Saturday: the day

 The day had its ups and downs, but nothing too up nor too down.

Isaac and I went rock climbing.  We went up and down there too.  He wore his new shirt, and did one route with each type of hold.  He also wanted an action shot; it works best with three shots though.

Friday: post-Christmas

I know I have a lot of blog posts to catch up on - I'll get there eventually. :)

Today was a nice combination of relaxing and working.  We played two new games, worked on some Lego sets, and put stuff away.

Joshua put his light kit in one of his sets.

The Christmas Ruiners are still trying to ruin Christmas; this time by stealing my bread slicer.  Over Christmas I heard that Christmas Ruiners are confusing: so here we go...

Christmas magic has come from my childhood...Nathan's house also has Christmas magic.  In our house the nativity animals move at night, looking for Baby Jesus.  

Christmas Ruiners showed up a few years ago.  They are moved by Isaac, although he denies it.  They are single colored Lego creations, usually pretty small.  They must have eyes.  There are also some baby Ruiners that are really small and only have one eye; they tend to stick together.  In the past they've just been hidden around the house and I slowly find them and put them in some sort of jail.  This year they're making more mischief.

SMTWRFSs showed up even more recently.  They are moved and made by Joshua, although he denies it.  They must have eyes too and tend to be a bit larger and have very varied body shapes.  They tend to have a bit more of a story.  They also aren't very smart, so any notes they leave are poorly written.  I need to move them back to a jail whenever I find them.

Today all the baby Ruiners went on the lights.  I haven't taken them down yet.

I took down the Christmas tree because Horizon keeps eating it and throwing up.  I put a little Lego one there instead and Horizon seemed very sad about it.

Monday: Christmas

We started out the day with bagels.  I had kept the toaster because last year it took so long to get them all toasted, and Dad and Pat brought their toaster.  It worked well.

We kept things moving.  After breakfast we had a spice tea testing.  It was a lot of fun.  I had five different teas: the original one, an expensive tea with two containers of tang, an expensive tea with three containers of tang, Lipton with lemon, and 4deg with lemon.  I found the 4deg with lemon absolutely disgusting.  I had made some of it earlier and dumped it down the drain.

Anyway, the results were that the expensive with three tang was the overall winner.  However, if you consider kids vs. adults, there were some stark differences.  The kids really didn't like expensive with two tang...it was much more tea-y than the other.  The adults really didn't like the lemon options.  Nathan convinced me to get one more tea, so we'll need to do a few more tests at a later date.

After this we opened presents.  I received a bunch of bread supplies!  Liz (and family) got me some good flours...I've only been using Meijer brand.  It's been good!  But I've heard that good flour makes a difference, so it seemed like a good thing to get for Christmas.

I also got a bread slicer!  It makes me so happy.  It works amazingly well.  I was really glad to have so many people around so that I could slice lots of bread.

The rest of the day was just having fun and playing games.  Oh!  We finished a game and I read the clock wrong, so I started making dinner.  I thought it was already 4:30 but it must have been 3:30.  Dinner was just about done when I saw a clock.  I looked at multiple clocks before admitting my mistake...and of course, no one cared.  A lot of people eat dinner early and Ben just thought that cooking it might take a while.  However, since we ate so early we ended up going rock climbing in the evening.  It was a little less busy than normal for Christmas break, so that was really nice.

Sunday: family

Nathan and family came up today!  Yay!

They arrived mid-afternoon and the kids immediately started playing in the basement.  They played down there a lot - in the evening there was some game they were playing that may have involved a ball and definitely involved a lot of laughter.

I attempted to make dinner in the instapot but it was not loving me.  I prepped the chicken yesterday and put it in the bowl and I think that was a mistake.  The bottom kept burning.  The chicken eventually cooked because the liquid got hot and that cooks the chicken...it was just a bit annoying.

The adults also got caught up with life.  It sounds boring but is lovely.

Saturday 2: funeral

I went to another funeral today.  Ms. Anne, from karate, passed away last Saturday.  Although it was sudden, it was also expected.  About a month ago she got a horrible diagnosis and was given 10 days to live.  She did really well, health-wise, for about the next ten days and then slowly got worse.

As far as I knew, she wasn't a Christian.  I wondered how the funeral would go - I haven't been to many funerals but they have all been for people whose faith is in Jesus.  There was a minister officiating and he frequently used Bible passages.  Maybe I didn't read the situation correctly, maybe she chose God at the end of her life, maybe the family/minister just decided this was the way to conduct the funeral.  While the whole situation is very sad, I find myself not as sad as I think I should be.  However, I'm also going to give myself permission to feel how I feel and that's ok.  (I brought tissues this time but didn't need them.  A friend did, so I was glad to have them.)

At the same time, I want my funeral to point so clearly to God that there is no doubt at all that I loved God, He loves me, and he loves everyone there.

So, here are my current suggestions for items in the ceremony. They're only suggestions and can be skipped as appropriate.

1) Heidelberg Q&A #1: 

Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

2) Westminster Catechism #1:
What is the chief and highest end of man?
Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy Him forever.

3) This is my Father's World, but only verse 3:

This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad!

4) Goodness of God (song)

5) Untitled Hymn by Chris Rice.  I like all of it, but this verse gets sung a lot:

With your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side

6) Great is thy Faithfulness

I still need some Bible verses.  There are just so many good ones - I'll need to think on those some more.

I'll also expect some stories.  I've been writing them all down for years now, so there are no excuses.  Well, maybe I have too many stories.  If that's the case, search for rice cooker...but I expect you can come up with something better.

Saturday: the fun parts

I've decided to split today's blog post into two parts - they just really don't belong together.  We'll start with the fun stuff.

The morning, while doing Legos, I asked everyone if they saw words, picture/word combos, or pictures in their brains as they were talking.  I think it was a mix for everyone, although the kids leaned toward only pictures.  I am firmly in words, and I've known this for a while.  It's not that I don't see pictures as conversations are going on, but there are always words.  They don't have to be spelled correctly but it's like reading a book.  There have been several times I've been surprised on how a word is spelled after hearing it because there was a spelling assigned to it in my head.

This led Ben to look up weird spellings.  Most of them were weird, for sure.  The funny part for me was Wednesday and mortgage.  In both cases, after Ben said the word, I said, "oh, I just sound that word out.  Wed-nes-day or mort-gage."  Only after I said them did I realize that isn't actually how you say the word.  Oddly enough, I need to sound out these two words almost every time I write them.

Ben found the kids wrestling after nap time.  

Isaac and Joshua both tried to pick up Ben.  Isaac succeeded easily; Joshua is getting close.

Friday: finishing things

It was not a snow day, probably because the roads didn't get bad until 6:30 and by then it was too late to cancel.  Isaac was sad, Joshua was happy.

I felt like I finally was getting things fully done today.  I finished things in the past few days, but it would be step 1 of 3.  (I.e., hard boil all the eggs for the deviled eggs or wrap the presents that I have, knowing that they weren't all there).  I only have a few more kitchen things that I need to do: hurray!

I picked Isaac up early from school.  They have a sing-along at the end of the day that Isaac really, really doesn't like.  I picked him up early last year because he had homework over break.  This year he doesn't, but I picked him up early anyway.  He helped me put up a little search-and-find at the dojang and then did some work at home.  (That was the deal.  I'd pick him up early, but it wasn't fun time.)

Joshua had too much screen and sugar at school so he voluntarily skipped screen time after school and didn't have a snack.  Instead he worked on all the cleaning chores that we have before Nathan comes up and honestly, it was amazing.