ellie's haircut

sorry for such a delay from the last post. lots has happened. my sister graduated and is now a physical therapist (whoo hoo!) three of us in this house have suffered bad colds, we mourned the loss of my grandmother a week before Christmas, traveled to dallas for a quick pre-Christmas celebration with all kinds of family and friends (to be posted on at a later time), and are now back home listening to the wind howl away, bringing us frigid temperatures. 

can't complain, though, because it's still as sunny as can be. ellie's on the couch next to me after a little after-lunch nap watching a Charlie Brown Christmas on the ipad as i use eric's computer to get up to speed on our happenings this month.

but enough of all that. the reason for this post is all about ellie. just before leaving for garland she got a great little haircut (literally just before leaving...less than 2 hours from cut to car trip!) by the same girl who cuts my hair. it was quite an adventure for her, complete with wash, cut, and dry.  what a treat!

she sat on a stack of towels that were held in place by me as meagan washed her hair.

and then when all clean, she got a turban wrap on her head to walk to the chair for the cut. so big!

she held still for the most part, forgetting to hold her head straight every now-and-then. she didn't say much, was pretty quiet as she took it all in.

and then came the blow-dry part. which she never lets me do at home, but was good to let meagan do it that night.

when all done, she was spun around in the chair and taught to look in the hand mirror to see the back of her hair. and she paused to give a great smile!

aunt b accompanied us to the salon, and we dropped kaleb off at the bike shop for some man time while we went. apparently, he had the time of his life! and brett, the shop owner, loved having him around, too :) afterwards, we all met up for some p. terry's burgers - something new for aunt b. 

two posts, two days

i know...i'm exceeding expectations - two posts within 24 hours of one another. shocking. but so as to not exceed ALL expectations, there are no pictures tonight. just a few thoughts...

we got to go tonight to hear eric's friend, alan, play in a band at guero's tacos, close to downtown. we went last month (always the 2nd sunday), and since the kids had such a good time, we invited friends this month! one of the families from church took interest this morning, so they met us down there.

they're a couple we hadn't gotten to know too much thus far, but from what little we knew, we liked. she is a nurse (what's not to like?!?) and he is in grad school (majoring in library sciences...another win!) and substitute teaching when his own school schedule allows, which is more often than not. they've got 3 kids, one pretty close to kaleb's age. and noelle, their 11-year-old, is one who helps in ellie's class at church from time to time. ellie calls her, "miss noelle" - it's pretty funny :)

it was a great evening of getting to know one another a bit more...they were high school sweet hearts, and they met in youth group at church since they went to 2 different schools - hum, sounds a bit familiar...

after the music was over and we'd finished tacos and the cold front started to blow in, they introduced us to a new ice cream shop so close to home. it was called "lick" - great name for such a store! and yummy ice cream, too.

even in recapping our somewhat rocky journey from fredericksburg to austin, it's good for me to voice again and again that i know with all certainty that He'd have us be nowhere but where we are now. and truly to believe this. truly, we were called away from there and to here for His purposes - regardless of the circumstances which got us here. His plans are bigger than ours, and His ways are not at all like mine.

God is good to continue to confirm our presence/status right now where we are. He is gracious to continue to bring new friends into our midst to walk with and be supported by and to encourage one another on this journey, and tonight was an affirmation, yet again, of His goodness.

a couple of weeks ago, i ordered our 2011 blog entries in book form to keep for recalling in future times, for my kids to read through one day, for sentimental reasons that i can't explain. and it came friday. ellie and i read through the book (it started in august, as that's when i started blogging again, after our move to austin), and i was reminded in the few pages there were of how good God is to provide for us.

and in His provision for us, He provided atonement for my sins to allow me the privilege of spending eternity in His presence - the only provision that matters, really. thus, my 'way out' of death for my own sins came in the form of a baby, His son, during this season we celebrate as Christmas...such a great reminder for me to know that as we've talked about this advent season:

God created all things: for His purposes and His pleasure

humans sin and bring sadness to God

God always keeps His promises (noah and the ark)

God is faithful and expects the same of us

He answers prayers (truly...sarah and abraham were way too old for kids...so they thought!)

He protects us

He is ALWAYS with us

i've enjoyed the jesse tree of advent this year, as it's allowed us as a family to talk about these truths. it's opened my eyes to seeing the need for a Savior from the very beginning of creation, just about. it's funny how loudly Jesus' name is screamed in the stories of the old testament without ever being mentioned...

christmastime is here

happiness and cheer!

(kaleb decorating cookies last night...thanks, eric, for the hands-on help. it was a mess!)

fun for all that children call their favorite time of year

(carmencita came over for the evening, and the girls HAD A BLAST!)

snowflakes in the air (just for pretend. it's 80 degrees.) carols everywhere.

