It just doesn’t add up.

It was November

I blinked

And now we are one month down in 2012!!

Backtracking a bit and adding some of my favorite holiday memories to my list of 1000 Gifts today!

693. staying in our pj’s all day on Christmas Day

694. God stretching our Christmas budget to help FOUR other families in need!!!  WOW!!

695. Simple toys for endless play

696. Children telling the Christmas story…..beautiful and simple.

697. An invitation for my children to take part….so thoughtful.

698. Celebrating 10 years of being a mommy!  Oh yes!  She went and grew up!

699.  Watching him cry when he opened his camera. WOW….speechless at his thankful heart.

700. Playing on Pinterest with her in a quiet living room.

701. Moving him closer to us and watching God lay out a perfect plan.

702. Watching the homeless man’s eyes light up with a simple gift and a “Merry Christmas!”

703.  Playing on an empty beach on New Years Day……..watching the girls run forever.

And today:

704. Claira bringing everything she owns into my bed for her nap.

705. Ryan offering to pick up our favorite vegetarian pizza for dinner knowing how tired I am.

706. Reading Bible verses to the girls until their eyes wouldn’t stay open.

707. A muffin on Claira’s nightstand…….her millionth before bed request.

708. Laundry half done.

709. A sink full of dishes that will be there tomorrow.

710.  Going to bed early.

May God bless your 2012!

Go Ahead……I Dare You!

Do you include Advent in your celebration of the Christmas season?

THIS is why we do?

Today I am giving away as many copies of my eBook Celebrating the Season: An Advent Study as God will let me!

Follow me on Facebook or Twitter for chances to win all day long!

Blessings!

Are you looking to give a different kind of Christmas Gift this year?  How about UnGifts?  They can be Priceless, Practical and Fun!

I hope I answered all of your questions yesterday about UnGifts.  Now let’s get on with some UnGift ideas!  All of the ideas I am sharing today fall into the category of priceless – they are so valuable or special to others, there is no price tag you can put on them.  This is where the “shopping” in your own home I mentioned yesterday comes in!  Look for things in your home that would be special to others or things that you have they might be in need of.  Clean them up if they need it and wrap them up!

• A binder or book of family recipes made for a daughter learning to cook or a new sister-in-law.  Here’s one idea.
• A special doll or toy you had as a child pass along to a child or grandchild.  Last year I gave one of my daughters a doll of mine.  I had her sent in to the company and cleaned up.  She came back like new and extra special, because she had been mine.  It also cost much less than buying her new!

• An item of clothing you no longer wear, but would look great on your teenage daughter or sister…..sweater, scarf, hat, etc.
• A fancy dress you wore once ungifted to a little girl who loves to play dress up.
• A little sewing box filled with treasures from your own sewing supplies for a child learning the skill.  This is what our 5 year old is getting this year!  I can’t wait for her to open it!

I bought the little box at Good Will for $3.99!!

• A piece of jewelry you don’t wear (even costume is fine) passed to a sister, daughter or even little girl for dress up.
• A book you enjoyed reading passed along, including a note inside the cover.  We are doing this for a couple of our older kids.  It’s amazing what valuable knowledge we found for them, just starting their lives on their own, on our bookshelves!

• Kitchenware that could be passed to a daughter newly married or new daughter-in-law.  Think about the mixing bowl you’ve always used for bread dough or the serving piece you’ve always served that family favorite recipe in.  Include the recipe!  My mom is famous in our family for her salsa.  I have her serving dish and her recipe card (handwritten).  That is going to my newly married brother and his wife for Christmas!
• Collections – stamps, coins, figurines, etc.  Pass along a couple of pieces from your collection to a child or grandchild to start their own.
• A charm bracelet of your’s divided among your daughters or granddaughters.  I have my charm bracelet and my mom’s.  I intended on giving each of my daughters a charm a year from these two bracelets as the get older.
• Framed photos or art that would look great in your newly married kids apartment or your college kids’ dorm.  I know I have a drawer full of these that just did not get hung up this time around.  I am planning to take the pictures out and use the frames for these for friends and photos for grandparents.

And then there is the priceless UnGifts of our time…..

• Homemade meals frozen into single serve portion sizes for a single family member or a college kid.  My dad is getting this from us this year.
• Babysitting coupons!  We LOVE these!
• If you are good with computers, give free tech-help coupons for the year!
• UnGift a special friend with a time to watch her kids!  Someone did this for me this year!
• If you are good with home repairs, ungift yourself for a Saturday to a family member who needs home repair help!
• If you are good at organizing, ungift yourself to a sister or friend who wants to get her home organized!  My brother gave this to my husband one year as a day to help him get the garage organized!  They loved spending the day together and the garage got clean at the same time!
• If you are good at car maintenance or repairs, ungift yourself to someone who needs work done on their car.
• A prayer commitment is a wonderful gift!  Type up something telling them you will pray for them, maybe for something different each month of the year.  My husband and I have done this for both my brother and sister during the time of their engagement to their spouses.  We sent notes each month saying what we were praying for that month.
• What about forgiveness?  Is there someone in your life you need to make amends with?  God sent his son Jesus to us as a gift to redeem us and reconnect us with Him.  During Christmas, a time of hope and new beginnings, take the opportunity to start anew in your relationships.  I did this in the form of a letter one Christmas a few years ago, with a relationship that had been difficult for many years.  I highly recommend it!

