Thinker

Today Luke looked at me and said, "Mommy, I think I'm going to put my hand on my chin like this (insert example...see picture above) and think!" You go right ahead, Luke...go right ahead!
(Where does he come up with this stuff?)

Attached

Luke's imagination is wild some times. It's very fun to watch him come up with something or add to a memory. Lately, he's been saying he's 'attached' to something and can't come to us when we call him because he's stuck or attached. Stinker!! Anything so that he doesn't have to obey...
This was a conversation in Home Depot the other day:

Daddy - Come on Luke.
Luke - I can't. I'm attached.
Daddy - Attached?
Luke - Ya, to this sticker. (One of those floor advertisement things.)
Luke - uhhhh. UH! uhhhh. UH! uhhhh UH! (The noise you make when you are trying to get 'unstuck'.) uhhhh. UH! There we go. There we go. I'm free. Let's go, Daddy.

Crazy kid! We love you!!

Santa

Well, this is the year where the rubber meets the road when it comes to Santa and secular ideological Christmas. I didn't expect it to hit me this hard. All of a sudden, I've been questioning the whole Santa thing and wondering how we should handle it. I didn't have a problem last year at all. We drug him to an awesome Santa in Chicago and sat him on his knee screaming. For some reason, this year is different. Maybe it is because he's older and the disciplining/training/teaching is in full swing. We are trying our best to point to Christ in everything we do with the kids so that one day they will come to know and love Him as we do. We fail (miserably some days), but God's Grace is good and His Mercies are new each morning. We are just regular parents doing our best to raise our sweet children to one day know Him. By His Grace alone they are saved, and He has called us to lead them to Him. Thus, our Santa dilemma begins...

David and I both grew up going to church and living in Christian homes. I can say that Jesus was talked about here and there, on Sundays, Christmas, and Easter, etc. It rarely came into practice with discipline or other aspects of daily life. We didn't have family worship or devotional time. Just mainstream Christian broken homes. This is not to say that they way we were raised was inherently wrong. It is what it is. The more we learn about the sacrifice of our Savior and the glory that we are supposed to bring to him in our daily life and raising our children, we begin to see a bigger picture than the Baptist Box that we grew up in. We are trying to do things a little different with Luke and Haydn. We want every thing we teach them to point to Christ.
I say all of this because we both grew up with Santa. David and I have great memories of the mysticism of Christmas as children. My mom did the 'you better be good' bit, but his did not. He had elves bring him candy in his shoes. I didn't have a chimney so Santa had to show up at my grandparent's house. It was presented differently, but both of us have memories of it. My memory of baby Jesus was categorized with Santa. Jesus was discussed year round, but we both recall Santa being more 'exciting' than Jesus.

These are my random thoughts lately:

• I don't want to lie to my children.
  
• I grew up with the Santa thing and wasn't damaged by the lie my mom told me, but I know people that were.
• David and I think that maybe the people that were damaged had more of the 'punishment' side of Santa presented to them. You know, the 'You better stop that or Santa's not going to bring you any presents.' (while in the grocery store in June).
  
• There is just something a little creepy about the song that says, 'He sees you when your sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows when you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.' Seriously....a big, red, bearded fat guy watching you all the time is kind of creepy.
• Luke is scared of Santa. Always has been. I can only imagine how he would feel if he knew that Santa was going to sneak into our house when we've baited him with cookies. I doubt he'd sleep the night before. For example, we went to 'Breakfast with Santa' at the local high school with some friends Saturday morning. It was going to be a trial run for our real 'sit on Santa's lap picture' this Thursday. We walked up to the front while a friend was sitting on his lap so that Luke could see that she wasn't scared. We didn't say anything. Just let him watch. He still had NO desire to get in line. So, we played the little games that were out for the kids. After each booth, someone would inevitably ask, 'Have you seen Santa yet?' Luke knew what they meant so he would reply, 'I just SAW Santa. He's over there.' I would have to tell them that we haven't 'seen' Santa, but he did just go 'see' him. Then, after about the third occurance, he said, 'I SAW Santa, but I.am.not.going.to.get.in.his.face!' My kid...he's something else!
  
• Not sure I want to put him through another year of crying on kringle's lap.
  
• If our goal in parenting is to bring Luke and Haydn to the Throne of Grace and teach them about Jesus so that one day by Grace they will be saved, then how is Santa omniscient when the Triune God is the true omniscient one?
  
• If our goal in parenting is to bring Luke and Haydn to the Throne of Grace and teach them about Jesus AND the true meaning of Christmas is Christ's birth, then where does Santa fit in?
• Santa is just a character like Cinderella or Mickey Mouse. Maybe we should just teach the kids the difference between fantasy and reality without saying, Santa isn't real...just call him a character. This may help in the area of other children...if our kids never hear the 'Santa isn't real' verbiage, then maybe they'll just play along with the rest of the world without actually 'believing in' Santa and spoiling others beliefs. (It's so hard to be in the world and not of it!)
  
