Passport Not Required

We have a 17 year-old nephew, Christopher, whose toys the boys have inherited through the years. Quinn's favorite are the Hot Wheels that he got in a huge bucket. He keeps them in his room.

A few nights ago the hubby was doing the bedtime routine with Quinn and Quinn posed this question to his dad:

"Did Christopher ever go to China? 'Cause all his toys say 'Made in China' on them."

Hubby put in a call to his brother and confirmed that Christopher had never indeed been to China.

Quinn is mystified.

Post Holiday Humor

We just got back from Target.

My wonderful sister bought each of my children a $25 Target gift card as their holiday gift. Camryn spent hers 2 days after Christmas. In an effort to avoid another day of the "I've-been-in-my-pajamas-too-long-doing-nothing-and-the-Christmas-decorations-are-already-put-away-and-we-had-our-14 year old-cat-put-to-sleep-and-that-makes-me-sad" blues, I decided to take the kids to Target to spend their gift cards.

Yeah.

Despite some drama over a lost gift card (Quinn), we made it to Target and the toy choice process was relatively easy. Aiden immediately gravitated towards the Nintendo DS games. Quinn chose 2 large Hot Wheels toys (a fire truck and a tractor trailer) and a large race car. Lillian picked out a Little Mermaid doll, some dress up shoes and a tricked out Paris Hilton style Tini Puppini "mini dog" named Tisha (Aiden says she looks like a girl with a dog head and a mustache).

So here's the scene: Lillian has donned her plastic dress-up shoes and a shiny green beaded necklace and she's lovingly brushing Tisha's mane of hair. Quinn has his fire truck in the den, putting out pretend blazes.

Suddenly, without warning, Lillian stops brushing Tisha's hair and shouts, "Quinn! Quinn! Come quick! Tisha's tail is ON FIRE! QUINN! HURRY! HURRY!"

Calmly, Quinn responds, "Sorry, Lillo. I only put out fires in buildings. I don't do dogs."

Poor, poor Tisha.

Oops, I Did It Again

Funny story.

Yesterday was clean up day. The lady who cleans our house is coming today, and I always feel compelled to tidy before she gets here. Go figure.

Camryn's job yesterday was to move all of the gifts under the big tree in the front of the house, vacuum up all the faux pine needles that have fallen off of it due to excess climbage by the cats, then replace the gifts and rewrap the two whose paper has been shredded by the aforementioned cats.

K.

Camryn got to work without complaint (a true Christmas miracle) and then I heard screaming, wailing and yes, I think I even heard gnashing of teeth (my own, it turns out...)

The vacuum noise stopped. The crying (Lillian's) started and it grew louder as the girls approached me.

Lillian thrust this into my face:

It seems that the cats had snagged Angel off the kids' tree and had their way with her, and then Camryn had accidentally vacuumed up the right side of her hair.

Lillian was distraught.

Camryn was laughing (I have to admit it was pretty funny...)

"She looks like Britney Spears when she shaved her head!"

I couldn't help laughing. Lillian didn't think our laughter was funny.

I assured Lillian that we could replace the sweet angel's hair with just a little bit of craftiness.

Britney Spears.

Crack me up.

Manic Monday 12/21/09

What makes you laugh?

Intelligent humor, America's Funniest Videos, watching AFV with the kids (especially Aiden, because his laugh makes me laugh), things my children say, irony, my husband and his dry wit.

What makes you cry?

Sentimental stuff, injustice, poverty, worship time at church, Greater Love by Charles Billingsley, The Star Spangled Banner, the end of Gone With the Wind

What is the best thing about being you?

Gracious. That's a lot of things to list! My awesome family, my parents and sister, getting up daily and living this amazingly blessed life I've been given, my friends... I don't know what else to say. I'm so beyond blessed it's crazy.

Friday Fill Ins 12/18/09

1. No, we will NOT be leaving the tree up longer than 2 days after Christmas. I like to take advantage of the free labor that visits at Christmastime and get everything down and put away. I always hated it when my mom would start taking things down the day after Christmas, but I so get it. I like to start the new year with everything put away.

2. We're going to be playing a lot of games at the old kitchen table over the holidays. Aiden has already requested that we have family game night soon.

3. I watched the steam rising from the hot cup of coffee (or tea) and thought: I hate to admit it, but I actually found a coffee product I like at Starbucks. I discovered the Caramel Brulee Latte and it is divine. I don't indulge often, (it's almost $5 a pop!) but when I do, I'm in Heaven!

4. I'm finally starting to believe that I'm really going to be okay. No more cough, but I do have some leftover muscle pain and a stuffy nose (which has just developed), but I feel so awesome...MUCH better than I did at the start of the week! Hallelujah!

