Christmas Trees and Little Sisters.

Here are my sweet kids, at the Christmas tree lot with our newly-picked blue Spruce. Oh, and the nice man who helped us pick the perfect tree, gave it a fresh cut, and helped us get it ready for traveling. Yes, you will notice that despite the fact that we got this tree in northern Michigan, there is not one ounce of snow on the ground. It just didn't seem right choosing our tree with green grass and springlike temperatures, but we wanted to get it up north before heading south home where trees are at least double the price. So, we packed the tree in our truck bed and headed home. The tree is ready to be decorated, but given our busy week's schedule, it will likely not get done until next week. I love decorating the tree as a family, and the event must always include Christmas music and hot chocolate stirred with minty candy canes. I am also a stickler for white twinkle lights.....no bright colored lights for this family. We are all about white and classic when it comes to the lights, and the colors come with the ornaments and ribbons and whatever else we choose to adorn the tree with each year.

Wow, we are down to our last few days of November. I am just still wondering where September and October went? My expression of thanks today goes out to my little sister, Haley Jo. OK, so she milked me a little bit for this one, wondering why she hadn't been "featured" on my blog yet, but I really feel so thankful for her in my life. As you can see from the photo, she adds a lot of spice and zest to our lives. She is fun and spunky and downright crazy sometimes. I think that Haley helps me not to take myself so seriously sometimes, and I am so thankful for this perspective that she gives to me and to our family. She is caring, energetic and loves my kids to pieces. And she has one of the most beautiful and whitest smiles I have in my life......can you tell she is a dental hygienist and very particular about her teeth?!! Haley is presently looking to start her career (know of any dentists looking for an excellent hygienist?), and I want my little sister to know that I believe in her 100% and I look very forward to seeing where God will lead her personally and professionally. So Haley Jo, thanks for just being the cute, spunky, energetic, and loving you. You are so beautiful inside and out, and never forget to be confident in your skills, abilities, and how you will change this world for the better. Hope you like my photo choice, little Sis!

Cultivating Gratitude.

I thought that I would share a holiday project that we have been working on in our family. Above are the two family gratitude journals that we created; actually, our whole church family made one in today's family service, and it was incredible to see families working on this project together. The one on the top is one that I made for our family; I plan to have our family make an entry in it each Thanksgiving, hoping that this will become part of our annual family tradition. The one on the bottom is so beautiful to me; it is a journal that my five-year-old daughter made all by herself. Depicted on the front is a drawing of our family that she made. I love all the colors and that she depicted us as a happy and unified family. She tied the ribbons on the rings all by herself, also. Inside, she drew pictures of things that she is thankful for, and this is truly an awesome thing for a mother to see. She drew a photo of a big Thanksgiving dinner....squash included! She drew a picture of "God's beautiful world" and the forest and a pond full of frogs. She drew a church, and craft supplies, and the new antique teacup and saucer that she received over the weekend from her great-Grandma Stahl. She drew her ABC's and said that she is thankful for school and learning to read. She drew rainbows and a unicorn and a picture of our house and backyard. Her gratitude humbles me and reminds me that she is watching me; she is learning from me and her father; and we have an awesome responsibility to continue helping she and Hayden to grow in thankfulness and gratitude to our great and awesome God.

A weekend for the soul.

This past weekend was just beautiful, refreshing. Truly medicine for the tired and stressed-out soul. Like many of you, my family traveled quite a bit on the day before Thanksgiving and on Thanksgiving day, making sure that we spent time with each of our families. But, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we stayed in one place and pretty much just rested....OK, we ate a bit too, but it was so, so nice. Thursday night, all day Friday, and Saturday morning consisted of many simple pleasures. Homecooked food. A beautifully set table. Playing cards and games. Resting on the couch. Reading. Napping. A little bit of scrapbooking. Playing. Hiking in the woods. Lots of talking and laughing and just connecting as an extended family. Sometimes, the holidays get so rushed and full of "stuff" that we don't get to enjoy these pleasures, but this weekend was just full of these joys. It reaffirms to me what the holidays should truly be about...not driving from place to place and fancy parties......but quieting and connecting and resting and just being together.

It actually makes me very sad what Thanksgiving has become for so many.....just the introduction to the Christmas shopping scene. It is horrifying to see how many stores are now open on Thanksgiving day, as if opening at 5 am on the day after is not crazy enough. Many, it seems, have come to equate Thanksgiving with frenzied shopping and unbridled spending. Quite frankly, I hate this trend. Thanksgiving should be about holiness. About quiet blessings. About family and being together. About celebrating an amazing bounty. Yet, our world insists on making it about commerce and making more money and accumulating more stuff that we really don't need. This is why I am making the conscious decision not to participate in the Thanksgiving and post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy. It's a principle thing, to me. It's too easy to get caught up in the quest, the race, the competition, the crazed buying.....and it makes it impossible to focus on the true God-centered reason for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But now we are back home, and a new week looms in front of us. For me, two more weeks of classes before final exams, and four more weeks of school for my daughter and husband. When we pulled back into the neighborhood yesterday, many of our neighbors were out hanging their Christmas wreaths and lights. I have purchased a few small gifts and have my decorations organized, but still have a lot of things to do. I love Christmas.....the sentiment, the lights, the sheer beauty, the peace, the glimmer. But I very, very much want to make a more conscious effort to focus on the peaceful, quiet, holy side of the Christmas season. We try to do this by avoiding the mall during peak busy times. By taking our kids to the live nativity at a local petting farm. By doing a simple advent countdown each night of December. By constantly reminding our kids of Jesus' birth and the manger and Bethlehem. By playing quiet, peaceful Christmas music that speaks of Christ's birth. Yes, we love the fun side of Christmas--the jingle bells, the parties, the festivities, the Ho-Ho-Ho's--but it is the quiet, sentimental, holy aspects of Christmas that we want to take center stage in our home.

