Christmas tree memories

Taking down the Christmas tree is one of my least favorite things about the Christmas season. I love putting it up. The children are excited to help and it is a fun family night. It helps to build the excitement and anticipation of things to come. Taking it down, on the other hand, means that another Christmas season has come to an end. I am usually in the mood to organize our entire house and throw away half of what we own. I guess that spring cleaning fever hits me somewhere around December 31.

I was not planning to take down the tree today. My to do list was too long, and our house had that "day after vacation" look to it. I woke up to piles of suitcases, clothes and toys that needed to be put away. I told myself that my goal for the week was to have the house look a little neater when I went to bed than it had been when I got up that morning. But after looking at the tree for about the hundredth time this afternoon, I couldn't help it. It became an obsession to get the tree down. I come by it honestly. We left my mom's house on the 25th, and when we came back on the 26th, her tree was down. It must run in our family!

Bailey and Olivia helped me take the decorations, and we talked about the ornaments as I packed them away. The dreaded task became a bit of a walk down memory lane. My mom gives each one of the children an ornament in their stocking each year. She tries to pick one out that reflects an interest they have that year.

Isaac, being the oldest, had the most. Being the first born, he had several "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments from his baby showers. He also had some Tennessee Volunteer ornaments, given to him to make sure he knows who is favorite team is. I saw the little dog ornament from the year he was one. "Dog" was his first word. It brought back sweet memories of him standing at our front window watching the dogs across the street. There was a Veggie Tale ornament the next year, during his Veggie Tale obsession. The next year it was Thomas the Train. The Thomas ornaments are gone because he snuck them off the tree and played with them so many times they fell apart! The girls also each had several, mostly pink and sparkly. Bailey has a set of Barbie and a set of princesses. My favorite one of Olivia's is a pig. Last year, whenever you asked her what she wanted, she said a pink piggy! I love this tradition, and I know this ornament collection will be very valuable to each of my children someday!

Settling in

We travelled home to Alabama yesterday. It was great to have less than a four hour drive. We are used to having a full day's drive after Christmas vacation. I am always ready to get back into a normal routine at this time of the year. I crave normal sleeping arrangements, a more organized house, and better eating habits. This year is a little different. When we were driving home yesterday, I thought to myself, "It will be nice to get back to normal." My next thought was, "We are not getting back to our old normal, we are getting back to Alabama normal." I am not really sure what that looks like yet. We moved in the week before Thanksgiving, and I jumped into unpacking boxes and making Christmas preparations. We travelled home for Thanksgiving, a funeral, and then Christmas. We have only had two weekends at home since we moved in. In other words, we have not had a "normal routine" for several months. So, now we are about to move into January, which looks like it will be a very normal month. It is time for us to start working on building (and continue praying about) our new lives here. I have to admit, it makes me a little lonely. I usually look forward to coming home and seeing our friends and getting back to our routine at church. It also makes me a little excited. I am looking forward to seeing what God has planned for our lives in 2008. I look forward to making new friends and visiting with our old ones. I am really ready to get settled in!

Growing Up...

Anna Grace is officially no longer a baby! How do I know? She tells me many times a day! She has had a bit of a vocabulary explosion and is starting to string together some words. One of her new expressions is a rebuke to me whenever I refer to her as my baby. She says, "No baby ... Anna!" I never realized how often I call her my baby until she started objecting when I do! I love this stage, when you never know what new word they will come out with. She keeps me smiling (most of the time!). I love being her mommy!

Merry Christmas!

Another Christmas Day is here, and it has been very merry! We celebrated with my parents, my brother Wes, my brother Bo and his girlfriend Lindley last night. We kicked off the evening with a yummy steak and shrimp dinner and then opened presents. There were lots of smiles and thank-yous. Isaac added to his Transformer and Lego collections, Anna Grace got a Little People Bus and a See and Say, Bailey got sparkly shoes and a guitar, and Olivia got a Belle costume and guitar, among many other things. I look forward to hearing the duets that Olivia and Bailey play on their guitars (move over Hannah Montanna)! It was truly a gift to be with our family for the evening!

