Christmas Joy

Joy to the World, the Lord has come!

I love this song. It is a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas. The gift of the saviour's birth. But there is something else about this song that I love. Joy! Happiness is something the world strives for all the time. Fullfillment, satisfication, contentment.

Especially at Christmas, so many of us try to give our kids every thing their heart desires. We buy them stuff, or give them experiences or trips in the hopes of making them happy. Sometimes we give Santa the credit and sometimes we keep the credit for ourselves.

And maybe all the stuff or experiences makes us feel happy or fullfilled or content. At least for a while.

But the only way we can experience true Joy is through God's gift to us. We can get a taste of Joy by sharing the gift with others.

Our church gave us an opportunity to taste the Joy on Christmas eve. We ordered a pizza and before the delivery man arrived we took up a collection for the tip. The amounts we gave at each service were signficant and the pizza guys were surprised and a little stunned to receive such a large gift.

We also offered the pizza guy another give. John 3:16. We hope that they take that gift. Our tip can help them out. It can give them some happiness for a season. But true Joy only comes from God.

Sneak Peek of Christmas Cards

Here is another option for our Christmas Cards... Which one will you get? You'll have to wait and see!

Good Blessings Religious Christmas 5x7 folded card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas Cards

I love getting Christmas Cards in the mail! We got our first card the Saturday after Thanksgiving. (Kudos to the Kalakie's for getting them done so quickly.) I also like sending cards but sometimes its hard to find just the right card and just the right picture. On Sunday afternoon, we headed over to Partridge Creek Mall to try to capture the perfect Christmas Card picture. We did get a couple of nice pictures and of course a lot of goofy ones! You'll have to wait until you get our card in the mail to find out whether I chose one that was:



But if you haven't done your Christmas Cards yet, you should head over to Shutterfly.com.

They have lots of cards (including the one above) and they have some great sales going on. If you have a blog you can click this link to learn how to get 50 Free Photo Cards.


They also have some great Christmas gifts including Wall Calendars. I'm planning to order something for my parents. I'd better get on it! Tomorrow is December!!

Our little Turkey

Nine years ago, I missed out on two of my favorite things, a big turkey dinner and Black Friday shopping. Derek missed out on running the Turkey Trot that year. But the nurses at the hospital were excited to have a baby to deliver on Thanksgiving day. Sometimes he's been a little turkey but we are very thankful for him. Happy Birthday Nate! We love you!!

YPAC Dual Meet 2010

On Saturday, Nate had a dual meet.

His first event was the Medley Relay. He swam a really good 50 Fly. (It was his first time swimming a 50 Fly so it was a personal best) They placed 4th.

His next event was the 50 Free. He swam a personal best 50 Free and placed 3rd.

In the 100 Free, he swam a personal best with a really strong last 10 yards. Here is a video of the 100Free.


It looked like he won the race to the wall, but he must have just got out touched. (2nd place time was 1:42.66, Nate's time was 1:42.71.)

In his last event, he anchored the 200 Free Relay "B." Even though he didn't even get to start his leg of the relay until the other 2 teams had already finished, he swam a personal best split by several seconds. We are hoping he gets moved up to the "A" relay next time.

Final Score:
Macomb Y Marlins 860
South Oakland YMCA 561

Hey, has anyone seen my baby?

He was here just a minute ago. My youngest, my last. The little one. The baby who cried wolf, with several false alarms and trips to the hospital before he finally arrived on November 13, 2006. He looks like this:



Have you seen him?


He's a little cutie. A bit of a copycat of his older brother, but with an independent streak. He loves dogs and cars and bikes. He looks like this:



Have you seen him?

He doesn't mind getting dirty. It's all or nothing in his world. He looks like this:

Have you seen him?

He's earned the nickname "Danger Boy Junior". But he keeps smiling through all the bumps and bruises. He looks like this:

Have you seen him?


Oh, I found him out in the backyard, hanging around.


How'd he get so big? He looks like this:


HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY MAX!! You'll always be my baby.

M-O-M spells

Max is playing with his wooden letters and just put

M O M

on the table. I said: "what does that spell?"

He said:

"M"
"O"
"M"
"says Awesome!"

Then he smiled spelled it again and said "Mom"!

All Hallow's Eve

Halloween is a tricky holiday for Christians. We don't want to embrace and celebrate evil, but we also don't want to seem judgmental and holier-than-thou. Our goal: to be in the world but not of it.

