anticipation of The Gift

our advent chain is getting shorter and shorter, which can only mean one thing.... it's almost christmas! these past couple of weeks sure have flown by, and i'm sure most of you feel the same way. many of my great intentions for doing special things with the kids have fallen by the wayside, but i've tried to at least talk about the significance of christmas with them on a daily, if not hourly, basis! ethan is really getting the hang of the basics of the nativity story, including the fact that baby Jesus' mother was named Married. and caroline can tell you what the angels sang... "glory...God...highEST!!!!" (my kids LOVE that line... remember ethan last year?!)

the kids experienced round four (yes, round four already!) of presents today as we took a day trip to visit brian's extended family. boy, do these kids have a lot of family that love them and want to bless them with toys!!!!! it seems like they are opening presents every few days, which has caused ethan to beg to open the few little gifts under our tree. i was initially aggravated by his impatient and selfish attitude, but my mom pointed out, "what do you expect?! he's been opening presents for the last two weeks!" very good point. so i've tried to patiently explain that we will wait for these presents until christmas morning, just like God's people had to be patient and wait for the Messiah to come. i know, in some ways, that is a very weak analogy, but i am determined for our kids to think first of JESUS when they think of christmas, not presents. is that a lofty goal? absolutely. is it nearly impossible when they are opening up presents from loved ones left and right? absolutely. but i think they will always have presents to open from relatives because our families enjoy blessing them and watching them open their gifts. no one person goes overboard, but when you add it all up, it's slightly overwhelming! i'm thankful in a way that it is all spread out vs. a truck load of gifts on christmas day. as our children grow older, i know the opportunities to focus on the absolutely amazing gift of Christ's birth will only increase. so as we say a heartfelt "thank you" to all of the giftgivers, i remind myself to not be stressed by the avalanche of gifts. i know that my greatest efforts to "save christmas" in the hearts of my children are futile if i think i can actually do it in my own strength. i pray that over the years, God will use our meager efforts of consistency to open our childrens' hearts to the reality of the Beauty of Christmas.

i will enjoy these last couple of days of christmas, including round 5, 6, and 7 of presents (whew!). and when all the wrapping paper is thrown away, all the little twisty tie things are finally taken off the toys, and all the toys are put somewhere, i pray that the beautiful reality of christmas will still ring in our hearts: Jesus humbled Himself to become "Immanuel, which means God with us"(one of ethan's favorite memory verses, matthew 1:23). He was born so that we might Live.

glory to God in the highest!

the obligatory family christmas picture!

i am saving you all the trouble of walking out in the freezing weather today (or foggy yet 75 degree weather as the case may be here!) to check your mail... here is our christmas card from our family to yours. i know that last year, i resolved to get christmas cards mailed out this year... but there's something about being in my third trimester of pregnancy that sounds like an awfully good excuse to have dropped the ball again this year! this picture was taken before church last sunday morning. we actually got up early and pretended that we had to be at church 30 minutes earlier than we actually needed to be there. (novel idea! we should really try that every sunday, and perhaps we'll be on time for sunday school one of these days!!!) this was a much better approach than attempting the after-church-imminent-meltdown-due-to-hunger-and-fatigue photo shoot of ye days of olde. and the "you can have a cookie on the way to church if you'll just look at the camera" motivation worked beautifully this year. maybe i should have thrown in a "you have to smile" stipulation for caroline, but i'm just glad that she's looking at the camera! :) our new camera has a great feature on its self-timer where it does not take the picture until everyone is looking. very very cool. i think there were a few times during this photo shoot when that little green light was blinking for at least 30 seconds, but hey, everyone is looking! :) we'll really put that feature to the test next year with 3 little ones!!! as you can see to the right, the smart little green light caught sweet caroline smiling in at least one picture... but i don't think the rest of us looked too great in that one!

i hope you are all having a wonderful weekend as we count down the final days till christmas! ethan is so excited that he can hardly stand it.

are you ready for christmas?

i just read this devotional on being spiritually ready for christmas vs. having everything on our list checked off... here is an excerpt:

I wonder, if Jesus were making a holiday preparations list, what would He include? What if those who were there on Christ’s birth day could advise us on getting ready for Christmas? What would be on their list?

