Flumageddon

Posted on January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 by Amy

This winter, I have heard of “Snowmageddon.” I have heard of “Srirachamageddon” (Wha??). I am going to jump on the “-mageddon” train and call the past week in my home “Flumageddon.” My husband woke with a high fever last Tuesday morning. By Tuesday night Lass had a fever. Sis woke with one on Wednesday morning. Somehow, some way, Miss and I have not gotten sick (though she did have a nasty stomach bug/puking reaction of some sort all day Wednesday, which was notawesome).

Yeah. Flumageddon.

Note: I do not mean to sound as though I’m making light of the flu. The flu is bad business, though I have at times been guilty of not taking it very seriously. I always worry about my kids getting the flu, but I never think of it as being too much of a big deal for a healthy adult like myself (except in 2009 when I was pregnant with Lass). This year with the H1N1 strain of flu being prevalent again, relatively young, healthy people are dying from the flu, like this man or this woman. Awful.

Not that this is any more tragic than when elderly people, sick people, or children, those typically at highest risk from the flu, die from it. It’s just scary because young healthy people often don’t get vaccinated because they think they aren’t at much risk of complications from the flu. And because of that they don’t recognize when they do have complications from the flu. It’s a reminder that the flu should be taken seriously.

Anyway, this is why my husband was quarantined in our bedroom, on the recommendation of his pulmonologist friend, to try to keep the girls and me from getting sick. Thank God we all got the flu vaccine (it contains the H1N1 strain this year) and the girls’ symptoms were relatively mild as a result (highest temp only 101.4). I’m sure this is also why Miss and I were able to resist the virus.

Unfortunately, my husband had already been battling a nasty cough for about a month. So after the flu hit, he developed pneumonia. Hello. Commence freak out. When I heard “pneumonia,” I started to panic a bit, worrying that he would end up being hospitalized or worse.

So, my poor husband has been terribly sick, confined to our bedroom, fearful that our kids will get this horrendous flu, and we’re both scared to death because pneumonia can be bad stuff. It’s been a heck of a week.

And as much as I have tried to be stoic and uncomplaining (heroic even?) in my caring for my family, I am not above an occasional bout of self-pity. On Wednesday in particular, when I had a very sick husband, two kids with fever and one puking up every bit of liquid I tried to give her, and I was worried about dehydration and pneumonia, and I was working on very little sleep (because of sleeping on the couch), and I had no help (though my dear Super Friend did offer to deliver supplies to my doorstep if needed), I was a mess. In my own head at least I was. I think I kept the frustration and worry from showing too much to my kids and hubby. But yeah. I was a mess.

I had lovely little battles in my mind between my “Oh-my-gosh-this-suuuucks!” self and my “This-isn’t-about-you-be-grateful-it-isn’t-worse” self. Fortunately the latter self typically won out, and honestly most of the time I was thankful to be able to care for my family, but I’ll admit to a few tears and a whiney phone call to my Mom Wednesday night.

***********

We’ve watched a lot of movies during Flumageddon. Wednesday the all-day movies were for them. They were too miserable to do anything else, and I was trying to minimize their interaction with each other anyway.

Thursday they were feeling much better, but the movies were for me to recover from Wednesday.

Though Wednesday was the toughest day, by far my worst moment came on Friday evening. My husband’s fever was gone on Friday morning (as were the girls’). I have always understood the sickness rule to be that after you are fever-free for 24 hours, it’s safe to go back amongst the healthy folks without contaminating anyone. He had assumed the same thing, so I was giddy thinking he would be out and with us on Saturday morning. He offered to let me go to the spa Saturday. I said (texted), “No thank you, but I would like a nap.” I was dreaming of sleeping in my own bed, having another adult to talk to, and having my usual level of support and help with regular stuff around the house and with the girls.

Friday was a pretty darn good day in spite of Flumageddon. We took our lemons and we made lemonade.

We made a fort.

The perfect little spot to read.

We played with PlayDoh.

I was so happy thinking about my husband being with us again on Saturday, I practically floated around the house.

