Not sure which this is - Angel Benjy or Benjy.
Lately, Angel Benjy has popped into our lives more and more. Today Benjy said he was on the roof of the van. "Boom Boom Boom," Benjy said. "He's stomping." "Swish," Benjy says. "He's jumping." "Chchchch, he's here!"

Good news for this hump day:
I don't have glaucoma, says the eye doc. I had a follow-up appt from a couple of weeks ago when my eye pressure was a bit elevated. So I had a series of tests today that showed everything to be A-OK. And the greatest thing of all - no dilation!!!!!!

I attended an awesome seminar on Monday and Tuesday on differentiating instruction in the classroom. With so many kids on different levels of instruction, it's hard to justify teaching them all in the same way. And we shouldn't be doing that anyhow. This workshop was led by a dynamic presenter - interesting, relavant, and fun. And the meals were excellent!

Camden brought his reading book home yesterday and read every single story in it. Wow. So awesome to hear him READ.

Our Wednesday night Food for Faith at church began the series Defending Your Faith. This is amazing. It's an honest-to-goodness method for defending Christianity to nonbelievers. Not an in-your-face belittling strategy, but a real way to engage people in discussing what they actually BELIEVE when they challenge our faith. After one night I know that I'd rather avoid all confrontations. But I also know that I can learn to handle opposition to my Christianity. I can defend it. And I owe it to Jesus to do just that.

Bad blogger.
Bad.
Bad.
Bad blogger.
Benjy has a new imaginary friend: Angel Benjy.
Angel Benjy plays Star Wars. He splashes in the tub with Benjy. He hangs out in the van when the rest of us have already made our way into the house, hung up our coats, and settled down with after-school snacks. Angle Benjy goes to time out. A lot. He allegedly makes messes in the real life Benjy's room. Angel Benjy is real life Benjy's new best friend.
"Where is Angel Benjy?" I ask.
"Ooooooooh... he's out in the snow," the real Benjy answers thoughtfully.
"Is he cold?"
"Yes. It's brrrrr cold."
"Does he want to come in?" I ask.
"No, not yet."
Angel Benjy. He's like Super Man around here.

I think I totally forgot to post about Camden's karate tournament a couple of weeks ago. He did fabulous! (of course)
He scored three medals - one for Black Belt Attitude, one for Listening (my son??????) and one for Powerful, Sharp Knifehand Strikes. Wooohooooooo! He was so proud. And so were we. Benjy, too. And Emma, as you see here, wearing Camden's three medals. Probably not her desire, but with some bling around her neck nonetheless. :)

Wow, what a sense of accomplishment. I have sorted, tossed, and organized toys in both the basement and the playroom. And it feels so good to walk into those rooms and survey my handiwork. Yesterday it was painting. Today it was cleaning. Who knows what tomorrow brings.



These pix are blurry, but in real life the layouts are not. I managed to accomplish some scrapbooking this week. Funny how when I'm sick I'm super uber motivated to create.

This the painting/collage I made yesterday between coughing fits.
It's inspired by Claudine Hellmuth. Heck, it's a total lift of one of her pieces. She is just so darn awesome. I am so happy with my first collage piece. It's hanging in my kitchen smiling at me. :)

Friday

What I LOVE about Fridays:

Remembering what happened on "The Office". LOVE this show.


I wear jeans every Friday. Blue. Black. I don't care what color. Eddie Bauer makes the best jeans. Buy 'em at the warehouse store, and you've got the BEST price.


silly. irreverent. not much to make sense of here, except the obvious. Love this. :)

January 12

Today is Camden's birthday. My baby is 7 years old. Feeling quite sentimental, I kneeled by his bed tonight when he was barely asleep. I told him what it was like at 9:30 p.m., seven years ago at that very moment. I told him how I had already sent Daddy home to sleep and rest for the both of us, that the nurse wheeled Baby Camden into my room in the nursery bassinet and that I very, very carefully picked him up by myself and settled into bed to snuggle with him. I explained how he was so beautiful, so tiny, so perfect. That I cried as I held him and planted kisses on his tiny nose. I named him my little Buttercup. I don't have any idea where that came from, but it seemed to fit at the time. He's more like a Venus Flytrap at times now, but usually a fun daisy or maybe even a tall sunflower opening wide to the sun. Yes, seven years ago today, he was smaller than my pillow. Smaller than a good bit of his own stuffed animals. And I was smitten in love with him.

