Jesus Birthday Party

There is a scene in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe that has been running through my mind today. Aslan goes off one night to make a deal with the Witch. Edmund was required to pay a price for disobeying the laws of the land, and Aslan decided to pay the price himself. The part where Aslan slowly and knowingly takes each slow step as he walks towards the altar where the Witch is standing with her knife, ready to kill him. All of the Witch's little helpers are poking and laughing at him as they dance in circles around him. And yet he keeps going, knowing the outcome. Do you ever feel like you are walking slowly, purposefully in a direction, knowing that the Enemy's helpers are just laughing at you? But you must continue on, if for nothing else but to understand about sanctification. To understand the sacrifice, when we are the Edmund's that disobey and act like children. So much to tell since I last blogged, and not knowing where to start. I will get to some of these things later, but for now I will resume my journey of finishing the posts before Christmas. You know, before Valentine's Day comes and all.

Last year my Sunday School class had a birthday party for Jesus, but we had a conflict and couldn't make it. So I was thrilled that we could go.

The morning of the party, I was talking to Justin about what we were going to do. What friends we would see, where the party was, and how we got to sing happy birthday to Jesus! Justin stops dead in his tracks, gives me this, "Are you insane?" look, and says to me:

"Jesus won't be there, mommy. He's dead."

Rut-row. I just kind of hung my mouth open, completely caught off guard by the obvious. I start explaining about how we are celebrating the Spirit of Jesus, how He lives in our hearts, you name it. He would just keep saying, "He won't be there because he is dead."

So thank goodness Mariana had some great activities planned to get our minds off the fact that the birthday boy technically wouldn't be there for the celebration.

She made cupcakes for everyone to eat.


She dressed as an angel and read The Jesus Storybook Bible to the kids. This is such a precious Bible that Justin got for his birthday. Every story leads back to how Jesus is the central theme of every story in the Bible.


You can tell this is an ex-teacher - she knew how to capture these kids' attentions.


Mariana prayed with all the kids after the Bible lesson. So sweet, until I notice Justin looking around the room during the prayer. One moment of eye contact with his mother and he quickly bowed his head as well.


Then we did some crafts. They did a dot-to-dot craft as well as made their own manger scene.


This was actually tricky (for me, you know I'm remedial). They colored the manger scene, cut a line in the paper and folded paper, then glued the hay in the middle.


So proud of himself, fakey fake smile and all.


Then it was time to dim the lights, light our candles, and sing happy birthday to Jesus! Thankfully the broken record didn't share the secret that Jesus really wasn't there. Did I really want to get into a logistical argument with 3 and 4 year olds about how He lives in our hearts?


After filling our bellies with cupcakes and snacks, we sang some Christmas carols. That was mighty funny watching us moms all stop on the same verses that somewhat stumped us. I love the animated faces in this photo.


And heartiness of the boys as they sang.


Thanks Mariana for such a fun activity. I know you worked hard for this!

Santa in the CBB

I was in charge of our neighborhood Santa event this year. We have to reschedule due to the rain, so the Sunday before Christmas we had to the white haired man return to the CBB.

No longer scared of the big red man - in fact, we find him quite hilarious.


Santa with the big kids


And with the little kids


Santa brought a bag of tricks this time. The kids loved playing this game.


The kids decorated cookies. I kept watching these little boys making cookie after cookie. Oh well, it's a special event, right? Those big boys were so nice to let littler boys like Justin play football in the yard for about an hour. That boy was worn out when we got home.


When the sun went down the kids went on the annual hayride to look at lights around the neighborhood. I went on the last and final hayride, and I sure wasn't wearing enough clothes to stay warm.


This house is catty-corner to the house where the event was held. This guy even has his own radio station that you turn to to listen to the Christmas music playlist he put together. You should see this house at Halloween - or maybe you shouldn't...


The organizer had to get a quick pic with the man of the hour. I rented the same Santa we had used the last two years, so it was almost like we were friends already.