So at our house we take a moderate approach: We dress up and trick-or treat. We enjoy the tamer side of Halloween, avoiding haunted houses and evil costumes. Much to our chagrin, Halloween is Nate's favorite day of the year. Better than his birthday, better than Christmas. Two hours of running from house to house for FREE CANDY!! What could be better than that?

Well he may not fully realize it yet... but yesterday he did do something better than even free candy.

He's been talking about Baptism for a while. He asked Jesus into his heart when he was around 6, and he understands that Baptism is the next step. But he's a typical almost 9 year old boy. So it's hard for us as Mom & Dad to know exactly when the right moment is, when he's mature enough to take it as a serious life commitment. Karen, the children's ministry director at our church, gave Nate a really nice workbook and he finished it up this week. So on Friday I said to Nate, you can be baptized whenever you are ready. He said "o.k. how about Sunday?"

At first it seemed a little strange to choose Halloween, but as I thought about it for a moment, I realized that God's timing is perfect. Halloween was the perfect day for Nate to be baptized. October 31st will always be a day that holds pure joy for Nate, even after he outgrows trick-or-treating. Someday He'll look back and realize that there is something even better than free candy.

The Best Mummy

About 2 weeks ago Nate announced that he wanted to be a Mummy for Halloween. I'm not very domestic but I figure I should probably make each kid at least one costume once in their life and a Mummy seems pretty easy to make, right? Just wrap the kid in toilet paper?

Well, since it needed to last for a couple events, I decided to sew strips of gauze to a shirt & pants. I figured a couple of stitches per strip of gauze, shouldn't be too hard, right? Yeah, well, it was a lot more work than I expected. It took me about 6 hours (a couple hours each over the course of 3 nights). Good thing the strips don't have to be even, or really stay in place too long.

In the end I was pretty happy with the finished product. So as I was wrapping it up I said to Nate, "Just promise me that someday when you are old and have kids of your own you'll say "I remember when I was almost 9 and my Mom made me this awesome Mummy costume." His response was "Well, if I even remember about it."



Oh well, even if we aren't appreciated, I guess that's what Mummies are for.

Harvest Party 2010

We always enjoy the church harvest party. Its one of my favorite fall events, but this year I was bit insane during the party. Normally we attend the whole day, usually Derek, Kaylee & I each take a shift as a helper and we alternate who takes the boys on the activities. This year Kaylee was at dance during the morning shift. Derek was setting up for the swim meet. So it was just me & the boys. I planned to meet our friends, the Whitlocks there at 10am, enjoy the party for about 2 hours, then take Nate to the Marlin Meet at noon. Max was going home with Jordan for a sleep-over and he was thrilled about that. Well you know what they say about the best laid plans.



We arrived pretty close to 10am, but our friends were running late. I also found out that Max & Jordan needed to leave by 11:30. So I decided I'd better get them started on the activities. I took several pictures of them at the first activity. Then my camera battery died. Not worried, I pulled out the back-up and took a a couple more pictures. Then the back-up battery died. We continued on through several more activities, then my friends arrived.



After that its all a blur. Between trying to visit with friends and keep track of two little boys, I felt like I wasn't giving anyone enough attention. (I did however, remember I had my new little flip video recorder and got some cute footage of the no-hand donut thingy.)



Thank goodness for understanding friends. The Rumbucs took Max for his sleep-over. Lezlie helped me track down Nate. (Yeah, remember him, I hadn't seen him since we arrived at the party- thus no pictures of him even if the batteries hadn't died!) The Whitlocks assured us they'd have a great time even though we had to go. Then Nate and I took off for the Swim Meet. I didn't get to see any of the Harvest of Talents stuff. Rumor has it that Grandpa & Grandma dropped Kaylee off at the party for the 2nd shift, but our paths never overlapped. Oh well, part of our crazy whirlwind life.

Marlin Meet 2010

The Marlin Meet is the first meet of the swim season. This is Nate's 3rd year on the Marlins. He always enjoys this meet because its an intersquad practice meet so its much more relaxed but they still give ribbons.

