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 :) 

Pizza Picnic and Rudolph!

I missed yesterday...I hardly saw my boys all day and when I did they were practicing for their church Christmas program.

This weekend has been a big weekend for our campus ministry.  We finished off the semester with a big Christmas Celebration yesterday, complete with a full traditional Christmas meal :)   There is always a mixture of emotions at the end: relief, sadness, excitement and exhaustion.  This semester was no different.  I will miss the students but I'm excited for the next couple of weeks to be present with the kiddos.

After all of yesterday's festivities on campus, we turned around had the boy's Christmas program at church this afternoon.  They did so well and were extremely cute.  You could even hear sweet Samuel's voice every once in awhile.  I got horrible pictures but here they are.

You can't really make out Ethan's face but he is in the very back.  

Tonight we decided to take. it. easy.   We picked up a Little Caesar's pizza (meal of champions) and had a picnic while watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  We had yet to have a family viewing so tonight was perfect.

 We have fun ornaments, service projects and games planned for this week so stop back by!

Friday Funday

Is it Friday already?1? (or at this point almost Saturday!)

This will be brief because we have a full day tomorrow but I wanted to share the fun printable play dough mats we used today.   I'm not sure I know a kid who doesn't love play dough and when I saw these on pinterest I knew the boys would enjoy them.  My kids would play with play dough every day if I would allow it but I'm not sure my patience level can handle that :)

Here is the link to awesome printable mats.  I looked a couple of places to try and find single laminate pages to cover them with but I couldn't find any and didn't have time to run to an office supply store.  Plain card stock worked ok for us but once the play dough was stuck to the page there was no moving it.

Full

Today's word.  Full.

This morning I ran errands with a cart "full" of children.  One who was "full" of giggles, one "full" of cute and one "full" of attitude.  All will remain nameless.

The kiddos and I spent a "full" day together but really didn't do anything unique or out of the ordinary and I am trying to be ok with that in the midst of this challenge I have given myself.  We did have a great time with Rudolph stickers that I bribed them with ($1 bribe...I will not feel guilty about that).  There are new masterpieces on my fridge now.

We also have "full" bellies from a wonderful dinner treat tonight at Red Robin thanks to David's parents.  David had a "full" day of joy because he came home with a new guitar :)  More on that later.

Today is teaching me that I can be present with my kids without bells and whistles.  I know that truth but sometimes in the moment I forget.  Sometimes, I use it as an excuse to never be intentional with them.  Preschool is teaching Ethan everything, right?  One more show on TV is fine right now because I need to fold laundry, right?  And so on...  Then I rebound and sometimes plan way too much and overwhelm us all.    Today I want to remember what it means to be "full" in the right way.   Full of contentment.  Full because I am ok with where God has placed me right now.

I'm reminded of this verse from Psalm 63:5 "I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you."

Fully satisfied.

Since this post has been a bit on the deep side, I will leave you with this picture.  I just noticed this ornament Ethan decorated.

Sometimes you need both the statement necklace and the scarf :)

Giving Trees

When we moved into our neighborhood 4.5 years ago we quickly realized that the medium age of our immediate neighbors was over 50.  The three neighbors across from us were in their 70's or 80's.  Not quite what we expected, as a young 25 year old couple with a baby on the way.  However, God has used this situation to show our neighbors love through our acts of service (and cute kids).  The first time it snowed significantly, we realized just our much they needed us.  David has even had to rescue one of their cats from a tree :)  We have also been shown kindness and love from them.  They love to make over the kids when we stop and say "Hi" on walks.  One in particular has taken David under his wing in many ways.  He has shown him how to trim our front tree, allowed David to use his tools and sometimes even beats us to snow blowing our driveway.  

Over the years we have realized that one thing is the same for all of them...they live alone.

We talked about this with the boys this month and explained to them that we should do something to show our neighbors that we love them and more importantly that Jesus loves them.  We wanted them to know someone is thinking about them.  So, we originally decided we wanted to make them Christmas wreaths...who knew wreaths were so pricy!  And, when Samuel saw the options he was way more excited about mini Christmas trees.  So, mini Christmas trees we bought.

Tonight, after preschool, we set about decorating these babies.  We had some mini ornaments, random yarn, and a few glittery sticks.  Ethan loved using his scissors to cut the yarn (any opportunity for fine motor practice ;) ) and Samuel loved hanging the bulbs.  

When David got home from work, we went out and delivered them.

The boys had so much fun and didn't know why we didn't have trees for the whole neighborhood.   It was so exciting to see their little hearts be opened to giving and beginning to understand what it means to love your neighbor.  I can't wait to see what God does to grow this in their lives.   Also, I can't wait to see how he gives our family more opportunities to love on our neighbors.

We Love To Paint!

Whew, getting this in right in time.  This is a crazy week for our family and the campus ministry as we tie up lots of lose ends, say lots of goodbyes and reflect until there is nothing left to talk about :)

They kids and I did get a little time together after nap time this afternoon to try out a special new gift.  I entered a contest on the Blessed by Brenna blog a few weeks ago and we were blessed to win a gift!  To celebrate Brenna's upcoming third birthday they gave away a lot of her favorite toys and products on their blog.  Our family has been following Brenna's story from the beginning and have been praying for her and her family.  It has been inspiring to hear her mom, Courtney, be real with their struggles, wrestle with faith and find peace in their new reality.    Their blog is www.blessedbybrenna.com 

We received a Do A Dot Art Set (http://www.dotart.com/).  The boys love painting so this was a big hit.  They got a monster truck paint book along with the Do A Dot set and it was huge hit!  They spent the whole time comparing colors of bulldozers, snow plows and trucks.  We will definitely be keeping these in stock because they loved it and it allowed me some time to prep for dinner.

I can't wait to share with you what we have in store for tomorrow!!  :)