New Start....

For those of you who are mulling over the pros and cons of resolutions, here is something to consider...

S.M.A.R.T start the New Year!
"The righteous keep moving forward...and...become stronger."Job 17:9 NLT
Whoever said, "Procrastination is the thief of time," was right. We keep postponing, promising ourselves we'll do better. Be honest, how many of last year's resolutions did you keep? This year do things differently. Make your goals S.M.A.R.T. In other words, make them:
(S)pecific: Get up 20 minutes earlier in order to read your Bible and pray before going to work. Not work past 7:00 so you can be with your family. Exercise for 25 minutes a day. Take care of your body; it's God's temple (See 1 Cor 6:19-20).
(M)oderate: tackling more than one project at a time dilutes your focus and makes it harder to stick with. When you start too much you finish too little. Start small and build on your successes by mastering and maintaining one thing at a time.
(A)chievable: don't try to swallow the whole elephant in one bite. Baby steps are the name of the game. Paul said, "One thing I do" (Philp 3:13 NKJV). Talk in terms of what you will do instead of what you won't. For example, instead of saying, "I'm not going to be so critical," say, "Today I'm going to look for something good in everybody I meet" (See Philp 4:8).
(R)ecordable: You can't manage what you can't measure. Documenting your progress (or lack of it!) makes you accountable, shows how far you've come and what you need to work on.
(T)ime-specific: review your goals weekly (or daily if you're struggling). That way you can troubleshoot early, and change direction when necessary. The Bible says, "Throw yourself into your tasks so...everyone will see your progress" (1 Tim 4:15 NLT). Come on, make up your mind, get up off the couch and go for it!

Sleeping children

I love how little children look when they're sleeping. So peaceful and quiet. Joshua has been sick the last few days, coughing and a slight fever. He is up much of the night coughing and as a result he's been sleeping with me while his poor Daddy has been in his bed. Last night he fell asleep for a good hour or so before he began coughing in earnest and I just couldn't help but capture these pictures. I wish he could stay little forever...

My favorites....

Here are some of my favorite things from yesterday:

• the necklace Joshua made me out of a found charm and a chain he borrowed from me.
• the way he intentlly described the drawings on the cards he made for everyone
• the fact that his big sister helped him wrap everything up and even made little homemade boxes for some of the presents, with personalized decorations
• watching Prince Caspian with everyone last night. That is a great movie and was so beautifully allegorical. Thank you, Nick, for that thoughtful gift.
• my two new Willow Tree angels, wonderfully coordinated by Jarrett and Alyson
• my new devotion book called "Taming Your Tongue in 30 Days," with chapters on the "sarcastic tongue" and the "loquacious tongue," etc. That topic has been on my mind for some time now, but more to come on that in the new year
• the new apron my in-laws got me from the Williamsburg collection
• having my family all together again, just like old times.
• Remembering those "old times" as we sat around visiting after dinner

It was a great day.

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful day yesterday! We didn't get any snow, but it was pretty warm and sunny out, which is a good trade off for me. :)

The kids got up at 7, which is the allowed time. We had a leisurely morning opening presents, with a break in the middle for playing, and a breakfast of sticky buns, eggs, and sausage.

I will definitely miss it when we don't have a little one in the house anymore. Christmas is always so exciting with a small child. Joshua ran out side to see if the reindeer had eaten their food and found Santa's sooty bootprints on the hearth near the cookies. The delight on his face was priceless!

Just what I asked for!

brotherly love

a little downtime to enjoy. It was definitely a Star Wars Christmas around here. Joshua is playing Star Wars on his Leapster ("I'm doing math, mom!") and Nick is learning how to program R2D2.

Marvelling at the records in the Guinness book

Nick's new glove works great!

Alyson trying out her new "Ashton Kutcher camera"

We played some new games in the afternoon and had a nice ham dinner afterwards, followed by watching Prince Caspian.

Christmas Eve traditions gone awry....

Many of you know that our family is pretty attached to our Christmas traditions. We have several, and it would be heart-breaking for our kids to have to miss them on Christmas. One year in Germany we even drove back home from the Alps (7 hours!) on Christmas Eve so they wouldn't miss their Christmas morning in their own home.

Well, this year we may have found one that we are willing to part with.....

After we go to church Christmas Eve we drive around and look at lights. We bring drinks and snacks (cookies, sausage, crackers, etc.) in the car and listen to Christmas music on the radio. We left the church and headed out, trying to decide where the best lights would be around here. There is a road not too far from our house that has a bunch of beautiful million-dollar-plus homes on it and we thought it might pay off so we headed there. The houses did look gorgeous, and many did have lights, but not very many of the displays were that spectacular. It was a little disappointing, so we decided to look somewhere else. And that's where things went horribly wrong...

