I found this Christmas Meme at the blog Learning by Living. It looks like fun! If you do this on your blog, tell me in the Comments 'cause I want to see what you wrote! :)
1) Wrapping paper or gift bags? I use both. If it is wrappable at all, I will gift wrap it because I love to wrap! I love to use different paper on all my gifts with pretty ribbon and homemade stamped gift tags! But gift bags have their purpose, too.
2) Real or Artificial Tree? We have an artificial tree. We have done real ones in the past, but I like the ease of an artificial one.
3) When do you put up the tree? Hmmm...it seems to get later and later every year. It's usually about 2 weeks before Christmas day.
4) When do you take down the tree? Just whenever. One year, before we had kids, we left our tree up until July. Don't even ask me why. No, seriously - don't ask me. I can't remember why!
5) Do you like eggnog? No. I like boiled custard, though!
6) Favorite gift received as a child? We didn't have a lot of money growing up. So when Cabbage Patch kids were all the rage, my parents couldn't afford one. So I got a Cauliflower Kid. No, I'm not kidding. It was a doll stuffed into a green plastic cauliflower with a white top. It sounds really cheesy, but I loved that thing. I think I loved the plastic cauliflower more than the doll. I can't remember what the doll looked like. But I remember keeping that plastic cauliflower for years and years, putting "treasures" in there. :)
7) Hardest person to buy for? My mom and grandmother were the hardest ones, but I started buying them photo calendars, and that took care of that! This year, my son was the hardest. I want him to want toys for Christmas, and he wants more "grown-up" stuff like a bow and arrow, BB gun, digital camera, etc. I want to keep him a kid as long as I can!
8) Easiest person to buy for? My 7-year-old daughter. Easy peasy.
9) Do you have a Nativity set? Yes! I love it.
10) Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. I make my own every year, using rubber stamps and cardstock. I tuck a 4X6 picture of my kids in there, and spend lots of money on postage, and away they go! It costs lots of money to make and send them, but I love doing it.
11) Worst Christmas present? I don't like it when people try to buy me clothes for Christmas. I am plus-size, and it's hard enough for me to find clothes that fit the way I want them to when I can try them on.
12) Favorite Christmas movie? Ooooh, that's a hard one! I guess it would be a tie between "A Christmas Story" and "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation". I love them both!
13) When do you start shopping for Christmas gifts? LOL! I start shopping the day after Christmas! I shop all year, especially the couple of months following Christmas with all the sales, so that when Thanksgiving arrives, I just have a few to buy for. I usually save our parents, my sister and BIL, and Prince and Princess for last. But since I do shop all year, when all the good deals come around Thanksgiving time, I have money to buy stuff for myself!
14) Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Heck, yeah!
15) Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I love eating my Peanut Butter Balls! I only make them at Christmas, and they are my favorite candy! I can't wait to eat them again this year!
16) Colored or white lights? Colored! I grew up with colored lights, and I still continue with them. I just can't get into white lights for me. They are beautiful on others' trees. But my tree will always have colored! I used to put colored bubble lights on my tree until I had kids. They are beautiful, too.
17) Favorite Christmas song? Probably "O Holy Night". There's so many. I actually love all of them.
18) Travel at Christmas or stay at home? We travel on Christmas day, but not too far away, just an hour and a half. We usually come back that night.
19) Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph
20) Angel or star on top of the tree? Oh, man. Honestly, I can't remember what we had last year! It's changed throughout the years. I've had angels, bows, and those long pointy glass ornament thingys. We put something new on there last year, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was!!
21) Open the gifts Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Christmas morning!
22) Most annoying thing about this time of year? Hands down, the crowds. The traffic. Ugh. I hate crowds and traffic!
23) Favorite ornmanet? I guess I would have to say these ice skates that my grandmother crocheted with paper clips on the bottom. They are so tiny and cute! I love all of the ornaments that both of my grandmothers made. My other grandmother made lots of crocheted white stars that I love and will treasure always. I wish I knew how to make them.
24) Favorite Christmas story or book? It would have to be the story of how Jesus was born. It never gets old.
25) Favorite Christmas tradition? We don't really have any traditions with our kids. I would love to make some. I think I am going to research doing a Jesse tree every year and/or the advent. But I guess I will have to start next year. I've got some books that give all kinds of ideas for starting traditions. I wish we did something like make a gingerbread house every year, or bake sugar cookies, or read the Christmas story on Christmas Eve, or something like that. I guess within my extended family, the one tradition that comes to mind that I look forward to every year is the gag gifts we give. It's kind of like a competition to see who can "get" someone with the best gag gift. I don't think most families do gag gifts. But it's really fun. You should try it!
