Sunday

Today's Peak: Playing with my girls at a play land here in a city near us. They have a big warehouse building and they filled the big room with bounce-house style toys. Slides and obstacle courses, all those blow-up style things you see at carnivals and stuff nowadays. I went on every one of them except the 'fighting' ones, where you pick up a jousting stick or huge boxing gloves. I don't care for those and the girls didn't either so we just didn't go on them. Some of those things are tall! And fast! One of them had to have been over a story tall. My stomach jumped every time. Fun stuff! The girls thought it was great when I said I'd go on them with them.

Today's Pit: S was being daring and pushing herself off a bit as she hit the bottom of all the slides. Well, it finally came back to bite her at the very end. She flipped too far and rug-burned the side of her right eye and gave herself a bloody nose. A bad part of it was that I was in the bathroom with C at the time and missed the whole thing. Great.

Today's Prayer: For this Christmas to be a season of repentance for me, that I may get back on the path God has for me rather than going my way and getting 'stuck' in disobedience. That I may truly meet and love Christ in this Christmas season.

Today's Praise: For understanding and flexible family members, as the girls and I had to leave lunch at my in-laws to go to the birthday party. For fun holiday traditions coming up. For plenty that we can feed those who need it in this season and beyond.

Some Days...

Some days, I suck.

Some days, I aim my frustrations at the wrong person.

Some days, I can't hold my tongue, even though they're just little and they're just learning.

Some days I need a lot of forgiveness.

Some days it's a good thing God's mercies are new every morning. 

Some days, I spill egg on my shirt 25 seconds after I put it on in the morning.

Some days, I eat a ton of chocolate though I've promised I'll eat better. 

Some days, I can't stop talking about something even when the other person is done.

Some days, I need a lot of forgiveness.

Some days, even pounding the crap out of the volleyball isn't enough to vent frustration.

Some days I do too much, and don't relate enough. 

Some days the people around me feel under attack though they didn't do anything.

Some days I need a lot of forgiveness. Today was one of THOSE days.

It Starts...

Our first major Christmas stuff started today. We started the day at 9:30 with Sunday school and church. We went straight from there to a city about 25 minutes away to have a Christmas party with my very extended family (Like, MY great-grandparents' kids and their kids and so on. My great grandparents have passed, but it's pretty cool that their kids get together yet).

From there we got home just in time to change clothes and quick head to church. S had to be there 1 hour and 15 minutes early! Thankfully their Sunday school teachers kept them all busy before the service and I didn't have to think of things for them to do.

C and A and the Fireflies doing their songs. 

I didn't get many pictures, just this and one of their class leaving the stage. I got most of it on video. The kids were adorable up there, of course. I love being a part of all that. I love Christmas time.

Today's Peak: Two. Being with extended family and watching the little kids doing their thing on stage. The Pre-K group was adorable, too! And funny. Of course my kid was the one stealing the show. C got too warm during their last song and decided she needed to take off her sweater, which had buttons. So she's up there unbuttoning and then taking off and putting on her sweater! We were all shaking in our seats from laughing so hard at her.

Today's Pit: Stressing a bit about getting to church on time. We had plenty of time but I have a hard time relaxing when we're even one minute late.

Today's Prayer: That I may be more like Joseph. Our sermon this morning was on just how much Joseph really did give up by tying his life to the ruined reputation of Mary and her baby. Amazing. Would I be willing to take that most important thing in MY life and give it all up for God's sake? Challenging.

Today's Praise: The people in our life. We have truly amazing family and friends, and our church family is outstanding.

Great Wolf Lodge

We went with my in-laws to Great Wolf Lodge Wisconsin this past weekend. I absolutely love doing this with them, they decided last year to give us experiences rather than gifts for the adults. They still give the kids gifts on the day we celebrate Christmas but this is so much easier than trying to figure out what to buy a bunch of adults who don't really need anything.

We were gone Thursday night to Sunday afternoon. Hubby and I stayed up late with various people every night, but mostly we were the only ones up so late. Too bad. Almost everyone stayed up late the last night, and it was so much fun I wish we could have done it every night.

I promised myself I'd go on every ride the kids asked me to and I did except for the funnel thing they had. I went on that three times the first day and that was enough for me. The 3-4 story climb and steep drops all the way through were fun but I've recently developed a fear of heights and it didn't like that ride. So I went on everything else. And my girls did every ride there too. Christy was too little to go on the funnel ride so she and I stayed together when the others wanted to go on that.

A being silly after going down a slide. I could not get any pictures of them actually sliding, my camera wasn't fast enough.

C spent a lot of her time here, in the kiddie pool.

More kiddie pool. These slides were a bit slow for her but she went on them a couple times.

S and her uncle finishing up a tube-slide ride.

The girls in front of the decorations in the Grand Lobby.

All of us on the steps up to the loft in our room. Christmas card material for this year. 

We had so much fun. There's no way we could thank mom and dad enough for the trips. I'm so glad they do this for us.

... And Today's

Please don't notice that there was a day in between these ellipsis-ed posts.

Today's Peak: Ordering pizza instead of having to make something for dinner, and then laughing our way through eating it while listening to Christmas music.

Today's Pit: I woke up with the worst cramp in my neck. I actually checked for meningitis it hurt so much. Tylenol and Ibuprofen and I'm feeling much better.

Today's Prayer: That God may open my eyes and I may learn intimately what each member of my family needs and how to love them in their own way.

Today's Praise: That God has blessed us so that I may stay home with our children. I love being able to visit their classrooms, to help their teachers, to be proud of them and how they're learning. I love learning and doing my best to take care of my family. I love growing into the wife and mother that God wants me to be, even if I'm painfully slow at it sometimes.


Now, if it would just snow already! I can't believe it's December 2 with that big beautiful lake we have and we haven't seen any notable snow. Depressing.

Yesterday's...

Today's Peak: Kevin and I stayed up waaay too late because we got lost on Nostalgia Lane. It started with me looking up the awesome a capella group Straight No Chaser, then Hubby looked up another a capella group who used to sing the theme song for the old PBS show, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. They're called Rockapella. Well, good old YouTube nicely looks up related videos. Carmen Sandiego was a 90's show, and we spent most of our formative years in the 90's, also known as the era of great cartoons. So we spent the next 2 hours watching theme songs from DuckTales, DarkWing Duck, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers (did any other 90's girls LONG to be Gadget?), Gummi Bears, and so on. The amazing thing was how many I could sing along with, in spite of it being 16 years since I've seen some of them.

Today's Pit: We stayed up until 11. Not such a good idea anymore when we're both adults with real things to do every day. Especially for Hubby who gets up before 6.

Today's Prayer: For cold and flu season not to hit us any harder than it has. I felt terrible the last two days. Finally feeling better on Wednesday.

Today's Praise: Praise God that I can be involved in Fireflies at church, where I can fulfill my promise to be involved with the teaching of the children of our church. And they're all so darn cute. I'm glad to be a part of it. Praise God that my husband and I love to laugh together and share our evenings with each other.