Dave turned onto a street which had no outlet. He pulled into a driveway to turn around and I remarked, "Wow, this is a stately-looking home." Everyone looked forward and because our headlights, in the driveway, were shining directly on the house we had a good look. Right into the front windows of the house. A very clear, direct, look right into the front room of their house. It was dead silent in the van. And next were heard cries of, "Oh, dear!" and "that really IS what I thought it was!!"

Let's just say there was a full moon out Christmas eve, and it wasn't in the sky......and moons have craters, not.......oh, forget it.

So!

We did continue looking at lights, but with strict instructions to look ONLY AT THE LIGHTS, NOT INTO THE HOUSES!!!!!!

Here are some pictures of the kids dressed up for church, and then wearing their new jammies.....

Merry Christmas!

To all of our blog friends and family, we wish you the merriest Christmas, surrounded by family and full of love.

Fun Family Times

Saturday I drove down to pick up Jarrett for Christmas. We had a great drive back up here--lots of time to chat and no traffic! Sunday our family lit the Advent wreath at church and we all went out to Outback for dinner Sunday night (sorry you missed it, Lori G....). We had a great time just sitting around laughing about "old times" and making new memories....

Tonight we finally got around to making gingerbread houses. Joshua has been begging me to get the pieces baked and I just haven't been able to find the time. Thankfully, we won a couple kits at a Christmas party last week and it worked out great! Alyson has a day of school left before break and unfortunately has a big chemistry test tomorrow so she had to spend the evening studying. She's got to maintain that awesome GPA, you know....

The boys all began very earnestly.....

There was some snacking but not too much. I think it was too much sugar even for them.

Here are the proud architects with their finished products!

Tree.....check

In between church Sunday morning and the evening program we ran down to a local Christmas tree lot. If we didn't go then we might not have time before the big day!

We scouted around and found a nice-sized tree with a great shape. got it decorated last night and I finally have one thing checked off my Christmas to-do list!

Sunday evening Joshua sang in the church Christmas program. He had a great time with his friends. He especially liked the songs with motions. :)

Day 2

I have to apologize in advance for the change in fonts throughout this post. I've been trying to fix it for about half an hour and I give up!

In the cab on the way home from the restaurant Sunday night, we heard the weather report: 19 degrees. Monday forecast at 6 am: 11 degrees with a wind chill of 5! We hemmed and hawed a bit and then decided it just wasn't worth it to get up at 5 to stand out in the cold for a POSSIBLE chance of meeting the Today Show cast. We'd sleep in till 7 or so, have breakfast, and then make our way to Rockefeller Center at our leisure. We arrived about 9 am--just in time to see Matt, Meredith, and Al hustling back inside the building to warm up. Here's a little note to those who have not tried this before: that group of people standing with signs and cheering didn't just walk up and stand there. They had to walk all the way to the end of the building, have their bags checked and their signs approved, then weave their way back up between the barriers to the front. We were disappointed, but noticed there was still a group of people hanging around so figured it was worth a little wait to see what would happen. We went through the clearing procedure and staked out a place behind the Toys for Tots set up. Half an hour later, much to our delight, out came Al and Ann (and Lester?). Long story short, both of them came over and wished Alyson "Happy Birthday" (our sign said: Sweet 16 in NYC-sponsored by DAD). Both of them posed for a picture with her and then they went on air. If you happened to be watching the Today Show during the 9:30 hour on Monday you saw Alyson standing behind and between them while they opened a couple of segments out on the Plaza!


We went to watch the skaters after the segment ended. We decided we were too cold too skate and then headed for Starbucks.

Did you know there are 171 Starbucks in Manhattan? Alyson and I thought we ought to plan a trip back to see if we could count and visit all the Starbucks in the city but I found out some other guy had already done it:
http://gothamist.com/2007/07/18/171_starbucks_i.php
Anyway, back to our story. Unfortunately, at that moment in time, before any nice, warm stores had opened, we couldn't locate any of the 75 or 80 Starbucks we had seen the night before. We finally found one inside Trump Towers and happily settled in a table to warm up.

The rest of our day Monday involved a lot of walking and shopping. We went to FAO Schwartz, the big underground Apple store,

and over to Central Park. We declined several offers for carriage rides and just popped into the park a bit.
We went to a store called Juicy Couture, where Alyson spent a big chunk of her birthday money on a hoodie. We bought souveniers, had lunch at a local deli (yum!), back down to Herald Square and Macy's to pick up something I saw the night before,

and gazed up at the Empire State building. We didn't go up to the observation deck like we had wanted because the one on the 102nd floor is closed for renovations.