We drove to Johnson City this morning to celebrate with Mamaw (Mark's mom). The children wanted to open presents as soon as we walked in the door, and I think that Mamaw secretly wanted to also! Afterwards, we ate lunch (the Honey Baked ham was my personal favorite) and then relaxed while the children played with their new toys. Anna Grace has been having lots of conversations with Elmo on her new Elmo phone (I have his catchy little tune playing in my head). Bailey and Olivia have been busy with their new Barbies -- Repunzel, the Swan Princess and Holiday Barbie. Isaac has already finished putting together his Neoshifter and transforming his new Transformer. They are a happy bunch of children!

Mark is heading back to Alabama tomorrow to work one day and will then drive back up Thursday night. We are celebrating Mamaw's 70th birthday on Saturday. Then we will all drive back to Madison on Sunday. What a blessing it has been to celebrate with our family. The older I get, the more I realize what a gift family really is. Merry Christmas!

The Johnson Family Christmas

We had our family Christmas celebration on Thursday night. We usually pick out an evening several days before we leave for our Tennessee Christmas to have a special family dinner and open presents. This year, some good friends from Baton Rouge, the Tuckers, stopped by for dinner on their way to Nashville. It was so good to see some familiar Baton Rouge faces!

After they left, we let the children open their stockings and one present. After we got into it, we decided to go ahead and open them all. We were up a little late, but it was lots of fun! The next night, we had our Christmas supper, which consisted of steak, shrimp and stir fry, along with hot dogs and French Fries (requested by some little people!). Santa snuck by and left some presents on our door step since he knew we would not be there at Christmas time.

The children each have different present opening personalities. Isaac opens a present, glances at it, and then wants to move on to the next one. He will go back and be excited about them and study them when all of the presents are open. Anna Grace, on the other hand, opened the snack at the top of her stocking, and sat there munching and watching everyone else scurry around. She took her presents much more slowly. Bailey and Olivia were somewhere in between the two extremes.

Some favorite presents:

Isaac: Darth Vador Transformer, Leapster game, legos, Bionicle

Bailey: Leapster and game, baby doll and accesories, Island Princess movie

Olivia: doll house village, bath tub baby doll

Anna Grace: Busy Bible, Mickey Mouse phone (The $2.00 after thought present from the Walmart check-out, which turned out to be her favorite present), baby doll, wind up clock

Mark: Tivo, Three Stooges pajama pants

Kim: Scrapbook program, perfume, candle

Family Gifts: Scooby Doo Season 1 & 2, Andy Griffith Season 1, popcorn popper

December Family Nights

We have tried to establish some Christmas traditions for our family. Sometimes, given the age of our sweet children, our plans do not turn out picture perfect, but they are always memorable! We have several family nights that we try to do every December.

Our first December family night was our Christmas tree decorating night. This year, Mark set up the tree the night before, which help reduce the stress of the children trying to decorate the tree before he was done setting it up. The children had lots of fun putting the ornaments on the tree. My mom gets each of them an ornament each year, and they like looking at all of their ornaments. When we were finished decorating the tree, Mark read the Christmas story and then we had cupcakes to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We try to start off the Christmas season with a reminder of why we are celebrating!

Our second family night was actually a family morning. We usually make Christmas cookies one Friday night during December, but this year I thought Mommy might be in a better frame of mind first thing in the morning! We used my Granny's sugar cookie recipe, and the children had lots of fun. Anna Grace even took a turn helping Mommy. We all ate a few more cookies than we should have, but it was a great day!

Tuesday night we drove to look at some Christmas lights. The Huntsville Botantical Garden decorates their grounds with lots of neat lights. A new friend at church gave us a prepaid ticket, and we all enjoyed a good time together.