The list of UnGifts of our time are really endless…..just think about the needs of the person you are giving to and see what you can do to meet them!  Be creative with your wrapping, too!  For example, my husband has had a VERY busy year.  He has a million things that are left half done all the time.  He is constantly saying he needs a “body double” or to “clone himself”.  My gift to him this year is a day of my help – nothing else on my list, but whatever he wants to get accomplished.  I am going to make a silly little paper doll that resembles him (or try to anyway), hence his clone and give that to him to unwrap!  Cheesy I know, but he will love it!  Shhhh!!

Are you giving any priceless UnGifts this year? Or have you been given any?

To Enter the giveaway for a FREE copy of Celebrating the Season: An Advent Study just comment below telling me your favorite Christmas Song!  You can enter all five days this week for a chance to win and all winner’s will be announced Saturday, November 26, 2011.  Winners will be chosen using www.random.org.

I saw her post today that you were playing piano.

All day long and into the night the melodies of you danced in my mind.

All of the songs and all of the laughter and all of the tears……

all of what we once were,

and how we got here,

to this place where I don’t go to your wedding

and you don’t acknowledge my son.

A thousand days it seems have passed,

since the music of you has played in my life

and my heart aches for what we had that is no more.

I tell my children that “family is forever” and their “brothers and sisters are their best friends…..for life”.

I wonder if they will believe me when they are old enough to realize I hardly speak to mine.

It wasn’t overnight but slowly the cells began to change from bad to good,

healthy to sick,

and the connections that were always easy became strained

as we all struggled to breathe under the weight of our loss…….together and alone.

The music between us got quieter,

darkness,

frustration, misunderstanding, resentments and anger set in….there to stay.

The cancer took her life

but didn’t die with her.

It ravaged it’s way through every relationship,

between all of us,

taking life,

choosing death.

I’ve had this post typed for quite awhile, but couldn’t Publish it.  It’s hard to tell the truth.  It’s hard to say that my dad and I haven’t spoken in almost nine months, that he hasn’t seen my son, that my girls didn’t talk to him on their birthdays.  It’s hard to say that most of my texts and phone calls to my brother go without replies and my son was born without a congratulations.  It’s hard to say that my sister and I’s daily conversations have dwindled to monthly at best……I don’t know her life.  She doesn’t know mine.  Yet this is the truth.  I don’t know were we go from here, but I do know that God and time can heal all things and I am trusting that my family is on that list.

I made the decision to click publish today, because this morning we got the news that a wonderful, Godly man who mentored Ryan as a young boy and prayed with us many times over the past year went home to the Lord this morning.  His body was overcome by cancer.  He was young like my mom.  He left behind a young family that will struggle through this holiday season without him and many more to follow, just as we have.

That was the second call this week.  The first was from another close friend of many years.  She starts chemotherapy this week……..I could hardly wait to hang up the phone and fall to pieces, mourning my mom all over again.

Oddly enough, I had planned to re-release my Advent Book today.  Cancer and Advent??  How could I put these two together??  But honestly, it couldn’t be a better fit.  Celebrating the Season is a book that was written to encourage you and your family to have a different kind of Christmas, one focused more on giving than receiving.  I will never forget the lonely feeling of struggling through Christmas, while my mom was dying and watching the rest of the world go about their holiday as if everything was fine.  It’s an odd, sort of trapped in a bad dream kind, of feeling…….watching the world go by.

So, I encourage you, challenge you……..reach out to a hurting family this season.

Don’t know of one?  Pray.  I bet God has the perfect one waiting for you.

And in regards to my Advent Book, Celebrating The Season, you can read more about it and purchase it here.

In my mom’s honor I will be giving away a FREE copy of Celebrating The Season: An Advent Study each day this week.  You can enter all five days for a chance to win and all winner’s will be announced Saturday, November 26, 2011.  Winners will be chosen using www.random.org.

For today’s entry, just comment below telling me your favorite Christmas Tradition!

Blessings!

Sadie~Ryan

age 2

Calls herself “Ry Ry” and so we all follow along!

Loves her “Buddy Boy” and her Big Sisters more than anything in this world.

Knows EXACTLY what she wants

and WHEN she wants it.

Loves to push her babies in the stroller,

HELP Mommy in the kitchen,

feed Daddy’s FISH,

read BOOKS,

and take her clothes off and on ALL BY HERSELF.

How I love this little girl and all of her ENERGY!

Happy Birthday Ry-Ry Sweetie Pie!

And some of my favorite Sadie~Ryan posts:

I just can’t get over how much she loves her brother and the amount of energy she has even at 6:15 am.  And WOW hasn’t she grown since last year!!  So glad God changed my heart….to think I thought my plan was better….

