Ornament a year . . .

My husband and I had our first date on December 8, 2002 meaning, as of Saturday, we'll have been together for 10 years! Yay us! :)

Because I was working full time as a flight attendant and part-time at a Christian bookstore when we met we didn't have a lot of time to spend together in the beginning, especially since the holidays are a notoriously busy time in the airline industry and he'd already made travel plans for the last 2 weeks of December.

The first thing my husband invited me to was his company Christmas party, which was supposed to be our first date.  Because there were about 10 days between the time he invited me to the party and the day it was scheduled, we ended up going out to dinner once in between.   With our conflicting schedules around Christmas and New Year's Eve we had known that after the weekend of his work party we wouldn't see each other until after the 1st of the year.

After one of our first two dates we were in my apartment and I was showing him the ornaments I had for my first ever tree (This was the first time I'd ever lived alone, without roommates).  All of the ornaments on my tree were ones given to me by relatives when I was a kid or by friends when I was in high school and college and I told him the story of each one.

Because he knew he would be gone for a scheduled visit to his parents' house for Christmas and then a previously scheduled New Year's Eve party at his best friend's house out of town my (now) husband left my Christmas gift with the mutual friend who had introduced us.

After only two dates this was the first ever gift my husband bought me:

After we became engaged in September, 2003 he showed me this ornament he bought at the same time he bought the first one

Needless to say a tradition was born pretty quickly :)
 
Interestingly enough, just a few days after I had set up our tree in 2005 we found out we were expecting our oldest so we have an ornament to mark that occasion, too.  When I went to Target to buy a confirmatory pregnancy test I also picked up an ornament that was a gift box that opened.  I put a note inside with the date and saying we got our present early that year in finding out we're going to become parents.  I also bought a gender neutral stocking ornament that day.   I will take pictures of those and add them to this post later.

Every year I buy an ornament that represents my husband and I and one for each of the kids.  Starting at about age 2 I let the kids pick their own out.  Some of their choices have surprised me, but I love hearing their reasons why.  I stick a note in the ornament box saying who picked out the ornament and why so I'll always remember.

My favorite part of decorating the tree each December is pulling out the ornaments and taking a trip down memory lane.   Here are a few of my favorites:



After my husband were pronounced "husband and wife" at our wedding we left the church for our reception to Smashmouth's rendition of I'm a Believer from the movie Shrek.

This was my husband's boutonnier from our wedding inside a plastic ornament ball I'd bought at Michael's

Why Santa Doesn't Live Here

2 years ago I wrote an entry I titled Santa Doesn't Live Here.  As I was re-reading it today I realized I didn't answer the "Why?" question we get so often.

Before I explain I want to add this disclaimer . . . Every family has to make their own decisions on things like this.  This is how/why our family does Christmas and I'm not trying to get into a "Mommy War" if your family does something different because I don't think it's a "right/wrong" issue.

First and foremost we don't do Santa because we don't want to lie to our kids and, in our minds, it's lying.  We feel hypocritical punishing our kids for lying and teaching them lying is wrong when we're doing it ourselves.  I know others tell us it's "Just a game", but to us it's still lying

Secondly, because we don't make a big deal of the commercial/material side of Christmas it doesn't really fit into our philosophy to be buying our kids two sets of presents: one from Santa and one from Mom and Dad.   We're on a pretty tight budget and our kids generally don't have much under the tree so I want all the credit ;) 

Also, this way I don't have to worry about older cousins, siblings or friends from school "ruining" it for my kids since I vividly remember discussions on the playground about, "My sister said there is no Santa".  As the oldest sibling and cousin I remember my mom pulling me aside when I was about 4th grade and saying, "You know there's no Santa, right?"  I told her I learned it at school already and she said, "Ok, just don't tell your sister or cousins".

When I was in college, and a new Christian, a friend was saying his family didn't do Santa when he was growing up because his parents didn't want the kids to make the correlation that if Mom and Dad were lying about Santa they must be lying about Jesus, too.   His point made sense in the fact that there is more "evidence" (to a kid) for Santa.  Santa is at the mall, Santa is on wrapping paper, NORAD tracks Santa on Christmas Eve, seemingly everyone believes in Santa, there are presents under the tree from Santa, etc.   On the other hand, not everyone believes in Jesus, you can't see Him, you only hear about Him at church, He's not mentioned on the news, etc.

