Merry Christmas from the Mother of the Year Award LOSER!!!

The tree is trimmed...the gifts wrapped...the stockings are hung...but the tooth fairy didn't come. :-(

Only 5 days left till Christmas! Hope you all are ready and excited for it to get here. There's lots of excitement here at our house today...well, except for this morning but that story is coming in a minute...We are getting our clothes and presents packed this afternoon for our trip to AR! The girls are so excited! They can't wait to get there. We are leaving tomorrow morning after Taylor's Christmas program is over.

I am so relieved to be finished shopping and wrapping gifts! As I know you are too...if you're done. If you're not, I'm so sorry. I don't know about you but I always agonize over buying a gift for someone. Will they like it? Can they use it? Is it nice enough/too nice for the occasion? It takes me forever to finally decide to buy whatever it is. Pathetic! I tried this year, in an attempt to spare myself from some of the stress, to ask myself "Would YOU like it? Could YOU use it if you were them?" If the answer was yes, I bought it, if it was no, I walked away ticked off and in search of another gift. ;-)

Today I received a perfect gift from a friend. It was a new apron and Paula Deen's Christmas cookbook. I was so excited about it!!! I love to cook, love Paula Deen and now I can cook in style in my pretty new apron! Oh, the simple things that thrill us!

Yesterday Nathan and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. Can't believe it's been NINE years! We both forgot about it until reminded by someone else wishing us a happy anniversary. Would that have ever happened in the first 8 years? Not on your life! -at least not on my end!! But this year, we've been so busy with everything that it hadn't crossed our minds. We had a nice dinner of frozen pizza and were both so tired, I was in bed asleep by 9:30 and he fell asleep in his recliner somewhere around that time too. Again, PATHETIC! Ha! We had already decided not to get each other anything. We're going to Branson while we're in AR and we'd decided to let that trip be our anniversary gifts.

So that brings me to the sad story that took me out of the running for the Mother of the Year Award. Yesterday morning, Taylor was getting ready for school and her other front tooth fell out. It has been loose for some time but I kept telling her not to touch it until her OTHER front permanent tooth came in. (All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!...) I even told her the other day not to pull it because if she did she may have trouble singing in her program on Friday. I told her that her tongue would keep slipping through the giant hole in the front of her mouth and the words to her song would come out like "Up ons the howth thop rain theer pauth..." She was worried about it then and stopped pushing it back and forth. So that morning when it fell out she was horrified and said "Oh no! How am I going to sing?!!" I said "Don't worry, I was just joking with you...you can still sing fine." As I walked out of the bathroom I heard her going "Fa La La, La La, La La La La"! Ha! She came out smiling. That night, Nathan put her in bed and they put her tooth in a plastic bag and stuck it on the side of her bed post because she was afraid that it would slip out from under her pillow. As I said before, I was dog tired and fell asleep early, completely forgetting about the tooth fairy coming. Nathan had also forgotten and fell asleep as well. This morning I go in to wake her up, see the wadded up plastic baggie sticking out of the side of the bed post and I wondered "What the heck is that?" but didn't think any more about it. I sat on her bed, gently waking her up and all of sudden, she jerks herself up and starts feeling frantically under her pillow. Confused, I said "What are you doing?" Then she looks at me bewildered and says sadly "The tooth fairy didn't come." Instant dagger to the heart! :( I quickly looked around thinking where can I find a dollar to sneak under her pillow or SOMETHING!!!!....there was nothing. All I could come up with was, "I guess she couldn't find your tooth since it wasn't under your pillow." I felt terrible! I told her we'd try again tonight and this time put it under her pillow. She seemed still confused but okay with that. I quick, hurried downstairs to give Nathan the dirtiest look of his life and somehow make it HIS fault. But after the dirty look and saying "Hello?! Tooth fairy didn't come last night!" I felt sorry for him and saw the same pain in him that I'd felt a few minutes earlier, so I calmed the demon and said "I can't believe WE forgot!" (I did very good using that "WE" didn't I?!) When she came downstairs, she told him that the tooth fairy couldn't find her tooth but he had already come up with another excuse. (His excuse requires a little background info: She had gotten in trouble the last two days at school for talking and had gotten her name on the board. She has been in big trouble with us over it and has been grounded from everything she holds dear. ~quiet Mom!! ~remember "Do as I say and not as I 'DID'") So Nathan tells her, "You know, Taylor, the Tooth Fairy is a lot like Santa in that she knows when you've been naughty and nice. She knows that you've made bad choices at school the last two days and she won't come reward you for your lost tooth when you're not behaving at school." At that, she just shook her head yes and promised to be good today. Thank God she was!! When I picked her up I was so nervous to hear what her teacher was going to say to me as I have done everything and threatened everything I know to do. Thankfully, when Taylor came out, she mouthed "Much better today" with a smile. Whew! This afternoon I put a note under her pillow from the Tooth Fairy. It says "Dear Taylor, I'm so sorry but I couldn't find your tooth tonight. Please try again tomorrow night. Love, The Tooth Fairy." She hasn't found it yet but I'm sure she will by the time she goes to bed. I'm setting my cell phone alarm to go off and remind me tonight. However, based on how terrible I've felt about it, I don't think I'll need the reminder.

