Year 4: December 20th-22nd, 2019: The Advent: The Coming

If I haven't said this before, I'm saying it now. It's been a weird Christmas season for me. I have teens and tweens who don't care much for the family traditions. I have a teen that is never home. Our home environment feels hostile, mean, unfair, negative, and the like. We've all been greedy with candy, our time, our words, and our want for physical things on our wishlists. It hasn't at all been peaceful, joyful, homey, memorable, loving, bright, cheerful, etc. I don't know why to be exact. The last few days, I've been keeping my mouth shut more and more to at least stop the words of negativity from coming out, although they are deeply seeded in my mind. I'm struggling to conjure up any Christmas spirit when I have unwilling participants. I have my regular burdens I carry like finances, my physical health, (both of which have been very strained as of late) and the day to day normal things. I'm worried and mentally exhausted from those burdens. I haven't done as much decorating, because I know I'll just have to take it down by myself. I don't have space to put things because kids haven't read their library books or there's toys everywhere, and yet, the kids ask for more and more and more. We are planning a trip to New Orleans, driving the whole way in a single day, and traveling like that stresses me out to no end because I don't know how my body is going to react before, during, and after. And now, we won't have in laws on Christmas Eve/Day as they will be on their way to New Orleans, Benaiah is working all through our Christmas Eve services, my family never gets together for the holiday, so I feel like I won't have any positive place to turn to on those days. And all I will be doing is trying to remember to do the traditions and then pack and not make too much food or it will spoil while we are gone and how we are going to fit everything into the van and what in tarnation is my father in law getting us this year that I may or may not like and may or may not react in the way he expects? Anybody else struggling this season (differently than going through the holidays without a loved one). This was not what I pictured our "last" Christmas with Benaiah to be like. I guess I didn't really plan or have expectations to begin with because I struggle with the day to day right now and what my purpose really is right now. You only get one "last" Christmas and I'm ruining it, again, by wanting to cry every single day.

So what ARE we doing?  Have we really prepared our hearts for the ADVENT of our King? No, not really, we've mentioned him in passing. Abishai and I are doing our little Jesse tree and I say a sentence or two about the story, but we don't actually sit down. Our bingo card has 4 measly stars on it because most of the activities are about doing something for someone else and we all know that doesn't fly in our family. I came home with some groceries today and no one bothered to look up and ask me if I needed help. One was complaining about her stomach hurting (she had sugar AGAIN), and the other two were on electronics. Justin, Keturah, and I made it to gym day, but Abishai's cold and cough has gotten much worse so he stayed home with Daddy. Keturah sat in a corner by herself refusing to socialize and Justin acted like a 10 yr old. I had a little bit of mom time, but it ended up being about church and church hopping if it's not a right fit, you're not getting fed, there's no women's ministry, etc. Not my cup of tea because then I have to defend our church and how the elders have difficult decisions to make (well they advise on, and I think they make decisions, but I'm sure there's other things involved in that process) and you can't serve everybody all the time.  Yes we the megachurches have big buildings and lots of lights. We live in America. If you want to do a house church, do it on your own or go to where it's culturally relevant. You get them in the door and then have a solid small group and discipleship program (especially involving kids for the young families) and then newcomers were grow deeper in their walk and stay, and becoming believers if they haven't. There's an element of what megachurches do that must be done to attract a certain demographic that they have chosen to serve. If you want something else, go somewhere else or adjust. You've heard me say it many times, that being at Indian Creek as been a struggle for me over the last few years as we have transitioned back from Canada and done the whole leadership transition this year. But we landed back here because it was familiar. We knew our kids would be taken care of well and finally grow in their faith. I don't stay because I'm getting fed well or I'm getting all my needs met, far from it. In this season, the focus is on our children and I find nuggets of what I need elsewhere, especially on the internet. But that's me. There's 1,000's of lives that have been changed dramatically by attending the Creek and God working through the Creek's ministries. So we stay. We stay because it's not about me but about them, my children and the non believers (and perhaps the believers that are church hopping).  So, that was an interesting conversation today.

