Illness Denial

Have you ever been sick but in denial that you were sick? I mean you acknowledged that you had a fever and other symptoms but when you acted sick, you were in denial that illness could be the cause of your sleepiness, grouchiness, laziness or whatever?

I think I've been in sickness denial today.

About a month ago, I had the flu... like the real flu where you have a low fever for days, your body hurts all over and you seriously think the walk to the bathroom is just so so far and wish you could just have a bed pan or better yet a catheter... flu. And to make it extra fun, I had an ear infection too. I went to the urgent care and got an antibiotic that I knew didn't work well on me but the effort to even just tell the nice doctor to give me something else just was too much so I silently accepted the prescription and shuffled out the door. Although I got better, I don't think ever truly got 100% better. For weeks I've had about 5 pounds of yuckiness lodged in my chest and my little girls have been imitating me hacking and spitting gunk into the sink. No matter how many times I've explained that mommy only does that because she has to get the nasty stuff out, they think it's a wonderful new hobby around here. My ears and throat still have ached and those tell tale little glands on my throat swell every so often. But by Christmas, I thought I was surely almost recovered... like 92% all better.

Then this morning I woke up and felt like Mr. Flu was back with a vengeance. I helped the girls get ready for church, then crawled back into back and slept until 1 pm. Yup. 1pm. Please don't tell anyone. I'm embarrassed.

I'm also embarrassed by all this talk of health issues. Ugh. I hope I'm not turning into someone who gives a run down of my anatomy and all it's ailments when an innocent person asks "How are you?" Someone please tell me if I turn into that person! But really, this has been some flu season around here!!

After sleeping most of the day away, I woke up feeling guilty. I think my college days forever instilled in me the motto"Don't call in, CRAWL in". But I think everyone at church is tired of passing illnesses around so I'm sure I made the right choice to stay home. However illogical, laziness still makes me feel bad. See? Illness denial.

While still in a groggy state, my beloved called to ask if I wanted him to come get me so I could eat lunch at his parents with the family. I looked down at my PJs, ankle socks and sweater... none of which matched, and felt my matted, in desperate need of a washing, hair. Um... Seth must have been in illness denial too... denial of MY illness. I declined and have survived just fine on leftover spinach dip from Christmas. I lived on spinach dip for a good portion of my pregnancy with Eden. For some reason, it just sounds so good when I nauseated! Weird, I know.

After lying around more, only in the living room instead of my bed, I was thoroughly disgusted with my misuse of all the "free" time. I decided to play around with my new Photoshop Elements Program that Seth so generously bought me for Christmas. Um... I'm not getting the hang of it as quickly as I thought I would! Man, I wish I was smart. It must be so convenient to be smart. *sigh* After a half an hour, I was full of regret that Seth bought me this gift... a gift I've asked for for a long time, a gift he was so happy to give me.... And then I realize, Kayte you dunce. Why are you trying to learn something new when you're sick. Again, illness denial.

So now I'm restricting my activities to orange juice drinking, light reading and movie watching. "The Sound of Music" is on right now. I think that song could work well with my name inserted... "How do you solve a problem like Kay-teeeeee!?" I also think I could sing like those nuns. How come falsetto shrill, high voices are popular anymore? I really think I could bust out some serious nun-like singing when I my throat gets better.

I am feeling better and looking forward to seeing my girls when they come home from church. They had on really cute outfits - Christmas gifts- today. They are so cute. Sometimes you forget how cute your own kids are. While shopping yesterday, so many people commented on one or both the girls. They are so stinkin' adorable, if I do say so myself. What wasn't so adorable about shopping: wearing high heeled boots while walking around the mall pushing a stroller. What was I thinking? Ouch!

Merry Christmas!

Did you all have a great Christmas? I hope you did!!

We had a great holiday season, I would say. Maddie, for the first time, was old enough to enjoy the Christmas lights and decorations, and made some ornaments and proudly hung them on the tree... she waved to Santa at the mall, got a candy cane from the Santa who drove by the fire truck and heard the true meaning of Christmas about a bazillion times. (Just for the record, we don't get really into Santa here... we don't think he's evil- we just enjoy him as we enjoy any make believe character). We all ate lots of cookies and drank lots of hot chocolate out of snowman shaped mugs. I refrained from stressing out over the details and kept my gift giving simple and within budget. A great Christmas season.

