Story of my Life

~Aaaaaaaaahhhh~ How peaceful it is in the early morning. Everything still and motionless, the mountainside pink from the rising sun on the snow, the long shadows peeking through the limbs of the trees, men stomping around on your roof banging and clanging and hollering to one another, other men walking past the window smiling and yelling "Good Morning!," compressors roaring on and off... So serene. ;-) HA! I got up earlier than usual today because there is a skylight in the bathroom and I needed to take a shower safely before the guys were due to arrive and be up on the roof. Good thing I did, too--I think they showed up at 6:45 this morning! Good, hard workers they are. Today Brother Chris brought Brother Juan and Carlos with him. And to be fair, they really tried to be quiet when they first got here. But roofing a house is a noisy job, you know?! Anyway, back to the beginning...

We did, indeed, miss church last Thursday night. It never had stopped snowing all day long and we just didn't know if we'd be able to make it back home or not. I always have big guilt over that decision (what if we COULD have made it without any trouble and we just stayed home?!), but not this time. When the decision was made to not try it, the kids and I bundled up and started walking down to the mailbox. On our way there we helped push one lady's car to the side of the road. She was stuck in the middle of the road, sliding all over the place but going nowhere. We got to the box and it was completely frozen shut. In fact, if the neighbor man hadn't been there picking up his own mail we probably would have come home empty handed. He scraped with his key and banged and yanked and pulled and finally got our box open for us. On our way home we stopped at the same place the first lady had been stuck to shine our flashlight for a guy who was crawling around under his vehicle trying to put chains on the tires. At that point all of my guilt over staying home from church vanished. Ha! There is NO WAY our van would've had a chance out there.

I dug out my Christmas puzzle that night because it seemed like the thing to do. ~aaaaaahhhhh~ :-)

The next day was a great snow day around here. The kids spent most of the day outside, having a blast. I spent a most of the day proofreading off and on. James cooked all three meals that day! He's The Good One. I can't tell you the last time I cooked three meals in one day! I usually shoot for just one! Ha! He made oatmeal for the kids for breakfast, some of those fantastical turkey tacos of his for dinner, and ziti and homemade stromboli for dinner. Oh wait, the ziti and stromboli were the night before. Either way--it was great! :-)

We had about a foot of snow on the ground. ~Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh~ There is nothing more wonderful in all the world. :-) Look at how deep it is on the deck to the office--and you can barely see where the three steps are that lead up to it.

The van doors were frozen shut and James had a hard time getting in. :-)
Mid-morning we looked out the window and found that some guy was out there shoveling our driveway and was half done already! (That's no small job here, especially when the snow is a foot deep!) It was Brother Chris, of course. He decided to come up and shovel off our entire roof so it would have a chance to dry out and he'd be able to work on it on Monday. How many roofers do you know who would do that?! He got here and did the driveway for us just because that's the kind of guy he is. :-) Then he got to work on the shed roof, then the house. The kids were thrilled that he was here, of course, and kept pelting him with snowballs while he was trying to work. So he began shoveling the snow from the roof down onto the kids. :-)
Apparently Sam joined Brother Chris' team for a little while.
Here's Joe, anticipating the next shovel full...
If you look closely you can see Joe getting slammed. :-)
We ended up with a clean roof and some mighty impressive piles of snow surrounding the house. The kids dug them out and made lots of "igloos" out of them. :-)
This is the view from our front porch the next morning. I do love it here. Soooooo pretty.
On Saturday James wanted to go to town. Ha. HA. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Town! On a SATURDAY. In DECEMBER!!! On the LAST SATURDAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS, IN DECEMBER!!! He has mental issues sometimes. He tried long and hard to talk me into it, but I think he finally became a little concerned for his own safety (ha!) and gave up on the idea. ~whew~ That was a close one. James took Sam and went to Edgewood while Katie and Joe stayed home with me. Another reason I didn't want to go to town (like additional reasons were really necessary) was because I had lots to do to get ready for the pot-luck the following day. I made 9 loaves of Poppy Seed Bread (I give small loaves to the ladies at church, large loaves to the families) along with the pot-luck food: more Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies (though I used red and green M&M's this time to make them more Christmassy), Jamey's Mexican Chicken Casserole, Chicken Pot Pie, and lots and lots of Popcorn Balls. It was about 10:30 that night when I was finally ready to make the popcorn balls. I had (for some unknown reason) decided to make a double batch and it's really too much for one person to handle--the syrup would cool and begin to get stiff before you could get it all mixed up and formed into balls--so I asked James to help me. He said, "Too bad Joe's not still awake--he could help." A moment later we looked up to see Joe standing in the kitchen smiling. Ha! So he came and helped us, too. I can't remember anything specific, but I know we laughed at Joe a lot. That kid cracks us up!

