Simplifying started early

You have to see these pictures from Christmas morning. Really, I just wasn't in the "Christmas spirit" this year. However, on Christmas morning, it hit me. This is why:



Santa came! He really, really came! He left boot prints on the hearth and even hand prints on the fireplace. Whoa! This was our favorite Christmas ever. We simplified by requesting that Santa only bring a few gifts, and it worked out really well. As you see, the boys have a new kitchen set (which they LOVE) and they each have a couple of new favorites.

Simplify is the goal for 2009. I am going to try to simplify my schedule, simplify our activities, and simplify my mind. I hope you have a blessed new year filled with great memories and smiles as big as those you see above.

Ahhh! Three days?!!

Nothing to say....just panicked. AHhhhh!

Deep thoughts about the future of print media

Last week, I read a story about the Christian Science Monitor moving from its traditional printed publication to a web-only publication. This bold move was followed by today's announcement that the US News & World Report will be following suit. While I'm not at all surprised, I am disappointed.

I am a lover of books and paper and all things tangible. I love the smell of the newspaper when I spread it out on the kitchen table. I adore flipping through the pages of a new book to get a brief glimpse of "new book smell." Oh, I'm trying to read more digital media. I maintain a couple of blogs and I am a regular reader of dozens of them. I read the daily news online, too. I even read Gone With the Wind on my iPod touch. Talk about a challenge!

My disappointment is not in the change or the technology, but in the impersonal experience digital reading provides. My laptop and iPod just don't form to my hands the way a magazine or book would do. And falling asleep on either of them is just uncomfortable.

I guess I'm just feeling melancholy about the days gone by. I remember reading books late at night, snuggled up in my bed, experiencing Laura Ingalls-Wilder's pioneer life, wishing I didn't have a light to click off, but a candle to blow out like she did. What will my boys do when they get older? Will they, too, long for paper texts? What does this shift to digital texts mean for the meaning of the texts? Our experiences with them are certainly going to change; in what direction will they lead us? Or will we lead them where we want them?

More prayers, please, of varying types

Don't they just look like trouble? Holy mackerel! I must have been a real stinker. Yikes! I'm imagining them in six or seven years. Oh,my! Nick is fearless on the four wheeler. Nathan, well, he just looks tough. REAL tough.


Okay, and I'm making a leap of faith, too. I'm going back to school. Don't fret, pals and friends. I'm not moving. I'm working on my Ed D from home :) I'm enrolled in a distance program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I'll need to go out there once in a while to actually meet people and make presentations, and then to defend my dissertation, but the bulk of my work will be done right here at the kitchen table. Woo hoo. Guess I'm a Spartan and a Husker now.

On a serious note...
It was just over six months ago that I thanked you all for your prayers for Coleen's health when her brain surgery for BC Mets was successful. Well, if you would please add her to your prayers again, we would be grateful. I'll keep you posted, but we need her doctors to act swiftly and have intelligent foresight, and Coleen needs strength, for both mind and body, and comfort. It looks like her BC Mets is back again. Further testing is being done in the coming weeks. 'Nuff said for now.

Star of Bethlehem

Isn't she beautiful? And she smells like spring. Gram brought me a start of it and I'm so afraid to kill it like I do most of our other houseplants. Sigh. If you have any tips for raising this beaut, please let me know.

Fall is here and almost gone

Wordle

This is a Wordle. Isn't it cute? And it's free :)  Check out Wordle and make your own.

Blast from the past

I was surfing through some photos and found one of Jim and I nine years ago. I'm pairing it with one from last weekend. Awe..

Getting big

Well, in the past month, the boys have outgrown most of their clothes and shoes, not to mention their mom/monny. Nathan is the poster child for two-year-old independence-seeking, while Nickolas is just really, really smart. I'm partial, I do realize that, but what three-year-old appropriately uses the word "actually" in a sentence. Example:

Me: Nick, what is in your shoe?
Nick: Actually, mom, it's a frog.
Me: Really? A toad or a frog?
Nick: It's actually a frog, mom. It came from the pond.

Creepy. Weird. Whoa.

Nathan is really working on his sentences and words. He is much easier to understand, but that isn't always fun. Example:

Me: Nathan, please put your head on your pillow. It's time for bed, buddy.
Nathan: I no wanna take a nap.
Me: Well that's good, 'cause it's bedtime, not naptime.
Nathan: Get out of here, Monny!

It's been a fun summer.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about Nick's new habit. "I'm sorry." Wonder where that comes from...

Crazy busy

We've been crazy busy. I can't even find pictures to upload. I swear that I'll get back here soon.