As I hugged Camden tonight and told him the stories of his first day on earth, he smiled and hugged me. Then he stretched out his lean seven-year-old arm, reaching up toward the top bunk of his big boy bed. He exclaimed, "Look, Mom, if you do your hand like this," twisting it about in the dim glow of the nightlight, "you can make a longneck." That's a dinosaur. "Yes, Camden. That's a really cool longneck," I told him. Then I hugged him as he made more dinosaur shadow puppets, kissed him on the nose, and told him I loved him.

Goodnight, my little longneck.

Godwink.
That's my word for the year. Ali Edwards recently challenged her readers to find a word that they could live with for a year. I sat on this for a few days and finally hit on Godwinks. I was in Barnes and Noble this morning, and found this wonderful book about Godwinks, those coincidences that are really little answers from God. Like when you're looking for a scale for your classroom, as my friend Barb was. And you find one for a buck or so at the Goodwill. Or when you keep thinking about a special long, lost friend. And they call you that night out of the blue. Or when you think you're miserable in your job, and you meet one person who introduces you to their school, and you suddenly have the teaching job of your dreams. (Thanks, Sandy!) Godwinks. That's my word for the year.

I want to look for the Godwinks that happen in my life this year. And, God willing, I want to remember them here. If I'm really good, I'll even scrap them! Godwinks. Cool, huh?

Suburbanites we are. We headed to the mall today. The big one, the one out of town a good 45 minutes away. The drive was nice, the mall was so-so. But if you're a kid, the mall holds mysteries we could never understand. Camden and Benjy, though bored and whiny in the calendar shop, were delighted by every other bright light and salty scent and happy noise that surrounded us. The mall. Hmmmm, not such a bad outing. Surburban, but not bad.

Busy today. Couldn't take the clutter anymore, so we took the tree and all the decorations down. Even the awesome outside lights that I neglected to photograph. There's something about Christmas decorations after Christmas that brings me down. It's not the lights. I miss those. But something about the STUFF in every corner, nook and cranny. (Is that how you spell "cranny"???) Maybe it's the let-down of knowing I have to wait the better part of a year to get psyched up for Christmas again. Maybe it's the reminder the decorations are that the mailman will bring bills and not fun catalogs, colorful sales flyers, and Christmas cards from friends.

Speaking of Christmas cards, guess what I found today when I was putting away our 7 boxes of Christmas goodies........
At least a dozed signed and sealed Christmas cards that didn't get mailed!!! So, if you've not rec'd one from us, you will. I'll have to get these in the mail tomorrow. It was my job to go to the PO for more stamps, and it was probably my job to get these last few cards out in the mail, but I failed on the latter big time. Oh well, I can't sweat the small stuff. It's all good in the great scheme of things. The cards will be in the mail this week, and, hey, that's before Epiphany, right?!

I've finally uploaded some pix of my Christmas art journal. This has been such a blessing to create. I look forward to reading each day's prompt and then sitting down with my tools, ribbons, stamps, papers - mmmm, love the smell of new papers! and CREATING. Something about cutting, pasting, piecing together parts to make a whole. Love this process as much as the product. I read through last year's art journal and was amazed by the growth I've made as a Christian in just this year. I've always relied on my faith, but I've never lived it like I try to do now. Nothing to say except thanks be to God!

Merry Christmas!

It's finally here! And not a disappointment in sight, unless you count Camden's cold. Poor guy, he feels lousy. Nevertheless, he was up at 5 am peeking in the family room to see what Santa brought. He came up to tell us and I curled up with him and we just chatted about Santa, the reindeer, presents and Jesus' birthday. Finally, at 6:30, we could stand it no more. I tucked him into my bed and let him watch TV while Curt showered and I got dressed for the big present-opening extravaganza. I woke up Benjamin at a quarter till 7, and we were off, down the stairs to discover our loot. Guess what - stockings for all! They've been my favorite part of Christmas morning for years now.

During this week I wanna play catchup on my Christmas art journal. I've had such a blast recording the everydayness of preparing for Christmas. I'll upload the pix and stick them on here so you can follow along, too. I suppose the remaining page prompts may be about cleaning up after the big rush!

Just another day in my busy week. Thought I'd take a moment to post a few of the cute things I've seen this week.

Last night was the school's Christmas pageant. Benjy's preschool class sang a version of Mary Had a Little Lamb...
"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.
Mary had a little lamb.
He is the son of God."
Well, from the mouths of babes it came out:
"Mary had a wittle yam, wittle yam, wittle yam.
Mary had a wittle yam.
He is the son of God."
Priceless.

Benjy can now sing his ABCs. And a year ago he didn't even speak.

