Guess Who Showed up for Christmas?

Not Santa Claus, silly.

Someone even more adorable.

Mario, of course!

 I think it's safe to say that this Super Mario costume was one of David's best gifts; and from the time we finished opening gifts this morning until the time he changed into pajamas for bedtime, this is what he wore.  As a matter of fact, he got into character so much that, whenever anyone would call him David, he would remark in an offended voice, "I'm Mario!"

I sure do love that kid!!!  :)

Before Christmas Day Dawns...

...it is worthwhile to pause...reflect...remember why we're doing what we're doing.  The following words from Michael Card's book The Promise have helped me to do that this year.

First, he quotes Isaiah 9:6:

"And He will be called

Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God,

Eternal Father,

Prince of Peace."

Then he writes this:

All we could ever imagine, could ever hope for, He is.

He is the wise royal Counselor who fills us with wonder, who holds the tangled storylines of history and will one day bring true understanding between all individuals and nations.

He is the God of Might, whose power can accomplish any and every task His holiness demands.

His power we need not fear for He is also the Father Eternal who is tenderness itself and who is ever motivated by His everlasting love for His children.

Finally, He is Prince of Peace whose first coming has already transformed society but whose second coming will forever establish justice and righteousness.

All this, and infinitely more, alive in an impoverished baby in a barn.

That is what Christmas means -- to find in a place where you would least expect to find anything you want, everything you could ever want.

O Lord, indeed you have given us a Son--your Son!  You have kept the promise you made through your servant Isaiah.  A promise you made to us.  Lord God, we believe all the promises that are yet to be fulfilled through your Son.  We long for the government of all the universe to rest, at last, upon His shoulders.  We are weary, hungry for His everlasting peace to come in fullness.   By your zeal, Father, and through your great love, accomplish all you have spoken.

To that, I say a resounding, "AMEN!"

And to you, kind friends, I say, "Merry, merry Christmas!!!"  :)

What I'm Seeing

With my outer eyes, I'm seeing this:

With my inner eyes, I'm seeing the faces of those I love so much, gathered around our table earlier today for Christmas Dinner, Round One.  I'm hearing the happy voices and the quick laughter.  I'm tasting the last bit of Grandma's Fruit Tea that I've just drained from my glass.  I'm feeling the love that flows when family gathers to celebrate the birth of The Child.  What a wonderful day it's been, and there are pictures to share and stories to tell from it.

But for now, I'm just going to enjoy the view from my couch, enjoy the warmth of the cozy fire in our woodstove, and relax.  I have a feeling that, in a few minutes, my outer eyes aren't going to be seeing much of a view at all!  ;-)

There's Something Sad in My Snack Closet

This is our snack closet.

 It's well-stocked right now, partly because of our large shopping trip on Wednesday and partly because Christmas is almost here and it's a good time for some special munchies.  :)  But there is one thing in this closet that makes me very sad.  Nestled between the peppermint patties and the pretzels is a large container of chocolate raisins.  Here's a better look:

 Did you notice?  It's almost empty!  And that makes me very sad.  Chocolate raisins are a big favorite of mine; and when I'm pregnant, I let myself indulge even more than normal.  After all, raisins are a good source of iron; and pregnant women need to consume extra iron.  ;-)  But how in the world am I going to get my iron now?

What's that you say?  I could always take iron pills?

Blech.

Or I could eat raisins all by themselves?

Yes, that's true.  I could, and I will.  I do like raisins.  But to tell you the truth, I like them the best...

...when they're dipped in chocolate.  ;-)

Thanksgiving 2011: The Start of a New Tradition?

Although my thoughts are mostly revolving around the upcoming holiday of Christmas, it's Thanksgiving that I want to think about for a few minutes.  I'm determined to eventually finish the historic, sentimental Thanksgiving 2011 saga, and wouldn't it be lovely to finish it before Christmas?  Who knows whether I'll actually get to it in the next two days; but with only one more installment to go after this one, at least it's in the realm of possibility.  We shall see...  :)

To start from the beginning, here are Parts...

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Five...

Six...