Christmas day, however, was a mixture of good, bad and ugly.

The good: We slept in a little bit... not as much as Seth and I could have used! The girls, whether from the excitement of dinner at husband's aunt's the night before or just a fluke, had a rough night and woke up with wet beds or some other issue four times during the night.

"T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house,

not a person was sleeping, not husband nor spouse!!"

After taking our time getting up and dressed, we read the Christmas story from the Bible. Actually, Seth read, while I whispered to Maddie that it was almost over and Eden fluttered about the room in her usual first thing in the morning cheerfulness. We had my mom over for a late breakfast of cinnamon rolls, bacon and fruit. Add coffee and orange Julius and we were stuffed and well on our way to stomach aches! Truthfully, the girls, who are always hungry straight out of bed, ate shredded mini wheats before my mom even came, so they mostly had fruit by the time breakfast was served. We opened gifts and was each spoiled rotten!

We then headed to my in laws to open gifts with them before one branch of the family departed. Again, lots of wonderful gifts. I have no idea where I am going to fit all the fun toys the girls got!! And I got a few great things myself!! I will shortly be strutting around the shopping mall, my arm adorned with a Coach purse from my brother and sister in law who swear they got it for cheap (crazy right? I'm a bit embarrassed to even wear it, it's so nice! Maybe I should just leave it home and pet the soft leather instead of actually use it!), and smelling fabulous thanks to my delicious bath set from my other brother and sister in law!

Maddie spend the afternoon playing with cousins (ie. stealing their new Nerf guns) while Seth and I took Eden home for a nap so that she'd hopefully be pleasant for the party that evening. I finished my contributions to the food spread for the party (best ever corn chowder recipe found here) and we went back up the in laws to relax and play board games and finish getting ready for the extended family to come over.

The bad: By the time 5:30 rolled around, Maddie was getting tired and whiny. Eden was also on the brink of being all "Christmas-ed out". The party was just getting started.

The ugly: By 7pm, Maddie was downright hysterical over everything from what kind of chips were on her plate to the pajamas I had packed for her to wear. After trying every trick we know, Seth and I left. Maddie cried the entire ride home, cried every step into the house, and continued until her eyelids closed in sleep on her bed. Eden perked up when we came up, remembering the tea set she had received earlier. But shortly, she too, let it be known that she. was. tired. So to bed she went. By 7:45, with both girls making Zzzz's, I convinced Seth that I really would like him to return to the party, eat, drink (coffee!) and be merry. No need for us both to be home. So I'm getting a head start on laundry and clean up... and enjoying the quiet. Seth is hopefully enjoying the company of his siblings and cousins and their families and will hopefully bring me back a sample of the dessert offerings!

Seems like I talk about dessert a lot on my blog. You probably all think I'm a glutten. Oh well. I do like sweets, there's no denying that, but really I don't eat them all day every day. Sometimes I eat other things... like chips. Okay okay, I really am joking. I'm going to write a post soon about my two cents on food and dieting and all that business, But for tonight... Christmas night... I'm gonna have me some dessert and I am not ashamed to say so! =)

For a minute or two, as we were gathering our bags and coats and shoes and whining girls and leaving the happy company of relatives, I felt like we surely are the worst parents ever. But really... we did what we could... we made nap time a priority, limited the sugar intake in the little ones, etc. But this is just life with toddlers sometimes. No big deal. I'm going to enjoy the time alone and look forward to shopping tomorrow. I much prefer shopping the day after Christmas than the day after Thanksgiving. I need to stock up a few Christmas items, like gift tags and ribbon, for next year, and can usually get a few gifts for the upcoming year for half price or less.

Thank you Jesus for coming to earth in such a humble way, to be treated so badly, to do so much good. Born to die. Thank you for coming!

Our Year in Photos

Our year in photos. Many photos are poor quality due to my hard drive's untimely death. I'm grateful to have them at all, even if they are grainy! It's about 7 minutes long. Enjoy!

