Two Words...

Merry CHRISTmas!

Christmas Crazy Chaos...

My blog is suffering! I was looking at my calendar just a little bit ago...and Oh My Soul...It is slat full of things to do. Thankfully Paul and I have all of our shopping done and now we are just going day to day, event to event. There is something for everyone on every day for the next 7 days! CRAZY. I'm sure most of you can relate. For some reason EVERY single Christmas party seems to fall this week. Noone wanted to spread things out, or start early...oh well. My Christmas cards are not even done...well, they are done on my computer...does that count? Probably not. I guess it would be better if I actually printed the cards out and pu them in the mail. We'll see.
I am excited about one thing for sure. This Saturday we are taking the students from our church to the Christian Hope Resource Center. We are also taking our own personal children. The CHRC is a place where the less fortunate people of San Antonio can come and receive food, toys and clothes. I am so looking forward to showing my children what it means to serve others. We are actually going to start the process on Tuesday night by cleaning out their playroom. They will each fill a paper sack of toys that they don't want anymore, or are too old for. Then we will take the toys with us to CHRC. The kids will help the students and us hand out toys and clothes and food. I am really praying that this is an awesome learning experience for them. I want them to see the whole process of giving. That's why we are starting with them cleaning out their playroom, I hope it will give them a "full circle" view to serving other. I will let you know how it turns out!

We hope your Christmas is Merry and your New Year is Happy!

Superheroes and a Royal Ball

In our Preschool AWANA time...only called that because the bigger kiddos actually do AWANA's...we started working our way through the Bible learning different stories that correlated with each other. Our first unit was Superheroes. We talked about Joshua, Daniel, David, Nehemiah, Gideon and Elijah. All people in the Bible who had supernatural experiences as God used them to do extraordinary things. We ended the unit with a superhero party! Here are my two little superheroes! We had a great time...and the kids had a great time pretending to be superheroes, all the while celebrating the true Superhero!







The unit that we just finished was on Kings and Queens/Important Women of the Bible. We talked about Kings Solomon, Manasseh and Josiah and we also talked about Judge Deborah, Queen Esther and Ruth and Naomi. So to follow suit with our plan, we had a Royal Ball at the end of that unit! This was more fun than the Superhero party. The kids were so excited to pretend to be Kings and Queens. They were so well behaved...it was as if they were REAL Kings and Queens! The kids were so cute when they set the head of the table for Jesus. There was a "fancy" crown in His chair so they would know that it was His chair! So fun! We had a great time...enjoy the pics!

I don't ever get tired of this...

This is Jacob teaching the "little ones" how to set the Nativities up properly. Of course you can see that all of the "characters" are gathered around Jesus. They are not spread out evenly across the area with the shepherds on one side and the wisemen on the other. The animals are not evenly dispersed between their respective riders. Everyone is gathered around Jesus...after all "that's who they came to see, mommy, they can't see Jesus if they are way out "here"!"

For a couple of years now, Jacob has had the job of setting the Nativities up and he always sets them up this way. This year, however, he took on the job of showing Caleb and Abby the "right" way to set them up. It was really fun to watch. Thank you God for my kids.

On another note...yes Jacob has a Halloween costume on...hence the black and white pic...it's not even this year's! It was last year's costume. And yes Abby is topless...Paul and I have been praying about an effective resolve to that problem...I'll let you know. And even though it didn't get above 55 degrees today, that is my son Caleb in a sleeveless shirt...What are ya' gonna do? I OFFICIALLY give up!

Christmas Decorating...

So I'm putting up Christmas Decorations this week....

Ok, ok, ok, For all you nay-sayers out there...at least read to the end of the blog before casting your judgement.

For the last two years, we have traveled to Dallas for Thanksgiving...and I have always been a huge proponent of holding off Christmas until after Thanksgiving....I always want to give Thanksgiving it's due justice before the "hustle and bustle" starts....HOWEVER...

Like I said earlier we have traveled to Dallas for the last two years and of course I wanted to put the Christmas decorations up as soon as Thanksgiving was over. So we would travel the 5 1/2 hours back to San Antonio and come in the house exhausted from a trip with 3 kids and time spent with family...and I would want the tree and lights up...like...now. Since everyone was so exhausted from the trip no one would want to help me and I would end up doing it all and then the laundry from our trip sat in the laundry room for days, and the empty boxes with evidence of Christmas decorations would just keep getting scooted around the living room until we finally got them back out to the garage...and...it was not fun.

So Paul and I decided this year was going to be different. Each night this week we have been putting up a few decorations with the kids. We are keeping the lights off so we have something to do come December. I have eaten WAY to many cookies that we made the other night...when we were having FUN!

So now this year we will come home from our wonderful family Thanksgiving to a house that is all ready for us to jump feet first into the Christmas season. So I figure we are doing exactly what this season is all about. We are spending time as a family remembering the things God has done for us...and eating some triple chocolate chip cookies...

I took Caleb shopping today...

Here are some parts of conversations that Caleb and I had today. I took him shopping because we needed some special time together and we had a great time...

***Mom, don't you know, that God "crated" the "earf"? (translation...God CREATED the EARTH...in case you didn't catch that.)
~Yes son, God did create the earth.
***Yeah He made it oval.
~Why did He make it oval?
***So that when we drive, we won't go upside down.

Sometimes I don't try to understand, I just smile at his logic...or lack thereof.

***Mom, let's listen to the King of Kings song.
***Mom, don't you know my verse?
~What is your verse, son?
***God, the blessed the only ruler, not like a ruler but like a Ruler, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 1 Timothy 6:15b
~Good job son! I am very proud of you learning that verse.
***yep.

***Hey mom, don't you know that big thing over there?
~The water tower?
***Yeah, don't you know what it does?
~What does it do son?
***It gaders (gathers) all the icky yucky air from the Earf (earth) and burns it up. I like to say icky yucky air. I love you, mom.
~I love you, too, son...very much
***I love you more than the leabs (leaves) on the trees.

There are so many more ramblings of Caleb, I just can't come up with them right now! Hopefully I can remember...I need to write these things down, don't you know!

"Daddy, there are TWO ways to go to Heaven."

Now, now, now, before you start ranting about my Theology, please keep reading...

The other day I was driving...somewhere (not important to the story)...and we were listening to the Christmas Musical that our church choir is working on. Part of the song lyrics are, "Jesus is coming, hope is in sight..."

Caleb, of course, wanted to know if Jesus was coming to our house...and I told him no, that He came once as a baby, died on the cross and He is going to come back again and take us to Heaven.

To which he replied, "Without even dying?" And I said, "Yes, son, without even dying!" He replied with his super cute..."cool."

Not to long after we got home, Paul came home and Caleb ran up to him and said, "Daddy, daddy...did you know there are TWO ways to go to Heaven?!?!"

And Paul had the same reaction that you may have had to the title of my blog.

?!?!?!?!?!What?!?!?!?!??!

I gave Paul that, hold on a minute, look...and he listened to the rest of Caleb's story which went like this...

"Yes, Daddy, there are TWO ways to go to Heaven! The first way is to die. You can die and go to Heaven, but that's not fun. And the other way is that if Jesus comes before you die then you get to go back to Heaven with Him! Without even dying!!! And Jesus is going to take us back to Heaven with a trailer!"

That's right folks...just in case you were wondering how, exactly, Jesus was going to get us all back to Heaven...according to Caleb...Jesus is using a trailer...probably pulled behind His white horse...I'm just guessing, people...it could happen...