Then I had to run home, eat a quick lunch and turn right around to take back clothes to Old Navy at the mall and then go to my counseling appointment and then finish with some groceries, hopefully the last bit of groceries before vacation.  All in all the traffic wasn't too bad. I sat for a bit near the mall, but the parking lot and stores weren't overflowing. I hit another little bit of traffic on my way home, but that's it. I purposefully go around the busiest streets in our township anyway.  I had a great attitude while I was out and enjoyed my time. But the minute I walked in the door and no one offered to help, I felt defeated and depressed. And of course I blame myself for it. And there's only one person who can change that. Jesus. Jesus has to come into the equation. Maybe I'll try to twist around these awful feelings and what I've been saying to the kids. Does Jesus actually live here? Could you say that if He was around? And WWJD? Hm, that's a great idea! What would Jesus do in this situation? Yeah, that's good.

Benaiah and Ava's special date night went well. No major mishaps and they had fun. They had to find a different parking garage, but eventually did. Spent a lot of money at Benaiah's favorite downtown store, Rocketfizz. They came back to our McDonald's to use a coupon for supper. I can't wait to see and share pics!

I was too busy to take fancy pictures and videos people put on Instagram or their vlogs, so here's some screen shots about the Enneagram.

I finally found the entrance to Denison parking that we usually use off of Washington St.! Most maps don't indicate it's an entrance!

And then when he had rested because Daddy told him to, he wanted to take out the rest of his antsyness on the rest of us, lol.

Uh, really?! Isn't eggnog plenty of flavor on it's own? The kids actually guessed well what different kinds there were.

Yup. I've seen peppermint as well. I bought the plain kind. I have some almond nog from Aldi's that is still good.

Saturday was very productive for me. I started with getting my lists and plans together, make the list and then figure out when I'll get it done, which takes top priority, which can wait until we can get back from vacation, and which ones are bothering me the most. So, I'm all set to get us to vacation.  I accomplished most things on today's list, but I didn't take a nap, and I made lunch and dinner very simple. I skipped my shower but will do that tomorrow morning. (Sometimes you make sacrifices). We did manage to watch the rest of Episode 3 and all of Episode 4 of Star Wars. Wow, seeing them back to back like that was interesting. I've never watched all the episodes within a quick time frame, so althougth 4 was made before 3, it's interesting to see how it all ties in. And I know that they've worked hard in 1-3 and 7-9 to draw parallels and have "easter eggs" for the originals. Even Keturah caught on to how may times they said, "I have a bad feeling about this." I as wondering how interesting it was when Leia was captured by Vader, and he pulled her back close to him unintentionally when Aldoran was destroyed that that was the first and only time father and daughter touched. Episode 3 is my least favorite because it's so dark and so sad. We did let Abishai watch it all the way through, although we made the other kids wait until they were older. He has read with Daddy a lot of the story and knew that Anakin would survive. Oh, and the versions of Episodes 4-6 are the newer, cleaned up versions with the extra scenes and CGI. Not sure that I like that but oh well. We are on track to finish before we go see the new one next week since it came out yesterday. Fun stuff.

Today I thoroughly cleaned bathrooms and vacuumed. We went over more of Justin's homework from a week ago. The dog got brushed. I double checked my desk for stragglers. Made plans. Oh, made no bake cookies that tasted bitter thanks to stevia. Blech. That's why the cranberry bread and cherry winks tasted off. I will never bake with stevia again! Gross! I didn't have any white sugar at all in the house because well, we don't use it unless we bake from scratch which happens once a year. Yeah. That's how it goes. I had gotten stevia for kool aid. Never again.  I've cooked with splenda before and it's not as bad at all. Oh well, I guess I'll be the only waiting eat it because I don't like things go to waste like that. It's still chocolate and peanut butter and it's hard enough for me to make these things. More for me I guess.

Jared didn't get much done because he tweaked his sciatica and now he feels sick that Abishai has been sick. What in the world!? Can we please stop this?! How are we so unhealthy that somebody has some kind of physical complaint all the time and then we have sicknesses on top of that, but one person down at a time. So, he didn't finish his project at all, which is nerve wracking since it's going to New Orleans with us. He better not work on it instead of wrap presents on Christmas Eve. Grrr.....He did grade the Bible finals for Ava's class and loaded those up, only because I brought the finals and his bag to him while he was laying down. That's the earliest he's ever been on getting grading done and caught up. See? Everyone needs the captain of this ship to bark orders. That captain would be me. Not my favorite position, but if we are to get done what we need to, then I have to take control. Trust me, it doesn't work to let Jared be in charge when there's a deadline approaching. Not his skill set. Give me a deadline, and I'll give you a finished product. Give an open ended timeline, and it will always be pushed off. I'm great in a crisis, not so great when I have too much time on my hands.