• We may just skirt the issue and let him draw clues from what he sees. We won't perpetuate anything or tell him anything...just let him figure it out on his own. A friend told me about a conversation with her 5 year old recently. I liked how she handled it:

MaKenna: Mom, is Santa going to come down the chimney?
Mom: I don't know, MaKenna, what do you think?
MaKenna: I think he is.
Mom: Why do you think that?
MaKenna: Because I saw somewhere that he does that...
Mom: Oh...OK.

• We may just say that he's a symbol/character of hope and giving...
• We may just teach them about who St. Nicolas was and why some people believe...
• Will the wonder and excitement of Christmas fade if he knows that Santa is just a symbol or a character??

During this whole thought process, a sweet friend let me borrow a book called, Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper. She made some good points:

• Fairy tales are fun, but we don't ask our children to believe them.
• Celebrating with Santa and manger will postpone a child's clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It's very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part truth and part imagination to find the crumbs of reality. We want our children to understand God as fully as they're able, at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would inhibit or distort that understanding
• Think of how confusing it is to a literal-thinking, uncritical preschooler. Santa is so much like what we're trying all year to teach our children about God. Look at the attributes of Santa:
  

1. He's omniscient - he sees everything you do.
2. He rewards you if you are good.
3. He's omnipresent - at least, he can be everywhere in one night.
4. He gives you good gifts.
5. He's the most famous "old man in the sky" figure.

• At the deeper level that young children can't comprehend yet, he is not like God at all. For example, does Santa really care if we're bad or good? Think of the most awful kid you can remember. Did he or she ever not get gifts from Santa? What about Santa spying and then rewarding you if you are good enough? That's not the way God operates. He gave us his gift - His Son - even though we weren't good at all. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). He gave his gift to us to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough.
• Helping our children understand God as much as they're able at whatever age they are is our primary goal....I think children are glad to realize that their parents who live with them all year and know all the worst things about them, still show their love at Christmas. Isn't that better than a funny, old make-believe man that drops in once a year?
  

I am not saying that we know the right answer yet or that we are even on the right track. We are just trying to figure out what is right for us. I guess that is all you can do. Luckily, we have one more year before Luke is old enough to truly understand. So we will use that time to really pray about and decide how our family wants to handle Jolly 'ol St. Nick. Any thoughts out there? Any book suggestions?

**You may not agree with this post and that is fine. It is more of a way for me to try to work through our struggle with Santa. Feel free to post your comments, but be nice! {wink, wink}...and remember that we are merely trying to do what we think is best for our kids...we all want that for them, don't we?

Advent Calendar 2009

My mom bought us the PB Advent calendar this year. David and I filled the pocket with activities last night! We are really excited to countdown to Christmas with fun, daily traditions. This is what we are planning thus far:

December 1: Neighborhood Christmas Tree lighting and Hay Ride
December 2: Buy and Make Christmas Granola
December 3: Parade of Lights
December 4: Go shopping for Daddy's Christmas Present
December 5: Put ornaments on the trees
December 6: Nativity Night (Put them out and read the story from the Jesus Storybook Bible)
December 7: Wrap Presents and make homemade marshmallows
December 8: Watch the Jesus Series Christmas Movie with hot cocoa & marshmallows (the best cocoa ever!)
December 9: Sing Christmas Carols in the tub
December 10: Make Sweetie cookies
December 11: Gingerbread House
December 12: Breakfast with Santa (at the local HS...he won't sit on his lap, but loved the games!)
December 13: Christmas Horse and Carriage Ride
December 14: Go shopping for Mommy's Christmas present
December 15: Have a fire in the fire place and watch the Boz Christmas movie
December 16: Buy Christmas presents for a needy family & our teachers at school
December 17: Make Gingerbread cookies/Angel Visits Mary Luke 1:26-28
December 18: Make rice krispy trees
December 19: Watch 'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever' and eat popcorn
December 20: Daddy's Birthday Dinner
December 21: Read Christmas books and drink eggnog (not spiked...HA!)
December 22: Make Christmas Cookies with Aunt Donna and kids.
December 23: Drive around and look at Christmas Lights
December 24: Church and make Happy Birthday Jesus Cake. Open PJs.
Christmas Day!!: Open Presents and Dinner with the family

Who's that?

Notice the picture above is of David from Junior High School...
While we were at Grandpa Jim and Nana's over Thanksgiving, Nana was going through some old photos and found this one of David. It was sitting on the table while Luke was eating lunch. David picked it up and said the following:

David: Luke, who is that? (showing Luke the picture)
Luke: I don't know. Who is it?
David: (putting his thumb over the top of his head to cover his hair...) Now, who is it Luke?
Luke: OH...it's Daddy!!

I guess he is hard to recognize with hair!
(Go ahead...cover the hair with your thumb...you know you want to!)

Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.

Yep! That's right! It snowed this morning!! David was on his way out of town and sent us a txt, 'It's snowing.' Luke and I immediately ran to the door. It was so pretty!! What a wonderful treat! We finished breakfast and then got dressed to go play! Luke didn't really know what to do. He fell in it, picked it up, ate it, and kicked at it. It was fun to watch him discover. I got some cute pictures of him playing! What a fun morning!