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
TV Withdrawal and Puppy Problems
No satellite is going okay. Well, tonight is my favorite TV night, so I'm having a little withdrawal anxiety right now, but I'll be okay. I'm gonna miss Top Chef and Ghost Hunters. (sigh) The kids have actually been doing good. They have been watching PBS, which we almost never watched before. And they have been watching lots of movies. One good thing about this phone TV thing, is that our internet is faster! Woo hoo!
Well, our 9-month old Yellow Lab mix puppy (who does not look like a puppy - she is HUGE!) is driving us crazy. She is an outside dog, running around inside of a wireless electric fence. On Monday, I was expecting some pictures I had ordered from a photographer of my kids in the mail. Unfortunately, the box wouldn't fit in the mailbox, and the mailman put them on the front porch. I went out around 2:00 to do some errands and noticed paper all over the yard. I had a sinking feeling that I knew what it was. Yep - the $136 worth of pictures and all my mail were shredded into itty, bitty bits.
So far, this dog has chewed up:
* my leather recliner
* the cord to the motor of the fountain in our front yard
* the satellite cables
* a wire hanging from DH's truck (haven't figured out yet just what it goes to)
* 4 screens on our windows
She keeps jumping, biting at, scratching the kids. She is just so darn strong!! She has all these muscles popping out all over her. Everyone is scared to come into our yard. The ruined pictures are the last straw. We are seriously thinking of trying to find her a new home. I think she needs to be with some college guys or something who will roughouse with her and run her a lot. She doesn't need to be around little kids. She does have some good qualities: she is playful - just doesn't know when she's being too rough, she doesn't bark a lot, she is really CUTE, she obeys my DH (just not me or the kids). Prince cries when we talk about finding her a new home. :( So it's going to be hard. Pray we find her a good home!
Well, our 9-month old Yellow Lab mix puppy (who does not look like a puppy - she is HUGE!) is driving us crazy. She is an outside dog, running around inside of a wireless electric fence. On Monday, I was expecting some pictures I had ordered from a photographer of my kids in the mail. Unfortunately, the box wouldn't fit in the mailbox, and the mailman put them on the front porch. I went out around 2:00 to do some errands and noticed paper all over the yard. I had a sinking feeling that I knew what it was. Yep - the $136 worth of pictures and all my mail were shredded into itty, bitty bits.
So far, this dog has chewed up:
* my leather recliner
* the cord to the motor of the fountain in our front yard
* the satellite cables
* a wire hanging from DH's truck (haven't figured out yet just what it goes to)
* 4 screens on our windows
She keeps jumping, biting at, scratching the kids. She is just so darn strong!! She has all these muscles popping out all over her. Everyone is scared to come into our yard. The ruined pictures are the last straw. We are seriously thinking of trying to find her a new home. I think she needs to be with some college guys or something who will roughouse with her and run her a lot. She doesn't need to be around little kids. She does have some good qualities: she is playful - just doesn't know when she's being too rough, she doesn't bark a lot, she is really CUTE, she obeys my DH (just not me or the kids). Prince cries when we talk about finding her a new home. :( So it's going to be hard. Pray we find her a good home!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Downgrading
Well, we did it. We got rid of our Dish Network satellite. Friday, our phone company came and installed a digital programming through the phone lines or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I'm sure Preach understands it all. All I know is, we only have local channels plus a couple of Spanish channels, C-Span (who in the heck actually watches that channel????), and HSN. It's going to be $25 a month for 2 TV's.
The kids are having a meltdown. They are acting like their dog died or something. I've never seen such sad faces and "poor, pitiful me" sighs. They don't know it, but that only reinforces our knowledge that we did the right thing.
(sigh) It's hard on me, too. I am addicted to the TV, too! I *heart* reality TV! I'm not ashamed of it, either. ;) And "Top Chef" was JUST starting! UGH!
Why did we do this? Why did we give up 24/7 cartoons? Well, there are a few reasons:
1) We wanted to spend more time together as a family, doing something besides watching TV. We've been talking about this for a looooong time.
2) I don't know if you knew this or not, but Cartoon Network turns into "Adult Swim" at night. And "Adult Swim" is absolutely nasty. It's cartoons geared toward adults, I guess. To be honest, if you are watching this crap, you need to re-think it. My FIL told us that he heard that this crap was on Cartoon Network at night, so DH and I decided to check it out. We turned it on like at 10:00 PM one night. I can't remember the name of the show, but what we saw was disgusting. It as a cartoon about all the ways you can die. They showed bombs with realistic body parts going everywhere, gunshots, stabbings, hanging, and various kinds of torture. It was just death after death after death..... It was so disturbing. It was worse than any rated R movie I've seen. So be careful, if you have this channel, and your children are left unattended at night with the remote.