I really love celebrating Christmas with children!

The Johnsons meet the Huntsville E.R.

We became acquainted with the prompt care of our new city this week. It began on Wednesday when Olivia was taking off her socks. One of them popped up and hit her in the eye. She shed a few tears, and I did not think much more about it. When we were about to leave for church that night, I noticed that her eye was watering. We gave her Visene and sent her to bed that night. It took a long time for her to go to sleep. She was up at 12:30, 1:30 and 2:00. She said her eye and her ear was hurting. Mark finally got up and took her to the emergency room. It turned out that she had an abrasion on her eye and an ear infection. Who knew a sock could be so dangerous?!?

Anna Grace did not want to be left out. She started running a fever yesterday, and we took her to a walk in clinic this morning. She has an ear infection and an upper respiratory infection.

The good news is that we got these little medical excursions out of the way before we left for vacation. We are praying that we will be able to stay away from all medical facilities for the next week!

My Little Runaway

We went to a Life Group Christmas Party on Sunday night. We had a good time meeting some new families. The children had a blast! Isaac played flashlight tag with the older children. Bailey and Olivia played dress up with the host family's daughter and Anna Grace wandered around smiling. The children were all a little unhappy (understatement) when it was time to leave. Olivia threw a fit that only a three year old can. While Mark was dealing with her, I walked the other children out to the van. I had my hands full of our miscellaneous stuff (we do not travel lightly) and Anna Grace was walking beside me. We got to the van, and I expected Anna Grace to climb up into her seat as usual. Instead, she turned, smiled at me and ran towards the street. It was dark, and a car was coming. I threw everything down and took off after her, yelling for her to stop. She thought it was a game, and ran faster, laughing hysterically. I finally caught up with her, right before she hit the street. Needless to say, I was terrified! I managed to twist my foot, and I have been limping ever since. I am so thankful that it was a injured foot instead of something much more tragic. We have been training Anna Grace on the word "STOP" ever since. Praise God for his protection!

Aunt Novella

We travelled home to Tennessee this past weekend to say good-bye to a very special lady. Mark's Aunt Novella went to be with the Lord last Tuesday evening. She was eighty-three years old, and lived her life to the fullest up until the very last. She had the privilege of having her last memories be of worshipping with her church family. What a blessing!

Aunt Novella was very special to us. Mark's paternal grandparents died several years before he was born, and Aunt Novella was a grandmother figure to him. She welcomed me into the family with open arms, and loved my children like her own grandchildren. She loved her church family, was very involved in the Eastern Star, and volunteered at the hospital up until the very end of her life. What a way to live! I pray that I can live and die like her! I will miss you Aunt Novella, and I look forward to seeing you again!

Learning how to win and lose

Isaac and I played a game called Math War today. It is the same concept as the traditional game of War that you can play with any deck of cards. Each player turns over a card and the one with the highest number wins. The Math War deck of cards has addition and subtraction problems on them, so each player has to solve their math problem, and whoever has the highest answer wins. The game is designed to help children (and maybe their mommies) practice math facts. It soon became obvious, that Isaac was enjoying the game as long as he had the most cards. As soon as it looked like I might be gaining some ground, the game was suddenly not so fun anymore. I understand where Isaac is coming from. It is always more fun when you are winning, whether you are a child or an adult. It did make me wonder, though, if there is any way to help children learn to be good winners and good losers. I need to do some thinking and praying about it. I think that if there is any way to help my children learn those skills, it would be a great victory (an even better one than learning math facts)!

Quotes

Here are a few quotes I have heard around our house lately...

"Are you going to marry Daddy?" --whispered to me in a giggly voice by Olivia.

"Will you read my Bible to me?" --Bailey

"I can't hear the TV Mommy!" --Olivia, when I was trying to impress her by singing along with the songs from Beauty and the Beast

"Clubhouse!" -- Anna Grace (her word for Mickey Mouse)

"I have a headache of church. We go there everyday!" --Olivia when we went back for Bible study on Sunday night.

