A Glimpse of Christmas

Our Christmas was so wonderful.  My brother was in town from Colorado with his family for almost a week and Daddy took the whole week off of work.  We spent every day either out doing fun winter activities or hanging out at my parents' house.  There are 17 of us all together, including 7 grand kids (6 boys) ages 6 and under.  So it was mostly loud and crazy but so much fun.  I am so blessed with a family that loves being together.  We definitely miss the Colorado crew throughout the year and love having them in town.

Here are some highlights from the week - ice skating downtown, decorating candy houses, pretzel making, and lots of playing outside because we had beautiful weather.  With all of those boys, there was a lot of wrestling and tackle football. There is even a room at my parents' house that is designated as the "wrestling room."   They did such a great job playing together - I can't believe no one got hurt!  Even Mr. Newton kept up pretty well.  Cousin L, the only girl, was content to watch the ballerina spin on her new jewelry box while the boys tackled each other.

Here's a picture of each individual kid.  I love them!

St. Nick

The other day Mr. Mister was watching the Veggie Tales St. Nicholas movie, one of our Christmas favorites.  When it was over I was hoping to engage him in some intentional conversation about St. Nicholas and who he was.   So I asked him, "Do you know that St. Nick was a real person a long time ago?"

I could see the wheels in his mind spinning as he tried to figure this all out.  Then he answered me,  "And now he's just a vegetable?"

Haha. It made me laugh so hard.  I tried to explain but just decided to enjoy his attempts at making sense of the world!

The Rescuer

A couple weeks ago I experienced a holy moment as a mom - one in which I saw a glimpse into what God is really doing in my son's life and the fruit that He is bearing despite the challenges that blind me each day.  It was a sweet reminder to me that our efforts to raise him into a man who loves Jesus have not been completely marred by our faults and shortcomings. That even though there is much to be refined in him (and me!), there is also evidence of eternal truth taking root.

This moment happened at an event called A Night in Bethlehem at a friend's church.  It was set up like the village that Bethlehem once was.  We got tunics to wear and gold coins to carry that the kids could use to do activities like weaving and pottery and baking and jewelry making.  After completing all of the activities in the market area, we continued walking and came upon a choir of angels singing and a group of shepherds excitedly announcing the arrival of a baby in the stable.  Finally, we made it to the stable where Mary and Joseph were holding their new baby.

At this point, Mr. Mister was in the front of the crowd, so engaged in what he was experiencing that he was unaware that Daddy and I were standing toward the back.  I loved just observing him, watching him interact and engage so intently.

The woman dressed as Mary asked everyone, "Do you know who Jesus is?"

And Mr. Mister shouted out loud: "The Rescuer!"

Oh. My heart filled with such joy and my eyes brimmed with tears.  Out of everything he could say, he shouted The Rescuer.  He knows that Jesus is so much more than a baby in a manger.  He knows that He is the Rescuer.  The One who came as part of God's perfect rescue plan - His plan to save the people He loves from the life of sin and brokenness that is apart from Him.

The whole way home that night, he asked us to tell him more about Jesus.  And we did.  We told him all about the hope that the birth of Jesus brought to a broken world waiting for its savior.  We told him the hope that Jesus brings to us in His promise of abundant life and forgiveness of sin.  We told him about the hope we have that one day there will be no more pain and no more tears.  And we told him that we have this hope because Jesus came as man, died even though he was perfect, and rose in victory over all of our sin and the death we deserved.

It was the sweetest night.  Such an honor to be the one to share this with Him and to see his mind so thoroughly processing everything, even if he doesn't understand it all right now.  Right now, He knows Jesus as the Rescuer.  And really, isn't that childlike faith?

I pray this Christmas that you know Jesus as your Rescuer.  The One who knows and loves you intimately.  The source of all life, the One who satisfies, who gives hope, who is faithful to all of His promises, who cannot stop loving you, who is calling you into a life more abundant than anything this world can offer.  May we celebrate Him this Christmas.  May we celebrate that God did not leave us in our brokenness but out of His perfect love for us, came as the long awaited Savior to rescue, redeem and restore us.

(As a side note, we love the Jesus Storybook Bible.  It does an amazing job of pointing everything in all of Scripture back to Jesus.  It talks about the terrible lie, God's secret rescue plan, Jesus as the Rescuer, and His never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.  I highly highly recommend it!)

19 Months!

I purposely stopped the monthly updates of Mr. Newton after he turned one.  They can't continue on forever.  But a lot of time has passed since then and my blog has gone through some droughts in the meantime, so I thought it was good timing to give a little update.

Dear Mr. Newton,
You are now 19 months but you think you are 4 like your big brother.  You try to do everything he does.  You still have a smile that takes up your whole face.  Now you squint your eyes to go with it, which is adorable.  But you've also developed quite the scowl, which you will flash often when you are not happy with something.

You LOVE your big brother.  You call him Mamo and he's always the first one you ask for in the morning.  If I give you a snack, you ask for one for Mamo, too.  It's so sweet.  I love watching you guys as brothers.  You hold your own against him when it gets a little rough.  You even learned to drop the elbow on him when you wrestle!

And you get really excited to sit on the froggy potty.  Every time I change your diaper, you say "Pee! Pee!"  because you want a chance to go in the potty.  And when you actually go, you clap your hands and dance as we sing our family favorite whoop whoop song for you.



You have lots of cute words and you like to shout them out when someone is talking and you hear a word you know.  One of my favorites is when you say, "oh" when we tell you something, like you are glad we clarified that for you.  You are so funny.

You love to sing and dance. Your foot gets tapping subconsciously and you sing and drum so loudly.  I can't wait to see you and your brother in a band together someday.