Here it is....the 26th day of November, meaning that I have 5 more days of my gratitude letters to give. And I must make a confession: So far, I have yet to actually send one letter. Yes, I have them composed in the form of this blog, but November just got away from me and I have yet to get them in the mail. Point taken. Slow down. Take time to not just write the letters but to actually send them. Say the words that need to be said and that need to be heard.

Today's letter of thanks goes out to my Grandma Stahl. She is pictured in the family picture above as she shared Thanksgiving dinner with our family. Grandma is a beautiful, strong soul who has now been moved to a nursing home and has been affected by the moderate stages of Alzheimer's disease. This weekend, my sister and I both acquired some of my Grandma's belongings....among our favorites were some old kitchen utensils, aprons, a lava lamp that we used to watch as kids, and a nut cracker set that my Grandpa always had sitting on the small table next to his chair. It is fun to think about Grandma in the kitchen of her small McBain house, wearing those aprons and using those wooden-handled utensils. She was a very hard-working woman who canned her own food, heated water manually for dishes and baths, cooked meat-and-potato meals at least twice each day, and had only an outhouse outside her home for bathroom needs. It has been hard to see her strong body weaken, her memory fade, and her confusion heighten. It has been hard to see her have to move from her house to an apartment and now to a nursing home. But the strength of her spirit is still so present. She has tremendous faith and always speaks of how good God has been to her, even in the midst of pain and loss. I have so many fond memories of childhood time spent with Grandma and Grandpa--taking baths in the old washtub, playing Lincoln Logs and baby dolls in the rickety upstairs attic, sitting on her chenille bedspread looking through her jewely, eating Tums like candy (!), and watching the lava lamp in the front sitting room window. Thank you, Grandma, for your strength and your faith. You are an incredible picture to me, your granddaughter, and to your great-grandkids on running the race to the very end. My daughter, Kennedy, got a very special teacup and saucer that used to be Grandma Stahl's, and it is fun to see how careful she has been with it. She calls it her "special teacup and saucer from Great-Grandma." I love that my daughter seems to have an inherent sense of how special this heirloom is, and I love that my kids have a chance to see, spend time with, and know their great-grandmother.

Thanksgiving Eve Thoughts.

So here it is......Harvest Swirl cheesecake, and it looks absolutely delectable! My daughter took a taste of the toffee and decided that she didn't like it, but I really think it will add a nice "cacophony" of flavors! Funny, while I cherish making these cheescakes every year, I usually don't even get to taste it because it is such a popular choice by my family members at dessert time, but that's OK.....I snuck a few butterscotch chips in the process!

It felt wonderful to sleep in until 8:30 this morning. I then got some quality cuddle time with my two kids. I think that is one of my very, very favorite things about being a mom. I love it when they crawl into bed with me on the mornings when we have a little bit of down time before having to begin our day. Usually, each one takes a side and one of my arms, and they cuddle right into me. My son has the cutest way of saying, "Mommy, I need you to cuddle me." Melts my heart every time. And he is so good about choosing random times to say, "Mommy, I love you!" in the way that only he can. And my daughter, she just needs to be touching me skin to skin. That contact is so, so important for their development. It is neat to see this. From the time she was a very small baby, I made a point to have lots of skin-to-skin contact with her, whether after bath time or me just massaging her back or rubbing her arms. Now, there are times when she will take her shirt off and just lie next to my arm. And people never outgrow that need for skin-to-skin contact, so on this day before Thanksgiving, be sure to give someone a hug, touch someone on the arm with your hand, and make sure to affirm them in this way. It can be a simple yet very powerful connection with another human being. This is true for adults as well as children......we all need a little love--of the skin-to-skin variety!

OK, I'm not sure how the psychologist in me took the tangent of the proven benefits of skin-to-skin contact for development.....but back to our regularly scheduled show! Here we are, on the day before Thanksgiving, and of course, my to-do list is quite long. Plate and wrap the cheesecakes. Finish the cheese dip. Return the movies. Drop off a CD to church for Sunday's service. Pack our suitcases. Stop at the scrapbook store to take advantage of their sale on adhesives. Send a few last-minute e-mails. And somewhere it between, make sure to give thanks. It is really so hard, in the busyness, to maintain a conscious awareness of gratitude. Does anyone else struggle with this? Last year, after Thanksgiving, I stopped and realized something that I found so sad: I spent time with family, I said a quick prayer, I enjoyed a beautiful meal, I played cards, I played with my kids. I even watched a little football. But not once on Thanksgiving did I stop, quiet my spirit, and really reflect on the blessings that God has given me. I vowed that this year, I would take some time on Thanksgiving day to be alone and to thank God. Just He and I. So that is a date that I am keeping tomorrow, and I encourage you to do the same. Gratitude is a matter of the soul, and it can be easily suffocated with the busyness and travel and football and food of the season. Happy Thanksgiving, and may this be the year where you (and I) take a step closer toward a true life of gratitude.

