bing crosby in all his glory

i'm dreamin' of a white Christmas...i love me some bing crosby.

here's our white Christmas!



the boys loved their gifts and we had a wonderful time with family.

hope you guys did too.




i am enjoying hot chocolate, pictures of family, chapstick, some great books, and cute kids learning to ride bikes and make Christmas tree cookie sculptures.

"for i bring you good news of great joy which is for all nations..." --hope you are celebrating the Good News this holiday season.

poo hits the fan

and now it's time for foster files with marge:

i just made up that name just this minute, and i guess that's what we'll be calling these times in between catastrophes and huge triumphs where i fill you in after the fact.



now that things have died down a bit, i will bring you up to speed on the fostering situation.



for those of you who don't know (since there are only 4 people reading my blog, i think you all know), we have a foster son. he's a cutie patootie.


this last week was drama. and i can't go into too much detail. but i can tell you that i have amazing friends who, when alerted to what was going on, started praying like mad women and God really must've heard us all, because within 24 hours of the ickiness and panic, the situation had been resolved. i've learned through this process and the process of adopting our other son that you only tell a small number of people when the poo hits the fan, because you have to keep calling these people as the situation progresses. you don't want to have to call 10 people to tell them everything's hunky-dorey or that you're losing your mind.

our casemanager, who is AMAZING, kicked booty and dealt with the situation quickly and efficiently.


this is a little difficult to blog about because this all has to be pretty vague. i can't just start blogging about names and dates and people and all the issues the bio parents have and why they aren't with their son...because he's a foster kid and there's regulations about that. so use your imagination.


we desperately want our foster son's bio parents to come to faith in Christ. and we want our foster son to be safe and loved, and at this point, they don't seem like they're ready to care for themselves, let alone a whole other human. and that's not just me thinking no one would ever, in a million years, be good enough for our little boy. because, like i always say, he's on loan from the state. ;) he technically and legally does not belong to us. and we are made aware of that daily. but we love him and would love more than anything for him to stay.


so if you're the praying kind, please keep my little man in your prayers. time is slowly ticking and it's almost time for some deadlines to occur. there is a lot that is unknown to us, but God knows it all. so i'm just gonna keep on keepin' on and trust. which is surpringly easy to do when you know you can do nothing but pray. and that ain't no small thing.

i quote this all the time because it's one of the few verses i've had memorized forever:

"trust in the Lord with all your heart. lean not upon your own understanding. seek His will in all you do, and He will direct your paths." -prov 3:5-6



"trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge." psalm 62:8

holiday decorations

i am having such a great time with this holiday season...i'm not gonna lie. i have Christmas candles burning, carols playing, and the tree lights on. love it!

thought i'd show you guys some more of my house. sadly, i didn't get hardly any responses from my last "fave 5" post, so i don't know anyone's fave 5's for the season. sad day.

anyways, here's a serving tray i found at homegoods years ago. i love it. and i've finally found a home for it in my house. if you look in the cup, there's a happy birthday Jesus card that gabriel made. we like to make gifts for Jesus for His birthday. admire the cardinal salt and pepper shakers, too. i love 'em. they're a whopping $5 at pier one.



i had some questions about my placemats made of Christmas cards. this is just one example. when my gramma did them, she had themes for each mat. i just threw some cards together, cut off the fronts, cut to size, and placed on posterboard. then you can use contact paper to seal it, or get it laminated. either way works fine.






we had a small get together this past weekend at our house. part of the reason was that we didn't want to attend the big party for my husband's work (although REO speedwagon was playing). the other reason? i wanted to use my Christmas dishes. i have all these cute serving trays for Christmas and never get to use them. i'm sad i didn't take pics during the party to show off my awesome hostess-ness. but here is the centerpiece i used for the serving table.

i have holly growing outside our house and went a bit crazy decorating with it. i used it for our drink tray, the centerpiece, and anywhere else i could find to put it.

are you enjoying this holiday season?

top 5 faves

i thought i'd share with you a few of my faves of this season. --things that make me realize Christmas is coming. please please please send me your top 5 favorites.

1. "winter" scented candles from bath and body works
2. the big, multicolored light bulbs hanging on houses (i think they're called c9's)
3. my children screaming to get away from santa
4. hot apple cider...i make it myself
5. decorating Christmas cookies with my kids, even though i don't like sugar cookies

ps: don't you love my vintage new year's postcard? if you look closely, you'll see "1906" and "1907" on the flowers. thanks, stormy, for knowing i like old things and gnomes. you truly know the inner depths of my soul.

pss: stormy found out i liked gnomes when i bought one for myself in college while we were roommates. i nicknamed it "scotty" and spoke in a scottish accent while addressing it. i wanted it to feel at home.

crying like a baby

as part of our foster parent training that is required each year, we can see a few movies that will count.

so last night the hubs and i went out to see "the blind side."

i have to say i cried like a baby during the movie, and then after, and then again after dropping off the babysitter.