Then he made a rare and brief appearance out of our bedroom (with antiviral mask on, hands clasped behind his back, and the girls safely gated in the family room) to tell me that he had been checking on things and had learned that 24 hours just wasn’t enough time to be considered safe around others with this flu. So he was not going to be released from quarantine on Saturday morning as we had been anticipating.

Kick. In. The. Gut.

I reacted like a big baby. At least at first. I grumbled. I cried.

Then I took a deep breath. I apologized to my hubby for grumbling. And I went and got ice cream (for both of us).

Now hubby is out of our bedroom, but still not going near the girls. It’s so sad to see Sis reach for him and say “I hode!” (hold) or “I hug!” Watching him play with them through our french doors is precious and heartbreaking. I feel so bad for him. He feels like crap and he can’t be around our kids, the best medicine I know of.

Some time tomorrow he will declare himself all-clear and we will (hopefully) get back to normal. He will need to take it easy for a bit to recover from the pneumonia. We will pray that the girls don’t develop it (it can begin after the flu symptoms are gone). Soon we will hopefully go back to interacting normally with the rest of the world (the girls haven’t left the house since last Tuesday).

Okay. So, after all that I’ve learned about the flu and pneumonia in the past couple of days, consider this my Public Service Announcement for the year: The flu is serious stuff. As a general rule, I never get into the vaccination debate here, and know lots of people think the flu vaccine is not effective or necessary. You can check what the CDC has to say about it if you’re so inclined. If you get the flu and you don’t start to feel better in a few days, call or go to the doctor. It’s hard for a non-medical person to know the difference between flu-cough/fever and pneumonia-cough/fever. Don’t assume that it’s “just the flu” and thus “no big deal.”

I don’t want to seem melodramatic, but seeing how sick my husband has been from this flu, when he is not even 40 and very healthy, has freaked me out. Reading about potential flu complications made me remember that the flu is a big deal. So there you have it. PSA complete.

Bonus PSA #2 – In case you ever thought it would be a good idea to allow your toddler to eat as many prunes as she wanted at lunch time? Just, don’t. Sis discovered a serious love for prunes yesterday. And now, just as we’re recovering from Flumageddon, I’m dealing with our very own little Poop-pocalypse. Geez.

Stay healthy 🙂

Three Kids, Two Different Viruses, One Day

Posted on January 8, 2014January 9, 2014 by Amy

Warning: This post is kind of lame, but I took the time to write it, so I’m posting it anyway. I couldn’t quite pull it together better, so here it is in all its glory.

I wanted to write about something else today, but I’m just too tired. My husband woke up with the flu yesterday morning. I spent yesterday trying to help him as best I could while keeping the girls and myself from getting sick. No such luck with the girls. Lass was the first to go down with a fever last night.

Sis woke with one this morning.

I thought maybe Miss would pull through without getting sick. At lunch time today she still hadn’t spiked a fever and was acting fairly normal. Then while sitting at the table for lunch she got a strange look on her face. I had a passing thought of “Hmmm, she looks like she’s going to get sick. But she’s not going to get sick. This flu isn’t the throw up kind of flu…” Then she barfed her breakfast onto her lunch plate.

So yes, now we have three respiratory flus with fever and one stomach bug with no fever. I am just wondering when I”ll be going down for the count, and whether it will be with flu, pukes, or both. I’ve been washing my hands to the point that they are bleeding in hopes of keeping the craziness from spreading, so hopefully I might make it through (relatively) unscathed.

It breaks my heart to see my babies sick.

It also pains me to know my husband is sick upstairs and to not be able to help him very much. He has been quarantined, so our primary mode of communication has been texting with the occasional phone call or food hand-off. I haven’t seen him in the past two days without one or both of us wearing an anti-viral mask.

I’m sleeping on the couch even. Thus, tired.

So. I apologize for the somewhat whiney post. I just couldn’t get my thoughts together enough to write about something else. Here’s hoping your hump day was better than mine, and that we will be on the mend around here soon 🙂

Food for my Soul

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Amy

As I mentioned in Friday’s post, I love this time of year and enjoy taking time to reflect on the year gone by. So, I’ve been thinking about how much I learned in 2013. The year was full of plenty of deep, soul-shifting realizations and searching. I’ve realized a lot about myself, my spirit, my heart. I’ve discovered a lot about God and the Church too, much of it life-changing for me. I’m pondering these new insights and savoring them this week.

