Trimming the Tree

The other night we decorated the Christmas tree. Actually, this year it was a multistage operation. We started trying to do it with the girls on Sunday night, but they went BONKERS and started running all around with all the ornaments and in the midst of all the chaos, Brad got the page that he had a patient ready to deliver NOW and so he left me in the ruckus to go take care of her. So I corralled the kids and put the little imps in their beds and left the box of ornaments half vomited out on the couch for a couple more days until he could join me to finish the job. :) At first he suggested that I go downstairs and work on orders (which are keeping me SO busy because of the holidays- but I'm cutting off for Christmas shipping on Friday so that should get it under control) and he'd decorate it by himself- but I just couldn't do that. It's funny how the busier you get and the more "things" you have filling up all the corners of your life, the more the things that really are the most special about Christmas start to feel like "chores." It really shouldn't be that way... but I think it is for a lot of people. But anyway, I was glad to trim the tree with Brad this week because it got me thinking about shared experience, and how important it is.

We got this ornament from some friends our first Christmas. The tag on the ornament with our names and the date is starting to look a little faded and yellow. The ornament doesn't look as new and shiny as it did 8 years ago... and yet, it somehow means so much more than it ever has this year. It represents our starting out- our choice to be together, to choose one another, forever. Life brings hard stuff, and you have to still choose to walk the road together. More often, life just brings regular stuff- stuff that distracts, stuff that threatens to separate you emotionally- and I think it's the everyday choices to choose one another over other stuff that binds you together, and then you get to points along the road when you can look back and see where you've been together. Christmas is one of those times for me every year, especially as we dig out all those ornaments. When we were first married, we had a bunch of balls from Walgreens all over our tree- but now we have accumulated so many ornaments that we don't put them on our tree unless they have meaning to us!

This was the first one we ever picked out together. We got it at some hole-in-the-wall place somewhere on our honeymoon- he probably remembers where, but I don't. I never really thought it was a beautiful ornament, but it's one of my favorites now because it reminds me of how we started. :)

Here's this year's ornament from Ketchikan, Alaska. It still seems a bit like a dream that we have actually been there!

And here's one of about six "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments we got the year Carolyn was born. :) We kind of chuckle a bit when we put all those on the tree. :) People really like to give them as gifts. :)

Here's Nora's- she only got about 3, typical of a not-oldest child. :) If we ever manage to have a third child, he'll probably only have 1! :)

And here are the ones that made me cry this year as I hung them on the tree. It wasn't what I wanted. If I hadn't lost that baby back in May, we would be getting ready to have another child right now- I'd have been due in about 5 weeks. Instead, I have another little angel to match the one that joined out tree in 2008. This was not how I wanted to decorate the tree this year. When I had the loss, I really thought I'd be pregnant again by now. This week has been hard for me because I'm not, and it's just one of those weeks when I've learned about a lot of friends who are. I'm not sure why, but that is the hardest part of the whole thing for me. It is so incredibly difficult to watch others around me seem to get so easily what I so deeply desire but cannot have by any act of my own volition. This is simply something you must wait for God to give. And it really isn't that I'm not equally happy for my friends- I am- it's very true and real and heartfelt happiness- but it's always tinged with pain because it underscores the ache in my heart. But, feeling a little emotional the night we hung the ornaments, I also hung the one Brad's parents picked out for us this year that says "Hope." It just seemed to belong with them. And I pray that's what 2011 brings for us- Hope. Hope in God. Trust in Him, faith to believe that He has good plans for our life. And hopefully another Baby's First Christmas ornament. :)

This is the last ornament I took pictures of. It is one of the oldest we have because my Granny bought it for me when I was just a little girl. I love it all the more now because she is gone, and it is a little piece of her that I have to remind me that our shared experiences are all linked. She has gone ahead of us into heaven, but our stories are connected. Her faith, and the faith of her mother and father and all the generations before, has filtered down through my parents to me, and through us to our children, as we teach them of Jesus' love, His grace, His sacrifice, and, this time of year especially, the miracle of His birth.

And that, folks, is my Christmas tree. And though this post was less disjointed in my head... I think it should still count as a "real" post. :) I promise, I'll get back to better blogging as soon as the holidays are over! :)

Christmas Programs

 Tis the season for LOTS of Christmas stuff. Carolyn had two Christmas programs- one at church yesterday and one at preschool tonight. 

This is from her church program. This is before she realized her dress was on backward and tried to lift it up and turn it around on the stage in front of the whole church. We (and a lot of other parents...) caught it on video... but I think I'll wait until her high school graduation party to play that one in public. :) We were a teensy bit mortified at her wardrobe malfunction, but quickly got over it and found it as funny as everyone else did. :)

Here's Nora at tonight's performance... before she fell off the bleachers (she was only one row up... thankfully) right when all the preschoolers were starting their program...

 Carolyn was a beautiful angel.

 There were a lot of angels! They all said "Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth. Good will to men."

 Playing ring around the rosy afterward.

Nora thoroughly enjoyed the (supervised) bleacher climbing after the show was over. She was so cute and happy!

And now I've blogged... not as often as I wish I did, but the holidays are really getting me this year! I've never tried to sustain a business before, and I have had so many orders I've been pretty  much doing that and nothing else. I'm figuring it will slow down some after the holidays- hopefully to the point where it's just on the line between a hobby and a business. :) 

Finally!!

Well, better late than never! We got our tree today! It's the first time our whole family has really been together in the daylight (other than our pictures last week) long enough to get one! It was a little chilly, and in the confusion of trying to get out of the house, Mommy forgot the bag with snow pants, mittens, and hats, so we had to put a rush on it!! But we got one!

 Family on the cold hayride. :) Glad the person we handed the camera to actually knew how to use it! :)

 Searching for the perfect tree... most important qualification being that it could be found quickly and dragged back to the van before anyone started screaming! 

 Walking in the snow...

 Stomping in the snow...

 Smiling in the snow...

 For some reason Nora really liked it when Daddy got on the ground and started to saw the tree down!

 I tried out some black and white on this one and liked the results, even though it doesn't really go with any of the other pictures I took. :) B&W covers a multitude of sins- this was totally overexposed and fuzzy til I made it black and white!

 TIMBER!!

Dragging it back... we got back to the car before anyone melted down, the girls and I stayed warm in the car while Brad sorted things out with the tree and now it is standing in our living room, awaiting lights and hopefully ornaments tomorrow. It finally smells like Christmas in our house!!

Soup!

Today we made "soup" in our kitchen. I bought a bag of "bean soup" at the grocery store awhile ago that had several different types of dried beans in it... Today after rest time I gave the girls each a pot with water, a spoon, and a container of beans, and let them have at it. :) They had a great time and made a terrific mess.

Stirring....

Sampling...

Slurping...

Fun times. :) Love that smile.

POSH

My friend Kasey from POSH Photography took these wonderful pics of our family yesterday. There are more, but these are my faves. :)

Our family of four. :)

My Nora Bean, who didn't really enjoy having pictures taken... it was too cold outside!

Sweet Carolyn, who was hardly any trouble at all as long as we kept handing out the jelly beans. :)

Best outcome of the session? A picture of BOTH my girls, in which they are both smiling! Doesn't get any better than that! :) This one will go on our wall for sure.

If you love POSH's work as much as I do, you should check her out at http://www.poshphotographyonline.com . She's seriously awesome, and affordable too!! :)

Where I've Been

Whenever I know a blogger who suddenly stops blogging regularly, I often immediately suspect she's pregnant and so subdued with morning sickness that she can't blog (I think this may stem from the same reason why when I wanted to be engaged suddenly everyone I saw had a diamond on their left had and I didn't! Contentment and patience have never been super easy things for me...) Anyway, unfortunately, this is not the reason I have not been blogging- though I'm still hopeful that it one day may be! Bring on the vomit! Okay, maybe not the vomit... but I'd sure love to have the baby that comes at the end of all that... sigh... patience...

Anyway, THIS is the explanation for my absence from the blogosphere...

I have been in HERE... in this delightfully MESSY room... *I think my precious college roommate might have a nervous breakdown if I made her come in here... for me, messy just comes with creative!! Good thing she loves me so much :) And nice for her that her husband is considerably neater than I was as a roommate! Love you, C!*

...  Making THIS. Lots and lots and LOTS of this kind of thing. I cannot even begin to explain how BUSY I have been over the past few weeks. I feel incredibly blessed by it because this is an opportunity to pursue a dream and do something really fun... but I have also felt stretched to the limit as I'm trying to balance so many things at the same time. The holidays are always a busy time, no matter what, and now I am blessed by many others' busy-ness too! I've been sending out several orders each day! Plus, this week, I was immersed in prep for the biggest craft show I had this season.

This is a picture of my booth at the show. It kind of looks ugly with the backs of my backyard neighbor's  display in the background, but that didn't seem to bother people much. I've become fairly disillusioned with craft shows this fall because the first two I did were really a waste of my time and effort. The third one I did went pretty well, but I still wasn't sure it was totally worth the amount of myself I put into getting ready for it. THIS one was a totally different story. Oddly enough, I really didn't even have as much stuff as I would have liked- I'd sold a lot of the coolest stuff at the show a few weeks ago and with all the online orders really didn't have time to replace most of it. But I think that this venue was just a major cut above the others. I have heard from multiple crafters that this was "the" show to do, and now that it is done, I think I agree! I actually made enough money from this to buy a much-needed new dishwasher and help with Christmas this year! And I sold a lot of my inventory, and that's good because this was my last one! I think I will do this one again next year, but only this one. Craft shows in general are just not for me.

In fact, I nearly backed out of this one because I was so busy with everything I didn't think I could be ready for it. And now I'm so glad I didn't. Not even really because of the money, though that's nice :) And I can't wait for my new dishwasher. :) But I met a really kindred spirit at the show yesterday. She was my neighbor on my left, and she was AMAZING. I wish I had a picture of her booth, but she has a website at http://www.sosarahdesigns.etsy.com and I will be talking about her more when she gets her Facebook fan page up because you will all need to join it. I rarely meet a person who so exudes the love and joy of Christ the way that she did. I felt immediately connected with her because I could sense that we shared a common faith. Her whole family and some close friends came around to support her and be at the show with her yesterday. There were always about 4 people she was close to around her booth (in addition to the 20 or so others admiring her work!), just obviously thrilled that she was realizing her dreams. I wish you all could have seen how cool her stuff was too. I bought some, so I'll take some pictures- she sews the most amazing aprons- and I'm not really an apron person, but after standing next to them all day, I had to buy one! And some beautiful Christmas napkins since we're having Christmas here this year. :) Oh it was so awesome. :) I think my favorite thing about standing next to Sarah all day yesterday was seeing how just crazy about her her husband is. He seriously came and wore one of her aprons all day long (it was a manly one, but still, it was an apron!) and told anyone who would listen how awesome she is. These days, it seems rare to see a family that actually acts like a family should... but this one did! I have a feeling we might turn out to be friends in real life. :)

First Snow

We had our first real snow this week.

I took the kids out to play in it.

They had a great time.

After we came in, we had hot chocolate.

And that is that. I could be more loquacious, and I took about 50 more pictures, but I am swamped in bows and will be camping out in my "secret lab" for the rest of the evening...