3) Recently, we were sitting at the kitchen table eating supper, with the TV blasting away downstairs. All of the sudden, Prince says, "That is so silly! You can't fall in love by just making a phone call!" Preach and I say, "What??" Prince says that he heard that commercial again. We go and check the TV, and it was turned to a CARTOON station! And they were having commercials about calling and finding your "true love". Obviously, the kids had seen it before. Isn't that just WRONG???
So that's why we have made this switch. It's not foolproof. I know there are still shows and commercials on local channels that are not what I want my kids to see. But at least there are less of them to monitor. One day, maybe we can come to the point where we can turn off the TV totally. But we're just taking it one step at a time. :)
The kids are having a meltdown. They are acting like their dog died or something. I've never seen such sad faces and "poor, pitiful me" sighs. They don't know it, but that only reinforces our knowledge that we did the right thing.
(sigh) It's hard on me, too. I am addicted to the TV, too! I *heart* reality TV! I'm not ashamed of it, either. ;) And "Top Chef" was JUST starting! UGH!
Why did we do this? Why did we give up 24/7 cartoons? Well, there are a few reasons:
1) We wanted to spend more time together as a family, doing something besides watching TV. We've been talking about this for a looooong time.
2) I don't know if you knew this or not, but Cartoon Network turns into "Adult Swim" at night. And "Adult Swim" is absolutely nasty. It's cartoons geared toward adults, I guess. To be honest, if you are watching this crap, you need to re-think it. My FIL told us that he heard that this crap was on Cartoon Network at night, so DH and I decided to check it out. We turned it on like at 10:00 PM one night. I can't remember the name of the show, but what we saw was disgusting. It as a cartoon about all the ways you can die. They showed bombs with realistic body parts going everywhere, gunshots, stabbings, hanging, and various kinds of torture. It was just death after death after death..... It was so disturbing. It was worse than any rated R movie I've seen. So be careful, if you have this channel, and your children are left unattended at night with the remote.
3) Recently, we were sitting at the kitchen table eating supper, with the TV blasting away downstairs. All of the sudden, Prince says, "That is so silly! You can't fall in love by just making a phone call!" Preach and I say, "What??" Prince says that he heard that commercial again. We go and check the TV, and it was turned to a CARTOON station! And they were having commercials about calling and finding your "true love". Obviously, the kids had seen it before. Isn't that just WRONG???
So that's why we have made this switch. It's not foolproof. I know there are still shows and commercials on local channels that are not what I want my kids to see. But at least there are less of them to monitor. One day, maybe we can come to the point where we can turn off the TV totally. But we're just taking it one step at a time. :)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sheperding A Child's Heart - Part 1
Preach and I went with my BF and her DH to a seminar/conference at a church where the author, Dr. Ted Tripp of "Shepherding A Child's Heart", was speaking. It was so great! He is a Christian, and from what he said, he is a minister. He has written a new book, "Instructing A Child's Heart", which we got a copy of. I want to blog about the information we learned about parenting and discipline. I pray this will help someone.
The whole premise of this book is "Formative Instruction", which is simply instruction that shapes or forms our children. Also, you could call it "deliberate teaching" and giving world-view instruction. Based on Deuteronomy 6.
Here are some quick bullet-points that really made an impression with me and Preach:
* Three Generation Vision - us, our children, and their children - the things you teach your children will affect not only your children, but their children as well. If you just focus on problems of the moment, you will miss giving them a world-view.
** As you interact with your kids, don't act on "survival mode" -
think "Kingdom". For example, if your child is whining for the
upteenth time, don't do just anything (bribery, shame them)
to get him to quit so you won't pull out your hair.
* Family Worship - Dr. Tripp talked a lot about purposeful Family Worship. He encourages us to worship together as a family daily. He suggested reading the Bible, praying together, singing, and maybe memorizing Scripture.
* You are going to impress something on your children. Why not impress on them the love and Word of God?
* God made the world in a way that the world reveals God to us.
* Delight in God, not just believe in God.
* Use the Bible to explain why we do the things we do. Like, why are we the only ones who watch PG movies? Why do we go to church so much? Why are you so strict?
* We assume our children understand things so we don't teach certain things. So our instruction is incomplete.
* Primary place for kids to get Biblical worldview is in the HOME.
