20 Books in 2014

I kind of fizzled out at the end of December.  We became busier than expected and it was hard to find time to get out the laptop.  We had a great Christmas with lots of family time and good food.  It warmed my heart to see the boys start to understand the real reason we celebrate Christmas.  They woke up singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and asked more questions about the nativity and how it fit into Christmas.  All in all a great end to 2014!

One of the main goals I had for 2014 was to read more.

I don't have many hobbies.  I'm not a musician or an athlete.  It takes a lot to motivate me to work out.  I'm the world's worst cutter so things like scrap booking and sewing are mostly a no-go.  I enjoy cooking but in this season any excess dishes overwhelm me.   The one thing I do love is reading.  However, over the last five years my reading has been sparse.  The things I did read were mostly for work or rereading old favorites like Harry Potter. Between kids that don't sleep and putting the majority of my non-parenting time into campus ministry,  I didn't have a lot left over.

 I wanted 2014 to be different so I downloaded the Goodreads app on my phone and set a goal of 20 books.   I decided no rereads, not because I don't love to reread all my favorites, but I wanted to challenge myself to find some new material.  I also decided to limit the number of fiction books, they couldn't comprise more than half.  I love fiction but I knew it would be good to read in some other categories.

And....I did it!  I finished book 20 last night around 9:30pm, whew!

It was a lot of fun to read again.  I enjoyed almost every book I chose and it stretched me to make time for something for myself.  Instead of turning into a zombie on the couch every night I would pick up a book for 20 minutes.  Instead of scrolling facebook every time Cora needed to eat I would try and balance a book on the boppy too.

Here is a picture of most of my books, a few were borrowed our purchased on my kindle app.
My List:
Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker
Prodigal God by Tim Keller
Love Does by Bob Goff
All is Grace by Brennan Manning
Beyond Ordinary by Justin Davis
Bittersweet and Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist
Say Goodbye to Survival Mode by Crystal Paine
The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson
The Next Story by Tim Challies
Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor
Jesus Prom by Jon Weece
Whispers of Hope and Say Goodbye to Insecurity by Beth Moore

Not Pictured:
Mr Penumbra's 24- Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Emotionally, Healthy, Spirituality by Peter Scazzero

If I did a review in this post of every book no one would read this.  I would love to give reviews to anyone interested.

My Top 5 (I'm not sure if I could put this in a ranking order):
1. Andrew Peterson - The Warden and The Wolf King.  I love everything written or recorded by Andrew Peterson.
2. Tim Keller - Prodigal God.  So, so good.  Keller looks at all the characters in the parable of the Prodigal Son for Luke 15.
3. Betty Smith - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  Great period piece and lots of character development.
4. Jen Hatmaker - Interrupted  and Jon Weece - Jesus Prom.  These tie for best book that helped me be a better campus minister.  Both inspired me to look seriously at my discipleship of others and my personal walk with Jesus.
5. Shauna Niequist - Bread and Wine.  I loved her views on doing life with others.  I want that more and more in my life.   I pray my next house has a dining room.

Right behind these would be Jon Green's, A Fault in Our Stars.  A good but hard book.  Cancer books are hard reads for our family.    O,  and Beth Moore's, Say Goodbye to Insecurity.  That book is still seriously kicking my butt and I just finished it last week so I am still in processing mode.

There it is.  I can't wait to start on my list for 2015, goal is 22 books.  Let me know what is on your list!

Gimme Some Sugar

It is December 23 and I finally braved making homemade sugar cookies with the boys.  It didn't go nearly as bad as I imagined it might.  They had fun picking out which cutters to use and of course pounding on the dough.  

We had our first family Christmas tonight with our CSF alumni family and these were a fun treat to share.   The main squeeze even perfected a frosting recipe to bring along.  

I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve! 

Tradition

I must admit that I am not very sentimental...neither is David...there we admitted it (or I admitted it for both of us).  Whew, I'm glad to get that off my chest :)  We don't keep many things just to keep things.  We have an awesome collection of preschool art projects but we don't keep every piece.  We have been fine with destressing lots of childhood treasures.   Don't worry parents we keep the special ones.