(Ironically the same friend is now a dad and he and his wife have decided Santa does live at their house)

This point was driven home to me about a year ago when I saw this meme making it's way around the internet:
 

Our faith is extremely important to us and, as I've written before, we're (attempting) to leave a legacy of faith for our kids.  365 days a year Jesus comes up in natural conversation around our home and our faith is something we try to live by example.  We don't want to confuse our kids by throwing fictional characters they do see with a God who is unseen but VERY real.

How will be be celebrating without the man in red?

We will go to a Christmas Eve service at church (probably on the 22nd or 23rd to leave space on the 24th for others), but we go to church every week so this will be just another week of church for our kids.  On Christmas Eve we'll sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out candles on a cake we've made for Him (but we get to eat it since He's in heaven).  Christmas morning we'll wake up and go into the living room in our pj's.  Before we do anything else we'll have a small Bible study where my husband will read Luke, chapter 2 to us and we'll discuss Jesus' birth with the kids and explain we give presents on Christmas as a symbol of the gifts Jesus received from the Magi, as well as the ultimate gift God gave us in His Son.

This year we'll be adding a new nightly tradition inspired by my friend, Korri.   This morning I bought a 4.5ft Christmas tree we'll be using specifically as an Advent tree.  I spent the afternoon labeling the ornaments and I can't wait until we start having this devotional time with our kids every evening, discussing the names of God as we prepare to celebrate the greatest gift the Earth has ever known!  (I may blog again about the tree after we get going and after I take a few pictures)

We've got a few other tricks up our sleeve, too, but this is just a glimpse of why and how we celebrate Christmas without Santa. 

If Santa is part of your Christmas tradition I'm not judging you in the least and you can just thank me for being one less person at the mall in line with her kids to get their picture taken with a bearded fat man :)

Leaving a Legacy

"These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Deuteronomy 6:6,7

 

Last weekend we attended the memorial service of an amazing woman who left a tremendous legacy of faith for her kids, grandkids and great grandkids.  We all leave a legacy to our kids and my husband and I want to leave a legacy of faith, compassion and prayer for our kids.

Here are a few ways we're trying to live out this teaching in our family and leave a lasting legacy for our family while talking about the things of God throughout our day:

 

 

We have a cup that sits on our kitchen table that contains craft sticks.  Each craft stick has the name of friends who live overseas, our kids' teachers, the preschool director at church or our pastor. Currently there are 11 sticks. Eventually we're going to start adding other friends and family members who need prayer.  Each night before dinner one of the kids gets to "pick a stick" and we take turns praying for that person or family.  We have been doing this for about 2 months and it's worked out very well.  The kids love picking the stick so much that it's become a reward for winning the nightly manners game we learned from a friend.   This has been a wonderful time of hearing our kids hearts as we lift up others in prayer.

We have this large map hanging in our hallway.  This hallway is the gateway to our bedrooms and our office/guest room so we all pass it multiple times per day.  This is phase one of what will be our "global wall".   Right now I'm working on getting shelves to display items we've been given, or personally collected, from around the world. We also want to have pictures of the friends who we pray for surrounding it.  Our kids are simultaneously learning about where friends live and world geography.  (The first several weeks we had this map the kids would find a flag in the pictures surrounding the map and would ask me where that country is).



Our daughter's Bible is being held together by duct tape from it's nightly use

Like most parents we read our kids bedtime stories as part of our night time routine.   From the time our kids started getting a bedtime story it has always been from their Beginner's Bible.  We usually read 3 of these stories a night before prayer.  Our son turned 6 in August and has graduated to his "Big Boy Bible", though we keep his Beginner's Bible handy as a reference tool since he is so familiar with those stories (and has several of them memorized verbatim).  After Bible time is prayer time. 

Each child gets one on-one-time for Bible and prayer. When our oldest was 2 and our youngest was infant it made the most sense for my husband to tuck in our son while I nursed our daughter and rocked her to sleep.   4 years later my husband still does the bedtime routine with our oldest  most nights while I do it with our youngest, though we occasionally switch it up.

We by no means have everything figured out, but these are just some of the ways we're trying to talk with our kids about the things of God on a daily basis.


4/1/13 Update: We now have 17 sticks including our Compassion kids, members of the military and ministries we support.   The wall is almost complete and I couldn't be more excited!  There is still some work to be done: I still need to get shelves to display our items that can't be hung on the wall and I still have 2 more pictures to frame.  In addition to our friends who live overseas we also have pictures on the wall of our Compassion kids.