By the time we had finished up the popcorn balls and I had them all individually wrapped, had washed every pot, pan, and giant bowl in the house (popcorn balls are the worst for making lots of sticky dishes!), wrapped three Christmas gifts, got the Clarkson's gift from the church ready, and wrapped up and ribboned all of the Poppy Seed Bread it was 1:30am! CRAZY! And here I thought I had everything well in hand and under control. Thanks for sharing these particular genes with me, Mom, I love 'em. ;-)

We had a good service Sunday morning, Brother Chris completing our Advent messages--this week on "Joy." It was so good. I love teaching and preaching on things like hope and peace and joy. :-) Brother Chris had arranged a scavenger hunt for the kids, so we all headed outside to watch it just before he preached. He used it to illustrate the wise men diligently searching for Jesus and the great JOY they experienced when they finally found Him. The kids also got all dressed up and acted out the Christmas story as Sister Shanda read through it. They did a great job. I filmed all of the above, so that means I don't have any actual pictures of it. But I haven't had a chance to do anything with the videos yet either.

After service we had our pot-luck with lots of great food and fellowship, as always. I love that. As a kid we used to have a pot-luck once a month (every third Sunday, I think it was) and I thought it was fantastic. :-) Sister Yolanda made some super tasty, not-spicy-at-all tamales and some sort of hot punch with lots of chunks of fruit in it--it tasted a lot like hot spiced cider. Yum. :-) All the other food was good too, but that was my favorite. :-)

Here is James in his Christmas garb, doing his best Brother Grimes pose.

And me with Sister Galaviz, looking rather jolly and festive. :-)
After service the Clarksons had some gifts for our family. They got us "Where the Red Fern Grows" due to all of our recent conversations about who bawls like babies watching sad movies and who is cold and heartless and unaffected by them. Ha! They also got us some Jelly Bellies and peanuts to snack on while we watch the movie... and some flavored crickets. That's right, crickets--the real thing. I think they were sour cream and onion flavored. (Like THAT is supposed to help?! Gross!!!) It was HILARIOUS watching the guys try to eat one. Brother Chris took one too and told the boys they'd all do it together on the count of three. This is right after they'd popped them into their mouths...
And about a second later, right after Joe and Cainan had spewed theirs into the trash. Ha!
And Brother Chris laughing and holding the cricket that he had only pretended to put in his mouth. :-)
Of course, he's a strange one and decided to go ahead and eat the cricket anyway, just because. Bleagh! He's the only one who actually swallowed one. NASTY!

Carlos decided he would try too, but he had a much harder time than the little boys did actually getting the nasty little thing into his mouth.
This is just moments before he actually got it in--which was only fractions of a second before his head was in that trash can, spitting it out! Ha!
Boy, I hate it that the last pictures I have are of cricket eating. Gross! I'll do better next time.

We came home from church and had a nice, relaxing evening. Left-over tamales for dinner, then later on a popcorn ball and a hot pumpkin spice cappuccino and a Christmas movie. ~Aaaahhhh~

Yesterday Brother Chris and Carlos showed up to work on the roof bright and early. Our family worked on getting the house all cleaned up, then went into town to shop for some necessary things, most of which we were unable to find. Bummer. We even ended up battling the crazies at the mall, of all things. The only good that came of it was the Hawaiian chicken and rice we got at the foot court. Yum. We did end up buying a few things on our outing, mostly at the dollar store. I got some stocking stuffers for James (all junk this year--it's the best I could do) and James helped Joe search for a present for me. James said Joe picked out a very nice, thoughtful gift for me... after he finally convinced him that a gallon of bleach was not a good gift. HA! I love that kid so much! :-)

We got home at 2:00 or 3:00, I think, and did some school and housework. Had left-overs for dinner, then James took Katie out to Edgewood and Moriarty to return something to Alco. I read a pile of Christmas books to Sam--since they need to go back to the library today and we hadn't gotten to most of them! It was a nice evening.

I got a call last night on an ad I'd listed on Craigslist two or three weeks ago--or more? I'd listed both car seats, the highchair, the baby swing, and the walker. Sam is seven years old, so that tells you how long we've been hauling that stuff around! I had a couple of calls in the beginning, but nobody came to look. I was just telling James the other day that I was going to donate everything to a crisis pregnancy center. Then this lady called last night and said she'd take it all, sight unseen! Wa-Hoo! :-) So James loaded it all up and delivered it to her this morning. Good for her, good for us!

It's now nearly noon. It's hard to keep a line of thought when you type a few lines, then leave, then come back and type a few more! Ha! Brother Chris and the guys just left. He's got to get home so he can head to Colorado with his family for Christmas--I'd hate for them to leave him behind and Sister Shanda just might do it if he doesn't get there soon! Ha! I created what I HOPE is a complete shopping list (though we all know it's not) to send with James so we can have everything we need (ha) for the rest of the week and Christmas dinner, so he's being a wonderful husband and taking care of that for me. Nice. :-)

One more thing... Sam woke up sick early this morning, rushing to the bathroom just in time. He went back to bed, but had to make another run for the bathroom when he woke up a couple of hours later. Brother Chris came in and prayed for him a little while ago and he perked up a lot and seemed to be doing great--making trouble and everything (ha!)--but he's been sacked out on the couch again for about an hour, saying he's feeling sick again. Katie has started on lunch, soup for Sam included, so I'm going to go assist her. I love having such a grown up girl around the house. :-) Anyway, pray for Sam--I know God can heal him totally, with no relapses.