Abishai is still very sick with a cough, so we are going to have to stay on task tomorrow and rearrange the schedule to get our Christmas picture done at church and attend church and do our duties. Fun times. It's the last chance we have of all 6 of us together before the trees are taken down. It's quite ridiculous and I sure hope it doesn't happen next year like this. Oh wait, it won't, because I'm not going anywhere for Christmas. So, there's that. I cooked chicken for the week and we'll have Alaskan salmon for Christmas dinner. One more party to attend and then packing, which was also on today's list, but I'll get to it tomorrow. The kids did go outside for a few minutes today, but I had to beg and plead and threaten with not allowing TV time. It was perfect snowman making weather because the snow was wet again and formable. Justin made two BB-8's again. I forgot to take a picture so I'll get that tomorrow before they melt. It was 47 degrees F today, so the snow will be gone soon. And the kids couldn't care any less. What is wrong with them? Just go outside and stop bickering all...day....long....Keturah didn't get up until 11:30am and it was heavenly peace. You had her to the mix (or Justin) and bam, issues arise. Jared had to raise his voice multiple times today, too. Anyway, it's just our life right now and I'm not going to spend time on it or solve it tonight.

Aw, sweet people.

Adorable! And Ava bought Benaiah that gorgeous new AE shirt! I LOVE it on him!

The person who took their picture knew exactly how to use Ava's panorama feature to go from bottom to top instead of side to side to get the view of the whole tree!

Christmas at the zoo. Benaiah said it was underwhelming because the plains exhibit wasn't open and lots of the animals were sleeping or inside. Oh well. Live and learn. I thought it was decent enough when we went years ago.  They had a fun time anyway.

Then, throwback to 2010. Justin was 5 and Abishai now wears that jacket, shoes and pants. They even have the same squinty smile! Keturah is giving her growl face, typical. And Benaiah is being all sly guy here. Lol. This was during the Polar Express train ride in Connersville. Not as fancy as the one that some of my friends went on this week, but I remember enjoying it a lot with Gary and Leah at the time.

Uh, time for the dog to stop sleeping on the couch again. He left this puddle of drool! I'm afraid it's going to stain! Eek! Plus I'm really tired of sitting on dog hair. Uh oh, no one put up furniture on the couch, so I'm guessing he's on there now. Maybe I'll try some toys because he usually avoids laying down on toys. Hm,....

I was too lazy to go out to the deck and the boys still didn't use the forts like I had wanted them, too. Abishai got upset because Justin was ruining his and he had to repair it. Justin just wanted to throw snowballs into the tree. Sigh.

I could smell the candy cane (fake) in the coffee as it was brewing, but it didn't taste like it, so I added these broken mini candy canes into my coffee and it was just the right amount of sweet and candy cane. I didn't get to savor it though because we had things to do.

Justin gave Abishai this big thing of snow. Abishai wanted to get back to Justin. So I ended up guiding him through the house to the front yard where Justin was because I didn't want to go outside and open the gate and all that. I've been cold all day because Jared is home so the heat stayed low. I wasn't about to go outside in it. And yes, I could have gone out to help with snowmen or throw snowballs but I am also wanting to get the kids to serve each other more, too.

Abishai was upset at first that Justin was making a BB-8 instead of a snow man.  But next thing I knew, Justin had made a smaller BB-8 for Abishai and he was happy. Who knew?

I think Justin chooses BB-8 because there's only two balls not three like in a snowman.

We are trying to do memory work here, dog! And Justin is so easily distracted!

I actually passed up these cookies at Kroger a couple of days ago, but then decided to get them because they would be a nice treat to celebrate the new movie coming out. Also, I didn't get a chance to make the sugar cookies I wanted to, so these will do just fine.  They took forever to cook through, like twice as long as the package, although it warned not to overbake them. I guess they firm up once they've cooled off.

A little deceiving to the kiddos when you have the three droids on front but it's only the one droid on the cookies.

Eating R2-D2. Did you realize that kids can learn numbers and letters by looking at the names of the droids? Like D-O (the new little guy in episode 9), and R2-D2, and BB-8, and C-3PO, and R4. Fun times! Abishai also wanted to count how many cookies were left. Then he counted how many we ate. See, home schooling is easy!

Cookies are finally done!