Well, time to get packin'! I don't know that I'll be able to post any messages until we return from AR, so I hope you have a wonderful, restful!!!!, holiday and enjoy the time spent with your family and friends. I know that it's sometimes easy to get agitated or irritated with our family members when we're spending that much time with them, especially in close quarters, but try to remember to thank God that you have them and thank him especially for sending us his Son and making this holiday possible! Love ya! ~and for those of you in AR

SEE YA REAL SOON! ;-)

Here is a picture of our tree.

Taylor turns 6 and a little "Christmas" history...

Monday, the 10th, Taylor turned 6 years old! I can't believe my baby is 6! She told her aunt Lesley on the phone that she "definitely feels a little older." I have been thinking the same thing about myself lately. I turn 30 in a month, ick! It turns my stomach just to say it ~makes me wanna puke! I guess it could be worse. You know, it could be a lot worse than a million new gray hairs coming out of my head every day and NO, they can't lay down like the dark hair that surrounds them ~ they must be wiry and stand straight up!, a permanent frown (or squinting) crater between my eyes, saggy boobs, butt, well -everywhere, adult acne, oh yeah, I keep telling myself "It could be worse!" Nope, it's not working. :-(

ANYWAY, instead of having a party Taylor decided that she wanted to go to Disney World. We went on Saturday. Since we've been to Magic Kingdom several times, we decided to go to MGM this time.

It was really fun. The kids had a ball. We got to see the High School Musical 2 pep rally and Taylor got to go out there and dance with them.

She loved that!

We saw the Beauty and the Beast show.

Mine and Nathan's favorite thing was the Lights, Motors, Action car show. It was awesome. These little cars were speeding through the streets and doing stunts and jumping things through fire. Emma slept through the whole thing. I honestly don't know how. It was SO LOUD!!

When we first arrived, Taylor insisted on getting an autograph book for characters to sign. This is a breakthrough for her! At every previous visit to Disney, she would want to go up and see a character but would be too afraid and shy to. We even stood in line to see Ariel once for an hour and when we got up to her and it was Taylor's turn to sit with her, she BOLTED and ran out the side door. I just waved at Ariel and said "sorry" as I ran after her. I was not a happy mother at that moment but she really didn't care. Unfortunately she only got two autographs. Leo and Annie from Little Einstiens.

But THE highlight of my day there was when I got a third autograph for her in her book. We had gone into a little shop and let Taylor and Emma pick out a toy. Nathan was in the check out line and was pointing for me to look at this guy walking through the store with a little girl. He insisted that this guy was a celebrity. Since there was hardly anyone in the store, I was able to push the stroller through there and get a little closer to check him out. It most definitely WAS a celebrity. It was Joey Fontaine!!!! (You know, he was a backstreet boy ~I think~ and then he was on Dancing with the Stars. I believe he may host a game show now too.) Anyway, I was thinking that it could be just someone that looked like him until this girl approached him and asked for a photograph with him. So after a few minutes I dug out Taylor's autograph book and walked up to him and asked him to sign it for her. He was so nice! I would've expected him to say "Look, I'm here with my family, give me a break and let me shop with my daughter!" But he didn't. He said "Sure!" He looked at the front of her book and said "Is her name Taylor?" Then he signed the book and smiled as he gave it back. When Taylor saw me hand her autograph book to some strange man, she said "Mom, who is that man and why does he have my book?!" I assured her it was fine and that she didn't know him but I sure did and that autograph was more for me! ;-) I don't normally watch dancing with the stars but the season that he was on there I did watch it and was hoping that he'd win. I thought he looked the best out there. I think he came in second though. But anyway, seeing him and talking to him just made my day!

The Osborne family from Little Rock had a Christmas light display there also. It was amazing. The lights "danced" to music every 20 or 30 minutes and they had snow machines on the tops of the buildings blowing "snow" down onto the streets. The girls thought that was really neat!

