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We went to see Santa on Saturday.
We've got a couple of non-believers in the bunch this year, but they were still good sports.
And then Annie put in a request for Frosty the Snowman with the town carolers.
The carolers agreed to sing it, but only on the condition that the kids would sing along.
And then we waited in line for 45+ minutes to go on a horse-drawn carriage ride.
That's Annie sitting on my feet.
And then we had dinner at Bella.
And then we went to a live Nativity put on by a few local churches.
And then there were cookies.
And a little bit of goofing off before heading to the Saturday night service at Applegate.
Here's our Santa shots from the last few years; 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005.
These little twerps sure are growing up.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...Hearing your voice tonight was exactly what I needed.
Every now and then, she's all about having her picture taken. (And lucky me, Saturday night was one of those times.)
I love you Courtney Lee.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...Baby I'll be your Huckleberry, you don't have to double-dare me, if the world gets wild and scary, count on me to be right there.
Annie found a dead fly in her room the other morning and decided she wanted to keep it as a pet.
She named it Girl-Lily and since I wouldn't let her take a dead fly to school, she decided to make sure Girl-Lily was was set up with all the best ameneties before leaving the house; a colorful book to read, a panda bear to keep her company and the curtains left wide-open so Girl-Lily could see what was going on in the neighborhood.
She even prayed for the health and happiness of Girl-Lily in both her dinnertime and bedtime prayers.
And woe to the person who mentions that Girl-Lily is actually dead.
And when she didn't want to get out of bed this morning, just the mere mention of Girl-Lily was enough to get her to spring out of bed and down the stairs to check on her beloved (dead) fly.
And right now, the dead fly is downstairs on the kitchen table, floating in an inch of water because Annie decided Girl-Lily dearly wanted a swimming pool.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...You'll be happy to know that Annie's prayer was actually for the health and happiness of both her daddy and her (dead) fly, Girl-Lily.
Before I went to bed last night, I got on my computer to blog. I couldn't think of anything I felt like blogging about though, so I gave up on the notion and went to bed.
During the night, I had a dream that Josh Downs got to come home for one day before moving to a new base. It was so vivid; we were laying on our bed and he had his right hand tucked under his head and his left arm wrapped around me and we could hear the kids roughhousing in the living room while we talked about everything that had happened during the last five months.
And he smelled so good.
And I remember telling him how excited I was to have something so great to blog about and how happy you guys were going to be to find out that he got to come home for the day.
It kind of hurt to wake up though.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...You're not going to believe how good Annie can spell. She's standing right next to me and just spelled the word 'jacket' and 'wife.' (I just had to tell her that there was a 'k' in 'jacket' and a silent letter at the end of 'wife.')
And I love that you're the kind of guy who has used the same backpack since college.
We were supposed to meet for lunch at Circle J when he texted, "Where you at G?" (He's not a gangster - he's just funny.)
I told him I was waiting for him at Circle J and then I lifted my head to scan the tiny, little restaurant and realized we were sitting just three tables away from each other, both wondering why the other was running late.
We hugged, we laughed about it and then we had lunch (clam chowder and fries for him and a M.I.M. sandwich with sweet potato fries for me) along with some good conversation.
I love him.
And though he's not even quite 20 yet, (which means he's still got plenty of growing up to do) the way he hugs me tight, the way he always remembers to tell me I look pretty and the way our relationship has evolved since he moved out on his own kind of makes me excited for the day when these other three rugrats are grown and I get to meet up with one of them for lunch.
It'll be even more exciting when one of them actually has enough money to pay.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...I'm so glad it's you that I get to raise all these kiddos with.
I didn't even notice it until the other day, but there's a perfect heart on the trunk of our Christmas tree.
Ross says he didn't do it. Cole says he didn't do it. And Courtney and Annie said they didn't do it either.
So I started thinking that maybe someone else had done it - some stranger that had been walking out in the woods one day. But this tree was growing in kind of a weird cluster of trees and I just can't imagine someone singling out this particular tree to carve a heart in.
And then Josh's mom pointed out the fact that it doesn't even feel like a carving because the edges are smooth and the center of the heart is indented just slightly - like it just grew that way.
And while the logical part of my brain can't come up with a hypothesis, my heart already has.
I know it might sound crazy, but I have no doubt that it's just God showing me that He's there, even in the smallest details of my life.
Josh Downs sent me this email the other night:
Feeling a bit down and missing you badly. Could use some words of encouragement.
