Dividing and Conquering

This one, lone, picture is the only one to represent a night divided.  Tonight all four of our children performed in Christmas programs at three different locations.  Zach and Savannah played in a band concert. Wyatt sang with the second graders at the Christmas concert and bazaar held at his school.  (Ironically, he returned home excited about acquiring new rocks...seriously, they had rock mining as part of the bazaar.  Bazaar, or I should say bizarre indeed!)  Julia sang and played the glockenspiel with the first graders at her school.  What were we to do?  We literally did a coin toss to see which of the younger children would have me at the concert.  Wyatt won, and Julia burst into tears, so he graciously told her that I could go with her.  Andy enjoyed Wyatt's concert, and my sister Tessa enjoyed the concert of the older two kids.  Andy and I went equipped with cameras and camcorders.  Our videos look as good as it gets when people walk in front of you while you tape, but the pictures- not so good.  Julia's class looks like a bunch of scary monsters because of the red eye.  Fixing it made it worse.  Wyatt's pictures did not save on the memory card.

I have to admit that when the third grade class at Julia's school recited Luke 2:1-20, I immediately prayed that Wyatt will be there for third grade. It is precious to hear the words that are now hidden in the hearts of these young children.  Having both Wyatt and Julia performing in the same program would also be a nice adjustment for this family.

And so the Christmas programs are complete.  We still have some parties on the schedule and a birthday to celebrate next Friday, but this week held the bulk of joyful, but stressful events.  On Tuesday, I attended a women's event with Tessa and Mom.  Nicole Johnson is a treat.  If you have not heard her,  check out her YouTube videos.
Tomorrow, I am attending two parties which is why I am awake now, long past my bedtime, awaiting the moment when the pecan pie I baked will be cool enough to make it to the fridge.

Visiting Santa

Zach, Wyatt, Julia and I braved the mall tonight to visit Santa. I think this meets my quota as I believe that a mall visit to Santa occurred exactly one time for Zach and Savannah.  If I can find that historic picture, I will post it here. 

Wyatt asked for Bey Blades and a DSi.  Julia told Santa that she was unsure of what she wanted.

Daddy Daughter Date Night

Our American Heritage Girls troop held their annual Father/Daughter night tonight.  For the first time in our eight year history with the troop, this event arrived during the Christmas season.  Typically, the Mother/Daughter tea gets the Christmas booking.  Andy and the girls enjoyed their time together.  Julia arrived at home anxious to share every detail of the evening from the crafts they did to the movie they watched (Sweetpea Beauty - Veggie Tales). I just love it when kids have such a great time that they want to share every detail.  Savannah liked last year's event better.  She said last year was just fun while this year they concentrated on earning a badge.

They are ready to head out.  What a contrast my daughters are from Savannah's fair complexion and  Julia's dark complexion to the clothes they chose to wear. They could go dressy or casual. As you can see, Julia chose dressy, and Savannah chose casual while Andy tried to stick to the middle.

 The crafts included personal prayer lists on bookmarks and thank you cards for their church teachers and leaders.

 They also crafted these doll ornaments.  They had the option of buying the ornament or donating it.  All proceeds go to the worthy cause of stopping child trafficking.  Savannah's doll came home with them, and Julia donated hers.  Andy forgot about this part of the night and did not carry enough cash to buy both.  This, however, is not a problem as Julia has never actually played with a doll in her life and is not one bit sentimental about anything. 

Andy had me laughing about the dolls.  He told me I should have seen the looks on the dads' faces when it was announced that they would be making dolls.  They went on to tell the dads about the cards and bookmarks, but they had already lost the dads with the announcement about the dolls.

I still have some pictures from November that I need to post, and I want to end this post with prayers for my mom.  She is going through a lot of stuff tomorrow (see her Facebook post from Friday below), and she is dreading it.
 Finally got home from the infusion center a little before 8 and I am totally wiped out. Going Monday for thoracentesis and paracentesis. My lower extremities are so edematous I can hardly raise them, so some Lasix for a couple of days to see if that helps. Even though this sounds negative, I actually feel pretty well and I thank God for every day I have (even the bad ones). 

You see why I have to steal her post.  I only speak English, not medical.

A Hard Road to Christmas Break

We face two more weeks of school, programs, obligations etc. before we are on Christmas break, and while I feel at peace, this year the road to Christmas break is a painful one.