And I’ve also been thinking about some of the little things I’ve learned. Small facts about history and Christian faith. I enjoy thinking about these because it’s funny to me just how much I didn’t know. And humbling how much I still have to learn.

Just this week I learned a new fact when reading 150 Bible Verses Every Catholic Should Know. The author mentions the father of John the Apostle, Zebedee. I had to go back and read again, because I was shocked that his dad wasn’t Zechariah! I always thought that John the Apostle and John the Baptist were one and the same. Even after reading again I still wanted to check the information, so I asked my husband. Of course, he confirmed that they were two different people. Huh.

I don’t know why I thought they were the same. Simple mistake I suppose.

I’ve also learned some very elementary, essential, how-did-I-not-know-that? Christian information as well in the past four months.

For example, during one of my very first RCIA classes we split up into groups to discuss the readings for the week. When we got to the Gospel reading everyone started talking about “Gospel this” and “The Gospels that.”

Then there’s me: “Um, I have a question. What are the Gospels?”

Them: “Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.”

Me: “Okay thanks. But uh, what are they?”

I actually didn’t know why they are important. Now I do. So you can see that I really started at the beginning when RCIA began.

In the past few months I have sometimes wondered if some of the other folks in my RCIA class are amused when we do exercises in finding Bible verses and our instructor makes comments like “This is good practice for learning how to use your Bibles.” Most of the people in the class are Lutheran converts who are probably already know the Bible quite well. Me? Well, not so much. I did read the Bible some when I was younger and had a basic understanding of how to find things in it even before beginning RCIA, but that’s about it.

One time in RCIA when we were doing one of these exercises in looking up verses relevant to the lesson of the week, I was discussing these with my sponsor (who is just delightful, by the way) and we came across a passage mentioning the Ark of the Covenant. She began talking animatedly about the Ark of the Covenant, and I just drew a blank. I didn’t want to ask, because it seemed like a very basic thing that I ought to know, right? But I didn’t (know). So I did (ask). “Soooo, what exactly is the Ark of the Covenant?” If you don’t ask you don’t learn, I say. Now I know.

Just yesterday I Googled “What does Hosanna mean?” I always thought it was just a girl’s name, but since we sing it in a song every week during Mass I knew it had to be something else. Exclamation “used to express adoration, praise, or joy.” I love that.

I never knew that “Immaculate Conception” refers to Mary’s conception, not that of Jesus.

I could go on and on with examples of the little tidbits I’ve been learning. Small (and big) things that I’ve never thought about before. Just in three Bible study meetings I’ve learned a ton about the Mass.

And the wonderful thing is that I am finding this stuff fascinating. It’s like food for my soul and I can’t get enough of it.

I’m going to classes/meetings, reading, Googling, asking. With every piece of information that I come across and don’t understand, I want to find out. I’m thinking about things in new ways and it feels good.

I imagine myself a year ago and am kind of blown away. What a difference a year makes.

Seven Quick Takes New Year’s Edition

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Amy

Linking up with Conversion Diary.

2013 was an interesting year here. We had some rough experiences. We had lots of changes, some good, some bad, some amazing. I think I will remember 2013 as a year of change and challenge.

I’m eagerly looking forward to 2014. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions as such, but I do like to think about the past year and the upcoming year. The good, the bad, what I want to modify, what I want to accomplish. I like to look forward to the new year and make goals. Here are a few of mine for 2014 (well, seven to be exact):

1. I haven’t completed any sort of race or other fitness event since running the Disney World Marathon six years ago. I am not sure which event I will do yet, but I will be training and getting back out there for some sort of race/event in 2014 (one thing I am sure of, it will not be a full marathon).

2. Currently, I can do two unassisted pull-ups (unassisted meaning without a resistance band), and eight straight-body (not on my knees) pushups, and I can back squat 135 pounds. By the end of the year my goal is to be able to do ten pull-ups, twenty pushups, and to back squat 185 pounds.

