I Heart Faces - Outtakes

Oh my. I have a few (um, thousand.) Here are five. (nope, four. She changed her mind.)

First, the annual "let's make mama crazy by LOSING OUR MINDS when she starts trying to get a decent Christmas card pic." Christmas 2007.



(If you saw a pic here earlier, please try to erase it from your mind. LOL She gave permission then rescinded it, so I took the pic out.)

And one of my favorite pictures ever. The "this is guaranteed to make me smile no matter how bad of a day I'm having" pic. Brendan was way unhappy to not be included in a pic of the girls. I intended to just crop him out after the pic was taken, but I really just love it.


And this one from the other day. I love taking pics of these two boys. One was very cooperative and sweet. The other (my own son) CLEARLY had too much caffeine. Or something.

(The really funny thing? In the last pic I took, the buddy decided that if he couldn't beat him, to join him, so I got two tongues sticking out!)

Click on over to I Heart Faces and get ready to giggle at everyone else's outtakes!

It's Post a YouTube Video Day!

It's "Post a YouTube Video" Day!

(I totally made that up.)

(I'm betting that you guessed that.)

(I just wanted an excuse to post this video.)

I was just giggling earlier this week because this silly Christmas song from an ALBUM Troy had when we were kids kept going through my head. The girls just laughed at me and said there was NO WAY ON EARTH that could possibly have been a real song.

I did what any internet savvy mom would do; I searched for it on youtube. AND I FOUND IT.

And because I could not possibly keep this fabulousness to myself, you get to see and hear the video too! As silly as it sounds, this song very much says Christmas to me, because I remember so well being so excited about Christmas and listening to this album. I'm sure we watched the show too, but it's just the music that I remember so well.

So ... without further ado ...

I present ...
R2D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas:


And because I love you all so much, I have to share this one too. I couldn't find a video for this one though.

Merry Christmas, My Friends

The GOOD Things About Being an Army Wife

1. Shaving is entirely optional.

2.


hm. That's all I've got. I miss my husband.

I Heart Faces - my holiday traditions in photos

One of our Christmas traditions is the annual Christmas card. The truly fun part of this is coming up with the perfect Christmas card picture. This usually ends up with at least one adult and and least two children in tears. Frequently there is bribery involved as well, and mama always needs chocolate when it's all over. Ah, what fond memories my children are going to have of this event as they grow up! I'm sure their therapists will hear all about it.

2001 is the earliest we have. (Sorry Gabbi. We didn't enter the digital age until 2001. We probably did do a Christmas card when we had just one; at least I hope we did. It would have been easier with just one! My scanner has issues so I didn't even bother looking through the boxes of pics.) Gabbi was 3, Madelyn 8 mo in this pic. This is one of exactly three minutes in Madelyn's first year of life in which she wasn't crying.


2002 (This is one of my favorite pics ever.)


2003


2004


2005 ... enter Brendan into the scene.


2006 I remember that it was absolutely freezing out when we took these pics.


2007 ... another favorite picture. I cannot begin to tell you how long or how much frustration was involved in taking this pic! Nor am I willing to tell you how much photoshop was involved.


2008 ... we were anticipating some family changes in 2009 and decided maybe it would be good if mom and dad got in the pic.


2009. I did not have it in me to try to attempt pics of the kids by myself, so we used a family portrait made in May as our Christmas card pic.

Not Me!

As I'm sitting here in the quiet of my house on December 21 with about four presents wrapped and about 104 to go, and a big ole pile of laundry (didn't I just DO the laundry?!?), I think I need a little "not me" action.

It was not me who typed the "go north" post and got up in the middle of it, ate some cookie dough, then sat back down to finish it.

It is not me who has been sugar free for two days. Nobody has been yelled at, maimed, or harmed in any way because of this. Amen. I did not make six dozen cookies yesterday and miraculously not eat a one of them. I do enjoy making cookies and it works pretty well to just make them and give them away. I did keep a few though; somebody make them stop staring at me like the eyes in the Geico commercials! (My children will probably take care of that when they wake up ... cookies for breakfast anyone? Nope, not me.) Oh and by the way - do not think there's anything noble going on here. I am the girl who can eat nearly an entire package of oreos and proved that in the last week. :-/ I mean, no I'm not. Or didn't. Or something like that.

I do not keep putting off getting a netflix subscription because it's more than I want to spend in a month on renting movies. In the meantime, I also do not go to redbox and end up keeping every movie I rent for nearly a week. Yeah, someone do the math here ... this is not the most brilliant financial move ...

Jim will be home for leave soon, so we have told the children that we're going to hold Christmas until he gets here. My children have not told other people that we're just not having Christmas this year. Oh my. (So, if you're reading this and have heard from my children that we're not having Christmas, it's not true. Actually (blush) mama has overcompensated for *something or other* and the children are going to have a bigger Christmas than normal. Oops. Because we all know presents make everything better, right?)

My son does not have his mother's natural skepticism. He did not, on Saturday, when Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas, look at him seriously and say "I already told you what I wanted!" Yikes. After a few seconds of panic, I did not look at Santa and say "Of course Santa remembers that you want a GRABBER TRUCK for Christmas!" The funny thing - this is just Santa #2 for him this year, and this one really looked like Santa. The first one ... um ... did not. Not even close.

Okay, I believe that's it for this Monday! I'm working on a picture post from I heart faces that I might be able to get up today ... or maybe tomorrow.

It is Time to Go North

No, we're not headed back to Spokane, or anywhere really.

(I'm going to try my best to make this post not jumbled. I'm not expecting a whole lot of success. You've been warned.)

I have been reading this blog: Lysa TerKeurst. If you're not reading it, you should be. Many of her posts just plain resonate with me. You know, weight and hair struggles. How many people can't relate to that? (Okay, she goes way deeper than that; although those alone are enough to keep me following her blog, especially when my handy dandy heat styler broke today ... right after I had done HALF of my hair. I'm sure the half flat, half frizzy look is all the rage these days, right? I can't make this stuff up, people.)

ANYWAY ... the point?
Earlier this week, I read this post.

Then yesterday, I read this post.

Go read them. I'll wait.

(Did you read them?)

The first one made me think. Yeah, it deals with weight loss, so that sparked my interest, but it really spoke to me about areas other than that.

Then the second one. Oh my. That verse just grabbed me. Did you catch it too? Deuteronomy 2:3 - You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north.

Got any mountains in your life that you've been circling long enough? Sense that maybe the Lord is telling you it's time to stop circling the mountain and head north? Oh my. Yes, of course weight loss is one of them, but other, bigger, more important mountains are out there too, and I've been walking around and around a few of them for quite a while now.

Now it's time to quit walking around the mountain and head north. That's going to mean letting go of a few things. Maybe some anger, maybe some bitterness, maybe some ideals of perfection ... maybe about seventy-five other things. And yes, sugar is one of them.

This verse has been rolling around in my head since I first read it; just thinking about some things I need to let go of and some things I need to head toward. Lysa said it much better than I could, so please, if you haven't read those posts, go read them. :)