Disclaimer here for those who may have noticed the lack of "culture" on our trip:
Unlike our usual trip-taking agendas, we were strictly going for fun. We based our most of our sightseeing around our favorite movies-Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, Elf, Big, to name a few. That and shopping. We went to no museums--and we definitely plan on going back with the entire family to do that sometime.

We shopped and shopped, and shopped some more on Monday. We took a cab down to Soho and shopped. Then we tried to get a cab over to the World Trade Center area, which was a bad idea right at rush hour. So we walked all the way over there. We didn't get to see much because it was dark and busy with commuters, but did get a feel for the enormous hole it left in the city. Just being there gave me the feeling so many of those people must have felt trying to get away. It was chilling. And quiet. That's something I really noticed. Walking along the streets all through the city, there is chatter and noise. People talking on phones, to each other, horns honking. But in the WTC area, it is eerily quiet. There are just as many people; they're just all being quieter.

We found a cab finally and asked him to drive us to Battery Park so we could at least glimpse the Statue of Liberty. Going out to it had been on our agenda, but time was against us. We got a nice view, but unfortunately none of the pictures really turned out. Our cabbie waited for us then drove us back uptown to our hotel and it was time to head home.

I had gotten more and more nervous about driving out of the city after walking around for two days and watching the traffic. Going into the city wasn't too bad because I didn't know what to expect but now I knew. Thankfully, by the time we had finished shopping (we made one last stop at Lord and Taylor's to look at the windows, which ended up being my favorites)

it was 8 o'clock and the rush hour traffic was gone. We actually headed right out of town, into the tunnel and were back in New Jersey in no time at all. Thank you so much to those of you who were praying for us as we drove. Things went more smoothly than I could have imagined.

This was a thrilling weekend for both of us. A great time for us to spend time together, talk, and relax. I'd love to go back and maybe ought to start saving up now so we can go see Wicked again! For those of you who voted for the mom/daughter trip to NYC, great job! Now we need to do it with the entire family. Maybe it can become a Christmas-time tradition for us. :)

One thing I will definitely do next time: wear a pedometer. I am really curious about how many miles we walked in two days!

And huge thanks to our benefactor, aka "Dad," for this amazing trip! He made it possible for us to have such a fabulous time.
The boys had a good time of their own here--getting to go to a college basketball tournament at the Verizon Center in DC (BB&T classic), and having a day off school Monday!

We're Baa-aack!

And now, after a day of recuperation, I am ready to post a somewhat condensed recap of our wonderful, exciting, freezing trip to NYC!

The drive up was pretty uneventful, except for a bit of a slippery road from Baltimore to Philadelphia. We passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then we drove through the Lincoln Tunnel.

We dropped our bags off at the SSMA club (email me if you are curious to know what that is), parked the pickup for the weekend, and we were off! We were staying just a few blocks from 42nd St. When we turned on to it, we had a great view of the Chrysler building and walked past the New York Public Library (hi grandma!), Bryant Park, and Grand Central Station on our way to Broadway. We had to check out Times Square first. It was busy, and bright and packed with people--just as we expected.

We went to see Wicked at the Gerschwin Theater on Broadway Sunday afternoon. It was absolutely incredible. I just couldn't have imagined what they could do with a stage and some props. The entire thing was captivating--from the story to the actors to the set to the orchestra. One of the most delightful things I've seen in a very long time. And for those of you who have known Alyson since she was 3 or 4, you will "get" the connection to this show in particular. A very poignant experience for her mom, who is watching her girl grow up fast.

After the show, we walked past Radio City Music Hall, up to Rockefeller Plaza to see the tree at night. We had the same plan as 14. 9 million other people! Yes, I know we look exhausted in the pictures. We were. But thrilled, too. We did get a nice portrait taken by a photographer with the tree in the background and we ordered a copy of it to keep. The skating rink was so packed that it was even hard to see through the crowd just to watch. We walked around a bit-Saks 5th Ave was all lit up with huge snowflakes on the facade, Tiffany's and Cartier were covered in lights and security (!), and everything was very festive.

We took a cab down to Little Italy to enjoy a special birthday dinner. We ate at a restaurant called Pepolino's. You can google it if you want to see the decor. It is a tiny little restaurant-with 6 or 8 small tables downstairs and a few more upstairs. The staff is Italian and attentive, the food was incredible, and the ricotta cheese cake was the creamiest, most delicious dessert I've had in recent memory. The staff, when they heard it was Alyson's birthday, brought out her gelato (stracciatella, for our European friends) with a candle and sang Happy Birthday to her, joined by the other diners. :) It was a really nice evening.