Joseph might recommend we listen closely to the voice of God to prepare.
Mary may suggest we ponder the miracles of heaven.
Perhaps the angels would propose we sing about the King.
The shepherds may gently guide us to follow their act of worship.
Possibly the wise men would teach us to give Jesus our most valuable gifts.
The innkeeper may suggest “Hospitality: open your heart and home.”
And Jesus’ list would likely encourage us to be a light on the hill pointing the way for others to know Him.

with one week to go until christmas morning, i hope you'll take time to read this devotional to be encouraged in the things that matter this christmas season!

allllll aboard!

ethan's christmas spoilage sure did start early this year! i got a call from my sweet grandma last week. she has been so excited about things she'd ordered for the kids for christmas... and a couple of weeks ago, everything arrived at her house except for the little train set that she picked out for ethan. she was so disgusted that his gift was backordered that she just marched down to the local hobby shop (that i didn't know existed!) and bought him a lionel electric train set! a lionel! now, that really meant nothing to me until brian told me that lionel is the classic collectors' kind. we're not talkin thomas and percy here, people! i later found out that both of my uncles and my dad all had lionel sets growing up, and probably most men my parents' age did too! (or still do! ha!) anyway, grandma was so excited to give ethan this gift, and he was so excited about the surprise from grandma! our plan was for brian to pick up the huge box from grandma on his way home from work since neither she nor i needed to be lifting it. i told ethan alllll about this surprise, and he could not wait!

welllll, it was raining cats and dogs and elephants and giraffes when brian got off work... not exactly the weather to be lugging boxes from car to car... but i knew that we couldn't put ethan off about this big surprise that i'd been talking about all day. so my dear husband still picked up the train, and when he walked in the door, i had to laugh. as brian dripped water all over our foyer floor, i couldn't help but think of the cosby show episode where bill has to keep going out in the storm. :) (does anybody else remember that one?!) brian was so patient to humor me and stand there for a picture! you can't see the rain behind brian in the picture, but it was a comin' down...


i was heading over to brian's mom's house for a high school girls' bible study that night, so it was a great night to leave daddy and the kids at home... i mean look at them... does anyone seem concerned that mommy's about to walk out the door!? mommy who!?


while i was gone, they had so much fun setting up the train. ethan didn't understand at first that he didn't have to (get to) push the train. he also didn't know that it has all the bells and whistles (literally!). so brian had him start it up, and ethan was so shocked to see what it could do! by the time the evening was over, ethan knew just how to run it. and he has named his train the american express. we think he means the polar express, but it's just too funny to correct. how does he even know what american express is?! he is too hilarious these days. anyway, brian took these pictures before he put the engineer to bed... i think he likes his new toy- whaddayathink?



when i got home, i found brian happily playing with the train by himself in the middle of the living room. i should have taken a picture of that! :) we stayed up playing with it till almost midnight that night. it is a really really cool train. i am very train ignorant, so when i heard "electric train", i thought that you plugged something in and you just watched the train go round and round the track . oh no no no! there is a throttle (that you can see ethan operating in the above picture) that controls the speed, there's reverse, idle, bells, whistles, train noises, lights, smoke (that stinks so we don't turn that on!), etc. etc. and over the last week we've discovered other features of it. after you leave the train on idle for 35 seconds, the engineer comes on and talks to the dispatch. it's pretty cool. caroline thinks it's pappy talkin'. :) if the train is going at a good speed, and you hit the reverse button, the brakes screech. that's currently daddy and ethan's favorite thing to do.

a few days after grandma gave ethan the train, she got concerned that caroline would feel left out about ethan's big gift. i reassured grandma that caroline was doing just fine with the train. i mean, it is her train too, as far as she's concerned. ethan is pretty good about letting her play with it, though the cars end up off the track more often than on when caroline is running the show. she loves putting the little animals from her birthday cake in one of the boxcars, and pooh and tigger have taken quite a few rides around the track. i think baby jesus has even made it on the train. here you can see caroline trying to cram one last animal in that car before it's off to the zoo.


so we're all a little train crazy around here right now. it is currently under our christmas tree, which is a perfect place for it in our small house! i'm not exactly sure where we will set up the track after christmas, but i don't think ethan's really concerned about that. he enjoys driving the train off the track all over our hallway as much as he enjoys the electric operations of it. i'm happy to see his imagination at work, and if he can just learn how to reconnect the cars all by himself, i will gain an hour of my day back! ha! (i tried to plead train-ignorant about putting the cars together and putting them back on the track, but brian insisted on teaching me how to do it...darn! i love making things like that "daddy things"!!) anyway, it's really cute to see brian and ethan playing with the train together. i need to snap a picture of that before christmas. this is a very special gift that ethan will remember and treasure for a long time. though a lot of the additional pieces are pricey, there are some that are reasonable that we can eventually give him to add to his collection. it will be a fun thing for ethan to collect over the years.

grandma came over this weekend to see her gift in action, and though her boys grew up with lionel sets, she was still impressed with the 2008 version. :) i think she really enjoyed watching brian and ethan have fun with it! she said she told the salesman, "i'm buying this for my great-grandson and his daddy!" boy was she right! :) you can see the picture of her with ethan at the top of the post- i love that picture!! thank you, grandma, for such a generous gift. we love you!