In the Marlin Meet Nate swam 4 events:



100 IM (one length of each of the 4 strokes). He finished 2nd with a Personal Best time of 1:58.23



50 Free He finished 3rd in a time of 48.22




50 Back He finished 3rd with a Personal Best time of 55.24.




100 Free He finished 3rd with a Personal Best time of 1:50.59

Nate's is swimming in the 9-10 year old age group this year, they base it on your age as of Dec. 1. On Dec. 1 Nate will have been 9 for 1 week. So Nate is in for some tough competition this year. (He could end up swimming against boys that turn 11 on Dec. 2).

The great thing about swimming is that even when the competition is tough you can always strive to get your personal best times. Nate got PRs in 3 out of 4 events and we consider that a good meet!

The Whirlwind Weekend

This weekend was a Whirlwind. I need to gather my thoughts. But look for posts coming soon about:

* Fall Harvest Party at Macomb Christian Church

* Nate's first Swim Meet of the Season

* Derek's awesome time at the GR Marathon

All that happened this weekend. It was a blast but left me so exhausted I went to bed before 10pm last night which hasn't happened in a very long time!

Parable of the Sower

Today's reading for the 100 Day Challenge includes the Parable of the Sower. This is one of my favorite parables. Maybe it comes from singing "Lord of the Harvest" so much on choir tour in the mid-80's. (If you are younger than 35 you can click the link and have a good laugh, but hey it was a good song back then!)

The main thing I get from the parable is that we don't necessarily know where the seed is falling. It reminds me that I need to live a daily life that plants seeds of faith in others and I also need to be reminded to look for the harvest.

*

So how's your 100 Day Challenge going? Any thoughts to share?

Homecoming 2010

I'm not really sure what to say. How does it feel to watch your children grow up? A few parts excitement. Some pride. Some Dread. Some Fear. A whole lot of prayer.

We are charting new territory. (Well new to us at least) Sometime when we weren't looking our little girl became a beautiful young lady.



And she met a very nice boy.


We allowed them to go on their first official date this weekend. They have liked each other for almost a year, but have honored our wishes for this dating thing to move slowly. Very slowly. For the first 6 months, we didn't let them say they were dating. Then we let them have parent supervised dates at one of our houses for 5 months. Then he asked if she could go to the homecoming dance. We had mixed feelings. Excitement, Fear, Dread, Pride. And after some prayer we decided to let her go.



Ian is a man after God's own heart. He wants to be a minister someday. He's currently mentoring with the Senior pastor. He's the kind of boy you want your daughter to date. But still that only makes it a little easier.

So we took a deep breath. Said some more prayers, and let her go off on her first double date.


They had a wonderful time.

Ah, October

October... Let me count the ways that I love you.

Fresh Air. Jeans & a hoodie. Not too hot, Not too cold. I can breathe.

Beautiful Trees, turning gold, red, orange. Reminding me of our creators' unrivaled artistry. Crunchy leaves covering my lawn, beckoning my children to play.

Orchards filled with God's bounty. Apples, pumpkins. Warm Doughnuts, hot cider. Children climbing on hay bales. Good friends.

Football games. Homecoming. Parades. School Spirit. Dances. Dressing up. Growing up.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

Halloween. Children deciding what to be, changing their minds. So many choices. Dressing up, trick or treating. Free candy. Pure Joy.

Ah, October. You arrived just time.

Baseline

For my kids, and my husband, and in honor of my Aunt Joyce who is currently fighting her second battle, today at 11:30 I'm getting my baseline mammogram.

Are you due? Don't put it off.

100 Day Challenge

Today starts the 100 Day Challenge at Macomb Christian Church. I encourage you to join us as we read through the New Testament during the last 100 days of 2010. You can find the complete plan here:

http://www.macombcc.org/100daychallenge

This morning I got up, threw on my Gym clothes and drove to work with the radio off. Once I got to work, I read Matthew 1 & 2, then went to the Gym for my 30 minutes of exercise.

My goal for the next 100 days is to Put First Things First. Reading the bible, strengthening the body God has given me, and spending more time with my kids.

Why wait until New Year's Day to make some changes? Why not start now? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are going to do the last 100 days of 2010!

Mommy & Max time

Max & I had a little time to ourselves tonight after we dropped Kaylee off at dance. I gave Max a choice of what he wanted to do and he chose Sonic. I asked him what he wanted and this was the conversation.

Me: "Max what do you want from Sonic?"

Max: "You know that thing that Nate got the last time, after swimming, when he came home and said "ha,ha, look what I have?"

Me: "yeah...."