Here is a really bad cell phone picture of the global wall as it looked in January, before I had any of the pictures framed.  The hallway is very narrow so I couldn't get the entire thing in one shot.  The blank space above the wall will be for the shelves.



 

 

4/4/13 Update: The Global Wall project is now done and I couldn't be happier with the results!

Why We Chose Public School

This may the most controversial post I write and I don't really intend it to be because I know that there is no "one size fits all" answer for every kid and every family. Among my friends I know families who have made every school choice available: homeschool, private school, neighborhood public school, out of district public school, public traditional school and charter schools.  I even know some families that have different options for different kids (ex: one child in public school and one in private school). I know every family has made the decisions they have for specific reasons and many feel they are called to make the decisions they have regarding their child's education.  To me this isn't a right/wrong issue . . . it's a choice.

Here in Arizona we have a lot of freedom when it comes to school choice.  Basically, as long as there is room in a school, any student can apply for open enrollment at whatever public school they want.  Also, because of the way our charter school laws are written there are A LOT of choices for those.  It's almost mind boggling how many choices there are when it comes to the best school for your children.

Our oldest started Kindergarten in August so we've made our first venture into school this year (aside from the 2 years of preschool he had at a church preschool) so my husband and I are well versed in the choices available to us.   After weighing our options here's why we made the decisions we did:

a) We bought our house with the school in mind.  This is definitely NOT our dream house and there are things we'd change (including what we get for our money by living here), but we chose this neighborhood specifically for the schools.

b) We want our kids school friends to be their neighborhood friends.  We go to church about 25 miles from our home and so our kids' church friends don't live close enough to get together frequently.  We want to be able to have our kids' school friends over, and for our kids to hang out with their school friends in the neighborhood, without it requiring major driving on behalf of either set of parents.

c) We want our kids to get used to being "in the world".  We want our kids to be under our roof, where we can help them with their struggles, when they are exposed to ideas that may not necessarily be taught in our home.  We feel that they're going to have to eventually enter the "real world" and we want to be able to walk along side them, and guide them, as they realize what it means to follow Jesus in our culture.   

d) We want our kids to be salt and light to the world around them and we feel if they are only around people who believe the same way we do they won't be building relationships and be able to introduce their friends to Jesus.  I was an education major and had planned on teaching in a public school.  It's a very long story as to why I never taught, aside from my student teaching, but my reasons for wanting to teach in a public school are the same reasons I want my kids to attend one.   It's no secret that our schools can be a very dark place and that's why Jesus has told us to be a light to the world.  If all the light (Christian students and teachers) are removed from the public schools they will be even darker and we want to be part of the illumination that occurs.  

e) We are aware that there may be things taught, or said, that are in direct opposition to our belief system.  When this happens (because I know it will at some point) we are going to use it as a teachable moment for our kids about standing up for what is right.


These are just some of the reasons we've made the decision to send our son (and eventually our daughter) to the neighborhood school.  As with all things related to parenting, the situation is fluid and we're not ruling out another option down the road, but this is where we are right now.  If circumstances change and we feel it becomes necessary to re-evaluate our decision we will and we'll be confident that that is the best decision for our child at the time.

Somewhere out there . . .

I started following Christ when I was a freshman in college.  While in school I was introduced to the concept of praying for my husband, even though I didn't know who he was.  I thought the concept was good and I'd occasionally remember to do it, but it wasn't anything I did regularly.

A few years later I was at a conference and the speaker talked about how, when he was single, he picked a star in the sky to be his reminder to pray for his (future) wife.  This man wasn't talking about "Wishing upon a star", but he used the star as a reminder to pray to the One who created the stars for the woman he would eventually shar his life with.  Since I'd already proven to myself I wasn't very good at remembering to pray for someone I'd never met I latched on to this idea and decided to adopt it myself.  I picked the middle star in Orion's belt.

Though I didn't know it at the time, on November 8, 2002 God introduced me to the man I had been praying for.  Our first date was December 8, 2002 and we both knew fairly quickly this was "it".  In March, 2003 my (now) husband told me he knew he was going to marry me, but he wasn't ready to ask me, yet.  (Aside: 9.5 years and two kids later I still think that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard because were 26 and 36, he had a steady job, he owned his own home and I couldn't think of a single thing to wait for, but that's a story for another day. After we got engaged I told him how I felt back then and he still thinks it's hilarious; in fact, he tells me if he'd known how ridiculous I thought it was he would've waitied longer to propose. Goof.)