The washer broke on Sunday. No hope of getting it fixed till Monday. Rats. It's hard to watch the laundry pile up. But the neighbors across the street were so sweet. Loaned us a key and told us to come on over any time and wash away.

A few images from our Christmas decor...

5 things

I'm challenged to list 5 things I have enjoyed today........
1. Camden ate spaghetti at dinner. He even said "spaghetti" and not "skapetti".
2. "The Office" cracked me up! (NBC, 8:30 p.m.)
3. Benjy told me I was an angel and sang a song to me about Jesus.
4. Almond M&Ms. Need I say more?
5. Christmas lights everywhere.

manifesto

Manifesto: Noun. A declaration of one's intentions.

Starting December first, I will keep a Christmas journal. In it, I will write something every
day to reflect on the holidays of my past, enjoy the holidays of the present and dream
about the holidays of my future. To some, this will be a stack of papers and trivial
scribbles, but not to me. I am taking back my Christmas, I am letting it be something I
relish and, most importantly, I am giving at least fifteen minutes every day to myself no
matter how crazy this season becomes. I hope you will share, encourage and understand
as I make something with my own hands, my own words and my own memories.

I may post some or all of my entries here. Other artists are doing this with me, and you
can see there work here.

Who's got my attention???

I admit it. I'm becoming more and more conservative. Scary, huh?

This epiphany of sorts comes as I realize that as a Christian, I am definitely in the minority.
Not only do Islamic extremists want my faith wiped out, but Americanism, or whatever you call it, wants it obliterated, too. Is it such a bad thing to be a Christian? To be a follower, a believer, a disciple of Jesus Christ? Why is it that in this country, being a Christian is worth ridiculing? Worth dismissing and being sent to the corner? Why is it that we can't say "Christmas" when we celebrate the birth of JC? As the youth minister at my church says, "It's the economy, Stupid!"

So, who's the new man in my life that has my attention? It's Glenn Beck. SHOCK! (Go ahead, gasp and fall down, then get up and read on.) He's on CNN Headline News at 9 pm on weeknights. This is a man who's not afraid to say what he's thinking. Now, I might not always agree with everything that he says, but I do think he's right on with his passion in saying it. I think in America, we've forgotten exactly what it is that we stand for. We're so concerned with not offending anybody that we've forgotten what it is to be offended. To be persecuted. We're so busy being politically correct that we've forgotten what it is to believe in something. Heck, we just believe in "whatever." And we wonder why this country is in decline........

In other news...

We're bigtime into the lights this year. We've got a tree in almost every room. Well, one big tree and lots of little trees. The boys are so proud of their tiny trees with multi colored lights. I'll have to get some pix and post 'em.

Camden had a PERFECT math test yesterday. :)

Thanksgiving - beautiful. Just beautiful. Mom and Dad and home. Can't quit remembering where I was a week ago right now. :)

Thankful for what?

Thankful for home.
Home.
Where I grew up.
Where I could go for a jog at midninight and not worry about a single thing.
Where Mom and Dad were always there.
Where the train whistle soothed me to sleep.
Where Magic Mart could stand up to Walmart.
Where the mountains embraced you.
Where everything seems so small now, but so comfortable.
Where small is good.
Where time seems to stall for just a bit, long enough for one to stop and appreciate its passing.
Where memories flood one's mind, one's heart, one's very soul.
Home.

Christmas Parade - not "Holiday" parade

Not even Thanksgiving, and we've spotted Santa twice. Once at the mall and today in the town Christmas parade that they aren't even allowed to call Christmas.

Your Ideal Pet is a Cat

You're both aloof, introverted, and moody. And your friends secretly wish that you were declawed!

What's Your Ideal Pet?

I swear, that's what this stupid quiz says. Of course it's wrong. I hate cats. I thought it might spit out polar bear or something interesting. But never in a million years CATS!
Check this out:
take the ideal pet quiz

Grateful

Today I start my Grateful art journal. I made it yesterday to help me focus on the little things I have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season. Not the biggies, the obvious ones, like my kids, my dh, God, etc. But the *small stuff* little things. God is in the little things. I'm convinced of it. I want to focus on those, to look for them and expect them.

So, I woke up this morning, a wee bit late, and got myself ready for school. Camden and Benjy's alarm clock rang and I walked to their room to drag their sleepy bods out of bed. What I saw made me giggle. It wasn't really all that funny, but I could see the humor in it, the blessing of the *small stuff*, the not-so-innocent but oh-so-silly side of my boys. I'm grateful they're friends and that they can entertain each other.

Well, I suppose you wanna see what I saw: