First Snow

Last Thursday it snowed. Not a lot, but enough to postpone my school's winter program (an adapted production of "Annie") to January and allow me an evening with the girls in the midst of a string of busy nights away from them.

The parking lot across from our house has the perfect, gradual downhill grade for this time in our lives, and we made use of it. As we played, Esther and her friend, Dennis, decided to pop over, and they ramped up our sliding adventure. (You'll see from the video that it's a good thing Dennis showed up to keep the blue saucer going downhill. Poor Evelyn.)

Afterward, we headed inside for hot chocolate. It was my kind of night--spontaneous, fun, outdoors!

For the love of Mommy

These are the things that get you as a parent. Small acts of BIG love, and one experiences waves of overwhelming warmth as children express themselves.

I was getting ready in the bathroom when Evelyn presented me with this card. (I know it looks like I'm "the nuts" person she knows, but she assured me it says "the NICEST" person she knows. Perhaps both apply.) Of course, I had that warm, mushy, melting heart feeling and I picked her up and held her close, reveling in a precious, mother-daughter moment.

As we stood there with our cheeks pressed together. smiling at our reflection in the bathroom mirror, Evelyn grinned warmly and whispered reverently, "Mommy?" I stared at our faces, filled with love, awaiting her next comment.

"Can I have another donut?"

Honestly, I love that she thinks of me and donuts in the same emotional, warm, expressive moment. :)

O Christmas Tree

I love the tree. I'm staring at it as I blog. I used to be insanely picky about the tree itself and about making sure the decorations had a theme and were perfectly placed. I used to meticulously craft an ornament every year out of a photograph of the previous year's tree.

Then I had kids.

Now I'm just happy to HAVE a tree. We hang absolutely everything on it, and besides insisting that bigger, heavier ornaments are hung near the bottom and on inner branches that won't droop, I don't care what hangs where.

This year the topper is a decorative cone Evelyn made in school. And she made a birthday card for Jesus that she hung, too. (She loves climbing on the railing to hang things at the tippie top.)

The inside of Jesus' birthday card reads: "I like your angels. You're cool."

:)

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Much pleasure thou can'st give me;
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Much pleasure thou can'st give me;
How often has the Christmas tree
Afforded me the greatest glee!
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Much pleasure thou can'st give me.

Knee Verdict

Well, a month after Alan's knee puffed up like a small pumpkin, we've found the reason, and it's not what we expected at all: Lyme Disease. Apparently it's not uncommon for Lyme to attack a single joint with swelling and pain like that--the orthopedist said he'd seen it plenty of times.

Alan feels good to have a diagnosis, and the fact that there's nothing structurally wrong with his knee has encouraged him to walk on it more and do more in spite of the fact that it still hurts a lot. He'll be starting physical therapy soon to regain the muscle he lost this past month. And he started the month-long round of strong anti-biotics yesterday.

Pray we'll be good at keeping tabs on the meds--we're really not "structured" people, and when a medication is as important as this is and has all these specifications ("don't lie down for at least 10 minutes after taking," "do not eat for at least one hour prior to taking and 2-3 hours after taking"), it's easy for loosey-goosey people like us to get all discombobulated.

Like last night, when he'd just waited the proper amount of time to take his meds and took it, I was opening our Christmas cards. My friend Melissa sends with her Christmas card a traditional Polish Christmas wafer called an opletek, which you eat with your family as a symbol of the forgiveness that Christ offered when he came. She included the traditional blessing, and being our naturally spontaneous selves, I said the blessing and Alan and I ate the wafer. Suddenly, Alan said, "I'm not supposed to eat!" Hopefully that paper-thin, mouth-sized piece of flour baked w/a little water did not mess with his nightly dosage.

This morning Alan took the girls to school for the first time in a month. It's the second time he's driven since this all started. Lyme Disease has offered some explanations for other things he'd been experiencing--headaches that just wouldn't go away (blamed on caffeine and dehydration) and general aches and fatigue (blamed on being the parent of young children.)

Thank you for your prayers--we won't turn you down if you continue to offer them on our behalf. Pray that Alan can keep the fears at bay (Lyme is such a strange and unknown disease still, with many, many different manifestations), and that I can be his supportive, loving, compassionate partner who puts the people ahead of the to-do list.

