Seize the Day

These kids have never been to Disney.  In fact, a friend implied that a better mom would have spent the money that we did to take Zach and Savannah to China on a trip to Disney.  

Zach and Savannah have been to some fun Florida amusement parks when they were little, but not Wyatt and Julia. Sit down restaurants are a once or twice a year treat.

However, I think they will all remember the day that they got to play with baby tigers.

It was a once in a lifetime opportunity - truly.  Today was the last day that they let anyone under 16 do this, and the guy who led the group is convinced it will be outlawed altogether within two years.  Our government wants control over every aspect of our lives.  This is a perfectly safe thing to do, but they will have their way, and my children will grow up in the land of the used to be free.  For today, we enjoyed this experience.

My only disappointment with this is that one of the tigers was too frisky, so he was removed leaving one sleeping tiger and a kangaroo to entertain about 30 people.  The owner makes sure everyone gets a good picture holding a tiger, but he was sick today.  His helpers are not comfortable with doing the picture thing as they are afraid of hurting the tigers, so not quite the phenomenal experience my FB friends have had but still quite fun.

The tigers are 13.5 weeks old and were abandoned by their mom.  The opportunity to play with them was a fund raiser for them.  I do plan to visit this wildlife refuge again in the spring.  The people there love the animals and were just great.

Count your blessings one by one

We are ending the year on a good note.

As of today we know that Zach has improved his ACT score.  He really did well in reading and English, no surprises there, but he improved them enough to raise his overall score by two points.  Zach still doesn't meet the benchmark in math, no surprise there either. Math has always been his most challenging subject, but he met the science benchmark for the first time.  Yippee!!!

We also learned that our sponsored child in the Philippines was not in an area affected by the storm.  I am so grateful to hear that she is okay.  However, others did not fare so well.  I am still concerned about her dad.  As best I could tell from her letters, he works in an affected area and spends much time away from home for work.  I am anxious to hear from her, but letters always take months.  Even if she wrote us right after the storm, it will likely be March or later before we hear directly from her.

The not so good news of the day is that Wyatt needs glasses.  While I am grateful that he has the opportunity here in America to improve his vision which I am guessing would not be an option in China, he is completely distraught over this.  I just hate it for him.  In the next couple of years, he faces extensive surgery and orthodontic work, so this just seems like a cruel strike against him.

We have a grand plan for tomorrow.  We are going to play with baby tigers.  If you are local, inbox me on how to get this opportunity. I wanted to include some friends, but getting the reservation was a frenzy, and they prefer not to have children under 12 participate.  Every once in a while the chance of a lifetime comes along, and you seize the opportunity.  I will post pictures, but we have out of town company arriving tomorrow evening, so it may take a few days.

Special Delivery from the North Pole

The ornaments arrived today, and I am happy to add these to our time capsule tree.

This ornament actually displays a piece of art done by Savannah.

More on our time capsule tree here:

Deck the Halls with a Time Capsule Tree

Christmas morning

One of the dogs woke me at 7:00a.m.  I will never understand how the others do not hear her.  I let her take care of business and went straight back to bed. The next thing I knew Wyatt and Julia were bouncing on the bed exclaiming, "It's time to wake up and celebrate Christmas!"  That was 9:30.  Can you believe it?  Sleeping until 9:30 on Christmas morning is a gift in and of itself.

Clearly, Santa has been here.

Julia recited the story of Christ's birth from Luke before we opened gifts.  Wyatt followed along in the Bible to prompt her as needed.

my girls

a new ornament!

Julia too!

Zach and Savannah each had a note from Santa explaining that the elves forgot to put their ornaments on the sleigh, so he will mail them from the North Pole.  I will share pictures of  them with their ornaments when we get them.
That happened to my sister when we were little.  Apparently, Santa pulled her little toy grocery cart out of his sleigh and discovered it was missing a piece.  He had to make a special delivery a few days later.  I guess he trusts the post office these days, or maybe he's just anxious for a break.