Quick side story - I was chatting with one of the moms and daughter and told her how this guy was such a great Santa. The mom's face went white and she started making funny faces at me. It seriously took me about 3 minutes to finally understand that her daughter still believed in Santa. I wanted to tell her that I wasn't used to this since we really didn't talk about it with Justin. But, no time for that discussion. I spent the next 5 minutes fixing the collateral damage by saying how that was Santa's helper, etc. I've never been more tongue-tied and not quite sure of what to say!

Wendi's non-shower

I am slowly making my way to Christmas. A few more posts to go. What's been so great about the start of January is the lack of commitments on my calendar. So it's been nice to take my time editing all the photos (especially since my MAC and my internet are acting up), eventually doing a blog post, and post-date all the rest. With this arctic freeze that is setting in Houston, I have been a crazy lady in the kitchen for the last two weeks. My buddy Jenn put together a cookbook of 200+ recipes from all our friends and it arrived right before the holidays. I have been trying out all the soup recipes with this cold weather, and boy have they been yummy. I found out into the week of soups that Derek has always loved soups. In the 14 years of knowing the boy I never knew this. In the words of my favorite game, whoonu? This is the third cookbook I have been a part of with various groups of friends, and it sure motivates me to try a new recipe when I know the person backing it.

And speaking of friends, a few of us got together right before we all set off to the in-laws and various families' houses to celebrate the upcoming arrival of baby girl Georgia. I saw these wine labels on Kaki's blog right before this and knew I had to grab these to hand out as a small favor for everyone.


We weren't going to do an official shower, per se, but this group just can't help themselves. Especially when we have all these decorations just lying around. So, thanks to Tracy and her printing skills, we had a sugar and spice subtle theme going on.


Big thanks to Leslie for letting us borrow these.


And Jenn for the lollipop trees...


...and the banner for the sugar and spice.


I just provided the house. Since we were getting together literally 3 days before Christmas, we decided the Doha guest needed some Pei Wei during her Texas visit. My plate of food had never looked so monogamously yellow. Is that a word?


Jenn brought the recipe for a yummy cranberry drink and Katie made some delicious oreo petit fours. I made a peppermint dessert, but failed to find the energy to take a photo it.


J-Li, as Tracy fondly calls Jenise, got us all in the festive spirit with her Santa hat. We decided to add to the laidback evening by sporting our Christmas jammies for the evening. I am loving these events where I can wear baggy clothes! Anyone recognizing the onepiece outfit T-Hop is sporting?


Wendi surprised us all with a fun something from ole Fran...


...different earrings for each of us.


Us with the new ear-bobs - we were all laughing how Wendi truly got each person earrings that looked just like them.


Then it was time to shower with gifts for Baby G. Wendi, would you mind if we called her Baby G instead of Georgia? Probably not, right?


Some of us were mothers of just boys, so this display of girliness is still something I have to get used to on Wen. We are all so pumped to see this baby girl!


Luckily, my man returned so he could let us pose for the paparazzi.


Then we just got silly.


Even Derek got into the silliness - so silly, that he cut off Jenise in the last few photos. J-Li - you were there in our memories. And we are so glad you drove in from Victoria to spend the evening with us!


So much fun to reunite this group, even in the craziness of the week of Christmas. Though I had to quickly recover from the 1:30am departure time. We just couldn't get enough of each other. I miss all of us being together. Praying for that sweet baby's arrival in Doha in a few months. It's killing me that I can't be in that hospital room!

Candy Cane Lane

Our church has a fabulous event the weekend before Christmas called Candy Cane Lane. It's free to the public, so we invite some friends and have a great time. It really is another great outreach that our church has for the public. They had a posed section where you could order your photos on Shutterfly for later. Here's the three I chose:


Justin loved this theme since he is infatuated with the board game.


Hilarious posed photo of the three of us.


But now to the fun stuff. They had bounce houses all over the property.


Justin of course had to try each one.


Luke decided to come join in on the fun.


Justin feeding the camel with John.


And then there was the rocket. We stood in line for this thing for 30 minutes.


Only one person can go up at a time. I was at the bottom in the rocket trying to get photos. It was actually hard to keep my balance.


The look on this boy's face was worth the 30 minutes of waiting time.


We finished up the day with our favorite - the bowling alley. The Wilsons were coming as we were going, so we met up at the bowling alley.

You can't beat a day of fun, and all of it for free!