Christmas (and everything else I've neglected posting about lately)

Wow! I can't believe it's been two months since I last posted something on here. I'm such a slack blogger. And life seems to move at an ever increasing pace. We had a wonderful Christmas...as it zoomed past at the speed of light!

This was Ella's first Christmas, and I'm just now realizing I didn't get many pictures of her. Uh-oh!

Well, here's a couple from Christmas Eve...Ella with her great uncle Glenny and G.G. (Great-Gram).

And here's Ella with cousin Hayden.

Here's two little girls very excited about their Christmas Eve treat bags!

Christmas dinner at our place on Christmas Day. YUM! I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! (And by the way, I'm not complimenting my own cooking...I got off easy, only having to prepare the veggies. Mom and Carl brought the turkey, gravy, stuffing, and plum pudding. Thanks, guys!!)

Clara was a shepherd in her preschool Christmas concert. Her one line was "Boy, it's cold out tonight." She had that down pat. She was playing an angel in the church Christmas concert and had to give a little speech, "Behold, I bring you good news of great joy. Today in the city of David a Saviour has been born. He is Christ the Lord." I was a little nervous she might get the two parts mixed up and start reciting the angel's lines for him at the school concert, but she didn't. She's a great little actress. She definitely has a flair for the dramatic. And she was the cutest little shepherd I think I've ever seen.

The girls' favourite gifts this Christmas were all the dress-up outfits and accessories they got. We have our own "tickle trunk" now, and they can dress up as anything from angels to fairies to princesses. They are loving it!

Between Christmas and New Years we had a visit from a dear friend from Japan. She hadn't been here in 9 years, and we had never met her husband before. We had a terrific time catching up and hope they will come again soon...at least sooner than another 9 years!

We are starting Sunday School for the whole family at 9:30 on Sunday mornings, and tomorrow is the kick off. Clara is so excited. For some reason she has it stuck in her mind that they are going to paint in the preschool class. I'm not sure why she's associating Sunday School with painting, but it's great to see her looking so forward to it. We are so thankful for all those who have been willing to teach and make this a reality. We pray many folks and families will come out, eager to dive into God's Word together.

The girls had so much fun today. We went to a family carnival that a church in Stratford organized, and they had cotton candy and snow cones and bouncy castles and carnival games. Clara and Elizabeth just loved it. It was so great to do something fun together as a family...feels like it's been too long since we did that. We are planning to get away to Moose Jaw for a week this spring to visit with John's family. Tonight in the van as we were driving home, just out of the blue, Elizabeth says, "I can't wait to go to Moose Jaw." We are all excited to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I was thinking the other day of some of the funny things that the kids have said lately and thought it would be a good place to record them here on the blog so we won't forget as they get older (and no doubt stop saying quite so many funny things). We were listening to some music I had downloaded the other day and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring was playing. Clara said "I recognize that song." Sure enough, it's on a Baby Bach (Baby Einstein) dvd we have. I told her the name of the song and said that a man named Johann Sebastian Bach wrote it. In all seriousness she says, "Boy, that's a silly name for a man." Isn't it funny how we can become so familiar with something we can forget how silly it might sound to someone hearing it for the first time?

One day I was standing over Elizabeth in the back of the van as I strapped her into her car seat. She looked up at me and said, "You're awfully big, and I love your hair." It dawned on me that to her, being "awfully big" was a good thing. After all, when you're little you just want to be big.

Elizabeth is full of humour, both intentional and unintentional. Clara brought a craft home from Cubbies a few weeks ago with a big red heart sticker in the centre of it. I showed it to Elizabeth and said, "Look at the pretty heart on Clara's paper." Elizabeth looked at it and said, "Hey, I want to make a fart." Not sure how she mixed up the "H" and "F" sounds, but funny enough it was actually truer than she realized...ironically that's something she's very good at! We all had a good laugh.

Oh, I can't sign off without letting you know how our "electric light fast" went. We "fasted" from using electric lights in the house for about a month before Christmas. I thought we might last a day or a week at the most, but was very surprised at the unexpected blessings and lessons learned over the month. Since we use the low energy light bulbs it actually made no noticeable difference on our electric bill, but it made a big difference in our hearts. Let me share with you an entry from my journal...

Friday, November 26th, 2010

Well, we have been fasting in a way, living in the dark and there are so many lessons to be learned. It's so difficult to do the simplest of tasks in the dark...imagine living your whole life without Jesus, in spiritual darkness. Oh, the futility and frustration. When you're in the dark it's also impossible to do anything in and of yourself to change your predicament. You want light, but no matter how hard you wish or pretend or snap your fingers or whatever, you're powerless to create light. It has to come from outside of yourself. Spiritually I guess that's sort of what we mean when we talk about God switching the light on in our lives. I've also noticed I'm in a new pattern now without electric lights at night. It's sort of an unconscious rush to get all my work done before sundown and if it's not done by then it's just going to have to wait until tomorrow. Kind of relaxing and peaceful actually in the evenings now. Anyway, it makes me think of when Jesus said to work while it is day because the night is coming when no man can work. There is urgency in the work Jesus has for us. There is such urgency in the Great Commission. I never dreamt there would be lessons like this when I felt prompted to do a simple thing like turning out the lights.

So to sign off, let me encourage anyone out there who might feel prompted by God to "do without" something for awhile. You might not understand it at first, but if you're obedient there might be a whole lot of surprise lessons along the way.

Signing off (with the lights back on by the way),

Erin

ps-just in case I don't get around to updating this again before Easter...

JUST JOKING! (I hope)