And I responded with this:
I had the silliest thing happen to me the other day...I've been feeling a lot of pressure to make all of our normal traditions really perfect for the kids since they were all so worried about us not continuing them while you were gone. So as I was heading out the door on Sunday to go Christmas tree hunting, I realized that I hadn't made a CD with Christmas songs for the drive there. So I ran upstairs really quickly (because I was meeting my mom and Rudy in Gold Hill at 9 and didn't want to be late) to grab a blank CD and then popped it in my laptop and started copying Christmas songs to the CD. If you remember though, my laptop usually won't fully eject CDs and of course, that morning was no exception. So I went to grab some tweezers so I could grab the CD, but I couldn't get it. I must have gone through the whole process 5 or 6 times of waiting for the CD to come out, not being able to grab it, waiting for the computer to take it back in, then opening up my Finder so I could tell the computer to eject the CD again - so now I had wasted at least five minutes and really needed to leave the house. I feel guilty praying to God about trivial problems, so I just said that to Him. I said, "God, I feel really bad praying to you about trivial problems like CD's, but I'm just asking you to help me with this silly request, but I'll totally understand if it's not your will for some reason."
And as soon as I said Amen, the CD popped all the way out. (I hadn't even pressed the button to eject it.)
I seriously just started laughing out loud and thanking Him.
It was like He wanted me to know that He DOES care about the little things because He wants the kind of relationship with me where I just communicate with him all day long. He wants me to come to Him to ask Him for help when I'm having a problem with my CD ejecting in the same way that I would come ask you for help - because I rely on you. He wants me to come to Him with everything - He wants me to rely on Him.
And I think He wants you to do the same.
I know I'm off on a tangent here, but I guess I just want to get this written down somewhere so that one day when I'm having a lousy day, I'll be able to look back on this and that I'll be able to remember how faithful He is.
How He's always working in my life (even when what I want and what He knows is best for me differ.)
I told my kids this same story (about the CD) on the way to school the other morning and then words just started spilling out of my mouth without me even thinking through them.
I said that I think God wants us to come to Him all day long, every day. Just to say hi. Just to thank Him for the seemingly small things in our lives. Just to tell Him what's on our mind. Just to let Him know we're thinking of Him.
And then I said, "What if I never said a word to you guys except to tell you before meals how thankful I am for you and then I talked to you again before bedtime to ask you guys to keep me safe and to bless our family, but the rest of the time I didn't talk to you at all?"
Then Annie said, "But if He he already knows what we're thinking, why do we have to talk to Him all day long?"
And I said, "Do you know that I love you Annie?" and she said, "Yes." Then I said, "What if I decided to never say I love you again since you already know it?"
And right there, I learned something I had never known before.
Sure, those words were coming out of my mouth, but still, it wasn't something I knew.
And I think it's going to change me...
Chances are, most everyone quit reading this post about 15 paragraphs back.
And I realize that if I don't quit talking about God so much that my blog readers are going to start dropping like flies.
They already are.
I think I'm ok with that though.
Because if God is faithful enough to leave me a love note in a Christmas tree, then the least I can do is be faithful enough to leave Him a love note on my blog.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...Thank you. (Because I know you're one of the those that read this to the end.)
We decorated the tree tonight.
I was worried about how chaotic it might be without Josh Downs being around to help, so I put on the lights and the garland and the balls (the highly breakable and/or time consuming stuff) before I even picked the kids up from school.
Much to my disappointment though, the kids drank their hot chocolate and decorated the tree in a ten minute whirlwind so they could get back to tattooing each other upstairs. (My mom bought Courtney a spray-on tattoo kit.)
No...It's never the Norman Rockwell event that I envision.
I did put some wood blocks inside the Christmas tree stand to make sure it didn't fall over (five times) like it did last year though.
And then I talked the kids into coming back downstairs so I could get one last photo for their dad.
That pretty much just turned into an argument between Annie and Courtney over my mom's cat and Coley being ticked off at the whole world.
But I did manage to get this little gem of Annie blowing a kiss to her daddy...
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...I've got a few kisses for you myself.
And as promised, here's the other half...
I'm not feeling all that wordy, but a few of these will require some dialogue.
Courtney Lee made a bunch of snacks for us.
Sorry Sammy, this is a G-rated blog.
My mom picked out the tree (and I cut it down.)
That's my Uncle Brad pulling my cousin Sammy on his snowboard.
I was going to help her, I promise. (I just needed to get a picture first.)
I love how Ross has his arms out, prepared for the worst.
It was on the way home when I realized that after every Christmas tree hunting trip, I fall asleep with my head on Josh's shoulder while he drives us home, listening to Christmas music.
I missed that.
And here's our Christmas tree hunting photos from years past...2010, 2009 part I, 2009 part II, 2008, 2007, and 2006. (Why didn't you guys tell me how bad that vignetting looked back in 2007???)
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...You owe me a nice, long walk in the woods.
We went Christmas tree hunting yesterday...
Will post the other half tomorrow.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...It wasn't the same without you. (Nothing is.)
