Snow!!

It snowed. This was the second year Lydia & Gloria got to experience it (last year at Nana & Grandpa's house). The bundled up family, I felt much better in the cold with my nose covered!
Caleb's school was cancelled for the day and we got to enjoy the snow as a family. Gloria didn't like the cold and was still feeling bad from being sick earlier in the, she went out once, started crying then we came in for breakfast, she went out again, start crying and said she wanted to go back to bed, so I put her in bed and she
Its everywhere including our fort!
Lydia & Caleb went for a walk to the pond. They got to walk on fresh snow on the side walk, see other kids playing and watch the birds on the middle the pond.

The Liturgical Year

The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister

(I get free books from Thomas Nelson by blogging about them-BookSneeze.com)

As a life-long Southern Baptist who has loved visiting Episcopal churches, the introduction made me long to attend a liturgical church. This book covers the seasons, feasts, and ordinary time of the liturgical year. But beware, it is not a book to introduce you to or tell you what the liturgical year is; it is a book that tries to bring depth, meaning and insight to one who is familiar with and follows the liturgical year. Sister Joan, with solid theology, can be wordy at times, but overall is an insightful writer who clearly finds meaning in all the exercises of following a church calendar. I learned a lot about how Passover and Easter are determined and was convicted that I don't know much about the 'Heroes' of our faith who have gone before us (but were after the cannon). We only seem to know about the commercialized one such as Valentine and Patrick, but others we can learn from as well. Though I don't anticipate a church move, this book helped me to remember the continuous growth and reflection and community needed as a believer of any background.

Regular Life

Watching the pre-State of the Union show. Gloria napped that day so she got to stay up and watch the Clap-a-thon.
About Gloria's nap-you do the math, when she takes an hour nap she is up until about 10:30 or 11 and sleeps until 8:30ish. When she doesn't take a nap she goes to sleep at 7:15 and wakes up around 8:15. So we really aren't offering a nap anymore, but it sure makes the day long!
Playing in mud on a warm day, first it was their hands, then their feet, then they wanted to put their tummies in the mud, I drew the line at taking off panties! Then the buckets went on their heads and they became witches who were killing bad guys. At least it is better than playing Rapunzel with Lydia saying over and over to me-talk like the Bad Mother!
Daddy got a turn on the swing!
Lydia had been continually asking for us to move Gloria's bed into her room so they could have a bedroom and a playroom. On Friday we said Okay because it was a slow Saturday. Gloria would have fallen asleep around 7 in her bed, but around 8:15 after they had been giggling for an hour, I moved Gloria back to her bed, lots of tears but they were both asleep in less than 10 minutes. Sorry but I love night time sleep too much for them to share a room if they don't have to!

Well the months of holidays, special events and birthday parties are over (though the girls are still singing Happy Birthday to (random) you and Gloria says Jingle Bells is her favorite song) and we are back to normal life. Every morning I say Daddy is at work and share what our day is going to look like. Gloria has roaringly entered into the 'terrible' twos, always wanting to do things herself, throwing fits and not obeying. Lydia has hit a terrible whiny stage and I feel like a loss at how to teach her perseverance (we got out her bike and she wouldn't keep pushing the petals, once it got hard she would stop) and how to stay calm when something is upsetting. They are fighting a ton, interrupting and I also don't know a good way to teach them to keep up with their cups and shoes. But in spite of it all, life is good: we are healthy and well provided for, we have wonderful friends and families and activities to be a part of. They are learning to obey, think for themselves and grow into fun loving healthy girls. God is good to us and its amazing to see so many answered prayers this year.
The other day was the first day of Friendship. After a nice morning with internationals, we had a picnic in the beautiful sunny Texas winter. Caleb was working late and Gloria doesn't nap any more so we went to Central Park, played on the playground, walked around the pond and looked at ducks (I felt like I was back in London), played some more, picked a treat at Central Market and played some more. No fighting, only a little melt-down in transition, I didn't have a camera so I wanted to record the wonderful day here.

