Twelve Years Ago...

We welcomed our first son into our lives.  We had chosen his name when we were still engaged ~ a full decade and four daughters before that November night in 1997.  It was like finally meeting someone we had been waiting all those years to see.


Now...
He looks like his daddy ~ he always has ~ except his curls are blonde ~ for now ~ I always wanted a boy with blonde curls and big blue eyes.
He is almost as tall as me, and his feet are bigger than mine.
His voice is beginning to sound a little less like his sisters' and younger brother's.
He builds robots, and mows the lawn, and serves as an usher, and helps teach children's Bible class, and is the senior puppeteer on the team...
He is growing into a young man ~ right before my very eyes.
I couldn't be any more blessed...
or proud.

Happy Birthday, J~Man!

Keeping Advent ~ Plans for week 1

Our Advent calendar this year is a small round papier mache' box I bought at stuff*mart for 67 cents and painted purple.  It will sit in the center of our Advent wreath for the next 26 days.  Each day during our morning time one of the children will open it to reveal that day's scripture passage and a special activity.

Here are this week's activities:

• Sunday ~ Light the first Advent candle: HOPE


• Monday ~ Celebrate J~Man's birthday


• Tuesday ~ Watch A Charlie Brown Christmas oops! wrong Tuesday! & have a C.B. Thanksgiving feast (popcorn, toast, pretzels, and jelly beans)


• Wednesday ~ Take a walk under the full moon & come home to hot chocolate


• Thursday ~ still to be decided, probably a craft of some sort


• Friday ~ Journey to Bethlehem (at a local church)


• Saturday ~ Saint Nicholas Eve (I will post more later about this)
  

We will also be reading an Advent book which I found at Half Price Books last month:  Do You See What I See? A Devotional Seek-and-Find Book for Advent.

Keeping Advent ~ What's Missing?

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas begins, right? 
Wait! What about Advent?  
What is Advent?

•  from Latin Adventus which means "coming": a season of preparation and anticipation of Jesus' coming...to the manger at His nativity, in the clouds at His returning, and into our hearts at this time
  

Perhaps the most important thing for me (a baptist girl with liturgical longings) in trying to keep Advent is making a conscious effort to postpone Christmas.  I must admit that when I first began doing Advent it was more as a way to prolong Christmas.  This shift from "doing" to "keeping" and from "prolonging" to "postponing" has been slow but significant.  I started out adding things to our late November/December season: a St. Nicholas Day celebration, an Advent calendar, an Advent wreath, but over the past couple of years my focus has changed.  I have begun to remove things from this time of year.  What things?

• Christmas decorations ~ we wait to trim the tree until the 23rd (our wedding anniversary) or Christmas Eve (I would actually like to do it Christmas morning, but that is too weird for the rest of my family)
  


• Christmas music ~ I have loved discovering the difference between Advent and Christmas music
  


• Christmas Activities ~ not all of them, of course, but I have become much more deliberate and selective with how we spend our time both outside and inside of home
  


• Christmas Shopping ~ nothing like crowds and commercialism to steal my peace; I am not a Scrooge, but I do try to give small, handmade or thrifted, and thoughtful

So, what have we gained in our giving up?  Much as during a fast from food, I find that I am able to direct my time and my energy toward God, meditating on His word and His love.  This putting-off rather than dragging-out of Christmas means that we are less likely to become weary of it all and thereby lose the meaning in the mania.

There is much more I would like to say, and I hope to do several additional Advent posts.  This is probably my favourite time of year!  I will end with a new-to-me-this-year link: Rediscovering Advent.

Of Course, don't miss the rest of the Carnival!

Thank you, Kerry!

Thankful Saturday

"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name."

~1 Chronicles 29:11-13~

Thankful Friday ~ little(ish) things

I am thankful for:

• my kitchen table


• my dishwasher


• Longhorn victories


• children who will talk to me


• children's friends who like to hang out at my house


• a couch for a friend to sleep on


• the blogworld


• pumpkin pie


• apple pie


• pillows


• stretching