Memorial Day weekend, 2003 we loaded up my (now) husband's Nissan Xterra and headed for the mountains.  We didn't really have a plan, we just wanted to get out of the Phoenix heat and spend time together (I worked one full time job as a flight attendant and a part time job working retail so I had insane hours and we didn't have much free time together).  One of the ideas we'd talked about was just throwing a couple of sleeping bags in the truck and sleeping there.

Eventually we made our way to far Eastern Arizona and ended up camping there the entire weekend.  I had never been to that part of the state and immediately fell in love with it. (I was already in love with the guy I was with!)  One night during our trip we found our way to a meadow where we were just staring at the stars and talking.  Even though we couldn't see it in the summer sky, during that conversation I told him about Orion's belt and how I'd used that as my visual cue to pray for him.

This past week our little family of 4 rented a cabin about 20 minutes from that campsite that is so special to me.   As we were getting out of the car after dinner last night I looked up at the night sky for the first time all week.  Whether it was because of the time of year or time of night I couldn't quickly find Orion (it was COLD and wanted to get the kids in bed so I didn't look long), but I told our 6 year old and our 4 year old about how I prayed for Daddy years before we met.

Last night as I tucked my 4 year old into bed she and I prayed for her husband.  Orion and Eastern Arizona are significant in the story my husband and I share.  Now every time I see that constellation, or am in that part of the state, I am going to pray for two more I haven't met, yet: my future daughter-in-law and my future son-in-law.

Just a Mom

I've always been fairly confident in the decision my husband and I made, before getting married, that I would stay at home while our kids were little and I would not work outside the home until our kids were in school.

Now that my kids are getting older and my social circle is expanding from my friends to parents of my kids' friends I am often finding myself the only mom in the room who doesn't earn a paycheck and admit that when the question is asked of me,  "What do you do?" I shyly admit, "I'm just a mom".  I see the looks and hear the unspoken words from these moms who have "real" jobs and my confidence in our decision gets shaken.

In addition to the new experiences of my expanded social circle, for several years I have looked around at what others my age have accomplished professionally and I can't help by wonder, "What have I done with my life?"  I have a degree in a field I'm no longer interested in entering.  I worked up until just before the arrival of my oldest, but I've just had "jobs" and I've never had a career.  I have come to the realization that I will probably never have a career, even when I do re-enter the work force and get a job outside of the home.

In short, I have started to see my role as "just a mom" as one that is less than my peers who work outside the home and are wonderful parents.

Last week an amazing godly woman was called home to be with Jesus and I spent time this week thinking about her legacy.  I don't know if she worked outside the home while her children were young.  I don't much of her story, but I have spent time with her at family gatherings for as long as I've known my husband.  I didn't know "GG" well, but I know some of her kids, her grandkids and her great-grandkids and I know the legacy she and her husband built has impacted countless thousands of lives for all eternity.

GG has one daughter who has been as a missionary overseas her entire adult life serving children who desperately need Jesus' love and compassion.  GG's daughter has been Jesus' hands, feet, arms, and so much else to these children for several decades and the lives she has touched have been changed for all eternity.  I honestly don't ever remember having met this daughter (maybe a brief introduction once), but I know her family and I've heard of her and her work for years.

GG has another daughter who I know primarily as my friends' mom. My friends' mom is the board of directors for a missions organization and is the missions director at her church.  My friends' mom has raised a son and daughter who love Jesus, who serve Him in their community and who are raising their kids in the Truth.  I count both of her children as friends.

One of GG's grandsons and his wife are close friends of ours.  My husband and GG's grandson grew up in the same church together and have a friendship that has lasted decades.  GG's grandson taught at a Christian school and was a youth pastor for many years before he and his family went on the mission field.  Now Stateside this man is a pastor leading his own congregation. 

GG's granddaughter is also a friend and she is raising her family in the same church she grew up in.   While not in vocational ministry GG's granddaughter is serving her Jesus and is a light in her community to those who know her. GG's granddaughter and her husband have two young kids who they are raising in God's Truth.