She looks really excited, doesn't she?
Zach stayed close to the fire and kept it stoked for us.

Andy's co-worker and friend in Malaysia sent books that we can't read.  

We can read the cookbook, and the pictures are great.  Hopefully, somebody in this house will eventually learn to read and speak Chinese.  We have motivation just no affordable place to learn.

Zach made sure our UK fan will stay warm.

I wish we had her reaction to this jacket she really wanted on video.  She was stunned, especially because she knew the retail price on it.  She forgets that her mom does not pay retail if at all possible.  

He wanted this more than anything.  It was painful to buy it because he spends every penny of his allowance on Pokemon, and this is an expensive set.  We don't get it, but this sure made him happy.  I think I first remember him saying he wanted this in May.  For an 11 year old, May to December is a really long wait. Andy and I were really perplexed on what to get Wyatt this year.  We then had a genius idea.  He draws constantly, always in pencil and always with lots of shading.  We got him an inexpensive sketch pad and a graphite pencil set.  I can't wait to see what he produces with better tools and a little training. Andy is going to help him out.

Speaking of art.  Check out Savannah's gift to Andy.  Wow!  She did this right under our noses, and we had no idea.

Our resident history buff received some books and a movie. Zach will really enjoy his book on battles that changed history and a really thick WWII book.  He loves all the WWII history, so he should be busy for a while.

Merry Christmas to all!!

For to us a child is born, 
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace 
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
 and over his kingdom, 
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.

Isaiah 9:6-7 NIV

We wish you a Merry Christmas

I totally loved the card this year.  However, the pictures were too small which is not an issue for my FB friends and blog followers as all of these pictures have been shared before.  However, for my friends off the grid, the pictures of the four kids together are just tiny.  Oh well, the card is really more about just wishing everyone good things for Christmas and the New Year.  I just know how much I love receiving picture cards. I save every one of them.

Merry Christmas to all!!  May you feel the wonderful and powerful presence of God in your life.

Christmas Eve

We celebrate Christmas Eve every year with my side of the family.  Andy's family lives out of town, and Andy's job keeps him local during the holidays, so he is unwilling to travel.  Our food tradition varies from year to year.  If the weather is nice, we will grill out. In an effort to keep it simple, we often get pizzas.  This year we feasted on appetizers.  Everyone brought something except for Tiffany and Josh.  They both got stuck at work, and Christmas Eve plans were almost postponed as they were told to expect to stay until 10 or 11 p.m.  Both made it home by 7:00p.m.

Until we went to my Dad's house, we had a quiet day at home.  Andy rested as he worked third shift and arrived home at 7:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning.  When we did finally leave the house, I have to say that driving around in a van minus a window was less than pleasant and generated lots of stares.

Savannah and Julia made gingerbread and sugar cookies on Monday.  I made fudge as that is Julia's favorite.  I haven't made the Hershey can fudge that my mom always made in years - so many years that my kids don't remember it.  I did not make it this time either.  I went with the easy Marshmallow Creme version.

snuggling with Isaac so his mama can eat
This was short lived.  Every time I pick up a baby, Tara swoops in and snatches the baby.  She acts like she doesn't like kids.  Please!

He's one happy boy!  I think Ira enjoyed his second Christmas.  He especially liked running the circle in the house and stealing my water bottle.

Regan's best comment of the night was when she was handing out gifts.  She handed one to my Dad and then asked him, "Can you say "thank you?" '  Loved it!
Another classic was when she tried to snag someone's drink off of the table.  Jonathan said "she has some kind of mouth fungus."  To which I responded, "Oh that's a good one.  I guess you will use that whenever a boy shows up at your door to take her on a date.  I bet it will go even further, and you will tell him that she is covered in fungus."  Danielle was rolling. 

