Be Still

One of my favorite scriptures:

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.

--Psalms 46:10 

* * * * *

What do you do when the world seems full of darkness?

Fill it with light. . . . for every act of darkness, I need to do a thousand acts of light. The only way we win is by living better, by pushing back harder, by loving, and by nurturing in tiny and slightly less tiny ways and then repeating. Darkness only wins when the good people of the world stop generating light.

We will never do that. . . .

If I am part of the light, I need to commit every day to shine brighter, to love stronger. We can never. Ever. Give up.

 --Kathryn Thompson, daringyoungmom.com

* * * * *

Lo, in the silent night
A child to God is born
And all is brought again
That ere was lost or lorn.
Could but thy soul, O man, 
Become a silent night!
God would be born in thee
And set all things aright.

--Anonymous, circa 15th century

May we all become that "silent night" this season.

May we be still enough to let God be born in us to make us the bright lights He needs us to be. 

--Shawni Pothier, 71toes.com 

* * * * *

And a song that is becoming a favorite:

Be Still by The Killers

* * * * *

I've been contemplating next year and what my goal might be for the year. Life is getting busier as my kids are getting older. They are more involved which means I get to be the transportation taxi. Ten years ago my good friend Sharon who is more my mom's age with older children told me to just wait. If I thought life was busy with toddlers, just wait until they're older. At the time I couldn't fathom life being any busier. But I've discovered different stages in life have different types of busyness.

At this stage it's becoming harder for me to find time to be by myself, to experience some quiet revelatory stillness. Even the bathroom isn't off limits when you have a two-year-old and you are his only friend for the entire day. Funny, because I thought this was my life ten years ago.

(not my picture, but one that reminded me of my little Alex)
 
If I'm going to be a light that shines brighter in this world, I need God to help me know how. And for that to happen, I need to BE STILL. This just might the goal I need.

In preparation for the last day of the world . . .

 Those crazy Mayans. They should have consulted the Oreo.

Unfortunately, Tyler decided to spend his last on earth getting a tooth extracted. No solid food for two days. But who's counting, right? He was instructed to eat only yogurt, smoothies, jello, cold drinks, ice cream.

Ice cream? Ooohhh, I like that. I hereby declare that ice cream will be served for dinner.

That's right. Ice cream will be our final meal.

Cookies 'n cream, that is.

 * * * * * * *

And here's something that's had us all scratching our heads around here:

For a Christmas gift, my elementary grade kids got to choose either a can of Pepsi or Mt. Dew as they were getting off the bus.

My junior high kids? Well, they got a candy cane.

Does anyone else find something wrong with this picture?

Same bus, same bus driver. 

Math name tags

This is how Santa chose to identify his gifts at our house last year.
That's right. There was a little bit of work involved in determining whose presents were whose.

Several years ago Tyler and I committed the ultimate oops when we left a child of ours home. Ever since that day whenever we are all going somewhere, one of us will initiate "sound off." This simply means that every child has a number and they yell out their number, IN ORDER (that way we know if anyone is incognito). Kiersten is 1, Erik is 2, Nate is 3, Ashlyn is 4, and Alex is 5 (who recently learned to say his own number and join in the fun).

We also have a bunch of math whizzes in our home and "Santa" thought it might be fun to challenge them a little bit. Each math equation's answer corresponded to one of the kids' sound off number. If the answer was 3, the present went to Nate.

Oh, it was a lot of fun. The morning went a little slower and the kids enjoyed working together to make sure those gifts got to their rightful owner.

At the beginning of this Christmas season I was stewing about what I could do this year that could be just as fun. I had read a book not too long ago on organization and the author mentioned that one way to be organized is to decide on one thing and do that same thing year after year. For instance, she has decided that for each grandchild's first birthday, she will give them a book. When it comes to that first birthday, she doesn't stress and worry about what to get them.

That thought hit me one day, and SERIOUSLY, why mess with a good thing.

So Santa is back on board with our little math name tags and has some pretty good ideas on how to jazz it up. He's thinking about throwing in some algebra (you know, like solving for X), a little geometry, and definitely some story problems.

Christmas morning can't come soon enough.