3. I read somewhere around 43 books in 2013. I really don’t need to make a goal to read more. Actually, I probably should make goals to read less and get more other things done in my free time. But that’s not going to happen.

With that in mind, here are some books on my “To-Read” list for 2014:

Catholicism for Dummies – I’m almost halfway through this one.

Divergent – I have a secret love of teen dystopian novels (Hunger Games, anyone?).

10 Gifts of Wisdom: What Every Child Must Know Before They Leave Home

Wool – My husband finished this audiobook recently. It sounds interesting, and when possible, I like reading the same things my husband has read/listened to so we can discuss. We’ve been talking about Screwtape Letters a lot recently, and I really enjoy our conversations (not that I expect this book to be on par with Screwtape, but maybe still fun to talk about)

The Sun Also Rises – This was on my Summer Reading List and I forgot about it. I’ll get to it this year.

Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It – You know how much I enjoy Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog. I’m giddy about her upcoming book.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

He Leadeth Me – Another one from the summer list that I forgot to read.

Things Pondered – I just saw a link to a ton of free Kindle books by this author. This one in particular is interesting to me, but I nabbed all of the free ones and hope to read them all this year.

That’s just a start. I also intend to start reading my Bible more this year now that I’m almost finished with 150 Bible Verses Every Catholic Should Know.

4. I will work on experimenting and using different settings of my camera. I almost always shoot in the “P” mode of my camera, which controls everything but the flash for me. I need to start learning how to shoot in the “A,” “S,” and “M” modes.

At least once a week I’ll be experimenting with different camera settings, lighting, etc. I have tried reading books. I’ve tried taking a class. I need to just do different things with my camera if I really want to learn.

5. I need to pick a Kindergarten curriculum (!!) I also really need to work on being more organized in my homeschool planning and scheduling. I haven’t yet found a system that I’m comfortable with. Suggestions would be welcome.

6. I’m instituting a Family Game Night. We had our first one tonight. I saw the game Cootie on Amazon the other day and remembered how much I loved playing it as a kid. I ordered it.

What was I thinking? It is not fun. But we have lots of other games too, and I think Super Friend has a bajilllion games for her kids, so I’ll ask her for some recommendations as well.

Unfortunately, I suspect my kids will be choosing Cootie as our game for a while.

7. I will be getting back into some cooking adventures. My husband and I used to have fun doing a little version of the Food Network show “Chopped” at home (I even have a whole category in the “Topics” drop-down dedicated to this). Then last year he got me some great books and I started some other fun cooking projects.

I cooked lots of egg recipes one week.

^^Homemade mayo

^^ Shirred eggs (yeah, I didn’t know what that was either) with cream and parmesan-reggiano

^^ Souffle !!

Another week I did Spanish dishes.

I like doing things to make food prep fun, but I’ve gotten away from doing this for a while and have been in a cooking rut (mini meatloaves, lettuce wrap tacos, chicken with mustard/maple sauce, repeat).

So. Back to fun stuff. My husband got me some gorgeous cookbooks for Christmas. Italian and French. I’m going to get closer to my roots and go Italian first. Then I think I’m going to go in depth with onions. Then French. Then, who knows? Sunday I’ll be making gnocchi in tomato butter sauce from scratch. Yum.

I love the feeling of beginning a new year. Reflecting and anticipating. 2014 is gonna to be good.

What are your goals for 2014?

See more quick takes here. Happy New Year!

Most Post 2013

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Amy

As the year is coming to a close, I’ve decided to join in with some other bloggers to do a “Most Post.” This idea comes from Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things. Check out her post here to see hers and others’ posts about their “Mosts” of 2013.