Christmas Faith

Like most of us, my mind has been on the Christmas story in recent days. Maybe more this year than any other year, because I'm determined to have Madison know that Christmas is about Jesus birthday... not the chubby guy in the red suit, or the presents wrapped and sitting on top on my kitchen cabinets. It's a weird place for presents, I know! No room elsewhere, there are cute up there, no little hands can mess them up, etc. And it is a painful reminder of how badly I need to dust up there!.

When I was reading through Luke 1 & 2, for some reason, Zacharias and Elisabeth kept grabbing my attention.

Luke 1: 6 "And they (referring to Zacharias and Elisabeth) were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

Wowzers. What a way to be described! Can you think of any Christian of whom it can be said is "righteous before God" and "walking in all the commandments and ordinances"? That's incredible. I can think of one person maybe... and they would be embarrassed if I mentioned their name so I won't. If you think I'm thinking of you, you're wrong. ;) You also just lost the Most Humble Christian award. ;)

But really, they had pretty amazing testimonies. I think it's safe to say that they were "good Christians"... I put that in parenthesis because I don't really like that term. But you know what I mean by it, hopefully. The Bible says that they served God with all their lives.

And yet, despite being "good Christians", there is something about them so relatable. We read in verse 18 that Zacharias did not initially believe the angel when he was told that in his old age, he would have a son. This good, godly man had a temporarily lapse in faith.

I don't why we are happy when we see the faults in people we admire! It's kind of a sick way about us, isn't it!? I suppose we just like knowing that they are indeed human... just like us. The truth is we're not supposed to compare ourselves to each other but only to Christ. However, seems like we are usually just a little glad when "Mr. Punctuality" occasionally shows up 30 seconds late, or when Martha Stewart burns the cookies or something like that!

Probably most of us would doubt that such a thing as having a baby in post-childbearing years, after a lifetime of infertility. But then again, I've never had a conversation with an angel.

Faith seems to be one those things that needs constant maintenance. At times in my life, I thought my faith was pretty solid... unshakable, even. Maybe it sounds prideful to say, but there were times when I thought if there was one thing I had down in this Christianity thing, it was believing God. For me, the realization that my faith was not all that I thought it to be was becoming a mother. Well, to be more exact, in my journey to becoming a mother. That would be big long post on a completely different subject, but in a nutshell we lost our first two babies and it was hard. Hard physically, hard emotionally and hard spiritually. I honestly did not get mad at God or even demand to know why... like I said, it would be a very long post to convey what made that particular experience a spiritually turbulent time. My point in bringing it up is that I became aware of the fact that faith was not something I could obtain once and then just have all my life. The faith that was in abundance as a teenager and as a college student was not sufficient for my entire adult life. I need new faith for every day. And the good news is that God is all to happy to supply what we need, for each stage of life, for each day and each hour.

I'm sure that Zacharias really was a man of great faith. I believe that because a person does not live as he did... blameless and righteous before God... without the faith to know that God is good, and right, and real. At that particular moment when Gabriel told him that his prayer for a child would be granted, the faith that had held him close to the Lord and His ways for so many years wasn't enough. He needed new faith for that very day.

And the story continues with Zacharias being mute until after John's birth. I shared this story with my Sunday School class yesterday and I told them that I bet Zacharias never doubted another thing that an angel of God told him ever again! My lesson for my class was actually about the fact that Zacharias and Elisabeth did what was unpopular and against the norm at the time in order to obey what God wanted. They named their baby boy John instead of a family name, as was tradition. It's hard for people, especially teens, to do what isn't socially typical and be frowned by friends and even family in order to obey God. But this couple did right no matter what people thought of them. Since we had two visitors in class, I took my lesson to the reason WHY Jesus was born in the first place: to die on Calvary. Two young ladies accepted Christ as Saviour!! Praise the Lord!

So as we edge closer and closer to Christmas day, I'm thankful for so many things, not the least of which is a God in whom I can rest my faith in completely.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Maddie had lots of fun with these stickers as we went over the Christmas story again. She traced the word, "Jesus". The red line by the wise men is Eden's contribution.

And Eden just looked so cute for church today, I HAD to take her picture! It's perfect... except for the bright green mint hanging out of her mouth! : P
Currently, the girls are napping/resting while Seth gets a few things ready for our church Christmas festivities this evening. We're singing quite a bit tonight and I still have major congestion going on... so hopefully no one ends up with a wad of phlem flying at them in the middle of "O Holy Night!" That would not exactly foster the Christmas spirit!