Harvest Flurry Cheesecake....Yummy.

My daughter and I are presently preparing for one of our beloved pre-Thanksgiving traditions: The annual making of our secret-recipe Harvest Swirl cheesecake. Our kitchen counter is scattered with the likes of brown sugar, butter, bricks of cream cheese, butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, white chocolate, cinnamon and nutmet. The stand mixer is poised and ready to create this creamy and decadent confection. More to come as we progress in the baking process......

.....the Harvest Flurry cheesecakes are now in the oven baking to a golden brown perfection, and the kitchen is cleaned (well, nearly cleaned!). Kennedy and I had so much fun making these cheesecakes....though I was a bit frustrated to find us out of cornstarch and having to run to the store in the middle of our baking session. She particularly enjoyed cracking the eggs, sprinkling the chocoloate chips, and operating the stand mixer. She was so proud to be helping Mommy by doing these important jobs all by herself. It's funny.....I can remember so clearly making this cheesecake just a few months after she was born. I have a photo of me making the cheesecakes while she sat on the counter in her bouncy seat right next to me. Maybe that is why I enjoy this tradition so much--it all started when my sweet girl was a new baby and it has continued every year to date. It reminds me of our beginnings, of how very blessed we are as a family, and of many Thanksgivings to come when I will hopefully be able to share this tradition and recipe with my children and, someday, grandchildren. Of course, the recipe gets tweaked a bit each year. Two years ago, I wondered what the cheesecake--which started off as a pretty run-of-the-mill chocolate pumpkin cheesecake--would be like with some butterscotch and white chocolate chips, and it was a hit. This year, in addition to chocolate, white and butterscotch chips, I decided to add a few toffee sprinkles to the Harvest swirl, so I'll let you know how it turns out!

Tonight, in addition to being thankful to have the gift of baking with my kids for another year, I am thankful for tradition. For roots that anchor us to our past while enriching the present and encouraging us to anticipate and embrace the future. I am also thankful that the kids don't have school tomorrow, which means that we can sleep in for the first time in a very long time....don't expect any early-morning blogging from this tired Mommy tomorrow morning!

So Thankful.

This picture definitely speaks for itself. Thankful to be the mom of these two precious human beings. Thankful for each and every time they wrap their little arms around me. Thankful for the gift of soothing their ouchies, sharing in their new discoveries each and every day, and helping them discover the unique people who God hand-crafted them to be. Thankful for the wonderful man--my husband Matt--who shares in the awesome responsibility of parenting them. Thankful for our health and strength and prosperity. Thankful for living in a country where we can actively and fully live out our faith in Jesus Christ and His calling on our lives. Thankful for all the people who have poured into Matt, myself, and our kids. Thankful for so many wonderful educational opportunities in my lifetime--past, present and future. Thankful for having an art that helps me to live a deeper, more reflective, more colorful, more aware life. So very, very thankful.

A Child's Prayer.

Wow, this is the longest that I have gone without posting since I started this blog in October. But, I was out for the weekend scrapping with my good friend, Mindy, and we just had an incredible time of connecting and creating. It is amazing that although pretty much the only time that I spend with Mindy is when we are scrapping (or sometimes over an event with our kids aka Disney on Ice), I count her as an amazing blessing in my life. There is just something that happens when you create scrapbooks with someone; as we create, we share and reminisce and share and just be together. And it is wonderful. Simple and wonderful. During our time scrapping, Mindy and I have shared joys, triumphs and just plain confusions on the topics of marriage, mothering, weight, God and just trying to be a faithful and faith-focused woman. It is a neat relationship, and one that I cherish. Thanks, Mindy. I am looking forward to many, many more scrapping sessions together.

Today, in addition to being thankful for Mindy, I am thankful for children and, more specifically, their prayers. Yesterday, our church children's program completed a service project wherein we are collecting, packaging, and donating underwear, socks and blankets to our local community outreach ministry. The kids worked so hard on sorting, packing, and making cards to accompany the donations. The photo above is my daughter working on tying the edges of fleece blanket to send to a child who has no blanket. Then, we all gathered in a circle around the packed boxes and prayed. And to hear those sweet little voices lift those words of praise to God....wow, my tears started flowing. "Help us to help people and follow God." "Thank you for beds and blankets." "Thank you for the beautiful world." "Help these people be warm and know You." "We love you, Jesus." These kids get it. Really get it. This is why God called us to have faith like children. It is simple yet so, so profound. It is basic yet so complicated. And so, these kids ministered to my heart is a powerful way yesterday, and I am thankful for each one of them.