These look yummy but they aren't. No bake cookie with Stevia are yucky. I poured the batter onto a pain and froze it instead of making individual cookies. Then I just broke it up into chunks. It definitely doesn't taste right, but I won't waste food. Oh well. Next year we will get regular sugar.  The cranberry bread and cherry winks also have the bitter after taste. Jared actually tasted a bite of the cherry wink since it's so low sugar and he agreed. It's not the same. Live and learn, again.  At least the kids won't get into these!

Sunday was a great day! Well, not for Jared, he has caught Abishai's cough and cold and he now has sciatica in his left hip as well as the right hip. It spreads all the way down to his knees and feet. He can only drive the van because the car sits too low and he can't brace himself properly. I'm hoping the van we are renting for vacation is ok for him. He does use an extra back rest in the car. So, we switched up our plan for the day. Justin with Grandma, but Keturah stayed with us because she didn't have middle school worship. Jared and Abishai stayed home because of their coughs. Keturah and I went to the 11am service. Benaiah was the producer (that's an upgraded position, wahoo!) at Shelby St. Church was emotionally neutral for me but it was good all around. The sermon was on Luke 2, but focusing on the shepherds. Did you know that shepherds in India of the lowest of the low in the caste system? They are below other Untouchables. They don't have access ot any education because the higher ups believe that they are just destined to be shepherds anyway so why do they need to read and write? So, when this part of the Christmas story was shared with them by a Christian couple, they were amazed and soon there were 5,000 of them who were baptized into a relationship with Jesus! The pivotal verse today was "I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people." Luke 2:10 (NLT) News of a political savior, news that will bring joy to everyone, not just a winning team or losing team, and to all people, regardless of caste. It was good, that's for sure. The best part was the service intro video. Oh my word! They had baby Hudson, and a couple of other of our friends in the nursery (so 1 yr olds), on a little chair hanging out and then a few of our friends did voice overs to convey the announcements like Rooted. I hope they share that on social media soon because wow, it was hilarious! You'd have to be there, but if you think of movies like Look Who's Talking, you'll understand. Yes, I just dated myself.

Oh, and I looked for my WWJD bracelets but they must be out in the shed. I did find some other treasures like our movie ticket stub for Star Wars, Episode 2 when it came out in 2002. We went on Jared's birthday. I know digital is handy but I love the ticket stubs. I actually choose printed tickets for the Michael W. Smith concert in May. Anyway, I might search for WWJD bracelets online and make the kids wear them or something. We've got to do something to remind them of whose they are and how they are to behave. Sigh.

After church, we picked up Abishai and went to the grandparents for a lunch filled with leftovers, yeah! We had a great time listening to Grandpa try to convince Benaiah how to balance his life and how to get an education. And then we played around with Grandpa's new smart tv, adding our Disney Plus to it, and learning how to log onto the internet to get to the Creek's website to watch sermons in 4K. Nice! Grandpa had to spend some housing allowance money, so some of that was on a TV, a snowblower and a riding lawn mower, all at discounts of course, because who needs to pay full price! Actually, he used a local shop for at least 2 out of 3 of them. The shop he bougth the TV from brought it to the house, installed it, set it up, and made it sure it ran well. Then they hauled the old TV away. And he paid less than just buying the same TV at Best Buy without all the extra help. ALWAYS but LOCAL. So, that was fun.

After a quick reprieve at home, the 6 of us headed back to church to get our photo in front of the Christmas trees. Benaiah forgot to put on the red shirt Ava gave him which was right there on his chair. But we got it done. All 4 boys went home (we drove separately) and Keturah and I stayed.  She did KP worship again this week because we will be gone next week. I took Jared's place in the nursery. Right now we don't have any small babies, so we haven't even been using the infant nursery on Sunday nights. We had 4 adults to 7 kids tonight. Church in the morning was sparse, too. We think it's because people are already traveling or having their family Christmases today. It's a good thing I had my coffee because I was able to enjoy the kids a lot. Hudson was there, too, and many of the babies we had in the infant nursery. I was also feeling confident in my fully Old Navy outfit today. The outfit, including the shoes, cost be less than $60. That's a bargain. The jeans I wear with every outfit, the shirt can be worn with different overshirts, and I can put all kinds of shirts under the vest. And the belt came in extremely handy today. I had bought a small in the olive colored vest online and when I went to the store to exchange it, they no longer had it online and there was only an XL in the store and I actually didn't have any tags on it I discovered when I put it on today. That's why the cashier wasn't sure of the price. I at first thought the XL was too long and too big, but when I tried it on today, it wasn't that bad. It was very roomy and boxy, but I added the belt and bam, I had a waistline again. Thanks Shea from YouTube for those tips! She one of my fav YT personalities, although I can't bring myself to understand why she would buy a $1,000 handbag. Thankfully, she buys very reasonable clothes, too, and has lots of advice on types of clothes, more than the brand of clothes. And she's so bubbly (and some kind of Christian as well). Anyway, she's fun and I've learned a lot from her (see my outfit below).