Our traditional Happy Birthday Jesus cake:
chocolate with white icing - our dark sin is covered
red candles - blood shed for our sins - 12 to represent the 12 disciples or 12 tribes of Israel
evergreen trees - new life
angel- bringing good news

Those evergreens need to be replaced.  That is my mission once I am mobile again.  

singing Happy Birthday to Jesus

blowing out the candles

all my parent's grandkids
We really must try this again.  Surely, we can get a better picture than this.

Ira loved this gift and kept carrying it around.  It was the only one of his gifts with a ribbon, and he liked playing with the ribbon.  We had to snag it from him as it was breakable.  Both Regan and Isaac already had ceramic piggy banks, but Ira did not.  Jonathan and Danielle requested one for him.  The kids helped me choose one with dinosaurs on it.  They call him T-rex because of the way Ira held his arms when he started walking, so the dinosaurs beat cars, trains and other boy themed banks.

warm track clothes for Savannah

Julia is usually the easiest for whom to shop, but she was a challenge this year.  She wanted a Tablet, but I was on the fence about letting her get one because of the access to the Internet.  I finally decided that she could have one when all the good deals were sold out, so it was out of budget.  The family gave her this stuffed panda that she wanted, and some money to save toward a Tablet.  Santa brought one gift for our family instead of one each, and it was a Kindle Fire, so Julia may be okay with that.

Kinsley got some stylish new clothes and a Mom's best friend - an exersaucer.

Can we say Pokemon Christmas?  

beautiful picture of my parent's oldest and youngest granddaughters

I could kick myself over and over again for forgetting to take the good camera.  All pictures were taken on phones.  I prefer the camera pictures.

Zach joined the adult drawing this year.  I think this is hard on him as his love language is gifts, but everyone  grows up, and Christmas is about the greatest gift ever given - a child who would save us all.

We head to church and the memories of Christmases past tumble through my head.  Some wonderful, some painful.  There was the year when I spent Christmas wondering if it would be the last with my mom.  It wasn't, but she was so weak for the next one which was the last.  I remember buying her gifts and then giving them to our church's outreach ministry with the tags still attached when she died just weeks later.  I remember clearly her last FB post about Christmas.  The grandkids are a hoot!  She said. She loved watching them enjoy the celebration.

I remembered our first Christmas service in our new church.  I served in the nursery and fed my 8 month old Savannah in the atrium while waiting for the rest of the family to show up for the next service.  They came, and we were turned away.  The sanctuary that nobody believed would ever be full was too full (the upper balcony was not open yet).  Granted, part of it was not finished.  I remember walking back through the parking lot with a heavy carrier with the wind whipping my stocking clad legs and thinking this was not the same as being turned away from the inns and being sent to an animal filled cave to give birth even though I was frustrated.  We did return for another service, and it was wonderful. That was 15 years ago.  Time flies.

I remembered when our family gathered at church for Christmas Eve services.  Very few of us attend now.  I remember the year that Zachary fell asleep. He was about four or five years old, and my dad picked him up and carried him out of the service.  He did not wait for a younger man to carry his sleeping grandson.

I remember the year that the Christmas Eve service caused a family silence that lasted weeks.  We hosted the family gathering at our house.  I told one family member that we had decided to attend the late service.  She was angry, so she brought her kids only long enough to pick up and drop off gifts.  While I decorated Christmas cookies with her kids as I had promised to do, my kids opened their gifts.  I missed it, but I had a 30 minute time limit because I wanted to go to church.  My sister in her anger insisted that we could not do both and came without her angry husband even though we had three or four hours to celebrate before we would leave for church.  I tried to keep my promise about the cookies to her boys.  I was angry too.  Whose birthday were we celebrating, anyway?  Why did we spend weeks not speaking because some of us wanted to attend church?  She's so different now.  She has suffered more than anyone should, and she would not insist on her way for a holiday celebration now.

We finished our celebration with a wonderful 11:00p.m. service this year.

Our minister preached about a Redneck Christmas - a baby born in a barn.

The depth of love can be determined by the level of sacrifice. -- Kyle Idleman

Jesus came for all!!  - Praise Him!