Okay, so what the heck am I talking about here? Sarah has posted, and encouraged others to do the same, about some of her blog posts from the year 2013 that fall into the following categories:

Post with the Most Clicks
Post with the Most Comments
Post with the Best Picture
Post that was the Hardest to Write
Post that was Your Personal Favorite

I thought it would be fun to look back over the year and see/think about which of my posts fall into these categories (Please note that I’m in the process of switching my blog to a new hosting company, so if you click on any of the links below and the photos in older posts are not displaying, that’s why. Sorry). Here they are:

Most Clicks: Summer “Bucket List” – 50 Summer Activities for Kids. All of my top posts for traffic are those that have been pinned a lot. Oddly, the most-clicked-non-pinned post was A Wrestling Meet, a Birthday, Some Great-Grandparents, and Disney World. I have no idea why this post got so much traffic, unless it’s because I linked to it from the Snow White Birthday Party on the Cheap post, which was #2 in number of clicks.

Most Comments: I Am a Yoga Pants Wearing Mom This post really seemed to strike a chord with many people. I got lots of “Yes, me too!” comments as well as a few “You are a sloth” comments (on BlogHer where it was a featured post).

Best Picture: There are so many, I am having a hard time picking one (plus I can’t see half of them in the posts). I think I have to choose one from Baptisms, though the photos for that post aren’t fully transferred yet so they’re not showing up in the original. It’s this photo:

Another favorite from Farewell to Summer (which also isn’t showing photos yet) is this one:

Hardest to Write: Lost My Religion, Finding My Faith I felt very awkward with this, my first foray into writing about spirituality in general and my own religious beliefs in particular. I’m glad I wrote it though. It’s interesting for me to go back and re-read it, and consider myself at that stage relative to where I am now.

My Personal Favorite: I had a hard time choosing just one. I thought about So Um, This is the Bible…. Then I thought maybe Still Dirty, Still Weird, Still Fun, because that was my favorite post to write. I also considered Two Stories About Opossums. I like these posts, because they’re ones in which I poke fun at myself. But ultimately I’m choosing On Bread and Wine. Bear With Me Please. as my favorite.

2013 has been an interesting, sometimes tough, and wonderful year!

Bumpy Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2013December 25, 2013 by Amy

Merry Christmas! Our day was wonderful and joyful and kind of rocky. I always like to imagine that our holidays will be Hallmark perfect, with everyone happily playing and rejoicing and enjoying each other. We had some of that, but some of the not-so-perfect stuff too. It was kind of a bumpy Christmas.

As promised, baby Jesus:

I enjoyed playing Santa last night. My husband enjoyed that I didn’t buy anything with “some assembly required” this year.

This morning, ready to go…

Trying to eat the big guys’s leftovers:

Toy packaging is absurd.

The girls each got a nutcracker and were thrilled with them.

We have princesses…

Miss loved her little wooden Saint Cecilia doll:

Sis got a baby doll, and her favorite thing from the box was the spoon. “Poon! Poon!” She’s sleeping with it as I type this.

She also wanted to constantly play with “Baby Cheesis.”

Miss loved her fairies and her Elsa and Jasmine dolls. But she refused to take them out of the boxes and played with her sister’s new dolls instead.

We had a lovely, soft snowfall all morning.

It was all so idyllic. Until about 10:30 am.

Lass randomly threw a rubber ducky (of all things) into the air and hit Miss in the eye. In spite of her Daddy being able to find and retrieve a small speck of something from her eye and then flushing it with water, she still could barely open it and complained of pain for quite a while.

She ended up taking a trip to the emergency room with her Dad to have it checked out. Can I just take a moment to comment on how hard it is to stay at home while your child goes to the ER? My husband is a medical professional, and knows the ER doctors, so it made more sense for him to take her. And there was no way we were getting a babysitter on Christmas. So. I stayed home with Sis and Lass, who bawled because her sister had to leave her, and I fretted for the entire time that my girl was gone.

Of course she was in good hands, and she got the royal treatment at the hospital. Poor girl has a corneal abrasion.

The rest of the day was kind of a wash. We put on Christmas movies all evening to distract her from the pain, and to distract all of them from the fact that my prime rib dinner took forever to finish cooking, so we didn’t eat dinner until more than an hour after our usual dinner time.

But. Dinner was delicious. My biggest girl is now snoozing peacefully after her Daddy snuggled her until she fell asleep. I’m staring at a big mess of wrapping bags and presents strewn about my floor around the tree, and I’m not cleaning it up. I have a glass of wine and some time with my hubby.