Two of our November birthdays down, two to go!

Have a blessed Sunday!

Claira

age 5

loves her ”Pink Blankie”,
her Pink Teddy,
and everything PINK, PINK, PINK.
AMAZES me with her talent for drawing.
Forever digging through my trash to make treasures.
CANNOT walk by a flower without picking it.
SO IN LOVE with her freckles and her dimpled cheeks
and the SPARKLE in her eyes!
Thoughtful
        Imaginative
                Creative.

A few of my favorite Claira posts in honor of her special day!

I cried BIG crocodile tears looking at how much she’s grown since last year and I love watching her make this Number Salad!  With the days of Fall all around us and the craziness of the holidays approaching, this post made me dream of the summer days again and the smell of the beach on her skin while she sleeps beside me.

Happy Monday Friends!  Hope your weekend was blessed!

We are recovering from a busy birthday weekend, with a PJ Day at our house!

For our family Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus.  We try to incorporate that in everything we choose to do during the holidays. One of our favorite ways to get our holiday season started off right, by that I mean focused on others and not ourselves, is a Shoebox Packing Party!

We have participated with Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child for the last eleven years and have been tremendously blessed by this organization!!  We find the action of choosing a boy or a girl with a specific age in mind and then packing a shoebox full of goodies for them a very tangible way for our kids to serve.  Now it’s even possible to track your boxes and see where they end up!  Technology is so cool!!

When we started thinking about having a party for this year it was a little sad thinking how few people we know here on the island, but don’t you just love it when God steps in?!?!  The friends that we have met are all very excited about participating AND when we went to reserve the clubhouse at our apartment complex they wanted to jump in and help!  They opened up our party to all the residents here at Club of the Isle and even advertised it for us!!  WOW!!

We are so excited for Friday to get here and even more excited to see what God has planned for our party!!

We have already started praying for them children who will receive our boxes!

Want to pack a shoebox?  There’s still time!!  The National Collection Date is this Saturday, November 12.

Watch the video to find out more or follow the links below!

What to put in your shoebox.

Print a label to track the journey of your shoebox.

Find a drop off location near you.

Happy Packing!

Want to give more meaningful gifts this Christmas?  Watch for my series on Ungifts starting next week!

I am sharing this idea for a friend of mine, who is not a blogger <shock, gasp>.  I know it’s hard to believe there are people who don’t blog:)! Anyway, she is an amazing homeschool mama and this is a super cute idea!!

books,

socks,

crayons,

baby dolls

scattered from one end of the house to the other.

That’s not the only thing that’s scattered

my thoughts,

my emotions,

juggling, so precariously, all of their individual needs

and mine….where do those come in?

Our days seem scattered,

jumping from one thing to another

one child to another

grabbing time……minutes, seconds….whatever I can get

to connect,

to hug,

to hear their hearts,

and nourish mine.

Waiting, not so patiently, for it all to come together.

Yesterday I prayed and prayed for God to help me put our days together in a way that works for everyone.  There we were listening to the girls morning devotional this morning and He spoke to me so clearly and made it seem so simple I almost laughed out loud!

Did you know what seems impossible to us, is so possible when we look to Him for our answer?

Blessings On My List!

685. a husband who listens

686. new friends!

687. poodle skirts…..that I didn’t have to make!!!

688. daughters in the kitchen

689. “blue ribbon bread”

690. forts

691. breastmilk

692. chubbiness

Happy Monday Friends!

This post is part of a community of blessing seekers!  Join us!  Get started with these free printables!

There’s something about a “New Life” that makes you want to make a new start in lots of things.  One of the things we wanted to change was our eating habits.  My husband in particular had been really struggling with not feeling well, no energy, lots of headaches, etc.  In his words, “I am 34, feeling like 50.”  About a month ago a friend shared some amazing results with me about her body, because of her decision to eat a Plant-Based Vegan Diet.  This was just what I needed to hear!! Her testimony along with a powerful documentary set us in motion!

I have a degree in Nutrition, but I was floored by what I learned in this documentary.  In a nutshell cows and chickens are not our friends!  I HIGHLY encourage you to watch it!  In their words the film “examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods.”  The part that wowed me the most was the quick reversing of these diseases that are killing people everyday!!

So, we have been eating what I call a “Veganish” diet for about 4 weeks now and WE LOOVVEEE IT!!!!  Yes, you heard that right!!  We absolutely love it!!  I say Veganish because we are still eating farm-raised eggs and have not been super legalistic about using things like a TBSP of butter in a cookie recipe.  I did, however, bake these Vegan Chocolate Chip cookies and they were super yummy!

I hope to share even more great results as we go along, but in the mean time:

Both of our energy is WAY up!

Ryan’s headaches are gone!

My milk supply (which I usually have to support with herbs) is up and more than enough!

Ryan weighed less than he has in a long time this week and already moved his belt in two notches!

I’m spending less time and money at the store!  Yippee!

I’m working on a sample menu and the details of how we are eating to share with you!

Have any other questions for me?