6 weeks to go! and i don't mean till christmas!

amelia and i are in the home stretch, folks! if the next 6 weeks go by as quickly as the last 6 weeks have, then this baby will be here in no time!! here i am as of today, 34 weeks. (and i don't know what is up with the back of my shirt! look at that right angle on my back! ha! now THAT would be uncomfortable!!) i have been feeling GREAT, pregnancy-wise, for the last few weeks, so that has been a nice change and a huge blessing. i am finally getting over my horrible cold-turned-sinus-infection (my first ever and i would love for it to be my last!), and i am so happy to be tasting food again.

we were able to sneak another peek at baby amelia this week at my doctor's appointment because they were "concerned about her size". :) she has definitely chunked up since her sonogram in september! according to the sonogram, amelia is currently weighing in at 5 lbs, 5 oz! and she's gonna keep growin! the sonogram tech was very happy that i had a lot of amniotic fluid... and she said that was one reason i was probably measuring large (besides the big baby!). so now i finally have an explanation for that lady in the grocery store! :) it's my amniotic fluid!! the tech also said that it's why amelia still has plenty of room to kick and play around vs. just twisting and rolling. she is still able to do water aerobics in there! and boy is she at the head of the class!! amelia is quite the mover and the shaker in my belly. i think she moves more than the other two have combined, but it's never really painful like it was with caroline. i can definitely feel and see her wacky contortions, but it's more amusing than anything. anyway, everything on the sonogram looked good. amelia still had her hands in front of her face, so i guess she's just waitin' to suck that thumb like my other two babies! her head was very low, which made it hard for the tech to get a good look at her face... but i was glad that she is making her way toward the exit! :) here's a couple of the pictures that we did get to see of sweet amelia.



don't worry- the umbilical cord is floating freely-- it's not wrapped around her neck like it looks to be in the pictures. it actually looks like she's snuggling with it! i guess we'll have to get her a blankie. :) you can't really see it in the pictures, but we could tell from the video that she has caroline's chin. so i think she's gonna end up looking a lot like her sister. i can't wait to kiss her fat little cheeks!!!

as soon as i got home from my appointment, the kids asked to see the sonogram video. caroline said "heartbeat!" over and over and over until i fastforwarded it to the very short "heartbeat" part of the video. so guess what we watched over and over?! i had to laugh because everytime the screen would change back and forth between the video and 3D pictures, caroline would exclaim, "another mee-yah (amelia)!" she is getting very excited about being a big sister! here's ethan and caroline watching their baby sister's heartbeat.


we came home with over a dozen pictures of the baby, as well as more pictures on cd, so i was more than happy to share a picture with each of the kids. they carried those little photos around all day long. look how proud they are of their little sister! amelia, you are already so loved!!!


one of my doctors told me this week to "lay off the carbs" since amelia is already 5 lbs... i'm sorry, but that is not what this pregnant woman wants to hear 2 weeks before christmas! (and 3 days before a COOKIE EXCHANGE!!) after he said it about 20 times, i just had to laugh. and then i reminded him that my last baby was almost 9 lbs. and he gave me a look that said, "exactly!" i met his daughter that night at a bible study as i was shoving a christmas cookie in my mouth, so i told her to make sure she told her dad that she saw me eating a cookie. :) ha! on the subject of getting really big, i have to share this realization i had the other day. so around thanksgiving, i could really feel amelia pushing against my stomach, and when i rubbed the big round protrusion, i could feel lots of little bumpy lines in a row. i thought surely those have to be her ribs! so on thanksgiving day, i had everybody feeling her ribs... brian's mom, his grandmother, my grandmother... it was show 'n tell! and everybody thought that was so cool. well, the other day i was rubbing the side of my belly, and amelia wasn't really pushing or anything... but i could still feel those bumpy lines. they couldn't be her ribs. it only took me another minute to realize that i've had everyone rubbing my stretch marks. so maybe i should lay off those carbs!

hope your christmas weeks have been merry ones so far!