Youth Group Christmas Party '09

Well the last paper plates have been tossed, the remaining pizza sent home with kids, and icing wiped off of light switches and door knobs. Another year's Christmas party is over. The house seems mighty quiet now!

We had a fun time and ate a lot of really unhealthy food. Remember that "I'm limiting myself to only one cookie" line from yesterday? Um... well... that didn't last long!

The girls didn't appreciate having their picture taken while eating.
The boys couldn't have cared less.

We always have a gingerbread house contest. The three teams are given their own area of the house so that no one can steal ideas. The teams are judged on 4 elements: curb appeal, structural soundness, team spirit and neatness. That last one is solely for my benefit! =)

This team, though all boys and we didn't think they had a prayer, won!

This team... uh... well they didn't win! But they ate lots of icing and seemed pleased enough with that!

We played Christmas Bible Jeopardy. We've also used this board for Ladies' bible Jeopardy on the bus ride out to a ladies' conference. Those categories were "Bible Wives", "Bible Mothers, "Bible Babes" and "Bible Bad Girls." Tonight we had "Christmas Characters", "Christmas Danger" (pertaining to Herod), "Christmas Joy" and "Christmas Birthday".

And for those who doubt the effects on sugar: (Or maybe this kid has rabies?)

Christmas Cookie Exchange

I'm just home from a fantastic evening at a friend's annual Christmas cookie exchange. Knowing that some of my friends are ministry wives who are always looking for fun activities, I thought I'd share the concept with you in case anyone would like to "steal" the idea for their own party.


My friend Lisa has held this party at her home for... oh maybe 4 or 5 yrs? She invites every lady at church plus some of her other relatives and friends. The first year, we all got really into the "Most Festively Dressed" contest. That elf is me in 2005. The lady dressed as a present is my husband's aunt, who also had two huge Christmas stockings on her legs, and battery operated lights wrapped around herself. This photo is cracking me up because those two young girls are so grown up now! One in college and one a strikingly beautiful 15 yr. old.

This year I just wore my Christmas socks.

Okay, that's not ALL I wore; I mean I had regular clothes on and funky Christmas socks to add the festive touch. You knew what I meant, right!

The way Lisa set the exchange up is that everyone brings 6 dozen homemade cookies. All the cookies are set on her big dinning room table and we, with a platter in hand, walk around the table a few times, each time taking 3 cookies (as they dwindle down we lower the amount) of each kind. With the invitation, she attaches some guidelines, such as no breakable delicate cookies and she asks as many of us as possible to let her know in advance what cookie we are bringing to reduce duplicates. We take the same amount of every cookie- no pickin'' favorites! The result is a platter overflowing with 6 dozen variety of delicious cookies! Some take them home and freeze until Christmas day, others start munching before they are out the door. I try to give away as many as possible to neighbors and acquaintances.

Another idea for a simpler exchange is found at Mrs. Julie Fink's site, which has lots of great ideas pertaining to ladies' ministries.

Along with the cookie exchange, Lisa serves a scrumptious ham dinner and we play a game. This year, she had a fun simple game, which was terrific since there were LOTS of woman and we can be hard to quiet down and organize into a game!

She had bought 7 adorable gifts such as cute Christmas pillows or beautiful nativity wall hangings and wrapped them up. We divided into 7 groups and each group had a pair of over sized fuzzy dice. She set the timer for I think 4 minutes, and during that time we went around and around taking turns rolling the dice. Whenever you roll a 7 or 11, you get the gift... until someone else rolls a 7 or 11, then they snag it! Whoever has the gift in hand when the timer goes off, keeps it! It was fun and easy and a great game for a huge crowd. Sadly, I did not win. It was a really lovely gift, too. Good thing I have 6 dozen cookies to console myself! Just kidding... I limited myself to one cookie only... and it was broken anyway. Can't give a broken cookie away! ;)

Tomorrow is our youth group Christmas party, which I will no doubt share with you. I hope I'm not boring you, but I love to get ideas from other people because frankly, sometimes I just can not think of creative activities on my own! I love to copy other's games so I am trying to be fair and share the ones I know!

Can you beleive Christmas is only a week away!?!! YEAH!