We returned from our Thanksgiving travels to learn that two students from the school where I work lost their lives in an accident over the holiday weekend.  Monday was hard.  Twenty grief counselors arrived to support our students and staff, and they set up shop in the library.  Tensions were high, and as the families worked together to find a place to hold a joint visitation and funeral, students and staff gathered pictures, offered support, started fund raising to offset medical and funeral costs for the families and started plans for a memorial service to be held at school on the Friday we leave for Christmas break.  Tough stuff!  An outside counselor told our staff that our students handled their grief with maturity.  That comment saddened me because I think handling grief with maturity comes from experience, so that speaks volumes of the legacy lived by our kids.

An edgy staff now faces an audit team on our return to school next week. I have written before about the challenges of public education, and the public has bought into a measure of a school done simply on a test score, a test that every student takes regardless of their true academic ability.  Our district has a huge population of homeless students and students living in poverty.  It amazes me that we are being told that teachers use this as an excuse for poor performance.  Andy, himself, asked how many of the "homeless" students are actually sleeping on the couches of relatives.  Really?  Does this not matter?  Our family went through two eight day power outages in one year.  You bet that impacted education in this household!  A family in crisis does not exactly have school high on the list of to dos.

In our last week before we leave, we will celebrate our principal's retirement.  It is no secret that she is leaving because the community that has been built in this school will be disrupted and ruptured because we have been labeled a school in crisis.  It is ironic that this label comes even though we have increased the number of students going to college and passing advanced placement exams while our free and reduced lunch population has nearly doubled.  We will finish that week with a service to honor the lives of two of our students. 

Christmas shopping is just not high on my list right now.

Let it Snow

We continued the tradition started last year and celebrated our first snow today with gifts for the kids.  A very excited Wyatt came to me this morning and announced that we had snow on the ground.  He wanted to sleep in the living room last night when he heard the prediction of snow so that he could see it.  I reminded him that his room has a window.  Julia joined him shortly afterward, and their excitement and anticipation of everyone waking so that they could open the gifts seemed so Christmas morningish.  I think Wyatt was less than thrilled that once again the gift was warm pajamas.  He did, however, love building a snowman with a little help from Andy tonight.

 After much ado about what to do with decorating the mantle.  I think we have success with live greenery.  I love it!

Deck the halls...

Our normal tradition is to decorate the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Sometimes I will set the tree up and put on the lights a day early because that takes so long.  This year, however, we had to change our normal routine because I work an eight hour shift tomorrow starting at 2:00 p.m.  That's retail for you. 

We enjoyed Thanksgiving, ate too much and loved the time with family, but we missed Pam, Mike, Page, and Mitchell :(.  Today, I worked this morning, napped and then took Savannah out for a couple of hours of shopping.  We finished the evening with trimming the tree.  Another difference this year is that we moved the tree from our usual location to the family room.  Shiloh has only limited and highly supervised access to this room, and since she is a destructive pooch, we thought this a better solution than our normal location where she has mostly unlimited access.  It also allows our tree to be visible from the road which I think is way cool.  Julia does have concerns about how Santa will manage stockings hanging from the chimney in one room and a tree in another. When I told her that Santa has been here before, and he will manage, she responded with, "he doesn't live here, you know."  Well....

 This is Zach's idea of helping. 

We will go to bed tonight without finishing putting the ornaments on the tree, but it is getting there.  Another break in tradition is the fact that Andy was not sent out to buy more lights.  All the lights from last year worked, and he had already stocked four boxes just in case....hmmm, it is our eighteenth year of marriage, and I can't remember another year where this happened.

Thanksgiving Thursday

In continuing my November pattern of Thankful Thursdays, I once again list 7 things for which I am currently thankful (not necessarily in this order).

1.  finding my favorite laundry detergent at 1/2 off yesterday....I bought three bottles and cleaned out all that the store had left.
2.  I am off work tomorrow.  At least I sincerely hope that when my assistant manager read me the schedule, she read it correctly.  I work very early Saturday morning, but being off tomorrow allows us to celebrate at my parent's house today and then at Andy's mom's house tomorrow.  It has been years since we have celebrated Thanksgiving with my side of the family.
3.  For two days in a row, I have slept as late as I wanted.  11 hours Tuesday night...quite needed at this point.
4.  The whole family is here at my parent's house right now.  I am full but not stuffed  --- I do not like feeling full and certainly not stuffed.  The food was so yummy.  I did not think I would be able to stop eating.
5. Mom feels good today and has an appetite.  The downside is that she is recovering from the flu, so she cannot hold Regan :(
6.  I am thankful for photography, probably my favorite hobby.  I love that I can flip through old pictures and add new ones all the time.  My memory can be so bad at times that I am not sure I could remember what my kids looked like as babies if not for all the pictures.
7.  As Allie wisely posted on Facebook, I am thankful that I am not spending this holiday grieving.  This is enough for which to be incredibly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!  All thanks today goes to the one who created all and is above all.