Family Out-takes

 

            

Some of these totally crack me up.

Like The Farmer's expression in the first one. The kids wanted a silly face picture. me: oh sure, have at it!  and the silliest face is worn by the only person not making one?!!!    It reminds me of the cat we had growing up. "Buster" looked just like that across the eyes when he felt cornered in a situation that he didn't want to be in.

The next one is a favorite of mine, it's just that terrible and ridiculous.
                                    

And then there are some that I still don't see as funny. Like those that SoMeBoDy ruined making faces behind my back. I didn't even know it till I uploaded them. Which was after that person enjoyed his bribe reward for good behavior along with some of the other sorta cooperative children. There are no words, really. for how this mother felt when she realized that we were going to have to try to capture happy-family-togetherness-for-our-Christmas-card...again.

I enjoy hard labor and dental appointments about as much.
                   

Kidding.

And maybe good parents don't bribe with arby melt roast beef sandwiches.
But I read somewhere that the sane ones do!!!
            
Here we watched the light blinking for my timer as the camera slowly turned clockwise.
yet another not winner.
Lesson learned: tighten the little thingy not tightened on the tripod.
            

I said sorta cooperative, right?
These pictures say four words. done.we.are.done.
   
   
      

Did anyone else hear the story of the guy who wanted to mail Christmas cards but was too cheap to pay for postage? Yeah. He wrote his own name and address in the middle of the envelope as the recipient, instead of the sender. And the intended recipient and their address as the sender in the upper left hand corner. So when the post office returned the envelope to "the sender" for more postage? It had actually reached the intended destination.  

Sorry. but that made me laugh everytime I heard it. They repeated it alot on the Christian radio station that I listen too. I'm sure that they had a bigger, deeper point to make...but I don't recall that part.


  



Here's hoping that you all had a meaningful Christmas season
celebrating what is bigger and deeper and most important ~ HIM! 
(and praying that it didn't look like our manger scene the way that I found it the other day...
with The Reason slipping through the cracks.  )

                              


Happy almost New Year friends!

Posts of Christmas Past

 

This is what happens when post rhymes with ghost and a familiar classic lingers too long in my head.
My tired head, I might add.

Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on a day that was almost Christmas Eve but not quite,
I sat busy at my keyboard in my Office*cough*/laundry/sewing/coat closet/with a tiny bathroom/put everything till we can figure out where to put it/ Room.

I wasn't feeling Scrooge-ish. not at all. {I love presents. :) giving and getting.}
Nor was it a bah-humbug-gy grouchy kind of attitude. 
As if snapping those words cantankerously at every caroler, nephew or late night ghostly visitor would anesthetize any wounds that still hurt like the dickens.
Nope. Not that. Totally enjoying yet another Christmas Carol playing on my radio, I felt... reflective.

ding! dong! not the chime of the hour but the sound of my microwave having finished my cup of water for tea.

ding! dong! again. because my microwave repeats itself when it is ignored.
{something that we have in common. my microwave and me. sigh.}

Without any foggy oooOOOoooooo  woooooOOOOOOOs of forewarning, I found my reflective self confronted by The Posts of Christmas Past...so hauntingly familiar.


************
There was this post from December 2008.
{My kitchen table still looks just like this. alarming. now two years later. well. almost. I changed the candle.}
"I am aware of an upcoming blogging Christmas Tour of Homes.
I think it's a great idea.
How fun, inspiring and celebratory!
And may I present to you, my own twisted version.
Lo and behold, my Kitchen Table.
                                    
Providing a surface for mealtime participation is but just one small part of its job description. Now please know, it really does not always look like this. Sometimes it is much worse. But on most days, if you were to just drop in, it would be some version of the above.
It is where I fold laundry. Alot. Of. Laundry.
You can see the remains of a toddler's lunch, a John Deere tractor in a magazine or something, and the mess that is Jacob's paper and glue project.
I know. I know.
For those of you who are thinking, "Who in their right mind would let a 3 year old run his own bottle of Elmer's?" let me gently point out that your unspoken question answers itself.

ahem.