"Daddy, did you know that bread grows hair if we keep it too long?" -- Bailey

When I asked Olivia what kind of cereal she wanted for breakfast, she said, "A Lot!"

"Remember a long time ago, when I threw a fit at Kathleen's house?" --Olivia, the morning after she threw the fit. Yes, we remember!

"Get up Mamma!" -- Anna Grace as she was dragging me away from the computer to read her a book.

Kim's Tips to Fitting in at a New Church...

The hardest thing about relocating to Alabama (for me) has been leaving our old church family and starting the process of finding a new one. I had forgotten how hard it is to be the "new family on the block." Church can be the most wonderful place on earth, but it can also be the loneliest. We went through this same process when we moved to Louisiana, and it was very difficult. God blessed us greatly through those wonderful brothers and sisters, and the loneliness quickly passed. Looking back on that experience has helped me to remember that this transition will also pass. I thought that I would write down a few "tips" that I am learning while I am in the middle of it all, so that I can have them to look back on if I ever walk this road again.


1. Expect to mourn leaving your old church family. I underestimated how emotional I would be about this. I had a hard time holding back the tears on our first Sunday here. I struggled even more today, despite the fact it was our fourth or fifth visit. For some reason, I started crying during church and could not stop. It was not the calm, shed a tear or two type of crying. It was the red-faced, I need a tissue, I am going to leave and go for a drive kind of crying. I kept hearing the Cheer's theme song playing in my head, and I could not hold back the flood. I tend to be a "cry in private" kind of person, so this was a bit unsettling to me. It was not that the people were not friendly, it was just that I missed walking in and knowing most of the people. I missed already knowing their names without having to think about it. I missed so many things and so many people. I had to remind myself that this will pass!
***Note: One benefit of breaking down during church is that people do notice you and talk nicely to you(maybe I should have made this one of the tips!).

2. Expect the children to go through the mourning process as well! Even Olivia, who is only three, is dealing with these emotions. She has said several times, "I want to go to the church that has Emma in it!" Isaac and Bailey miss their friends also. It is hard to my mamma's heart to watch!

3. Linger I have seen visitors who escape the moment that the final prayer has been prayed, and give no one a chance to talk to them. I understand this temptation (meeting new people can be exhausting!), but is definitely not the way to make friends!

4. Go to church on Wednesday nights. We found that we were able to meet and fellowship with others much easier at Wednesday evening church than on Sunday morning. The crowd is smaller, and visitors stand out more.

5. Have children (this is obviously not a tip for everyone!). Mark found that many more people talked to him when he the children and me with him than when he visited alone. I think that it is hard to miss the six of us! We have gotten to know a few of the children's teachers and the children's minister.

6. Attend a small group. Tonight was our first time to visit a small group. The thought of visiting a small group with four children was exhausting, but it was well worth the effort. We were able to connect with several other families, and that was a blessing!

7. Have realistic expectations. I have to keep reminding myself that this will take time. I will not have close friends here in a week or two. Other people are chasing their children around the church too, so not everyone will have time to talk to me.

8. Pray God is faithful!

To Be Continued...

A fine-tuned sense of smell

Olivia has a very keen sense of smell. She is also a very verbal three-year-old. This can be a good combination. She often alerts me that I need to change Anna Grace's diaper or take out the trash. It can also be a very bad combination! While we were visiting with family over the Thanksgiving holiday, Olivia told my brother (who had been mowing grass) that he smelled like gas and dirt. Earlier that same week, a nice man came to hook up our cable. Olivia was chatting with him while he worked in the living room. I was playing a game with Isaac in the next room. I heard Olivia tell the nice man, "I smell something, and it is you!" Thankfully, he did not understand what she said and I quickly called out of the room before she could repeat herself. We have since had a talk about not hurting people's feelings! Olivia definitely keeps us on our toes!