The Season

Crunch time!  Christmas is just a week and a few days away!  And I'm not too far behind...okay, so maybe I am.  I have only baked one batch of cookies, and those are slowly being eaten so I will most likely have to make more for my gift tins.  Not to mention the other kinds of cookies that I need to make, as well as fudge.  I did mail off our parcel of presents for family, but I have a few straggling cards that were waiting for addresses that I am just preparing today.  So I hope they still make it!

And yet, when I think of it, I don't really think that we are huge "celebrators" of this season.  We have no family down here, really just our one family of friends that we have dinner with.  Though this year we are more involved with a local church body so we have a Christmas Eve service to not just attend but participate in.  And Mark has a work Christmas party now too.  And after Christmas there is a party I'm sort of helping get together, though not at my house.  Hmmm, maybe I am a celebrator.

I have grand visions of what our Christmasses will look like, but they aren't there yet.  I suppose it takes time to organize our thoughts and ideas and implement them.  At least for me it does.  I didn't even do a tree this year!  Well, that's not so different since I haven't done a tree since we've been married.  At first my hubby and I went through a stage where we were against having trees, but now we don't care.  I just didn't want to be constantly fighting with Leigh about it, trying to keep her away.  I hung garlands across the living room wall.  It looks alright, just not great.  I wish it looked great.

Buying gifts was also a stress for me.  I love giving people gifts, especially if it has special meaning or thought behind it.  It doesn't have to be expensive, I'm fine with inexpensive finds (unlike my hubby who is slow to start, but once he's started he is SPENDING).  But I have a hard time actually deciding what to get for others.  Some are easy, like my sister-in-laws, I found things right away for them, but all the men I had to buy for, I couldn't decide, so I just gave them money.  And the annoying thing about money is that I had to give more than I likely would have spent.  But it's done for this year, so I have until next year to figure it out again.

I would actually like to maybe make our gifts for others.  A couple years ago I did scrapbooks of our oldest daughter's first year for all the grandparents and those were a hit.  I would like to do something like that again.

Picture Perfect Family (Or A Close Approximation of One)

My parents (Mom and Step-Dad) were here visiting this past week, so I haven't been online much at all.  It seems like I have two extremes, on all the time, or not on at all.  Maybe I'll find a happy, moderate medium someday.  They left just this morning, so the girls have been a little puzzled; they can't figure out why Grandma and Grandpa aren't around.  They keep calling for them, and Abby keeps going "Where's Gramma?"  It's cute, though a little sad too.

All of my husband and my's family live up North where we had originally lived as well.  So I was hoping that I would have all my Christmas cards and gifts ready to sent up with them so I wouldn't have to send them all by mail.  And I would have had my cards ready, except I forgot to print out some family pictures to put into them.  So now everything is going to be sent up by parcel.  I can only hope and pray they make it there safely.

My best girlfriend is actually a photographer, so we had her take some family pictures of us in a cherry orchard this fall.  It is a beautiful backdrop to some beautiful people (yes I think that my family, not necessarily myself included, is beautiful).  But my girls didn't want to stand or sit still for any pictures, so we don't have many pictures with them smiling.  Actually, I think it would be acurate to say that we don't have any at all.  There are some where their expressions are just neutral, so those are the ones that are getting sent out. 

I am sure that our families will appreciate the pictures and not grumble about the lack of big, super-cute smiles.  But I sure feel like grumbling about it.  Why can't we get just one picture with the kids smiling?  They are happy kids, and they look so darn cute when they smile.  But I think that everyone has this issue, or at least I hope they do.  If it's just me I may have to hide in my closet and cry.

Wintery/Christmassy Thoughts

As I type The Wiggles are playing in the background, making it difficult for me to focus.  I should wait until tonight when the kids are in bed but I am saving that time for making Christmas cards, so I will push through this.  Just be warned that I am sorry if I break out into song sometime during this post.  It isn't my fault, it's those singing/dancing men's fault.

It is snowing again today.  I feel sad about the snow coming.  I think because I can't pretend that winter isn't here anymore.  I wore my flip-flops up until last week.  But -15C is a little chilly on the toes.  (Oh no, Old Dan Tucker is playing, that's like my favourite song...Git Out the way old Dan Tucker, you're too late to get your supper.)