In spite of the bumps, it was a great day. It was a beautiful mess of a day. This Christmas season has been extra special for me. I’ve spent a lot of time today thinking about what Christmas means to me now. I have so much to be grateful for.

I hope you had a joyful Christmas too (minus the bumps).

Random Christmas Catch-Up

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Amy

I haven’t felt like writing much this past week. I guess I’ve just been savoring Christmas time.

I think this post will likely end up being a jumble of thoughts on our Christmas-ing thus far. Such as: I’m thankful we got to spend time with extended family this past weekend, in spite of the nasty weather for traveling. My girls love seeing their cousins.

Cousins and aunts and uncles are an essential part of Christmas. I remember Christmas gatherings with my cousins when I was little.

That’s me, front and center. ^^ In the red suit (??). Weird, but I really, really loved that red suit.

I have to admit, there is a part of me that longs to hunker down, snuggle in, and stay home during Christmas. But I would absolutely never take away these cousin times from my girls. We make a point to visit and spend time with family all year, but there’s something special about the memories of Christmas with tons of family members around.

Essential.

In other random holiday news:

Tonight I will go to my first ever Christmas Eve mass. I’ve never been to church at Christmas. Even though it will be packed and we will have to wrestle Sis throughout the service since the nursery won’t be open, I am really looking forward to it.

My Mother-in-law gave me the coolest gift this year. I don’t even really know what to call it,

but it is delightful. It has the figures of the Nativity on it, and the heat from the candles makes it spin. We lit it up on Sunday after we lit our four Advent candles. I think in the future we’ll do it along with our Advent wreath each week. It spins faster the more candles are lit! It will be a new tradition.

We made a crazy amount of Christmas cookies last week to take and share with family over the weekend.

^^Miss wanted to make a baby Jesus cookie for everyone in the family.

I am thankful that we have plenty leftover. I had made a random and stupid comment to the girls that if we ran out we could just make more to put out for Santa on Christmas Eve. I’m really glad we don’t need to make more.

I love time in the kitchen with my girls, but decorating cookies is not my favorite holiday tradition. I would have liked it better if we didn’t have so many cookies to decorate so late at night, I think. Note to self for next year.

I still have to make a baby Jesus doll to put in our manger under the tree in the morning. I was going to buy one, but they are expensive!! The girls are very interested in the fact that I’m making one.

Try to share my vision. I swear it will be a baby Jesus by tonight.

We’ve been filling our manger (also homemade, just a wooden box that I painted brown) with a piece of “hay” (raffia) for each kind gesture the girls make. They get excited to see how soft the bed is that they’re making for baby Jesus.

Except for my procrastination on making the baby Jesus, which I’ll do after the girls go to bed tonight, I’m ready for Christmas. The presents are wrapped. Dinner is planned and will be relatively easy. I’m all set to make creamed eggs for breakfast. I’m excited to just enjoy my husband and girls tonight and tomorrow. Merry Christmas!

I Have Bangs

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Amy

I have been wanting to make a change to my hair lately. It’s been on my mind, and then when we were at my parents’ house last week Miss saw a 20-year-old photo of me and exclaimed, “Oh! You look so beautiful!” She especially seemed to like my hair.

“How did you get your hair like that???” It was a bit hard to explain, because she didn’t quite understand the concept of a three-year-old perm. Her questions got me pondering a change more seriously.

Other than a few (very) brief ventures into “different” hair,

my hair has been the same since I was 16.

I’m only wearing that sweatshirt ^^ because I lost a bet.

So this past week I decided it was time to get my hair cut and try something different again. I asked Miss how she wanted me to get it cut and she said “Short!” I told her I hadn’t had very good luck with short hair, so I probably wouldn’t be doing that any time soon (ever, ever, ever).

But I did decide I wanted to try bangs again. I haven’t had bangs since about 1991 (the top photo in this post was taken around then). Well, except for one reaaaalllly bad attempt at reaaalllly short hair in college, around 1995. Thank goodness I have no photos of that horror.

So. 2013. I have bangs.

