The Christmas Visitor

Sometimes the wierdest things come along and make you slow down. The Sunday evening before Christmas, our family came home from church to leftover pizza from Papa Murphy's... which was, at the time, pretty decent for leftovers. However, a few hours later, a little visitor came knocking. First, it visited Hope and then Stan and a couple of hours later, he came to see me as well. When we woke up the next morning to find he had also visited Lily. For some reason, Banner was the only one who didn't receive a visit from this notorious creature. Who was it you ask? Well, we can just call him the Christmas visitor, who came in the form of a rather nasty stomach flu. Believe me, you do not want all the details. By Christmas Eve, all five of us were sick... and I mean sick. Over the course of that week, we managed to introduce our visitor to seven of our extended family members (Sorry everyone - it was a gift we did not mean to give). After getting over that, Lily and I have been coughing our little heads off. Sickness aside, I realized that it really made us slow down. We watched (and listened to) the kids play, hung out and watched movies, let them have picnics in the floor. We went to bed earlier and slept later. We stayed in our jammies all day long. And you know what? It was nice. I was actually blessed by it. So, while I'm not necessarily fond of the stomach flu, I am thankful for the downtime it allowed us to have as a family. It will be a Christmas we will remember - when the Lord used a virus to help us slow down and see Him. I hope your Christmas was very blessed. May you see Him as the new year begins.

Dressing Up...

I don't know if your kids are like ours, but they always decide right after Halloween (I really don't even like that connotation) what they'd like to be the following year. Of course, when September rolls around, the ideas have changed and we go back and forth before their choice is approved. I wish I could keep our kids in homemade costumes forever. I love the nostaglia and sentimental value to having done it myself. My favorite of Banner's was a rodeo clown when he was two, but somehow I've been unable to convince him to do it again. Fortunately, Lily could wear the Raggedy Ann costume, which I made for Hope when she was a baby. At the same time, spare time has decreased with each added child. So the big kids got store-bought this year... and I thought they turned out pretty cute. Banner's pants wound up being too short thanks to a growth spurt, which I won't complain about. Stan and I were John McCain and Sarah Palin... however, I'm sure I looked a lot more like Palin than he looked like McCain. Thanks to a good friend for the loan of "the glasses."

McCain-Palin (too bad we lost)and our two oldest... maybe a little reluctant.

The Royal Knight Scarborough and his beloved Queen Hope.

The sweetest Raggedy Ann we know (who happens to love candy). She thought this thing where you get candy in a basket was pretty neat.