Things We Did in Halifax For Christmas

Succumb to and recover from yet more colds

Gather with family from far and wide

(Aunty Ruth now from Vancouver - the other side)

Read thick books and thin buried in blanket folds

Give and receive some most wonderful gifts

Games at Uncle Arran's - hilarious jacktv

Can you believe it - we didn't see the sea

Shovel snow for an hour; what humungous drifts!

Find a bobcat skull with Aunty Jo

Slip on ice and gash eyebrow on the car

Snowshoe - the first time! - not so very far

Please, mom, home we don't want go!

Eat some fantastic festive food

A December birthday brunch (among us there's 4)

Christmas dinner for 19, and room for more

A show for which puppets are glued

Play long, hard, loud and often with cousins

A struggling campfire in Imma's back yard

... a burnt coat (mom let down her guard)

Cousins play aplenty - just three short of a dozen 

Visit a hobby farm and milk a goat

Learn a new game called Sleeping Queens

Aiden playing alone - hardly we've seen

Think many blog post ideas that never got wrote

Unfortunate circumstances called for a puffer

Our three attempts to get a prescription

Defies poetic description

But in the end Dad no longer did suffer

Many late nights and late mornings too

Friend meetings aplenty to fill in the days

Hot chocolate and eggnog, sugar craze

Far too busy to take photos for you...

oops!

What Else?

A flu-style cold with great tenacity
Seized our household
Jasmin first
Right after getting "protection"
In a flu shot
Then Aiden
Then Daddy (twice it seems)
Then Mommy
And Grace stands alone

Daddy bumps another car
Their car is fine
Ours is not
Adventures in living carless
For... longer than we thought

Added tasks for Christmas coming
Begun and not finished
Added to the trickling stress

Busy weekends
Choir singing
Choir practicing
Sunday School, Church
Jasmin's winter recital (She did fantastic though still not feeling great)
Daddy consulting at a men's retreat

Patience stretched
Niceness worn thin
Sharp words and snarls
Hurts and "humphs"
Relationships pulled taught
Courage energy spent in restoring peace
And real unity

A call for prayer
Family first
A measure of relief
Wider call issued
Growing victory
Hopefully we're done for now!

SnapShots from the last two weeks

Last week we doubled our numbers in this house by hosting a family for our church's missions celebration week.  Aiden especially enjoyed having live-in playmates who loved Lego!

Spontaneous creating happens often while listening to Mom read aloud, or audio books on the computer....

 Grace's homemade moon sand cake and roast chicken

Jasmin's galleon complete with anchor and oars

And a snippet of recess time activities...

A Few Things On My Mind Lately

Jasmin. Tuesday Jasmin had her reassessment from the vision therapy we've been doing for the last 10 weeks.  The results? "Her responses are 100% better in accuracy and consistency," resulting in possibly reducing the number of needed sessions from 40 weeks to 20! What a fantastic answer after weeks of doing all sorts of daily odd "homework" exercises!  And we also have noticed great improvement in Jasmin's schoolwork.  It is SO good to have something that is actually working and making a difference! Now, if we could find the same for her near constant nausea....

Choir Christmas Songs. With only 3 more weeks to our first presentation of songs, and 18 songs of varying difficulty (sort of easy to very difficult), there is a lot of work to do! So the songs are being played while I run, while I drive, while I cook.... I'm sure everyone around here will be thoroughly sick of the songs before I'm done with them!

Schedule planning. Already the demands on our time have increased in anticipation of Christmas season, so, often I am trying to figure out how to juggle where, when, and what for all of us. And remembering it all so everyone gets to the right places at the right time! (and in between trying to keep school going cohesively...)

Christmas. Trickling down in-between all the current happenings and related thinkings are thoughts of Christmas: what to do for Advent this year (and how to do it more or less seamlessly between here and in Halifax where we go for Christmas this year), present lists (who and what), our trip to Halifax and all it entails...

God's lessons in me. Learning just how far I have yet to go to vulnerably trust others, and the results of trying out different ways to get closer to God's ideals of true community.  Finally (!) coming to grips with the life in missions that God has asked of me that is so different that what I hoped and dreamed of. Stretching, growing, listening, responding...