He gets it!

Dream no more, Bing. Your white Christmas has become a reality. Well, at least for those of us here in Northwest Georgia. . . Jude and I both experienced our first white Christmas together this morning. And as opposed to any of the snows we had last winter, Jude really seemed to know what to do with it this year!

He also seemed to understand some things about Christmas this year. When I told him we were going to go to grandma and grandpas and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus, his face just light right up. Last night, at Christmas Eve service, he sat relatively attentive while Travis gave the children's sermon about persecuted Christians in Arab nations who were not able to safely celebrate Christmas like we could. And when he gave the little gift bags to the children, Jude came running back to me with his, excitedly exclaiming, "Tra-bis! Tra-bis!" He was so proud of that little gift from Travis.

Here is our day so far:

Thomas shirt from Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa















Thomas bath toys from Mommy and Daddy
















Thomas books from Mommy and Daddy
















Do you notice a trend yet?

And then there was. . .

Checking out the snow
















Eating the snow. . .

My Big Boy

Until I became a parent, I never realized that a small triangle of construction paper could elicit such strong emotions from a person. That person, of course, would be me.

We've been going to a Moms2Moms (like MOPS) group since Jude was 6 months old and for the last meeting, Jude went to the "toddler room" nursery. This is the kid that doesn't even look back to say goodbye when I drop him off at any nursery.

I guess the first thing that got my blood pumping was when I went to pick him up and he was the first in the front of a whole pack of kids waiting at the baby gate for their mommies. I almost didn't recognize him because he just looked so grown up standing there!

Then as I was putting his jacket on, the girl in charge handed me this:





















and so much pride began flowing through me that I truly felt like I might burst. What?!! A little piece of construction paper with yard sale stickers and a clothes pin? Really? Yep. My baby had composed his first creation and it was definitely one of the highlights of parenting thus far.

I look forward to many other, odd, small joys over the next several years, but I don't think anything can top how I felt in that moment when the nursery worker handed me Jude's Christmas tree:-)

















Please excuse the greasy finger print. I let him hold it while we were having lunch!

The Santa Problem

I thought this gentleman did an excellent job of dealing with the Santa problem:
Raising Modern Day Josephs
I don't see any problem with having harmless fun, but I do see a problem in lying to your kids when they flat out ask.

First Christmas

This is Jeff and my seventh married Christmas, but it is our first Christmas as a trio. Jude's first Christmas. At nine days short of three months, he of course, has no idea what is going on, but it was fun anyway. This morning "he" opened gifts from mommy & daddy, Aunt Ann & Uncle Joe, Great-grandma & Great-grandpa, and Grandma Linda. Respectively he received his first piggy bank (so he will understand the importance of saving earl, a sock monkey & the bouncy seat from mommy & daddy, a great blanket and a TON of clothes from Aunt Ann & Uncle Joe, a great running suit from Great-grandma & Great-grandpa, and a super cool wooden monkey toy from Africa from Grandma Linda.

Here's the photos documenting the morning:

These guys got it right

As I read this passage from Luke 2 today, it struck me that these were the first evangelists! When they realized the good news that Jesus' birth was, they couldn't contain themselves. Imagine what a risk they were taking in first century Asia to be making such lofty claims!

" 15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

Do we share that Good News with as much enthusiasm and conviction as the shepherds?

Salvation will always be the best gift that Jeff and I have received, but here's the next best:

In case you are wondering what his shirt says:















And here's what a 15 pound 11 week old looks like:

My First Christmas Snow!

I want to be a weather man because according to The Weather Channel yesterday, it was not supposed to even rain today. (If I had that poor of an accuracy rate at my job. . . well, you know what would happen.)

So, I tried a lot of different shots, but since the ground was too warm for it to stick and it was really very little flakes, the only way for me to show this to you is this way. Apparently, even if snow won't stick to the ground or the cars, it will stick to the black lab.

This is officially my first ever Christmas snow:-)

Christmas Light Show

This man is smarter than I can ever hope to be! This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We have seen a couple others, but this is the best one, by far. These guys also have more time on their hands than I can ever hope to have:-)

Eeeeeee! It's Christmastime!

About a mile from our house begins the City of LaFayette's Christmas display, where they have put a different set of decorative lights on the power poles. This runs all the way through downtown and almost to the middle school where I used to work (I still work for the middle school, just at the 6th grade campus now). When I saw the lights come on this Wednesday, I knew that it was Christmastime, so I went home and began working on this:

We had to buy a new tree this year because some of the lights went out on our tree last year (once I discovered pre-lit trees I decided I was NEVER putting lights on a Christmas tree again) and we were both too dumb at the time to figure out how to get them to work again.

So, we saw this baby in the Home Depot and said, "YEAH! Let's get a big tree!" We are in a much bigger house this year than either of us have ever lived in. But, the one thing that we both failed to take into account was diameter. So, that separate dining room that we were both so happy about is now the home of our Christmas tree.

The first thing I said to Jeff when we got it put together was, "I think we're going to need more ribbon." But I managed to make what we had from the past five years spread out enough. At the rate I receive Christmas ornaments from students, this thing will be full by the end of this Christmas anyway;-)

I have decided that these will be my favorite Christmas ornaments this year (I actually think that they look as good sitting here on my dinning room table as they do on the tree). They were a gift to me in January. They are very precious because they were made by a Roma person, better known to the rest of the world as a Gypsy. The Roma are very poor people and very discriminated against. Many turn to crime to survive, hence their bad reputation. But, as you can see, many also develop a trade to survive.


I have a very difficult time finding memories where my dad was happy at Christmas. He was often angry, but seemed to be even more irritable at Christmastime. But this ornament represents a surprising and precious memory to me. I still to this day do not know what sparked the desire in my dad's heart to do this, but I remember that I was out with him on a trailer run one day during Christmas break when I was a teenager and my dad wanted to stop at Roger's Christmas House off of I-75. When we left there he had bought these birthstone angels for my mom, my sister, and for me. I thank God that he gave me this memory to hold on to.







I have had this ornament since I was maybe four or five years old! I remember always thinking that this was me and Ann. As kids, I was blond and Ann had brown hair. I have always been about that much taller than her, too (except of course when she was born because there is a HUGE difference between a 14 month old and an infant).

This was one of the ornaments that mom let me take for Jeff and my first married Christmas. We would have had a starkly bare tree if it weren't for mom, Linda, and the ornaments that I got from my students that first year!