GG has 4 great-grandchildren ranging in age from 19-2 and I can only imagine the future God has in store for them.

This amazing legacy of faith that has spanned several generations, multiple continents and to countless thousands of lives is all because one couple loved Jesus and demonstrated that love to their children.

While this legacy can (and IS) left by families where both parents work, single parent families where working is the only way to put food on the table and everything in between, it has caused me to re-think how I view myself and my role as Mom.

No matter if I one day have a job that out earns my husband's or if I never earn a paycheck again, I look at GG's life and remember that parenthood has an eternal impact for generations to come.

I am not "just a mom" . . . I am a woman who is one half of a couple raising our kids for eternity and praying we leave a legacy of Christ followers that lasts for generations to come.

The day the Lord has made!

"This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 119:24

Today is September 11, 2012

Almost all of us, over about the age of 16 remember where we were, what we were doing and who we were  with when we heard about the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

I was a flight attendant with America West Airlines and I happened to have the day off.  Less than 2 weeks earlier I had moved and was living with a new roommate, in the townhouse she owned.  My roommate (Kristina) was also a flight attendant and we were both accustomed to working red-eye flights and going to bed at odd hours, even on our days off so when the phone rang very early (probably around 6:30) I didn't get out of bed to answer it.  Because I knew by the distinctive ring that the call was from one of my roommate's friends or family I stayed in bed wondering who would call her on our home phone this early, knowing we were day sleepers and rolled back over to get more sleep before having to start my day.

I don't know how long it was after the phone rang, but at some point afterwards Kristina opened my bedroom door and woke me up by saying, "There's been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil".   "Huh?" Her words registered, but it sounded so foreign and so far out of anything I'd ever considered that it took me a few minutes, plus I had just woken up after only having a couple of hours sleep so I spent a moment trying to shake off the sleep and attempt to comprehend what she'd just told me.

The phone call I'd ignored was Kristina's dad telling her to turn on the news.  We didn't have cable, and the only TV in our house was upstairs in her loft bedroom so we spent the next several hours watching TV while fielding phone calls from concerned friends and family wanting to find out if we were home or if we were working.  While we fielded phone calls on our cell phones and our home phone we also were making outgoing phone calls to check on our friends who also worked in the industry.  At one point I looked at the date on my phone and saw it was 9-11.  Weird.

Kristina had a guy friend (who is now her husband and theirs was the wedding I'd attended the night I met my husband) who landed at Boston's Logan airport just as American Flight 11 was taxiing down the runway for it's doomed flight.

As Kristina and I sat on her bed while news reporters tried to make sense of the attacks Kristina and I knew  what nobody else was saying: We KNEW the pilots were dead, and were not in control of their aircraft, when those planes hit their targets.   Having worked in the airline industry for 3 years we knew that there was NO WAY the pilots would've crashed the planes into those buildings while they were alive.   We knew, even with a gun to their head, the pilots would've crashed their aircraft into the Hudson before killing innocents on the ground.

As the reports came in about United 93 our first reaction was that the pilots had taken it down in an effort to save lives on the ground because we'd learned a few things about pilots in our day and we KNEW there wasn't a pilot out there who would commit these heinous acts, even under duress.

As the day progressed we knew our loved ones were on the ground and we had to continue living in the real world. (As an aside, I remember going to Wal-Mart at 9:30 that night to buy a toothbrush and feeling guilty for doing something so routine on such a horrific day when so many people had lost their lives.)

If I remember correctly Kristina had a dentist appointment.  I was scheduled to work at my part-time job at a Christian bookstore.   Two things from my afternoon shift stand out to me.  I remember talking with people about how the world changed that day for all of us and I remember saying, "No.  The world didn't change.  Our perception of the world has changed.  The world has always been an evil, fallen place.  The only thing that's changed is we thought we were immune to these problems that happen in other places"

I also remember ringing up a lady's purchases and as I placed her items in the bag I noticed one of the things she had bought was a plaque with Psalm 118: 24 on it "This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  In that moment I felt God speaking to me and reminding me that even on a day as dark as that one He is still God and He is still in control.  Regardless of my circumstances He is still God, He is still in control and every day is a day He has made.   Evil may seem to take over, but God is still God.

For the past 11 years every time I see that verse I am reminded of that moment and God's message to me.  No matter what circumstances you're facing right now remember that today is the day the LORD has made and we are to rejoice and be glad in it.