And now for the surroundings...
If you can drag your eyes past the basket of rumpled whites and piles of books and papers, you can see a small tree on a table. That is our beloved Keychain Tree and it has lights this year!

(If you do not know about our Keychain Tree, I would totally enjoy telling you! hint.hint.hint.)
Then to the left, in the back, on the stair door, you can see a partial display of much anticipated photocards..."************

And then back in December 2006, there's "I'm using plastic!"{I wrote about plastic decor. shudder. ;) very scary posts.}

"I'm not referring to a method of payment for Christmas purchases or the type of bag in which they are placed. I am talking about my decorations !!!  ...While our tree is still real, I have resorted to faux greenery and plastic Christmas balls in an economy size box from Walmart...[because] There is a deep secret need within every pine bough, that surfaces within 24 hrs after entering our happy home. Release. Every. Needle..."

ding!dong! {I drink alot of tea.}

And this, from just last year,

                         

"Celebrating...
~Jesus
~Jesus at Christmas
~the construction paper, elbow macaroni and popsicle stick ornaments on our tree
~ornaments and memories of places we've visited
~memorials of God's sovereignty ( and if you don't know why we have a fire extinguisher on our tree, well. stop by. I'll make coffee. pull up a chair and we'll talk. probably for a very long time. )
~Plastic Christmas balls
~our keychain tree with new ones from Alaska, Florida, New Jersey and Kentucky
~our Picture Tree made from sticks stuck in leftover cement."
                                                  
                            Celebrating...               "...Put your hope in the Lord,
            for with the Lord is unfailing love            and with Him is full redemption."  
                                                          Psalm 130:7
************

So. clearly. any Post of Christmas Present would be reminiscent of the posts of the past.

oooOOOooooooo woooooooOOOOooooo

Still doing messy.
Still doing plastic decor.
Still enjoying our theme tree.
snort. kidding. unless you call everything on the tree a theme! :)
not kidding about the enjoyment of such. our tree is gorgeousness to our family.

Still hoping!
Still celebrating!
Still needing His unfailing love
and grace as a present for The Present.

Still cleaning up pine needles from our for real tree.
ding!dong! not my microwave this time. my doorbell. the vacuum cleaner sales and service man dropped off my vacuum. he said, {get this!} that the reason the bag light continues to be triggered unecessarily is because I have the wrong kind of dirt.

'scuse me? I have the wrong kind of dirt?
yes, he continued, they've only ever encountered this once before, and that was in West Virginia.

uh.huh. sure. I wondered if my stay-at-home outfit communicated "low watt bulb."
maybe it was the billy-bob-teef.

{I'll admit. I'm feeling, pardon me, a little screwed here. I mean, even my dirt is wrong? that is just wrong.}

Well. I have two nice words for Kevin The Vacuum Man...

"Bah! Humbug!!!"
************
And as for the last postly visit, the Post of Christmas Yet to Come? 
Let's just say that Jacob has been talking to God about that. about me! and his hopes for the future!

During one particularly challenging bedtime routine recently, void of all that is warm and fuzzy, I realized that my little Jacob was stretched out on Sarah's bed with his eyes closed. Perfect position but in the wrong place. I very irritably snapped at him about what he thought he was doing!

To which he replied, "I'm praying for ya mom. I'm praying that you can be a nice person."



How could he not know that I am already a totally nice person around other totally nice people?!!!




oooOOOooooooo woooooooOOOOooooo.


{I'll let ya know how Jacob's prayer is answered. Just not in a post about The Present.}


          

                         Merry Christmas!   and..."God bless us, everyone!"
                                               
                            
                            

                                                    
                                                       "Whenever Christmas begins to burden,             
             it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ"                      ~Ann Voskam  (borrowed from a friend's fb status.)


~love to you all!