Smile for the camera! At least look at the camera...

For an early Christmas present, my parents gave us a family photo shoot with a friend of theirs, a great photographer who took Max's 18 month pictures... wayyyy back in the day. We got all cute and coordinated in brown and blue, and made our way down to Burnsville for the pictures a couple of weekends ago. While Tom is an amazing photographer, our children were not in the mood to be cooperative! I'd like to treat you to some of the best outtakes, because they will probably not see the light of day again.

Obviously we couldn't pick this one for our Christmas card

Something smells...

Look, Ma! No hand!

It's not every day we get such a beautiful photo of our children fighting

Louie may look like he's smiling... but I assure you he's not enjoying this choke hold.

We did get some really nice photos for a Christmas card, but seeing as I'm not on the ball this year, they'll be going out some time after Christmas... hopefully still within the Christmas season! New goal: Epiphany. Hold me to it!

I'm Dreaming...

Looks like we might have gotten our Christmas dusting of snow just a little too early! According to the forecasts, it looks like we may be in for a brown Christmas this year in Minnesota. Bummer! Max has been asking me when the snow will come back, because he is bound and determined to build a pirate fort with Grandpa. Sad to say, they won't be playing in that fort on Christmas Eve this year.

In all honesty, I'm in no hurry to have four feet of snow on the ground. Here in the midwest, we'll have snow until March regardless of when it first falls. So if it waits a few more weeks, that's only three months of battling icy roads. I can deal with that! I'm still holding out hope that we'll see some flakes falling on Christmas Eve, but I'm ok if the heavens don't open until we're safely home from our trip to Rapid City in mid-January. 

We have had two good snow days so far, and the anticipation will make the next snowfall that much more exciting! The first day it snowed, Max came running down the steps yelling, "It's a snow day! It's a snow day!" That evening he played outside for an hour, making tracks on every inch of our yard, leaving not a speck of untouched snow.

We got outside once more before everything melted, and while Max could have stayed out all day, Louie was a bit more cautious. He preferred to stand on the sidewalk and point at the white stuff. When he accidentally got some snow on his mittens, he held his hands out to me and whined until I brushed it off. Not so much a snow bunny, that one. 

According to Max, it's not actually winter until there is snow on the ground. Actually, "It was winter, but it's not anymore... but it will be soon. At Christmas." I hope he's not too sorely disappointed if "winter" doesn't come this week! I have a feeling the sugar and the presents might distract him. Then after the celebrations settle down, we can move on to sledding and skating and snowmen. At least it's already cold enough for hot chocolate!

Keeping a Secret

This weekend, Max went on a shopping excursion with my dad and came back with a present just for me! Apparently they were walking through a store and Max stopped and said, "I want to get this for Mommy for Christmas." No prompting. Melt my heart. The gift was wrapped in-store, and Grandpa reminded Max that the contents were a secret until I opened it at Christmas. "Don't tell Mommy what you got!"

That evening, when we got home from the Holidazzle parade, we met Paul who was just returning from North Dakota. Max was very excited to share the fact that he had picked out a Christmas gift. As I put it under the tree, I made a comment about how I couldn't wait to find out what was in it. As Max bounced on the couch with uncontrollable excitement, he blurted out, "They're mittens!!"

Oops.

Daddy tried to rectify the situation, reminding Max that presents are supposed to be a surprise, and to throw me off-track he said, "Maybe they're socks. Or shoes. Or..."

"Or MITTENS!" chimed in Max.

Well, at least I don't know what they look like yet!

I did it!

I thought you might enjoy a quick little video of Lucian's very first sentence! He's definitely not a chatterbox like his brother, but I think he's taking everything in and will repeat it back when it's convenient for him. As you can see, he is pretty proud of himself when he knows he's said something we can comprehend. Behold: "I did it!"

Other new words in Lucian's vocabulary include "apple" (ba-pu), "hot dog" (ot-da), "help" (ep!) "popcorn" (pa-coo), "Macky" (Ka-ka), and "Louie" (Oo-Woo).

Oh, and how could I forget "Hula" (hoo-ah)? ...Yes really. It's in his favorite song, "Dance Like You've Got Ants in your Pants" by Eric Herman. You should check it out, it's under two minutes and very addictive. Lucian says "Bop! Bop! Bop!" every time he comes near the computer, which I discovered is his code for "I want to watch 'Dance Like You've Got Ants in your Pants!'" (If you watch the video you'll understand.

So, communication is slowly coming along! It's fun to hear his little voice, and I can't wait until he and Max start conversing... can you imagine the things I'm going to overhear? Stay tuned...