YUM!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!

Christmas and Thanksgiving at Grampa Jim and Nana's

We spent the day after Thanksgiving with Grampa Jim and Nana. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with them. Charlie, Brook, Todd, Grace, Stephanie, Terry, and all the kids made for a wonderful time together. We opened presents and had a delicious Christmas dinner! It's been years since we've all had Christmas together. We are thankful for the time to gather as a family and celebrate the Christmas season together.
PS...Grandpa Jim and Nana, Luke LOVES his vacuum and cleans our house daily and Haydn cannot get enough of Sophie the Giraffe! Thank you for a wonderful weekend. We love you!

*This is the reason I don't have more pictures of that day. Charlie, Terry, and I played around with the camera to get some 'bokah' pictures. Love me some bokah! This was my favorite!

Brook and Haydn Grace....she can't get enough! :)

Todd, Grace and the kids...I took some pictures for their Christmas cards. They came out pretty good...

My BFF, Atlanta, painted a canvas for Grandpa Jim of his 'kids'...the dogs. She did a great job! It's amazing how well she captured the personality of each dog! She's amazing! Thank you, A. He LOVED it!

Maggie...their first dog...the queen. She passed away a few years ago.

Choco...#2. Your typical 'old man' dog...keeping guard over the ladies!

Cassie #3...she's a dapple, long hair. She's a stocky little thing. I would say she's a little tomboy.

Molly#4. She's my favorite! She's a cream long haired and super sweet. She's definitely the baby!

Grandpa Jim...choked up at the gift!
(We all wondered if he'd react the same way at a portrait of us...his REAL kids! HA!)
Merry Christmas, Grandpa Jim and Nana...we love you!

Thanksgiving with Lou Lou & Opa plus Happy Birthday, Opa!

Thanksgiving Day we celebrated with Lou Lou, Opa, Brook, Charlie, Jim, Khristi, Scott, and the kids. We not only bowed our heads in Thanksgiving for blessing us with a wonderful family, but also for a great Opa. The 25th was his birthday. We had a great time together that day! Happy Birthday, Opa. We are thankful for you. (Thanks, Lou Lou, for the pictures!)

Opa and Haydn Grace

'The girls'

Opa and The Kids

House Divided! Ready for the big game!

Opa's Birthday!

Aunt Brook and Haydn Grace

Luke and Ella played with the piggy banks forever...The pigs were missing stoppers, but they didn't seem to notice or care! :) They are exactly 1 year apart!

Playing outside

Lou Lou loves our sweet girl!

Lou Lou and Opa with Haydn


My Man...mmm..mm..mmmmm!!

We saw THIS on the way over to Charlie and Brook's for Christmas! HO! HO! HO!

Haydn is 3 Months Old

Sweet Haydn,
YAY! You are 3 months old today! I cannot believe it! This infant stage is flying by and it is bitter sweet, for sure!
You slept through the night 2 nights last week. It was so nice to sleep uninterrupted! It hasn't happen since, but it's gives me a glimmer of hope that it will one day! I think you are trying to figure out a new schedule. We are hoping that settles into a better routine soon. Right now, you are sleeping well and eating well. You are getting so big! We'll find out next month more about your growth, but you are definitely in your 3-6 month clothes. We all LOVE your smiles and coos. You do not like being on your tummy, so you have figured out how to roll to your back as soon as you are placed on your tummy. It makes it hard to give you 'tummy time', but we are excited you are rolling! You love to talk to us, but have slowed down on that lately. You grab and bat at toys and love to talk to/play with the frog on your car seat. You light up when you see your brother or your Daddy, but Mommy is definitely your favorite. You are such an easy baby. So laid back and easy going. I struggle with the fact that your brother needs me so much more these days and you spend alot of your wake time chilling in the swing or bouncy seat. I am more intentional lately to read to the both of you or spend some quality time with you when you are up. It's hard most days. I am thankful that you take it in stride. I truly enjoy the time with you when brother is at school and we have some one on one time. You are so happy and it just warms my heart...and those dimples are to die for!! You are such a gift!
I love you,
Mommy

12 week chatter

Haydn Grace is 12 weeks old and is already out talking her brother...if that is possible. She chatters all day long, but mainly to me or dad. Occasionally, she'll converse with the fan, but mostly to us. See the video below. She is so cute I want to eat her cheeks off! umph! Butter 'em up and call her a biscuit! Yes, she's that cute!

Pumpkin Patch and Trunk or Treat

Sunday was a big day for us. We went to the pumpkin patch after church and then home for naps. We headed to my sister's church that afternoon for Trunk or Treat! It was a fun-filled fall day!

Daddy and his little girl! (No comments about the bow, Mom!)**

Dressed up for Trunk-or-Treat. He's a shark and she is 'shark bait' (or 'chum' for the avid shark fishermen out there...)

Sharky getting candy...

The shark from behind

Tinkerbell and Peter Pan

Ms. Vicki making Haydn laugh.

**My Mom is not a fan of the head-band bow so we just try not to put them on her when she is around...can't avoid pictures, though. I think she looks precious in it!