Chuting down the ladder

Today, after we were done with school, Lilla asked me to play Chutes and Ladders with her.

I said, "No, I need to start dinner now. Maybe daddy will play with you when he gets home."

Her eyes welled up with tears and her lips starting quivering as she said, "I don't want to play with Daddy, I want you to play Chutes and Ladders with me now."

In that instant my heart broke.

And I broke out Chutes and Ladders.

Dinner, I knew, could wait a little longer...Lilla wanting to play games with me, well it just won't.

How Many Kings?

Merry Christmas!

From our family to your, we wish you a

Merry Christmas

and

a

Very Happy New Year!

Wordless Wednesday - Walking Aids

Needed just a few words...

I messed my hip up pretty good last week. Been using these to stay off it. The girls thought they were hilarious to try out. Lilla said, "Look mom, I look like an old lady!"

Thanks, Lil.

To join in the wordless fun, go to http://www.5minutesformom.com

or

http://www.wordlesswednesday.com

730

Today we celebrated 730 days with Ms. Anna Noelle.

We went to the children's museum.

We built a bear...uh, I mean, reindeer.

We had spaghetti and cake with dear friends.

It was a good day.

Happy birthday baby!

Wordless Wednesday

2 years ago today...tomorrow is a BIG birthday!

Yesterday, at co-op

Lilla attends kindergarten once a week at a homeschool co-op. She goes in for two hours, does crafts, learns about things like worms and friends, sings some songs, eats a snack and comes home. She loves it.

We are fortunate it is a Christian based co-op and they often talk about Jesus and sing songs like Jesus loves me.

Yesterday they apparently talked about the Christmas story. You know, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, probably the Angel of the Lord too.

At some point they talked about Jesus birth.

Lilla thought that would be the appropriate time to inform the class, and I quote, "Jesus came out of Mary's booty."

Pray for me. Please.

Say Click...take a pic!

As you may know from the, often, copious amounts of pictures I paste all over my blog, I'm a bit of a shutterbug. I love taking pictures. So much that Anna's clearest first word was, "Cheeeeeeese". I'm really not kidding. So, of course I want the perfect picture for all of my Christmas cards. I dress them up in matching clothes, try to pose them in an adorable way in front of the tree or fireplace and, this is what I get...

Because I'm just that good!

So, I figure if I'm going to have a not so good picture, I better have at least a cute Christmas card to go with it. I've been scouring the internet for deals and adorable cards. One of the places I always wind back up at is Shutterfly. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it because it's been around for awhile and it seems they are always running some kind of a deal on pictures, photo cards,

calendars,

photo books,

Christmas photo cards, Christmas cards...you name it when it comes to pictures and they most likely have it. Everytime I've ordered from them I've gotten photos back quick and easy and they look great. Not like the ones from Wal-Mart that usually cut off everyone's heads. Ugh!

Last year we got the grandparents photo mugs from Shutterfly and they had to be the biggest hit on Christmas. Everyone loved them!

And, through the end of Dec. 10, 2010, Shutterfly is running a promotion for bloggers that you can get 50 free photo cards if you do a post like this!! This is a great deal and I hope you all will take advantage of it! Go here to find out more and participate!

Here are a few of my faves:

Which do you like the best?

The Death of Santa

Before Michael and I had children, we always said we wouldn't do the "Santa thing". Didn't want to lie, of course. Then, after we had Lilla, and we began to remember the magic and wonder it created in our lives as children, we decided to do one present a year from Santa. We try not to make it that big of a deal, the books we read and the stories we tell around this time of year have much more to do with the actual Christmas story than the North Pole and flying deer.

Of course, Lilla is a child and children are enamored by the whole idea of this big guy in red who gives presents and slides down people's chimneys to eat all their cookies. Most kids pretty much leave it at that though, I think. Not my Lilla though. With Lilla, things are never quite that easy.

I was cleaning out the storage room yesterday when she wandered in and starting talking about Santa. I think she had been watching Rudolph. So she starts saying things about how nice he is, what kind of things he might bring, how we need to leave cookies, you know, the usual childhood concerns.

Then, out of nowhere she asks, "Does Santa ever die?" This, of course, floored me for a second. I don't like lying to my children, I teach them it's a commandment and it's pretty serious according to Revelation 21:8. So, I took a deep breath and said, "Lilla, is there anyone who never dies?" She thought for a moment and said, "God." I responded, "Right, and is Santa God?" She said, "No." I then asked her if Santa ever sinned. She said that he did and we discussed how our sin is what causes us to die and so Santa would have to die too.

I then talked with her about how Santa is more about showing love and kindness to others. He is just

a guy who likes to give presents to people. And, in the end, that is something we should do too, think of others. Thinking about others before ourselves is in the Christmas spirit and what God wants us to do too. So, it's not about what Santa brings but showing others kindness. We then talked about how truly the greatest Christmas gift was not brought by Santa but by given by God in the form of a baby.

She then went back to playing and what not and I was left there to consider how my own life in this busy Christmas time was revealing this story. And it made me grateful, grateful for a child that challenges me and reminds me what Christmas, and life for that matter, is truly about.

Not giving in

55 years ago today, Rosa Parks, after a day at work at Montgomery Fair department store, boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus at around 6 p.m. in downtown Montgomery. She paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the first row of back seats reserved for blacks in the "colored" section, which was near the middle of the bus and directly behind the ten seats reserved for white passengers. Initially, she had not noticed that the bus driver was the same man,James F. Blake, who had left her in the rain in 1943. As the bus traveled along its regular route, all of the white-only seats in the bus filled up. The bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, and several white passengers boarded.

In 1900, Montgomery had passed a city ordinance for the purpose of segregating passengers by race. Conductors were given the power to assign seats to accomplish that purpose; however, no passengers would be required to move or give up their seat and stand if the bus was crowded and no other seats were available. Over time and by custom, however, Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move whenever there were no white only seats left.

So, following standard practice, bus driver Blake noted that the front of the bus was filled with white passengers and there were two or three men standing, and thus moved the "colored" section sign behind Parks and demanded that four black people give up their seats in the middle section so that the white passengers could sit. Years later, in recalling the events of the day, Parks said, "When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night."^[16]

By Parks' account, Blake said, "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats."^[17] Three of them complied. Parks said, "The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' And the other three people moved, but I didn't."^[18] The black man sitting next to her gave up his seat. Parks moved, but toward the window seat; she did not get up to move to the newly repositioned colored section.^[19] Blake then said, "Why don't you stand up?" Parks responded, "I don't think I should have to stand up." Blake called the police to arrest Parks. When recalling the incident for Eyes on the Prize, a 1987 public television series on the Civil Rights Movement, Parks said, "When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.'"^[20]

^{(picture from} http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAparksR.htm)

^{In her autobiography, Parks said, "}People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

What are you tired of giving into today? How can your life bring justice where there is no justice?

Something to think about...

(story reprinted from Wikipedia's entry on Rosa Parks)