On Thanksgiving morning, we woke up, enjoyed a better-than-average hotel breakfast, then got ready (well, Josiah and David did) for the big event:  a mile race to be run on the campus of my alma mater.  This was the first official race they had ever had the opportunity to run in, and to say they were extremely excited would be an understatement.  As soon as we read the email from my sister-in-law Lori telling us that my brother and their kids would be participating in the race (actually, the 5K race that was run before the mile one) and that any of our family that wanted to run could do so, Josiah and David had been preparing intently for it.  Josiah immediately wanted me to look up some info on the internet:  things to eat before the race, what to do to get prepared, etc.  He was ready to follow those instructions exactly; it was as if he was preparing for the Boston Marathon.  Maybe someday...  :)

The race was a fundraiser for a local food bank, so the entrance fee for the race was a nonperishable food item.  Simple enough.  It was interesting to me how many crazy people...I mean, running enthusiasts!...were present on a chilly Thanksgiving morning to run together.  Workin' up an appetite for the coming feast, I suppose.  :)

Here are Josiah and David before the race...

Stretching...

Hanging out with my brother David and his son Isaac, who had just completed the 5K, along with their Labradoodle, Buddy...

The race begins!

...and continues over the scenic covered bridge on the Yellow Breeches River.

While we waited for the runners to make it to the finish line, I got a chance to soak in the scenery and take this picture of the chapel where I practiced organ and participated in many other musical events during my college years.

Lots of memories there...  :)

We could hear the lady at the finish line calling out the times to the racers as they crossed, and knowing that we were only in the 8 minute range, I did not expect to see either of my boys for quite some time (since their best times at home had been much higher than 8 minutes).  But to my surprise, here came Josiah!

Getting closer...

...then Tobin started running, from where he had been waiting with us, to meet Josiah.

Oh my word.  What sweetness.

At this point, I was fighting hard not to cry...

...but I lost the fight, and tears were rolling down my cheeks.  It seems silly to admit that I was crying over a race!  But I was so proud of my boys; and somewhere in my brain, my "I'm so proud of you" button is strangely linked to my "now I need to cry" button.  Weird wiring, what can I say?  ;-)

Josiah crossed the finish line at 8 minutes, 32 seconds; and after we had hugged him and congratulated him, we looked up to see our little David coming with big David by his side.

I knew that before the race, my boys--although happy and excited--were also really nervous.  "Where do we go?" they kept asking as the pre-race butterflies fluttered in their stomachs.  "What do we do now?"  I hardly knew how to answer them, except to say, "We'll figure it out; don't worry."  I knew my brother had run the 5K, so I wasn't sure that he would want to turn around and run another mile on top of that.  But to the great relief of two of his nephews (and his sister!), he cheerfully offered to run with Josiah and David.  I LOVED seeing The Davids running together.

This time, not only Tobin, but also Josiah ran onto the track to encourage David to keep coming...

...and come he did.

They did, I should say.  Little David, Big David, and Buddy, the dog.  :)

At six years of age, my David ran his first mile race...

...and I believe his time was 9:42.  I'll have to ask him tomorrow to see if he remembers for sure.  If he doesn't, I'm positive Josiah will.  :)

Afterward, little David kept saying (to Jeff and I and all the family gathered at Uncle David and Aunt Lori's house), "Uncle David really encouraged me!  He kept my spirits up the whole time!!"

I have no doubt that the sacrifice my beloved brother made to run in the race with his nephews helped it to be the incredibly rich, fulfilling, and FUN experience that it was for them.

They already want to do it again next year.  ;-)

Wordless Wednesday {After Running a 5K in Our House...}

NOT One of Our Most Shining Moments

I had a couple of errands this morning--quick errands, the get-in-and-get-out kind.  They wouldn't be hard to do, even with four boys tagging along.

But before I headed out the door, the phone rang.  It was Grace from the post office four houses up the road.  "Davene?" she began.  "I have some letters here for your dad, and they don't have return addresses.  I couldn't find his number in the phonebook.  Can you tell him to come up and get them sometime?"  Ever since my parents moved into my Dad's former office that they turned back into a house, they've had some mail mix-ups since their address changed and they no longer receive mail at the post office.  They announced their address change in the Christmas letter they sent out to friends and family last year, but apparently quite a few people didn't update their address lists, so a number of Christmas cards have been coming to the post office for my parents.  Grace collects them, then hands them over to my dad when he pops into the post office (usually to mail a package for me).  Apparently he hadn't been up there for a while, so she called me to track him down and let him know to come pick up the letters waiting for him.  That's life in a small town--and I LOVE it.  :)

After I passed the message along to Dad, the boys and I set off for town; and a police car followed me nearly all the way.  That's one way to be vigilant about driving!  I was so conscious of my speed and whether I was crossing any lines on the road and whether I came to a complete stop at the light.  Boy, was I glad to make the turn I needed and let the police car continue down the other road.  :)

Our first stop went fairly smoothly, although the Salvation Army bell ringer was a little too chatty, and I didn't appreciate him telling the boys that "oh man, you're in trouble now with a sister on the way!"  But I was glad to see an old friend there and chat with her for a minute or two.  Eventually we extricated ourselves from the bell ringer and went on our way.