* Humans are designed as worshipers! Romans 1 - If we don't worship the Creator, we worship the things created.
* The world is always telling our kids that they can find satisfaction somewhere else (other than God).
* Today, churches shorten and cheapen the Gospel. They preach you just need to get your ticket punched to get to Heaven.
* Until kids are persuaded that "I must have God no matter what the cost", then they will never truly know or serve God. They may "play church" but not mean it.
* Give kids a grand and glorious God - a shrunken God will not do. Don't water God down, so that kids feel they outgrown Him.
Okay, that's enough for now. I hope this has whetted your appetite for more!
The whole premise of this book is "Formative Instruction", which is simply instruction that shapes or forms our children. Also, you could call it "deliberate teaching" and giving world-view instruction. Based on Deuteronomy 6.
Here are some quick bullet-points that really made an impression with me and Preach:
* Three Generation Vision - us, our children, and their children - the things you teach your children will affect not only your children, but their children as well. If you just focus on problems of the moment, you will miss giving them a world-view.
** As you interact with your kids, don't act on "survival mode" -
think "Kingdom". For example, if your child is whining for the
upteenth time, don't do just anything (bribery, shame them)
to get him to quit so you won't pull out your hair.
* Family Worship - Dr. Tripp talked a lot about purposeful Family Worship. He encourages us to worship together as a family daily. He suggested reading the Bible, praying together, singing, and maybe memorizing Scripture.
* You are going to impress something on your children. Why not impress on them the love and Word of God?
* God made the world in a way that the world reveals God to us.
* Delight in God, not just believe in God.
* Use the Bible to explain why we do the things we do. Like, why are we the only ones who watch PG movies? Why do we go to church so much? Why are you so strict?
* We assume our children understand things so we don't teach certain things. So our instruction is incomplete.
* Primary place for kids to get Biblical worldview is in the HOME.
* Humans are designed as worshipers! Romans 1 - If we don't worship the Creator, we worship the things created.
* The world is always telling our kids that they can find satisfaction somewhere else (other than God).
* Today, churches shorten and cheapen the Gospel. They preach you just need to get your ticket punched to get to Heaven.
* Until kids are persuaded that "I must have God no matter what the cost", then they will never truly know or serve God. They may "play church" but not mean it.
* Give kids a grand and glorious God - a shrunken God will not do. Don't water God down, so that kids feel they outgrown Him.
Okay, that's enough for now. I hope this has whetted your appetite for more!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Anger Issues
I am deleting my post about how angry I was about the election. My anger is not going to "change" anything (there's that word again). Prayerfully, I can blog about what is going on in our country without anger clouding my words. I think that would be more effective.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
A Most Embarassing Experience at Blockbuster
The day before Halloween, Princess and I went to do last-minute errands for costumes. After 3 hours of fighting the crowds, we stop in Blockbuster to get some movies. At the counter, I hand the movies and my card to the check-out boy. I hear a buzzing at my ear and move my head. Princess has one of those candy stick things with a plane on top that when you press a button, the propeller moves. She then quickly sticks the propeller IN MY HAIR! Immediately, my long and curly hair wrapped around it. I try to pull it out. Nope. It was stuck. I begin to panic, but try to act cool about it. I laugh and act like this is an everyday thing, getting propellers stuck in my hair. The check-out boy is just standing there, staring at me. I keep making comments like, "Ha ha, I can't believe this, ha ha" with Princess yelling "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!". Finally, I said to the boy, "I'll just pay for it." I figured I would just wear it out the store, and try to get it out at home. Can you imagine? He still just stands there and stares at me. I realize he has been struck dumb by the site of a 30-something year old mom with a propeller stuck in her hair. I ask him for some scissors to cut it out there, just so I can pay for the stupid movies and get out of there. That motivates him to close his mouth and look for some scissors. While looking, a female Blockbuster employee asks why he needs them. He explains (I couldn't hear what he said - probably good that I didn't). She comes over and attemps to pull it out. After a couple of minutes of this, she decides to try and break it open. So I stand there, with all of the Blockbuster employees and customers watching, while she breaks open this toy in my hair. Sucess! I tell her I'll pay for it, but luckily it still worked. I am still acting like this is no big deal, even though I know I am beet red and sweat is running down my face. As I pay for the movies, I say, "Ha, ha, ha. Hopefully Princess learned her lesson!" as I indulgently look at my daughter. I swear to you, as we leave, I see her reach up and push the button of that cursed candy stick propeller!
I'm sure I was the talk of many conversations that night.
I'm sure I was the talk of many conversations that night.
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