I like the change. It satisfied my urge for something different (it’s nice to get a haircut and give some directions to the hairdresser beyond, “Just cut off a few inches”), but not too crazy.

Best of all, when I came home from the salon and asked Miss if she liked my haircut, her face lit up and she nodded enthusiastically, “Yes!!” Love that girl 🙂

Joy to the World

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Amy

I love Christmas carols. Love them. I am nearly incapable of doing something Christmas-related without turning on my favorite holiday tunes. In fact, when I was wrapping gifts the other night, my husband was listening to some (quite lovely) classical music. It just didn’t feel right. So I grabbed my phone, plugged in my ear buds and started jamming to “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”

When I decorate the tree, wrap presents, bake Christmas cookies, I must listen to Christmas carols. And to be honest, I listen to them any other time I get the chance too, or just sing my favorites at random wherever I happen to be. I’m the annoying lady singing along with the songs playing in the stores. Love me some Christmas carols.

I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. My Mom and I listened to Johnny Mathis Christmas music while making no-bake cookies for her bunco group every year, and the tradition kind of stuck. You know I am a Christmas tradition junkie. And I have music in my head constantly, so this is the perfect time of year to just sing out loud as much as I want (so sorry if you happen to see me in a store).

My favorite carols? Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting... I’ve also always loved Give Me Your Love for Christmas and What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? which I think are solely Johnny Mathis songs, though I’m not positive. Perhaps oddly, other songs that I have always included among my favorites are JM’s musical rendition of the Our Father (which is actually how I came to know the prayer by heart long before ever actually praying it), Do You Hear What I Hear?, Silent Night, and my all-time favorite, The Little Drummer Boy (which may or not be responsible for my previously-vaguely-held half-belief that there was a drummer boy involved in the story of Jesus’s birth).

Even when I didn’t believe in the story told in these songs or the God praised in them, I still loved the music and tradition of them. I’d sing along to them every year, without giving a thought to what they were about. “Joy to the World,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “O Holy Night”… I’d sing them all loud and proud and never stop to consider the beauty of the songs beyond the tune. I didn’t think about the words, so half the time I sang them incorrectly (“Long lay the word, in sin and err opiiiiiining…”)

But this year. This year, oh how I love these songs. This year I have a new appreciation for how truly beautiful they are.

My new favorite is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. I purchased some new Christmas music from iTunes this year specifically with this song in mind. I have to admit, I still don’t entirely understand what it means, but it’s so haunting and joyful at the same time. I can’t get enough of it.

The wonders and joys of Christmas are multiplying for me this year. Joy to the world.

Our $5 Birthday Tradition

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Amy

I think I might be experiencing the beginnings of a sinus infection today. Consequently, my brain feels like a blob of sludge. Instead of trying to write anything coherent, I’m just going to share lots of photos from our birthday party for the Daddy over the weekend.

If you’re not familiar with our tradition, I take the girls to the Dollar Tree store, give them each $5 and let them pick five things to give their Daddy for his birthday.

As you can imagine, it’s a very fun tradition. I think I enjoy it as much as my husband. I love watching how the girls select their gifts. Lass picked all of hers from the first aisle we entered (office supplies/teaching aids).

So, from her Daddy got fish stickers, glue sticks, a package of plastic clip/link things, some rulers, and a pink, feathery wand/pen (see first pic above).

She was so happy about his reaction to her presents. She gets snuggly when she’s happy:

Like last year, Miss searched the whole store in search of the perfect gifts. We even went down several of the aisles twice. She was so pleased with her selections.

My favorite part of the whole process is seeing how much fun the girls have watching their Dad open the gifts they selected just for him.

They feel so proud of themselves when he gets excited over their selections.

Gifts from Miss: Scissors, colored paper clips, a dish drying mat, a new pair of glasses, and a pair of earbuds.

Even Sis picked out one gift this year.

A fake apple.

My Grandma and aunt got to be with us from Florida for the party this year. Gram made all sorts of fun stuff from the tissue paper, which the girls had a blast with.

I’m off to wrap presents. Miss has been on me about getting more of them under the tree for her to inspect and question me ceaselessly about.