(kaleb's only cookie was eaten immediately.)

olden times and ancient rhymes of love and dreams to share.

(the girls were so proud of their work. and hungry to eat their favorite cookie.)

carmencita's favorite

and ellie's

it was a great night of dress-up and baby dolls and a bubble bath and falling asleep to tangled - well, ellie fell asleep anyway. we loved having a friday-night playdate!

and today was the kids' christmas programs at school. two different ones for their two different classes. kaleb was to arrive at 4.45 for a 5pm program, and ellie at 5.45 for a 6pm program. or so i thought.

that's right. i got a call at 4.15 from the assistant director confirming we were coming. "yes. we'll be there in just a bit." i said. "oh, ok. because the toddler class performance starts now, at 4.15." holy cow! throw on clothes! brush some hair! skip brushing teeth! kaleb got shoes/socks in the car. and actually was only halfway buckled i realized as we leapt from the car at school.

it was ok. he didn't want to perform anyways. he and i sat off to the side watching his classmates sing and dance. and then he was scared of santa - not such a bad thing, i suppose.

and then he hammed it up outside with ellie for some pictures between performances. ellie helped him open his gift from santa.

"look. i got a book from that man over there."

and then came ellie's performance...this was the one i was waiting for. last year, she stood silent from start to finish. and this year, she'd been so excited about things, and even came home this week and told me she had a surprise at the end of the show. and she was good not to give it away. but i feared she'd get cold feet again.

she observed to make sure everyone stood in their place in line. 

and sung and signed with the songs. and then the surprise at the end - she was the statue of liberty for the national anthem! she did such a great job!

santa came after her performance as well. she was nice and polite, but not overly friendly. again, just fine by me. we had refreshments with classmates and families before heading home to eat dinner. such a great weekend celebrating the friendliness of the season!

thankful

it's over a week late, but i still want to share about thanksgiving - it was a great day for us! this was the first year since eric and i've been married that we haven't been with at least one of our families on this holiday. because of the way our vacation schedules were for for, we all only had thursday off. he had wednesday, too, and i had friday. but only 1 shared day - not long enough to travel to garland with two pre-schoolers. especially since one's kaleb!

it turned out to be a light wednesday in surgery, so i actually took off from wednesday through the weekend, and had 6 stay-at-home days in a row! the kid were out of school thursday and friday, so wednesday was spent in the kitchen baking all day. it was great!

we went over to the house of our pastor and his wife, with just one other joining us - so 5 adults and 7 kids. it was nice and low-key. all contributed to the massive lunch we served, we ate on paper plates, then sat back to enjoy a little fellowship while the kids all played upstairs. about 3pm, it was FINALLY nap time for kaleb, so we came home and all took a nap. thursday night, some of our friends, allen and mo, stopped by the house to visit for a bit, but we were all so stuffed we didn't need dinner!

the kids and i steered clear of black friday, but did some saturday shopping instead - and no great deals were missed by delaying a day. barnes and noble, best buy, target. then chick-fil-a for lunch. kaleb fell asleep in the cart at target, so we picked up chick-fil-a, ran some up to eric at work, then went home and had a great girls' lunch.

the peyton's came over saturday afternoon for a spontaneous park playdate, and they ended up hanging around until bedtime - so thankful for the fun! the kids played and watched movies, the adults played carcassone. kaleb decided not to eat dinner, but rather to be fussy, clingy, and want a bath and bed. he ended up running a medium-high temp all night and was up a couple of times during the night, sweating through his pjs. poor baby! no other symptoms, though, so all i can figure isa bit of teething (his i teeth are coming in, so maybe that's it...).

eric worked sunday morning, and with kaleb's fever of unknown origin (an official medical term :) ) the kids and i skipped church. i hated to be the family who infected all others with something we didn't know we had. we got out sunday afternoon for an early dinner with allen and mo to celebrate allen's birthday, and then home to get ready to return to school/work for the first time in a long time!

although we really missed time with family, eric and i reflected on how nice it was to be so relaxed and with no agenda for the weekend. it allowed us to spend extended time with friends that we normally don't have because of chaos of work and school and everyday life. perhaps that's wrong...perhaps we should aim for more of that thankfulness for people and spending time with them than we should the hustle and bustle of life as we know it...i hope to head into the Christmas season with this thankful attitude and enjoy the extra excuses for getting together with others (parties and school programs and family gatherings and all) to really enjoy the relational aspect of the get-togethers.

and in my attempt to share pictures of the day, i discovered i've maxed out my storage space here on the blog. but i did upload the thanksgiving pics to facebook...check them out (there aren't many, but one of kaleb in his hat makes me laugh every time i look at it. he's such a ham!)