Oh, and you still love your dog Orange Juice, or Do-Do as you call him.  We almost lost him again - we thought he was left in a parking lot in Pittsburgh but thankfully we found him.  The world is a better place with Orange Juice.  And the world is a much better place with you!!

Soon you will be a big brother - only about 10 more weeks to go.  You love pointing out the baby in my belly.  I can't wait to see how much you love our new brother or sister!

loved and missed

Mr. Mister must have read my last blog post!  After his nap this afternoon he and I read all of his new library books together for a long time while his little brother kept sleeping.  When Daddy finished working and I had to get ready to leave for my Thirty-One party, Mr. Mister sadly told me he didn't want me to leave and that he wanted to come with me.  He was sincerely sad the whole time I was getting ready and even tried to sneak out the door with me.  It's nice to be missed :)

Mommy and the Mister

One of the things I love love love about the stage Mr. Mister is in is that he still wants to marry me someday.  It is so sweet.  He often gets the jacket from his ring bearer suit on or another less official groom-like costume (see picture below) and asks if we can get married.  I walk down the aisle and we repeat after Daddy that we will love and honor and respect each other and then he kisses his mommy and we do a little slow dance.  That is everything he has gathered from the two weddings he has been to.  I love it and will be so sad when he wants to marry a girl from school someday instead of me.



These times also redeem comments like this one:

As he cried when Daddy had to leave for a meeting the other night, I asked him, "Why don't you cry like that when I leave?"

His answer:
"Well, I like you.  But I like Daddy better because he wrestles!"

I guess if you ask a question you have to be ready for the answer!  It is true that a pregnant mommy is not good for wrestling. but I still make a good bride for my little guy.

The Wells We Built

Two years ago around Christmas time, I set up a fundraising page for charity:water to help bring clean water to people around the world.  We are huge fans of this organization for many reasons.

One example of how effective charity: water is at carrying out their mission is how they follow up with every donation and communicate exactly how and where it was used.  I received an email from them a few months ago letting me know that the projects that my fundraising went to have been completed.  I was so impressed to see the detailed report they gave on just how this money was used!

Check out the latrine that was built at an elementary school in Ethiopia, which sounds so simple but will have an incredible impact on the people of this village.  They even provide the GPS coordinates so you can see exactly where it is.

The funds also went toward a well in Ethiopia that provides clean drinking water to a village of 220 people who used to walk 2 hours to collect dirty water.  Now, they walk less than 15 minutes and have an abundance of clean water!  It's really cool to see also how they have taken ownership of the well.

I hope you take a minute to check these out.  Some of you were part of these projects with your donations.  Thank you!

School Pics

Here's Mr. Mister's school picture.  He's looking so handsome and grown up!

'
photo by Lisa Deaton

Mid Life Awakening

Is 30 too young to have a mid life crisis?  But I guess I wouldn't call it a crisis.  I'm not tempted to go buy a tiny red sports car and travel the world.  Quite the opposite actually, as both of those would be impossible at this stage of life.  I think it is better described as a mid life awakening.  An awakening to the fact that yes, I actually am getting older.  I know, 30 isn't that old.  But it's older.  And it's not slowing down.  Here was the scene of my awakening...

We are on the verge of buying a mini van today or tomorrow. We have one we like and are just finishing all of the thinking through of the details.  I don't fear being a mini van mom.  Actually, I've been excited for it because bending over with my 28 week pregnant belly and cramming the boys into the Civic has become harder and harder every week.  So I've actually been looking forward to this so that I can have more room.

But there I was, sitting in the driver's seat in the parking lot with the sun shining down and I noticed as I glanced in the mirror on that sunny afternoon that I had a few more gray hairs sparkling in the sun than I had ever noticed before.

Then I got out and looked at the outside of the van and could see my reflection once again.  Pregnant belly with baby #3, staring at a mini van with gray hairs sparkling.  How did I get to this place in life already?

That's more my question.  It's a great place to be.  I love it and am very content in this place.  It's just really hard to believe that was me staring back at me in the reflection.  Life just keeps going.  And it's not slowing down.

Halloween

I thought I'd post some Halloween pictures before Thanksgiving is here!

We carved pumpkins in early October (you can tell by the shorts and t-shirts).  It was a lot of fun - Mr. Mister was very involved this year.  He designed one of the Jack-O-Lanterns in the picture below.  See if you can guess which one :)  Mr. Newton was happy to spoon pumpkin insides from one bowl to the next.

The day before Halloween we had some friends over and the kids all wore their costumes.  It was a beautiful fall day and we got some great pictures of them in the leaves. 

By the time Trick-Or-Treating came on Monday, Mr. Newton decided he was done with the pirate outfit.  He cried when we tried to put it on him and I think he would still cry today if I held it up. He was a cute pirate though! He wore a fire helmet instead and still got a bowl of candy way too big for an 18 month old.

Mr. Mister definitely did not get tired of his Darth Vader costume!  He would probably wear it every day if I let him.

Apple Picking

This is one of my favorite times of year to visit our PA family.  The trees are beautiful and the air is crisp for some fun fall activities.  We made our annual trip to the apple orchard and all together we picked 80 lbs of apples!  Even split between three families, that's a lot of apples.  So if you have any favorite apple recipes, send them my way.

The boys got some great Halloween costumes from Grandma and Papa.  I won't reveal the whole costumes until they go trick-or-treating, but you can catch a sneak peak of Mr. Mister's because he wore it everywhere we went.  It is pretty much his dream costume at this point in his life!

The Wedding

I just saw got some pictures from the wedding that Mr. Mister was in last month.  Here are a few of him and the flower girl, who is our good friend.  How cute are they?!

photos by Katie Derickson