The W in Christmas

My all time favorite story to read during the Christmas season is probably A Christmas Dress for Ellen by Thomas S. Monson. I say probably because it could very easily be replaced if I come across another good one. But that one has been tops for several years now and makes me weep every time.

Another favorite of mine is called "The W in Christmas". It's in my book of Christmas stories and one I re-read every year. 

Each December I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience. I had cut back on nonessential obligations: extensive card writing, endless baking, decorating, and even overspending.

Yet I still found myself exhausted, unable to fully appreciate the precious family moments, and, of course, the true meaning of Christmas.

My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It was an exciting season for a six-year-old. For weeks, he'd been memorizing songs for his school's Winter Pageant. I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd be working the night of the production.

Unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his teacher who assured me there would be a dress rehearsal the morning of the presentation. All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to come then. Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise. So, the morning of the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early and found a seat in the cafeteria. Around the room, I saw several other parents quietly scampering to their seats.

As I waited, the students were led into the room. Each class, accompanied by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor. Then each group, one by one, rose to perform their song.

Because the public school system had stopped referring to the holiday as "Christmas" I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment: songs about reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes, and good cheer. So when my son's class rose to sing "Christmas Love" I was slightly taken aback by its bold title.

Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, who were adorned in fuzzy mittens and red sweaters, with bright stocking caps on their heads. Those in the front row, center stage, held up large letters, one by one, to spell out the title of the song. As the class would sing "C is for Christmas" a child would hold up the letter "C."   Then, "H is for Happy," and on and on, until each child holding his portion had presented the complete message, "Christmas Love."

The performance was going smoothly, until suddenly we noticed her: a small, quiet girl in the front row holding the letter "M" upside down. She was unaware that reversed, her letter "M" appeared as a "W."

The audience of first- through sixth-graders snickered at this little one's mistake. But she had no idea they were laughing at her, and she stood tall, proudly holding her "W." Although many teachers tried to shush the children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together.

A hush came over the audience, and eyes began to widen. In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated the holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos there was a purpose for our festivities.

When the last letter was held high, the message read clear: 

"CHRISTWAS LOVE".

And I believe He still is.

Alex's certificate

Look what Tyler found on his printer one morning.

It looks like Alex, our two year old has not only figured out how to boot up the computer and run Typing Instructor, but he now knows how to print.

It looks like he could use some work on his words per minute and accuracy.

Ash came home with her own "bigger" certificate that get she gets to display outside our home for the next month.
And how about that grass? You'd never guess it was the first of December.

Resurrection and Regifting

This little boy loves trains. Getting caught in the electrical cord? Not so much.

You gotta love that we live right by a real train track with real trains that go by about 10 times a day. So yesterday I decided Alex needed to do something more with his time other than computer games, and I resurrected the old train sets. The only problem was I couldn't remember how to put together our motorized Thomas the Train track. We had combined two sets so I had no idea how many pieces it really needed or where they went.

This necessitated that our family (aka our children since they have the smarts)  figure the darn thing out for our family home evening activity.
And once they did we all concurred that we could sit there for hours watching Thomas and his friends haul coal around that little track.

Alex was so elated as he watched those trains do their business that I decided to regift it for Christmas. Ashlyn was all on board with that idea since she has Alex's name. She'll do the boxing and wrapping and I'll have one less gift to wrap myself.

I love when our old toys become new again.

Reverse Psychologist

SEOP. Honestly I'm not even sure I know what those letters stand for . . . Student Education something Plan. Maybe Occupation? Anyway, Kiersten and I met with her counselor today to discuss her future.

That seems !crazy! close.

She took some kind of a pre-ACT test and her scores projected that she could get between a 29 and a 33 on the actual test. Her counselor tried to steer her in the direction of a medical career; she told him she likes writing and music. He didn't say anything, but I could tell he was thinking, "That won't make you a lot of money."

And who cares. No one wants to spend a lifetime doing something they don't enjoy just to get up the next day and do it all over again.

It looks like we've got some planning ahead of us.

And what about Erik? He's only a year behind.

Well, tonight Kiersten was attempting to use reverse psychology on Alex to get him to do something, and that led to a discussion of psychologists/psychiatrists.

Erik pipes up from the other room and in all seriousness tells us that he might want to be a reverse psychologist.

Now that would be an interesting field of work.