Monday, November 26, 2007

Uh Oh ~ Holidays


I refuse to think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving.
Well... Thanksgiving has come and gone.
It was a relaxing, fun and of course delicious day! My mom cooked everything. I'm spoiled. Without a doubt, she makes the best pumpkin pie. My family played a game that proved we are all idiots. Great fun... then we watched "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

Seems Thanksgiving is over ~ as soon as dinner is over.

I can feel my blood pressure rise.
So many things to plan. So many things to buy!!
We even have to buy a new Christmas tree! We "retired" our old tree this summer when we let the church borrow it for VBS. Instead of dragging it home... we dragged it to the dumpster. He lived a long and decorated life.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Date with Daddy


This morning Hope was so excited about having a date with daddy. They were heading to Cracker Barrel with plans to eat a lot of bacon for breakfast. She was also calculating ways to get Daddy to go shopping and buy her something... every little girl's dream. I think every little girl could benefit with a few more "Daddy Dates." Let's face it, much of how we view men and our expectations of our relationships with them are built on that precious relationship with Daddy. I guess we never outgrow that desire for a "Daddy Date." A couple of weeks ago, my dad stopped my office just to see me... a pretty nice bright spot in my busy week.

Pilgrim Hats


Yesterday was the Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast. The parents were asked to send fun finger foods. So we made "Pilgrim Hat" cookies. They turned out pretty cute.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Mental Ping Pong


I am involved in the most ridiculous sport. Mental Ping Pong. Makes me crazy. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night due to this insipid game. Ping - I love my job. Pong. It's too hard. Ping. It's what I am meant to do. Pong. Maybe I should be doing something else. Ping. It's great for my family. Pong. It's hard on my family. Ping. I'm the best person for this job. Pong. Someone else could do it better.

Anyone can play this game! You can apply it to any aspect of your life!! Being a parent, housework, money, marriage. Believe me, I've tried them all! Other people call this game, self doubt, insecurity, etc...

Well... once I went to sleep I slept very well. But... and that's a really big butt :) This morning I awoke from a very disturbing dream. My family and I were on our way to church. Sitting in the car I realized we were 30 MINUTES LATE!! This is really bad for the Interim Director of Children's Ministries. LOL The weird thing was that Ray did not see this as any problem at all. We get to church. Apparently, all children's classes had been cancelled. No one seemed upset... quite a matter of fact. All the kids were in adult worship, which had a very low attendance. Then... my boss found me. He said, "Maybe we should pray before we chat."
Then I - thankfully - woke up.

I think too much.
Does that make sense?
Perhaps I need a new sport... maybe tennis? Don't know much about it. Don't they talk about love? LOL

Sunday, November 18, 2007

A New Cousin?



Yesterday was very fun! We got to meet a new family member. Pedro Ponchot. Shaun, Jane and Darci's new puppy. He is so cute - He looks like a toy. You may know that Hope and Micah have a very love/hate relationship with little animals. Mostly, if they are in the same room... forget about it! But they both fell in love with Pedro. Even Micah.

A couple of years ago, when Micah was very small we went to the playground across the street. There were lots of other little children there. All very comfortable with dogs. Well, there are two very nice german shepherds that live up the street. They are very well behaved and never walk on a leash. However, there are signs in our park that say dogs must be on a leash. When Hope and Micah saw the dogs coming to the playground with their owner they trembled with fear! Micah screamed at the top of his lungs, "Can't they read the signs?!!! They are supposed to be on a leash!" Micah wasn't quite 3 years old. There was lots of weeping and screaming. sigh.

Last year, in preschool a very nice family brought a little bunny to share with the classroom. It was at the end of the day so I was waiting in the hall to pick Micah up. I turned around and there was Mrs. Dozier with Micah in the air ready for me to take him. All she said was, "Bunny in the room." then rushed back to class. Needless to say, Micah was in tears terrified of the bunny.

So... we are very happy that Hope and Micah have made great progress! As you can see, Hope was quite found of the little guy.

Today was another fun day at church. I'm so excited! The River Kids Worship kids, will be singing in adult worship on December 23rd. I introduced one of the songs that we will be singing. They began picking it up lickety split. I am so proud of them. I think they are going to be GREAT! I can't wait to introduce them to the other song!

Budding Photographer



Micah has been enjoying taking pictures with my camera. Seems like he may have a future in photography... or at least a shot at being the creative director of Davis Family Movies. You can see for yourself... the boy loves Halloween toys!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Star Wars version of Jacob and Esau




This video came from a Christian Church in IL. It was perfect for River Kids Worship this week. We were talking about God forgiving Jacob. The kids are learning Bible stories by drawing simple pictures while they hear the story. Hopefully, they will be able to retell the story by drawing ~ BUT, what if kid's used their toys to tell great Bible truths... I guess it might look a little like this video. It was our first "Bring Your Parent to Church Day." The Kindergarteners and 1st graders brought their parents this week. I think the parents enjoyed this video more than the kids did. My favorite part is Chewie a.k.a Esau!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

What is a promise?



