Camping (sort of)

This past weekend, Kate went on a high school youth retreat to a nice conference center run by the same folks that run Crestridge. We told Elizabeth all week long that mommy was going camping, even though I am not sure it truly qualifies for camping. So, I decided to go camping with Elizabeth in the basement. We set up her tent, sleeping bag, and pillow. Big fun. We even lit the gas fireplace so we could have a campfire. I put a few marshmallows, M&M's, and graham crackers on a plate and called them smores. Pathetic I know but I forgot to buy Hershey bars and Elizabeth didn't seem to mind. She did fall asleep in her tent which was a surprise but I relocated her to bed when I went to bed. I really didn't want to sleep on the basement floor.

Christmas decorations

It has become our family tradition to start decorating for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. As many of you know, we have a LOT of Christmas decorations, so it usually takes us all of that weekend (and then some) to put them out. This year, we're going to Mississippi to see David's family for Thanksgiving. Although we're excited to see them, this puts a kink in our decorating schedule. So, I had a tough decision to make this past weekend - keep with the steadfast tradition of not decorating for Christmas until Thanksgiving was over, or be stressed about getting everything done when we got home. I chose the stress-free solution. So, I apologize to our neighbors, but we started putting everything out yesterday. (Now, we don't actually have any of the exterior lights turned on yet, so hopefully that counts for something!)

Elizabeth is now 3-1/2 years old, and it is so neat to see her experience the magic of Christmas. She oohed, aahed, and even laughed out loud each time we pulled something else out of the boxes. And, she's having a lot of fun with all of the Christmas toys and books that have been up in the attic all year.

Tonight, she got to help me with our less-liked, but necessary, Christmas tradition of changing out all the dead lightbulbs in our pre-lit tree. It's weird - we made sure they were all working before we put the tree away last year, but still about 50 of them were dead when we put it back up. After that was done, she got to help with the tree decorating. She was very insistent that she could do it all by herself, and very proud of herself for all the decorations she put on.



Now, just to remind you, I am a control freak and a Type Triple A personality. And, we were raised in a household where it was taught very early that there is a Right way and a Wrong way to decorate your Christmas tree. You have to make sure you spread the ornaments out, separate the various sizes, etc., until all that hard work culminates in a beautiful tree.

I can guarantee you that this is not the way a tree was intended to be decorated:







But, I was able to just smile and enjoy watching my daughter have fun decorating our tree by reminding myself of 2 things: 1)Elizabeth was learning to experience the joy of Christmas and making memories that would last a lifetime, and 2) She goes to sleep before I do, so I would have plenty of time to fix it!

Welcome, baby William!

My sister Amy's baby boy, William Glenn, was born this afternoon. Both Mommy and baby are doing well.

Here's a picture:



Welcome to the family, sweet William!

Champs

Those of you who grew up in Lexington may be surprised to hear that Champs (the old skating rink) is still in business. The location has moved, but it actually still looks eerily the same on the interior. Although, I do think it smells a little bit better. And, they still have the old roller skate car parked out front. But, I have to say I was pretty insulted to see an antique license plate on the front of it!

I know all of this because we went roller skating with our church youth group last night. Elizabeth was especially excited, not only because she got to go roller skating for the first time, but because she got to do it with Jonathan's friends!

She actually did pretty well, considering it was her first time, and she's not known for her physical coordination.



She even got enough courage to go slowly around the rink with David:



Of course, Jonathan was much faster - but in all fairness, he has had a lot more practice!