Tobin has been interested in rhymes recently, and I'm happy to see how his knowledge of the English language is progressing.  To help him along, we were coming up with silly rhymes as we drove along.  Here was our "best" one:
Do you dare
to wear
underwear
with a tear
to the fair?
But do not bare
your bottom as you go along without a care
in the world, or you may scare
the people and they will stare.
You can tell we have boys (although my friends with girls tell me that the female race also does its fair share of such word plays).  My sons laughed heartily in full appreciation of the silliness inherent in this rhyme.  All for the sake of learning, I suppose!  :)

So, we got to our final stop, which happened to be Family Christian Stores.  All I needed was to get a gift certificate for someone--a simple in-and-out, do-not-pass-go, do-not-collect-two-hundred-dollars, kind of a stop.  On the way to the register, the boys did stop, however, at least a dozen or so times to look at and exclaim over various items ("Oh, Mom, I've always WANTED this!").  But we made it to the register and mercifully did not have a long line.  Josiah and David selected a gift card hanging on a rack, and I handed it over to the cashier with a $20 bill.  Piece of cake.  We'd been done in no time.  Except...it took the cashier FOREVER to get the amount on the gift card and ring it up.  I have no idea what the problem was, but the poor girl obviously didn't know how to do what needed doing, because she punched buttons and looked puzzled and apparently had to redo some things.  Not that I had much time to be looking at her.

Meanwhile, Tobin and Shav were discovering the rack of shiny (glass) ornaments close to the counter, and I was repeating the old adage, "Look with your eyes and not with your hands."  Tobin then started adapting it and saying, "Look with your eyes and not with your arms."  That was OK, but then he said (in a voice loud enough for nearby shoppers to clearly hear), "Look with your eyes and not with your butt."  Lovely.  You can tell we were on a roll with the potty humor today.  (Which reminds me...as we were walking out of Walmart which was our first stop, Tobin saw a big roll of white industrial-strength paper towels hanging against a pole just past the cash register area.  It was one of those spill stations, where they keep supplies handy to deal with...well...spills.  "Look, Mom," he said, "A big roll of toilet paper!")

So, in Family Christian Stores, I was trying to keep a straight face while I explained to Tobin that he didn't need to talk about butts in public.  Of course, David wanted to know what Tobin had said because he didn't hear him the first time; and he only reluctantly accepted my explanation that I would tell him later, when we got to the car.

The cashier was still fiddling around with the gift card.  "How much longer??" I thought.

And then it happened.  Shav was trying to jump (he can't).  Tobin was jumping (he can).  And David somehow crouched down--over the top of Tobin's head--to perhaps prepare for a jump of his own.  But before he could get off the ground, there was a sharp crack.  Sure enough, Tobin's head had connected with David's mouth; and they were both in pain.  Loud pain.  Tears and wailing ensued from both of them, and I tried to comfort them with an arm around each.  But wait, it gets worse.  Shav, who takes literally the command to "weep with those who weep," joined in the crying.  Groan.  How in the world was I supposed to console all three of them?  Meanwhile, Josiah was urging David to stop crying, which wasn't working.  I was trying to show proper sympathy and concern and was telling David that yes, I understood, and yes, I know it really hurt, all the while trying to kiss Tobin's head like he asked me to AND urge Shav to stop crying because he wasn't even hurt!  At the same time, the hilarity of the situation gripped me; and I could hardly control my laughter.  Sometimes you just give up on dignity and accept the fact that everyone in the store saw us (and heard, since I'm sure the megaphones that my boys seem to naturally have in their vocal cords amplified the sound for all in the store to hear) for what we are:  fallen, sometimes miserable human beings.  In that moment, I wasn't Supermom, and we clearly weren't Superfamily.  We were the kind of Mother with Kids bunch that others see and think, "Thank You, God, that it's not me!"

Oh well.  Just another (humbling, but also humorous if I can keep the right perspective) day in the life of this Fisher family...  ;-)