i know...i'm ridiculous. the movie really got to me. it confirms what we're doing as foster parents. will our foster son grow up to be drafted by the NFL? probably not, although he's quite a hefty guy.

the story just warmed my heart and made me realize, once again, that everyone deserves a family and a place to call home. everyone needs a chance.

so if you haven't already, go and see this movie. and if you cry like a baby, please tell me so i can feel better about myself ;)

over breakfast

we've been reading about Jesus's birth over breakfast. gabe loves the part where the angel gabriel talks to mary. we are using the book called "The Jesus Storybook Bible" and i really really like it. i read a review once that said children have trouble seeing the Bible as something different than short, separate, fictional stories. the Jesus Storybook Bible carries Jesus thru the entire Bible for children to know that He was promised and God delivered.

we are trying to impart in our children that Christmas is about Christ. --the greatest gift. we talk about God giving us everything we have and to be thankful for that. we have all we need and more.

it's exciting because gabe is finally seeming to get what it's all about...in small pieces. and it's amazing to see the fruit of that. monkey sits and smiles and is attentive, but has yet to declare "Emmanuel, God with us" or anything like that yet. :) maybe next Christmas.

on another note, i was telling someone that gabe was going to visit his previous foster family (the family he lived with before we adopted him) for a short playdate. later, he asked "where's your foster family?" what a great question! i love that his mind is thinking about things like that. it was a great chance to explain that we're a foster family for monkey, how God made families, and that there are lots of different kinds of families.
good teaching moment!

wonderfulness

today was one of those truly rare days when i felt that i had done my job as a wife, mother, and homemaker. shocking.

now, let's all take a moment to note that the children were at mother's day out for approximately 5 hours out of their day. but that does not deter from the fact that we, together, had a great day.

there was hardly any yelling and i think only one moment where i threw my hands in the air and said, "forget it! i'm going home!"

yes... a rarity indeed.

some background for this is that i constantly feel like i need to find a balance between housework and motherhood. between cleanliness and quality time. between sanity and fun. i struggle with this when there's dirty dishes overflowing in the sink but gabe asks me, "mommy can you read me a story?" i struggle with this when there is not a square inch of floor to be seen but monkey is holding his hands up in the air to be held.

but today! today was different. today the dishes were done and the floor was clean before the children got home from school. we ate snacks, explored toys that were new to us (i organized a toy exchange and received our new toys today!), rode bikes to the park, ate popcorn, wrestled (my wrestling name is large marge), ate a warm, home-cooked meal, took a bath, folded more clothes, read books, baked cookies, and prayed for each child before tucking them into bed.

amazed?

it's ok. you can take a moment.

needless to say, i have my feet propped up right now and am enjoying the glow of my Christmas tree while i take deep breaths.

there are a total of...maybe 5 days in my whole life... where i have accomplished all i wanted and more. today was #6.
God had His hand on this day!

this all came from reading an article this morning that was about being late. the writer, who was constantly tardy, improved her timeliness by not throwing extra stuff into the mix at the last minute. example? don't try to stop by the bank before dropping off the kids at school if you left the house 5 minutes after you were supposed to. i, unlike the writer, am a prompt person, but when we're at home, i throw random tasks into the mix all the time. we're doing great. playing. laughing. then i decide we MUST clean out the toy box. this minute. we just gotta. it's a toy box overflow emergency. forget about children starving in uganda. our toy box is a situation deserving our full attention. from there it all goes down hill. this makes us late to eat lunch, late to nap, late to our afternoon appointment...and eventually i get frustrated that we're having to rush around like chickens with our heads cut off.

so i tried something different today. i thought about what needed to be done, i tried to get it all done, and then what didn't get done, i will do later. we didn't rush to get to the park... we strolled. we didn't need to hurry to get home to cook dinner, i already had it covered. (crock pots are amazing). so my new personal motto: planning is close to perfection. ;) my personal motto was going to be: pickles smell for days so wash your hands, but this new motto has a nice flow to it.

have your elf a merry little christmas

we got home from our thanksgiving with family and started decorating immediately. i am on the ball this year and ready to enjoy the holiday. i put on the christmas carols and lit a candle and got to it. we bought a little fake tree this year because of where we had to put the tree... since we have a 19month old who likes to pull on ornaments (ahem...monkey....ahem) and knock things down. so here's our wee tree...in all its glory. that's a homemade star on top, made with tin foil and scotch tape. impressive, huh?

it's rainy here today and very cold (in texas standards). i am enjoying this season so much! i found a good idea for an advent calendar focused on Jesus and His birth online today at (in)courage and am going to put that together tonight!

here's one of my favorite cards ever in the history of the world. on the inside it says "have your elf a merry little Christmas." when i get enough cards, i start making placemats from them. i cut them up and lay them out on a large piece of posterboard and then laminate them. that way, we have placemats with reused materials. my grandmother used to do this and so my mom has a bunch of vintage card placemats at her house.

on that note, today would have been my gramma's 100th birthday! she passed away a few years ago after living an amazingly godly life. we love her and miss her.