And that is the end of day One.

Forecast for:
New York City

Sunday, Dec 7

AM Snow Showers / Wind
High 35°F

Monday, Dec 8

Mostly Sunny
High 31°F


Brrrr.........
I am rethinking that great idea we had of making a sign and trying to get on the Today Show. I don't think my freezing feet could take it!

One king from the Orient

Today's dress-up choice of the day.....

SURPRISE!!

Alyson's friends from church planned a wonderful early-birthday surprise for her this weekend. They met at the mall to see a movie (they saw "Bolt," which may be my new favorite movie...) then did a little shopping. The rest of the group had to "get home early" so I took A's friend Jessi back to her house. Alyson had no idea that Jessi's mom had decorated the house, bought several of Alyson's favorite treats (kettle corn and blow pops, to name a couple) and baked cupcakes. The other kids didn't actually head home, but went over to Jessi's for a big surprise party for Alyson!

It was a fun afternoon-complete with dinner (pizza and salad) and s'mores out by the fire pit. The kids all played a favorite game of theirs called "Signs." They would have kept playing for hours.... It's been a lot of fun to see Alyson having the free time to enjoy things like this. Back in our "old" days of gymnastics, there was never enough down time.

Thanks, guys, for planning such a fun day!

Thanksgiving report

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving again this year with our good friends down in northern Virginia. We have gotten to spend the past several Thanksgivings with their family and always look forward to it. There are 8 kids between the two families-7 boys and 1 girl. Both big boys were home from college. I did a poor job making a photo record of the event, but here are a few....

Just a few of the kids got up early in the mornings. The little boys were lucky to get to snuggle up with Anthony and watch some cartoons. Everyone else slowly dragged themselves out of bed. Here are some of them relaxing...

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All set to eat!

Of course there was football.....

yes, Nick is playing with a broken elbow.

The moms did get up early and go shopping Friday. 2 big mugs of coffee and a couple of short shopping lists. We are not really die-hard bargain shoppers, so when we saw the line for Target was about a block and a half long, we decided we'd wait in the car till the doors actually opened. :) I am happy to say that we both got what we were looking for, though. And just so my kids don't think I am kidding, WE DID NOT BUY AN LCD TELEVISION SET!!! Now, maybe, they won't get their hopes up....

Hope everyone else had a great weekend, too!

Hooray!!!

We had a great visit to the orthopaedist today! Not only is Nick's arm healing well and quickly, but he doesn't have to have a cast at all! Modern medicine is funny--I remember the days when immobility after every procedure was the norm. Now they even get you up a couple hours after surgery and have you walking by the end of the night.
The doctor wants Nick to use his arm because keeping the elbow in one position for so long will cause more trouble in the long run. He is still really swollen and in pain, but we will ice it and keep the regular doses of ibuprofen. He has a sling to wear if he is out or around other people as a reminder (to them) to be careful of bumping him.
It'll be great for him in so many ways--not the least of which is showering and school work. :)

I am a bit nervous about our trip to our friends' home in No. VA for Thanksgiving. The group of 7 boys tends to get rowdy. I'll have to keep a closer eye on the happenings this time....

We'll return to the orthopaedist in 3 weeks. If he is still in the same amount of pain, and if the numbness in his fingers hasn't subsided, they will do an MRI to check for the possibility of a fracture in the growth plate.

But thanks for your prayers, everyone. Looks like things are back on track.

Pain....

I feel bad for Nick. He wants to be up and cheery, but his fingers are swollen, his arm aches, his head hurts, and he can't get comfortable. Pray for him when you think about it. This could be a long 6 weeks. :(

A True Blue Fan

Some of you sports-minded folks might have read about the injury woes of the North Carolina Tarheels basketball team this season. Our All-American player of the year, Tyler Hansbrough, has missed the beginning of the season due to a "stress reaction" in his leg. What that means exactly, I'm not sure, but given that through last month he had only missed one practice and no games (in 3 years) it must be serious. Marcus Ginyard had surgery in Oct and will be out until mid-December. Mike Copeland tore his ACL in the spring and is out till mid-season. And now our 7-foot freshman, Tyler Zeller, is out for the season with a broken arm. That's tough. It's hard to watch your team struggle so much. We are cheering for them, hoping for quick recoveries, and anxiously reading every press release to see what the prognosis is. We're good fans. Maybe not quite as dedicated as those guys who paint their chests. But none of us hold a candle to this kid:

Apparently Nick decided the only way he could show his true, hardcore loyalty to the Tarheels was to throw himself off the trampoline and join the boys sitting on the bench. Wouldn't one of those stick-on tattoos have been sufficient? I think he is hoping he can redshirt the rest of his freshman year....
After Nick was hurt, Joshua decided it was time to step up and take care of his beloved brother. He read him his reader from school and gave him a piece of candy. He was very concerned when I put him to bed and prayed that not only would Nick's arm feel better, but that the doctors would be gentle with him. I was taking Nick to the ER around 11:30 last night (oh, did I mention this happened right after the youth group Bible study?) and the first thing he said this morning was, "How's Nick?"

Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery....

So here's where we stand: an avulsion fracture to his elbow and a severe sprain. 5 days in the splint to let the swelling go down. Apointment with orthopaedist next Tuesday to re-examine and determine course of action. Possiblities are: ligaments will help reattach the bone fragments that have been broken off, enabling him to spend his recovery in a soft splint. OR fracture requires longer and stronger stability and he'll be in a full-arm hard cast for 6 weeks. We're pulling for the first one....

Good day, Eagle Eye

That is how Indians greet each other, according to Joshua.

Here is a picture of him as Squanto, watercoloring a backdrop for his "set up" in the living room.

single parenting...

Just another week of single parenting around here.
Let's see...what's on tap?

• Pick up A from indoor track every day
• Of course school with the boys every day
• Babysit for friend Mon.
• Scouts Tues.
• Boys' dentist appts Tues.
• PWOC Wed.
• AWANA Wed.
• My dentist appt Thurs.
• Guitar lessons Thurs.
• Hosting youth Bible study Thurs.
• Homeschool co-op Fri.

This morning I read this in the Bible study Al and I are doing together:

...It seems like we're always with people-people at home, people at school (and after school), people at church......On and on the people list goes. Yet, here's the truth:

The greater the proportion of your day-of your life-spent hidden in quiet, in reflection, in prayer, in study, in scheduling, in preparation, the greater will be the effectiveness, the impact, the power of the part of your life that shows.

Wow. It certainly is a challenge to find time to be alone when the schedule is so busy and I am the "only one" running the roost. But when the reward is so great-that my peace would show, that others would see Christ in me-how can I not make that my priority?

Bragging on my family

I just have to share about my wonderful birthday weekend a bit.

It all started Sunday morning, with a big, healthy, delicious breakfast in bed. They had one early gift for me to kick things off-a Natalie Grant CD and two tickets to her concert that night!

Dave and I headed out for the concert in the late afternoon. We got something out of the freezer for them to cook because he was taking me out to dinner afterwards! We had a really nice dinner at Red Lobster after the concert (which was fantastic, by the way) and came home, expecting to find the kids watching tv or putting Joshua to bed. Much to my HUGE surprise, they had cleaned up the entire house, decorated with balloons and streamers, and baked me a birthday cake! Those kids must have been hopping!

We opened presents (from family and friends and more from them) then I blew out the candles--just before they burned up the cake. ;-) It was delicious--chocolate with cream cheese icing.

Monday was a busy day with school and everything so we played it pretty low-key. Joshua sang Happy Birthday to me 4 or 5 or six million more times and Dave cooked dinner. Little did I know of his culinary skills before this--but now he is definitely on the schedule! He made pork medalions, fresh green beans, and spaetzle (a favorite meal from a favorite restaurant of ours in Germany) and even bought my favorite mineral water as an accompaniment. We enjoyed more cake, a couple more rounds of Happy Birthday and the kids had the dishes done in no time.

It was a wonderful 40th birthday, made that way by my sweet family going out of their way.

I love where I live

Please remind me of that the next time you hear me grousing! Today Dave and I took the boys (Alyson had school) 45 min away to Arlington National Cemetery. We just planned on walking around a bit and paying our respects. We were blessed to get tickets to the ceremony at the Amphitheater, though, and spent an incredible morning honoring and remembering those without whom our freedoms would not be possible.

View of the dignitaries on the balcony. Lynne Cheney is sitting right in front of the first column on your right.

VP Cheney spoke eloquently about the sacrifices made by our veterans, both gone and living.

Joshua fell sound asleep during the ceremony. Snoring and everything!

A picture of my own personal veteran. I love this man.

There are so many incredible benefits to living in this area. We had never had the privilege of hearing Vice-President Cheney speak. We heard the 19-gun salute when he arrived and the playing of Taps as he layed the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was right on the other side of the amphitheater. We were surrounded on all sides by veterans of all ages. Different branches, different conflicts, different memories, one common bond. They all served their country with pride. They spoke to each other about their experiences, asked about units, patted each other on the back.

Our country is blessed.