the scene where they sing the sister song and I don't want to miss it. So, if you want to add anything, feel free in the comments.

My Christmas train

For the last several years I have wanted a train to run under my Christmas tree. Have you ever priced the trains that run underneath the Christmas trees? That has pretty much put the big NO to me wanting a train. That and the fact that I have 2 boys ages almost 4 & 2--seriously can I really expect them not to play with a $100 train? So anyway I was at a store (let's just say the store had the word "Dollar" in it) a couple of weeks ago and came across my dream train. Okay, it wasn't my dream train, but it was at my dream price. And who cares if when you turn it on it sounds like an actual freight train is in my house--it looks great and if the boys mess with it I'm only out about $5. Yeah me!

Nathan's lounge chair

The bathtub has become my son's new lounge chair. At the risk of being, ahem, too revealing, I only included a headshot. You can imagine that his feet are crossed, because they are. And when I came in his hands were behind his neck. This has become his traditional bathroom pose. Getting him out is no picnic either--of course, I wouldn't want to be pulled from my warm lounge chair either.

My planned spontaneous fun

I had a friend comment to me yesterday that she really appreciated how fun loving I was. I left lunch feeling a little perplexed because I certainly wouldn't describe myself like that. Then I got to thinking about it--I am fun loving at heart. In fact, before I had children, I was extremely spontaneous and fun loving. One weekend when we lived in Dallas we drove 5 hours to San Antonio to spend only about 4 hours there on Saturday morning before we had to drive back. We decided to go about 3pm on Friday afternoon. It was a blast! We did that kind of stuff all the time. So I decided yesterday evening that I was going to be more intentional about having some fun. Well, this morning while we were eating breakfast out, we were discussing what we were going to do if we lost power today. (We are in the middle of an ice storm again (we had one of these in March too). What are the odds of that? Joe said do you live in the Midwest? Well, I guess that answered my question to what the odds of that are) Anyway, we decided we were going to play UNO by candlelight if we lose power. Then I came up with the great idea that we could play UNO by candlelight even if we didn't lose power. It was at this point that I said to Joe, very proud of myself, that see I can be spontaneous and fun. Joe's response "Yeah, if you have plenty of time to plan for it." Ahh, once again he speaks the truth.

The fairytale wedding

We've been discussing next summer's family vacation and one of the options was Tennessee. This also happens to be where Joe & I went on our honeymoon. Yesterday I mentioned this to my girls. Then I asked them--do you know what a honeymoon is? Ashley immediately pipes up: "Yep, that is where the married people are going in their carriage." Ahh, the fairytales--I'm just glad that we have managed to live happily ever after.