On Monday, for her birthday, I took her to the mall and let her pick out two webkinz and some webkinz clothes with her birthday money that she received from her grandparents and aunts. She was so excited to finally get a webkinz! After we left the mall she wanted to eat at El Chico. So we all went there for dinner. During dinner, Nathan made a comment to me, jokingly, and I laughed but thought to myself...he will pay for that! >:-/ So after the girls and I got into the car, Nathan was standing outside his door putting a dip into his mouth and I saw my opportunity for payback. I hit the door locks and locked him out of the car. (I know ~ it's so immature. But it's so funny to see that person's "coolness" melt to the ground as they stand there helpless and goofy looking.) The girls and I just stared casually out our windows (the opposite direction from him) as he pulled on the door handle, peered into the window at me, demanding that I let him in. Finally after a couple minutes of this, I had a "gweat idea!" (as Emma says). So I told him to dance. He started yelling "NO! Stop acting like a child! Let me in, NOW!" at me while I insisted that he had to dance before I'd let him in the car. When we were dating, he used to do this dance to make me laugh. He'd hold out his arms, point his thumbs up like he was giving a "thumbs up" and then extend both arms past his head on either side while he looks up to either direction as his arms go by. Also, he sticks his butt out simultaneously with his arms. Try to visualize it for me...he looks so goofy and hilarious when he does it. So when I told him to dance, he immediately knew what I meant. He tried to get out of it, poor thing, but I was relentless! To make this seem what it really was, you must know that El Chico sits on a busy 4 lane street with the mall parking lot in the rear of it. Not to mention that the restaurant parking lot was nearly full! So finally, he looked around ( I guess to see if anyone was watching him - ha!) and did the dance!!! The girls and I were rolling. Although it only lasted two seconds, it felt good! ha! He was not very happy with me once I unlocked the doors, but I just kept laughing at him so he laughed too. I was feeling like I'd pretty much gotten him back for his comment but not completely satisfied. Then Taylor did something that made me feel like he'd gotten enough. As we were driving home, she sneezed a huge sneeze and you could tell that she didn't cover her mouth. It went something like HUCK-SHHHHHOOOOO and ended with her lips flapping together. I'm sure, had it been daylight out, we'd have seen the wet particles flying through the air around us. We didn't see them but Nathan felt them...on his face, no less. (HA!) Just after she'd done it, Nathan frowned with his chin stuck out and lips sucked in and turned slowly around to her and said angrily "TAYLOR! I FELT THAT HIT MY FACE!!!" She said "Saaaarrryyyy." As I cackled uncontrollably, I reminded her that next time she should cover her mouth. Again, he had to smile through his disgust, knowing he'd been "gotten back" twice now! Poor Nate. He has to put up with so much from the three females that he lives with. And OH the wrath comes upon him when his "male" mind allows him to make a comment that's "malely" harmless, but to females, hits a nerve and triggers the earthly She-Satan to emerge looking for revenge. "Run for cover, buddy!!"

Okay, on to a different subject...

This past Sunday, the pastor talked about some Christmas traditions and what they mean. Things that we do every year to celebrate Christmas but things that I'd never really questioned "why" we do them. Take the Christmas tree for instance, why is it customary to put up an evergreen tree? The evergreen tree stands for 1) the "ever"lasting love of the Father and 2) reminds us of the tree that Jesus died on. The wreath (circle) that we hang stands for the unending love that God has for us and also eternity & the unending time that those who know Jesus will spend in Heaven. That night, the congregation participated in a ceremony where we each had different types of decorations to put on the church's trees. After a speaker would explain the significance of each type of ornament, the people with those ornaments would go up and put them on the tree.

The hooks for the ornaments - remind us that Jesus said "Come, let me make you fishers of men."

The silver tinsel - reminds us of Judas' betrayal of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and also the verse that says "You are not redeemed by silver or gold but by the blood of Jesus."

The red ornaments - stand for the blood Christ shed for our sins.

The blue ornaments - remind us of heaven and truth "I am the way, the truth and the life..."

The gold ornaments - remind us of the wise men and how they presented the baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The candy canes - remind us of the "sweet" name of Jesus.

The birds - remind us of how much God cares for us. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without God's knowledge of it and how much more valuable to him are we than the birds.

The fruit - reminds us to be fruitful and win souls to the Lord; also reminds us of the fruit of the spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness

The icicles - stand for the cold indifference of sinners

The tree stand - Standing complete in Jesus; Rom 8:1...there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

The lights - John 1:8...Jesus said "I am the light of the world. If you follow me you won't have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life."

The star - Reminds us of the heavens where Jesus is there interceding for us and of the wise men following the star, traveling to see Jesus.

Okay, so my tree is missing a lot of ornaments!! :)

I also learned what the carol "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" means. I've always thought it was such a weird song and have you ever thought it to be strange that there is a comma between merry and gentlemen? Well, let me just enlighten you! This is an old English song in which the words of the title meant something different than what they mean to us in today's English language. "Rest" here actually means "Keep" as in keep you safe or keep you steadfast. "Merry" actually means "Mighty" as in strong. So you could read the title of the song as God Keep you Strong, Gentlemen. Now sing it to yourself (using the new words) and you should have a much better understanding of the song! You're welcome! ;-)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!