In light of that, we are not big on being tied down to lots of traditions that we must keep up with.  We have a few and we love those few.  Some we have taken from our families of origin and some we have claimed as our own.   One of those is hot chocolate/chocolate milk, Christmas tunes and Christmas lights sometime the week before Christmas.  We love getting loaded up in our pjs and heading out to look at Christmas lights.  Our neighborhood has the best Christmas light displays in town but every year we pick a new neighborhood to check out.

We even stopped by the Capital on the way home. 

I'm ending with this picture just so anyone reading this knows I do hold dearly some things from my childhood.  We claimed our nana-made stockings for our own house this year.  I love them! 

And yes, we are re-watching the West Wing. 

Fabulous Free Fun

Our family loves free fun!  We love free fun with great friends even better!  Last night, we headed out to LSCA for their first, "Christmas at the Camp."  We loved seeing so many friends, eating delicious cookies, and playing outside.  Mimi and Uncle Scott joined our family which meant adults outnumbered kiddos, ensuring a successful experience.

Here are a few pictures from the evening:

The boys were excited they were able to pick their own frosting color.  

We feed the donkey and goats, rode on the hayride and took photos with no one screaming.  Success! 

We made it!

Disclaimer: I'm attempting to do this from my phone...not sure how it will turn out.  (Couldn't finish mobile last night and forgot to post when we finally got home)

We have finally made it to Christmas Break!  Students are on their way home, the CSF newsletter is in the mail and Ethan is done with preschool for two weeks!!  Woohoo!

We have been MIA the last couple of days because the main squeeze and I took an overnight trip to STL to celebrate our anniversary early.   It was a wonderful little getaway.  We took the baby, you do what you have to do when you have three kiddos.  She sleeps in so it felt like a real getaway :)

We went to the Glow in the Garden event at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  SO MANY beautiful lights!  Highly recommend it if you are headed to STL before the New Year.

Other highlights:  Our boys were obsessed with the game cooties last year when they received it for Christmas so I printed out this game from here.   They had a lot of fun building their Rudolph faces and especially rolling the die.

Tomorrow night we are headed to this awesome free event at Lake Springfield Christian Assembly.  http://www.lscacamp.org/
If you are in town check it out!

Noble Joseph

Today was Ethan's preschool Christmas Program.  It is adorable to watch the little 2, 3, and 4 year olds dress up, sing, pick their noses, dance, call for their parents and the likes.  This year Ethan was chosen for the role of Joseph.  That probably seems like a little bigger deal than it is...no lines or anything.  But, he did get do some adorable motions and follow a donkey around.  He did such a great job and it was made extra special because his first ever best friend Julia was Mary.

This is sweet two year old Ethan and Julia:

And, here they are today: 

I loved watching Ethan sing and follow along with the motions.  He has come along so far from the 2 year old who didn't want to talk or dance.  We were so proud :)  All the grandparents (4) and great grandparents (3), 1 cousin, 2 siblings and 2 parents were in attendance for the performance.  He had a posse. 

Here are a couple more snapshots from the day:

O Christmas Tree How Lovely Are Your Branches

Today, we attempted to make these ornaments but substituted fabric for ribbons:

 So, ribbon is stiffer than fabric but ours didn't turn out too bad.  This picture doesn't really do them justice.  I still need to glue some twine on the top so we can hang them on the tree but I call them a success.

Samuel wasn't near as grumpy as this picture but it was too cute not to share.  He loved picking out his fabric.  

Besides making Christmas tree ornaments today, I had a great evening with my CSF family.  We had a group of 15+ make dinner and serve at the Springfield Overflow Shelter tonight.  During finals week even!  They also made 50 treat bags of winter essentials and snacks to had out after dinner.  I love watching them learn more about God's heart as they step outside of themselves to serve.  

6"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,    and your healing will quickly appear;then your righteousness will go before you,    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

Isaiah 58: 6-8

Don't worry Faith was also much happier than this photo shows :)