Play time!

We set up the train for our party so the boys would have something to do besides princesses and doll :) and the girls enjoyed playing with it all day.
During our cold home bound days the girls did a lot of resting in unusually places like the kitchen floor. I thought it was a great game :)
Gloria gave up her paci for three days until I decided she wasn't really ready to do it yet (no naps and taking forever to go to sleep and fussy during rest time and in the morning, when we gave it back that night she went to sleep in less that five minutes), we'll try again at 3 years old. She had gotten a Dora doll (like Lydia's mermaid) in place of the paci but Dora is back on a shelf until she is ready!

Nothing more fun than emptying out the play cabinet and climbing in. Today they were pretending that the tile was water and sharks were trying to get them and they were mermaids on rocks.

Party Weekend

Aggie friends at a Cotton Bowl Party! My girls only stayed for a bit, just enough time to eat before we left to go to bed so we didn't see the disappointing end.
3rd Annual Regifting party at our home. Well we now know that our home can host 28 adult and 11 kids for a party. It was a great time with some fun 'treasures' brought. We had the exact right amount of food and lots of fun!

Christmas is over

Christmas is over but the girls are still enjoying their gifts. Lydia got a Vreader from Bill & Jessamy and loves doing all the games and stories and Gloria loves looking over her shoulder too!
Lydia got a Tball set and there were a couple of warm days to play. Gloria actually plays with it more but both are good at taking turns and standing back from the bat.
Real tea party set! We have loved our usable tea set. Someone we even use it in the fort while enjoying sunshine in the afternoon. I was smart to vary the snacks so we didn't get stuck that is had to be ONE thing (which has happened before-under the living room forts, we have to have M&Ms, in the outside play house we have to have PB on crackers!)

Chocolate

I haven't updated our cute Christmas pictures and I know this blog is mostly just to show Lydia & Gloria off but I wanted to share a moment that might change my life....
At our monthly missions lunch a lady came to share about Human Trafficking (it is one of the WMU's focuses for two years). She said that while we (most little old church ladies) do not participate in the the sex industry which is where the largest amount of people are in bondage, she asked if we ever ate chocolate. Of course I eat chocolate! She said that most US chocolate comes from the Ivory Coast which often uses forced child labor to product our cocoa.
Well know you know, and that is HALF the battle,
but not the whole battle so what do we do now?
I read a TIME magazine article a couple of years ago about how many trees we waste a year on toilet paper (I don't remember the exact stats but they are staggering) so I decided to do something-what they suggested-and now we only buy 100% recycled and high post consumer recycled TP. Do you know how much it costs? Well as a family of four living on a teacher's salary, I know how much most things cost and buy the cheapest, except TP now. Don't ask me how much it costs because I don't look, I buy the one that HEB has on its shelf.
Anyway back to chocolate, last night I sat on the internet and surfed reading about the chocolate issue (ironically while drinking a Nestle's hot chocolate sprinkled with M&Ms)
http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/index.html
and now have decide that we are only going to buy fair trade chocolate. Oh that will change things like what we buy for Halloween, I am glad my girls are finished potty training because no more M&Ms. I am also going to write the companies and let them know that as good capitalists we can change things in other parts of the world by using the dollar!!
Until then, you can also buy fair trade chocolate (which also gives money to the World Hunger Fund) here:
http://goodnewsgoods.com/

This year has been hard on a lot of people, ending with one of Caleb's students and a young mother dying tragedy, so will my chocolate habit really change anything? I don't know but I do know that its not just knowing but doing something that counts. The speaker talked about the sanctity of human life and in the US we mostly just talk about abortion but she said there are people around the world who are not being treated like that have any worth and by changing some habits, by praying, by being aware and by getting involve we can help them know their lives have value too.
And now you know, and that is half the battle.