5. I'll take my last antibiotic pill today. Yea!

6. It looks like the sleet is still falling outside, at least from my point of view.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with the kids (don't worry... we're watching the heavily edited TV version and skipping the not so kid friendly parts).I cannot wait to watch it with them. I know there will be many, many belly laughs, especially from Aiden! And how sweet will it be to laugh without coughing?!?! I haven't been able to do that in WEEKS! Tomorrow my plans include staying home; it's supposed to keep sleeting and possibly snowing throughout tomorrow. We're going to stay home, warm and dry. I will probably do a couple of loads of laundry and pack up some more of my office. Two Men and a Truck are coming on the 23rd to move my office up to the playroom. I can't wait to get it all up there and organized! Quinn is anxious to have his room back, too! Sunday, I want to just enjoy family time for a little bit before I have to start cooking for my husband's family get together. He's requested that I make baked macaroni and cheese, and I'm going to make a chicken cranberry sandwich wreath and The Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake, too. That cake is sinfully delicious! It's the closest to my grandmother's Mississippi Mud Cake that I have ever gotten (but it doesn't have the marshmallows.)

The Sweetest Rest I've Ever Known

My husband told me to get a flu shot this year. Stubbornly I ignored him.

He got one.

The kids got the FluMist.

I stood firm and resisted the shot, confident in my Teflon coating that resists all germs.

We went to Disney World. I shielded myself with frequent hand washing, cans of Lysol and bathing in hand sanitizer. I.AM.GERM.RESISTANT. Bring it on.

We returned from Disney. I unpacked clothes, souvenirs and my friend Mr. Chest Cough made himself at home.

I'm not 100% sure that I had the flu, because I didn't go to the doctor when I was experiencing symptoms. That's probably what I had, though. Stupid Teflon coating.

The flu-that-I'm-not-sure-was-flu lasted through Thanksgiving. Then it turned into full blown Bronchitis. I finally dragged myself to the doctor and was given antibiotics and sleep-inducing cough medicine. I thought I'd feel better within a week.

Saturday night I developed a sharp pain in my right side. I thought I pulled something coughing. When I woke up on Sunday I was in bad shape. I actually cried from the pain. I tried to go to the Doc in a Box on Sunday, but the wait was too long. Monday I was at my GP's office at 10:30 am.

I got a chest x-ray and was diagnosed with a torn intercostal muscle (the muscles between the ribs). It was nice to have a diagnosis, but it didn't make the pain go away. (I did get pain medication, non-drowsy cough meds and a Z-pac to finish off whatever was still making me cough).

Today I feel almost normal. I didn't sleep well last night, so I was headed back to bed after the kids left this morning. Surprise! No school today because the school has no power. Wah.

Instead I sat here at my desk and finished up a few tasks. As I worked I listened to Chris Rice on iTunes. I heard his song "Prone to Wander" and thought about how many times I have questioned God's faithfulness to me while I've been sick. I normally wouldn't do that, but I just couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. One illness led to another and I thought for sure I would never feel healthy again. My maladies are minor when you consider everything out there that people suffer from healthwise, but to me it was a big deal to be so immobilized by illness. This song just put all my feelings into words.

On the surface not a ripple

Undercurrent wages war
Quiet in the sanctuary
Sin is crouching at my door

How can I be so prone to wander
So prone to leave You
So prone to die
And how can You be so full of mercy
You race to meet me and bring be back to life

I wake to find my soul in fragments
Given to a thousand loves
But only One will have no rival
Hangs to heal me, spills His blood

How can I be so prone to wander
So prone to leave You
So prone to die
And how can You be so full of mercy
You race to meet me and bring be back to life

Curse-reversing Day of Jesus
When You finally seize my soul
Freedom from myself will be
The sweetest rest I've ever known

And how can you be so full of mercy?

You race to meet me and bring me back to life.

Freedom from myself will be

The sweetest rest I've ever known.

Two Things

Two weeks since I blogged last. Sorry. I've been a little busy and a little sick. I can't fix the busy, but I went to the doctor yesterday to fix the sick. Bronchitis. Sounds like I have Pop Rocks in my chest. I have to say that antibiotics are wonderful things. I felt about 50% better just 2 hours after taking the first Augmentin yesterday. Glory. The codeine in the cough medicine wasn't bad, either. I slept GOOD last night.

So here are the two things I want to share today.

I've been downloading the free Christmas songs that Amazon has been offering. Today one of them was "I Celebrate the Day" by Relient K. I LOVE this song! You can download it for FREE here. (If you have iTunes you will need to download Amazon's free downloader. When you download the songs they will automatically show up in iTunes.)

"I Celebrate the Day"

And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know how much You've touched my life
Because here is where You're finding me, in the exact same place as New Year's eve
And from a lack of my persistency
We're less than half as close as I want to be

And the first time
That You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever

And so this Christmas I'll compare the things I felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That You have come to meet me here

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That you were born so I might live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life

The other thing I want to share made me chuckle (but not too hard, because deep laughter leads to continued coughing. I so miss deep laughter!)

I was snuggling Quinn on the couch today. When I snuggle my kiddos I like to just breathe in their scent. I love how their hair smells. So, that's what I was doing while I was cuddling Quinn today: sniffing his hair. I told him, "Quinn, your hugs give me so much energy and make me feel all better. I just love snuggling you and smelling your hair. It smells like sweet little 7 year-old boy hair..." It was a moment. I was feeling it. Blissful and warm and sweet, like a mug full of rich hot chocolate.

Then Quinn said, "You smell like bacon."

Boys just know how to stomp all over our sappy times, don't they?