For the love of donut

Evelyn had already eaten her donut. But she has a distinct lack of self-control when it comes to sweets. It borders on obsession. Observe as Evelyn cannot take her eyes off Amelia's donut. In fact, Evelyn eventually succeeds in securing herself a bite. And some sister-to-sister fun.

Boy I loved the lighting in the kitchen this afternoon as the sun streamed in through the window. I'm no photographer (as evidenced by, among many other things, the grand expanse of kitchen counter top in half the pictures), but I think that lighting was just magical.

And boy I love these girls.

In Praise of Grandfathers

Alan never knew his grandfathers. I had the incredible blessing of knowing both of mine into my adulthood.

I am so glad--so grateful--that our girls have their grandfathers.

Opah came over Saturday and brought us Chinese food. Alan's knee is still not good (doctor tomorrow), and both girls have taken turns having multiple-day-long fevers. So Opah came bringing dinner, Christmas cookies, and himself.

And Grandpa Blackman gave us something I'd venture to say is a very unusual gift among grandfathers. He cleaned our bathrooms during the Thanksgiving holiday. What a humbling gift.

So here we sing the praises of our girls' grandfathers.

I Want to be a Winner!

The Pioneer Woman is just so entertaining and funny! I want so badly to win something like this sometime! I've entered one or two of her random contests, but most of the time I miss the deadlines because I don't check her blog every day.

Just sayin'. I think it looks like my kind of crowd. :)

Friendship

Jesus had friends. And He wanted them around. In fact, He wanted them in the bleakest moments of His life, to pray with him; to be with Him. And, though they disappointed Him by falling asleep (and not just once), I still love that he wanted them there.

God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden. ("In the cool of the evening." Isn't that lovely??) He liked being WITH them. He liked their company. That's why He made them: for Himself, and for one another.

I hope it is not too brash to assume that being made in God's image means liking being WITH people and having friends, walking "in the cool of the evening" just for the joy of it, and longing for someone to stay awake with you in the lonely, dark times.

Here's to friendship. :)

(And here's to the rockin' cool outfits in which my girls choose to hike the woods "in the cool of the evening.")

Chilly Weather Architecture

A box of dominoes and a bag of colored cubes = two little cities of creativity. :)

Knee Update

Unfortunately, we still don't know what's wrong with it. :( The MRI didn't show anything and the doctor was puzzled. It's pretty obvious something's wrong. So they drained it again and sent the fluids off to test for Gout. Then Alan had to go for blood work to rule out diseases like Lyme that can settle in joints.

If all those tests come back negative, we'll meet with the doctor to talk about an exploratory arthroscopic surgery to look for a tear in a spot the MRI somehow missed. Until then, it's just about doing the daily thing.

I give Alan a lot of credit. He has a really good attitude. He's not worrying or whining. He's been propping himself up in the kitchen to wash dishes, cook some meals, and make some lunches. On Wednesday evening, I had the last class of a continuing education course, and I fretted about Alan having to "do it all" at home with the girls. But he was amazing. He said they spent the whole evening hilariously creating "Elf Yourself" dances on the computer using different pictures of themselves, family members, and friends. They loved it.

Here's the family version of "Elf Yourself." Apparently, the girls insisted on "pretty" pictures of themselves. So what's up with Mommy???

Everyday Beauty

Self portrait of oldest daughter.

The hairdo she gave to me the other night after dinner.

The hand-me-down lion peeking sweetly over the top of a basket (the contents of which are dumped on the floor, but artfully left out of the frame of the photograph.)

The sky on my drive home from work this past Friday.

I'm a tad embarrassed at how self-centered I've been about Alan's knee. HE'S the one with the pain, the fitful nights' sleep, and the irritating inability to go about one's normal business, but I allowed my focus to be on what his injury added to my daily to-do list. My apologies to him, and my apologies for sounding it out here.

It's a good place to be reminded of those simple commands in the epistles: "In EVERYTHING give thanks!" "Do EVERYTHING without complaining or grumbling."

Humbly, I add how much I appreciate how many people are praying for us. I've really felt strengthened. It's been so much easier to choose that good attitude and have the cheerful heart that Proverbs says is good medicine. And it amazing how healthy it feels to actually practice thinking of others instead of oneself. :)