Max: "well that's what I want. But I'm not going to say 'ha, ha' because that's naughty. Can you tell Nate that's naughty? And that you'll spank his butt if he does it again? But I won't do it, if you get me one."

Me: "so you want a Butterfinger Sonic Blast?"

Max: "I guess if that's what its called."



Derek wants me to update this post to note that while he didn't say "ha, ha, look what I have", Max did say "I got a sonic blast! I got a sonic blast!" The minute that Derek & Nate got home from swim practice.

St. Germaine Festival

Today Kaylee danced at St. Germaine Festival. It was a much smaller group of dancers than in years past, but they put a lot of heart into the show and it was very entertaining.

I took video with my new flip recorder, but the lighting was wrong so they didn't turn out well at all. I do want to share one picture though.



Look at those legs! Kaylee's leaps are getting to be quite amazing! She also did 7 fouettes in a row. As always it was a great start to another season of dance!

Goodbye Summer 2010

Goodbye Summer 2010. You were a hot one. Fall is my favorite time of year and I'm ready for it. So Goodbye Summer. Here is a parting look at all the fun we had.


Seeing the Long Awaited Toy Story 3. I'm not ashamed to say I cried!


Dance, of course.



Hanging out with Friends




LOTS of Swimming with GREAT FRIENDS.


Good Times with Cousins. Even though Mom makes us posed for a picture everytime!


Camping. In. A. Tent.


Going to a Tigers Game.

Hosanna

I'm not a super-emotional person so when I get choked up during church I know its God touching my heart. Yesterday morning, I could barely sing the second verse of "Hosanna" by Hillsong.

I see a generation
Rising up to take its place
with selfless faith, with selfless faith

Because from where I sit in the auditorim, I can see that generation in the first three rows, singing their hearts out, with their hands raised to their King. God has put us in this amazing group of believers and surrounded our children with peers that love and serve him. It chokes me up, just thinking about what this generation is going to do for him. And I feel so very blessed to be able to watch and serve along side of them.

Bargains!

I'm on a Bargain Hunting High! I just bought 20 items for $9.12! So each item cost about 45 cents. Most of the items were part of Meijer's 10 for 10 (Get the 11th Free) Promo. Plus I used coupons that I printed off the internet.

Here's what I got:

10 boxes of Ronzoni pasta (Smart Taste, Heathy Harvest & Garden Delight)
2 boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal,
2 Betty Crocker Warm Delights (They were $1 and Meijer doubled my 50 cent coupon),
2 Chex Snack Mix, (They were $1 and Meijer doubled my 50 cent coupon),
1 box instant oatmeal,
1 box snack crackers,
2 Bottles of Pepsi Max ($1.00 each and used BOGO coupon)

Plus the register spit out a coupon for $4 off my next $75 order. I'll use that when I'm really stocking up.

The Gift of Prophesy

In the car today Max announced to Nate:

"Nate when I was the same age as you I ate a hot dog from there (pointing to a local restaurant) and puked!"

Nate tried to explain to Max that:

A. Max is younger than him;

B. The Story that Max was telling did actually happen to Nate a few months ago.

But Max was insistent that when he was the same age as Nate he ate a hot dog and threw up. I guess the only explanation is that Max has the gift of prophsey.

You can go back home

We spend Friday & Saturday in Derek's hometown. His Mom's side of the family held a family reunion on Saturday afternoon. This reunion was somewhat bittersweet since it was the first one since his Mom passed away. In fact, the last family reunion 3 years ago was the last time we saw her. I knew this reunion was important to Derek when he passed up a triathlon to attend. Of course with Derek that doesn't mean he couldn't race!



On Saturday morning, Crystal, MI held its annual Run The Lake 5 mile race followed by a 3 mile race. Derek decided to do both! He came in 2nd in the 5 mile (1st in his age group) and he came in first in the 3 mile! Max and I arrived just in time to see him win the 3 mile race.




(for anyone who wonders where Crystal, MI is its the star on the MI hand)

In the afternoon, we joined the family out at the pond on the Taylor family farm. Derek spent some time catching up with his brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins. While I kept an eye on the kids out in the pond.




It was a good day. We don't always do a very good job keeping up with family. But no matter how long its been, you can go back home.

What Max did today

They say a pictures worth a thousand words so here are a few pictures of what Max did today.











Did you notice what he's NOT wearing?