Here's the video we showed last week to get us thinking about what it means to keep a promise. The "Big Picture Point" was that God keeps his promises to show us He is faithful. Our story this week was about God's promise to Abrahan that he would have a child even in his old age. Interesting... his wife Sarah was twice my age! Yikes!

Monday, November 5, 2007

Spinning Plates


I guess I'm not alone. Every woman in America probably feels like she is spinning plates. On a great day she may even feel like she has all the plates spinning! I have not feft like that in a very long time. Today... seems like I only have a few plates spinning. My house? Yikes! I won't even go there. In case you didn't know, I'm the interim Director of Children's Ministies at my church. I've been seeing my work there as at least eight plates that need spinning. I can even hear the silly carnival music. The problem is that I can only seem to get 3 or 4 of those plates spinning at one time. The second I leave one alone to get a fifth one going one of the others drops to the ground. I guess it's so frustrating because I believe a healthy children's ministry is incredibly important to the over-all health of a church family. I really want to see all of the plates spinning joyfully! Maybe even with a little more peaceful music too!

I really should think about my house and my home... same problem. Like every mom - the laundry plate, dinner plate, grocery plate, homework plate, paying the bills plate, quality time with my husband plate, diet plate, exercise plate, house work plate, mountain of messy toys plate, MAN! see why I didn't wanna go there? How do we decide exactly how many plates we should be spinning? How many plates we should let others help us spin?

Quite a while ago I jokingly created a list of rules for myself - I'm quick to share them with others.
Rule #1 NOT MY JOB
Rule #2 LET IT GO LOUIE
Rule #3 REMEMBER WHERE YOU ARE
Rule #4 REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

Ray and I tease each other with the rules. When things get us going we will just say, "that's rule #1" or "remember rule #2" But seriously, I have really thought about these rules - especially when I feel overwhelmed.
NOT MY JOB. Sometimes I waste so much energy worrying about someone else's responsibility.
LET IT GO LOUIE. I can get so bogged down with past mistakes or hurts.
REMEMBER WHERE YOU ARE. I use this rule when I realize my expectations are out of wack or when I am out of my comfort zone.
Last but not least - when all else fails. REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE. I am a child of God. He loves me so much. Even when... hummmm especially when I have trouble keeping the plates spinning.
Does that make sense?
Can you hear the silly carnival music?

Friday, November 2, 2007

Halloween



Halloween was a lot of fun at our house. Nobody loves Halloween more than Micah. His favorite toy is a little witch he named Witchie-Poo. He loves everything about it ~ the toys, the scary stories, TV shows, the candy, the decorations (but not the REALLY SCARY ones... he has not been in Krogers in a month!) But, he is VERY afraid of the scary costumes - especially the older kids. For the past 3 years he has planned to be a ghost. The first year we cut the appropriate holes in a piece of polar fleece... but at the last minute he changed his mind and wore his spiderman outfit from the year before. Last year he as very excited to be a ghost again. But, he was very sick and rested on the couch the whole evening. THIS year again he was very excited to be a ghost. He even took his "outift" to school. Bit, when it was time for trick or treat... the doorbell rang... our first little beggar. Where was Micah? Behind the chair. Poor little guy.

So... he decided to stay home with daddy. Daddy sat on the porch and passed out candy and glow bracelets. Micah watched from the window. Once and while daddy would come in the house to check on Micah. Micah would say, "Okay daddy, I'm fine. You can go back outside again." He really did not want that doorbell to ring again!

The trick or treating champ is Hope. What a cutie! She wore the fox tail and ears I made for a program I did for the library. She wore it all day to school and told me that she was so proud. She would hug her tail and tell her friends that her mommy made her tail! We were out trick or treating for over a hour and a half. We found a school friend and she walked together... so much giggling. I think they were speaking their own language... very high and squeaky. I didn't understand a word. They didn't stop talking all evening... I'm not sure they even took a breath. The sweetest thing about my little girl though? The whole time she was collecting candy it never occured to her that it was all her candy. It was ALWAYS for her and Micah. She could not wait to get home and show him what she had collected. Not a selfish bone in her little body. Reminded me so much of "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown." Hope was so much like Lucy collecting candy for her brother Linus, who was waiting for the Great Pumplin. Of course, Hope never called her brother stupid like Lucy did.
I'm quite proud of my little girl and her sweet little heart.