Winter has it's good points.  I am looking forward to building snowmen with the girls, taking them out in the sled, maybe even going boarding with my hubby, though that last one is not for sure.  I used to love to snowboard, and I think I still would, only I haven't been out in, um, almost five years.  Five years!  I have new snowboard boots that I bought just after my last time boarding, but I got pregnant before the next winter and haven't been since.  Mostly due to babysitting issues. 

But the cold, I dislike the cold.  It makes it so much more unfun to go outside.  We have to bundle up, make sure all our limbs are covered.  I can't just open the door and let the kidlets run.  And walking places isn't going to be nearly as much fun.  I don't even know if I can fit the toddler backpack on me with my winter jacket on.

I should stop complaining.  After all, we're not half as cold as up north where we lived before.  They just had a bunch of days at -30C ish.  And I am definitely grateful for that.

Another fact that I have to admit is coming is Christmas.  It is a month away.  One month!  Since we are staying down south and not going up to our parents' houses, I technically don't have a ton of preparations to do.  I can do as much or little as I want.  I have no parties or anything planned, oh well actually we are getting together one night with our friends down here, but just the one family.  So nothing HUGE or anything.   And, I will openly admit it now, we are not even doing a tree!  It almost feels sacrilege to me, but it just doesn't fit into our lifestyle right now.  I don't have the patience to keep the girls (namely Leigh) away from it.  I don't know if we will ever have a tree. 

But I do love the idea of making ornaments and doing decorating with the girls, so my plan is to hang garlands around windows and bookshelves and the china cabinet, and to decorate those with ornaments.  So this year is really my first year  of decorating our house for Christmas.  I'm kind of nervous.  I hope it will look nice.  And I can already hear all my friends and family telling me that it will and does.  Don't you love the voices in your head of all your friends?  I don't need to talk to them in real life ever because I already know what they will say.

I had planned on having my Christmas cards and shopping and decorating done by mid-end November, but so far I haven't done any shopping or decorating.  But my cards are very close to being done so that is something!

God Truly Does Answer our Prayers

I've been drafting this post for like a week.  I just seem to get too busy to finish, and I didn't want to slap up some half-finished piece of work.

Awhile ago I wrote about my stress over the decision to go to church or not.  It was a huge deal with me.  But God saw and heard my stress and totally reached down and helped me.  Two Sundays ago we were at the Pentecostal church here in town, and I was busy trying to occupy the girls.  Abby was really good, but Leigh just wanted to run around and around.  I was glad to finally drop her off at the nursery.

After I dropped her off there was a few more songs in the praise and worship.  I sang the songs, but I could sense that I was holding myself back.  I find it hard to explain exactly how I felt.  I tried to pray, to focus myself on God, but I found that I was very distracted by the music, and my own critical thoughts of the whole service.  So I went out to our car. 

I sat in the front seat and started to pray and this time it was easy.  Through my mind had been going the memory of a time 6 years prior, before I had left the church I had then been attending, when I asked God if I was supposed to leave the 'organized church'.  I heard a No.  Well obviously I left anyways.  The reason being that I thought that the no I heard was just my mind, I didn't think it was God.  So as this is running through my mind, I prayed and asked Him if I had been supposed to leave the church back then.  And God told me, No, I wasn't suppposed to have left.

Wow, now that was a big, big revelation.  I made a mistake, and one that seems like a big one.  But I am glad that I had the courage to ask.  So I then repented of leaving and not heeding His voice and asked for His forgiveness, which He gave to me!  God is so good.  I asked afterwards if I was supposed to attend this church here, but He didn't say.  He just told me that He was going to change my heart.

I went back into the service, though I spent the majority of  the time in the nursery with Leigh since she was crying.  But last week we went again, and I felt a HUGE difference.  I wasn't critical of the praise and worship, and I was able to feel my heart enter in, I didn't hold myself apart.  And perhaps the biggest change of all is that I actually have a desire to get invovled in church programs. 

I am glad to have a peace about this.  I know that getting back into the swing of things will be a process, and I don't even think that we will go all the time either.  We didn't go today because our kids kept waking us up last night.  But I do feel that this is where God wants us so that is the best place to be.