After Keturah and I got home from church, we did some chores, had some dinner, and sat down to watch Episode 5 of Star Wars, which is the snow planet and Luke being trained by Yoda, and going to Cloud City where Anakin (Darth Vader) tells Luke, he is his father. Abishai loved the part of Yoda getting into Luke's gear in the beginning and then when R2-D2 and C-3PO have their comical moments. He's doing well watching all the movies for us, so I think we can take him to the movie theater again soon. I'm not sure if he will come with us to see Episode 9 or not. I hope so. I think he'll like it. He has been sitting fairly still, too. We'll see. We hope to see it on Saturday while Benaiah is with us. And then we will see Frozen 2 later in our time in NOLA.  Then it was off to bed.  Benaiah had gone out with Ava to see some kind of murder mystery movie called Knives Out. I have no clue but it looked clean except for lots of swearing. He got home late though. Tsk. Tsk. And he works the morning shift at work tomorrow and closes on Christmas Eve. I had to convince him to come straight home on Christmas Eve and not go see Star Wars without us. I even had to tell Abishai today that the Christmas photo was Mommy's Christmas gift. Smile and at least LOOK like a happy family, would ya? Good grief.  And that is all.

Jared sent me this picture when I was at church. Dog! You are spoiled! But no more drooling!

They are a little melted, but here are Justin's and Abishai's BB-8's. Justin made Abishai's a little smaller on purpose.

Aw, cute! Especially with the antennae!  Justin's, the big one.

Abishai's, the little one.

Our friends made these incredible BB-8 and RT-DT snow statues on Thursday when the movie came out. They used food coloring or something as well. But we have these guys. They will be gone soon as the temps are supposed to be near 50 with no snow in sight.

Some more pictures that Benaiah had on his phone from his date with Ava to the zoo.

He did have shoes on when we went to Grandma's, but we didn't change his pjs and didn't put a coat on him. Oh, and I just put a sweatshirt over his pj shrit and jeans over his pj pants for the picture. That way I wasn't arguing with him about his pj's. He changed back to pjs when he got home.

Grandma will sometimes wear funny glasses at church. Abishai loves them.

I showered today, but didn't shampoo my hair. It's been 4 days without a shampooing and i'm going to see if I can last until Wednesday. It had a bit of curl to it, so I used some hair spary. I don't take a shower every day because I don't like having wet hair (and I don't blow dry my hair very often) in the colder weather.

Baby Hudson enjoyed our social activity of finding the Little People from the nativity set and review the Bible story. These papers are just shredded paper.

And I proclaim this paper to be blessed! Or something like that. He also turned 1 last Wednesday!

The aftermath of social activity time.

The full outfit. Yeah, if I had the large I would look even smaller, but I was very pleased to find a simple solution. It felt nice. That vest is super warm.

The church handed out these signs to people. It's our new theme for 2020 about caring about our area, Indianapolis, Marion County, area code 317.  Oh wait, I'm pretty Bo Chancey has used something like this in Manchester saying to care of the 603. They also sent home a paper sharing ways to share the sign on social media. Gary wouldn't ever get into the hashtaggable sayings. Fun and new stuff!

Working hard on Jared's project.

When you have sciatica in both legs, this is how you do burn cutting.

Jared made bacon explosion tonight.

Sigh. The toybox that was my brother's is now a work bench. This is why I want you to build one!

The beginning of something.

Today's coffee was ok. I added the almond nog I have. Seriously, my milk and the almond nog have not spiled yet and it's been 2-3 weeks. Those preservatives really do a great job. But do they do ok in your gut? Hm,....this coffee wsan't too bad but I had to gulp it down because we had to get back to church.

Abishai started marching when the Imperial March was really loud! It was the cutest thing!

A friend asked for a screen shot because she couldn't get onto the website because her data was slow, but here is a great opportunity to share the Christmas Eve Service times.

The End