Christmas Spirit

The tree is up, the lights are hung, the third candle on the Advent wreath is lit, and we are waiting in joyful anticipation for the coming of Christ at Christmas! This is the first year that we will have a normal Advent and Christmas season in our St. Paul home. Two years ago, I was very pregnant with Lucian, so Christmas preparations were... well... slow and simple. No tree, few decorations, baby could come any time! Last year we traveled to Rapid City so we decided to forgo the real tree and opted for a little tiny artificial one. Not the same.

 But this year, this year, we have a tree! A real, live, beautiful Christmas tree. And we did it proud! Egg nog, Imperials Christmas music, every ornament we could find in the house, and I'm happy. For the first time, I feel like the preparation of our home is truly a reflection of the preparation of our hearts. O come, o come, Emmanuel!

Waterworks

Oh pregnancy hormones, how I love (loathe?) thee...

I am usually a pretty even-keel person. Well, within reason... I have my moments. But during my previous two pregnancies I went off the deep end emotionally. If you knew me at the time, you may not have noticed, unless you were my husband. He got the brunt of everything. For example, I remember a string of nights when I was pregnant with Lucian that I would decide right about bedtime that my life was falling apart. Just as Paul was drifting off to sleep, I would begin to cry inconsolably. When I realized I had no good reason for crying, I would cry even harder because I didn't know why I was crying. And then when Paul didn't wake up (or pretended to stay asleep), I would cry because my husband didn't care that I was falling apart!!

Paul, I'm so sorry. You know that, right?

The best one, though, was about halfway through my pregnancy with Max. Have I told this story already? If so, oh well, it's worth a repeat.

During pregnancy, I became very, very, very clumsy. It's as if my body forgot where its limbs were, and I hit my elbows and stubbed my toes on just about anything that didn't jump out of my way. One particularly clumsy day, I was walking into the bedroom and I tripped over a cardboard box on the floor. I threw myself onto the bed in tears, unable to believe what a klutz I was! As I sobbed and sobbed, Paul sat on the bed behind me, silently rubbing my back. Thankfully I didn't find out until much later that he was trying with every once of his being to stifle hysterical laughter. Because he knew that if that laughter had slipped out, I would have clobbered him.

But back to the present. This time around, I've managed to contain my emotions pretty darn well! I've had no insane outbursts, no late nights up crying. Paul got it rough for the first two, I guess God decided to give him a break this time ... so far.

There is just one area in which I have become an emotional wreck, and that is music. If I hear any song that I like, or that has any emotional connection in my brain, I have to fight back the tears! On the radio, it works out fine. I can change the station. But in church? Ugh... not so much. The worst is when they play a song that we used during my years as a youth minister. Last week, it was "Salvation Belongs to our God". Oh man... I spent the entire song staring at the ceiling and blinking rapidly to keep from breaking down. Everyone around me probably thought I was nuts.

And now we're closing in on Christmas. Oy. Just about every song I hear gives me the sniffles! I'll just have to start pretending I have allergies, or else take a break from music altogether.

Or I could just bring this image to mind... kind of hard not to smile when I think of this little goofball:

O Come, O Rod of Jesse's Stem

I love the season of Advent, especially when I'm expecting... which has been the case for three out of the last five Advents! I really feel like I can share in Mary's anticipation and expectation in a concrete way. What a beautiful gift! This year is the first that Max is starting to get the idea of Advent. He knows that he is waiting for Christmas, and when all of the candles on the wreath are lit, it will be here!

Of course, at this point in his life, awaiting the coming of Jesus is about equal in importance to awaiting the coming of his Christmas presents. So to re-emphasize the real reason we're celebrating, I decided this year to do a Jesse Tree for the first time. Max is kind of hit-or-miss when it comes to projects, but something about this one really caught his fancy. Each day in December, we will read a story from the Bible and then make an ornament for our poster board tree that represents the story. Max loved the story of creation, especially the fact that "God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves..." (Gen 1:21, RSV) Sea monsters? Awesome!

I have tried to put Max in charge of as much of this project as possible, and he has taken it very seriously. So far, he has chosen the symbol to represent each story and I draw a simple ink outline for him to color in. For the creation story, he chose a sun and moon. For the story of Adam and Eve he wanted two stick figures holding hands. And for the story of the fall, he asked for a tree with a snake on it. Pretty good, I think!

This is our Jesse Tree so far, colored by Max and... uh... drawn by me. Hey, I never claimed to be an artist!

I love the fact that the Jesse Tree gives us the opportunity to learn about salvation history in the form of a fun project! If anyone wants to make their own, we used this site's recommended Bible verses. Your tree and ornaments can be as complex or simple as you want. We opted for simple this year, but I'm hoping to make this a yearly tradition that can change and grow as the kids do!