See the Star that Shows the Way...

The stress of the Season caught up to me today.

It manifested itself in bloodshot eyes and tears that kept spilling

no matter how hard I tried to hold them back.

A temper that flared all too easily.

Knees that stood rigid instead of going down

and talking with the One who beckoned me to be still...

And so, reminded that it's His season and not mine,

just as every season is,

I'm letting the laundry, the gift wrapping, the to-do's,

the toys on the floor, the lunch that has yet to be made

(the boys can watch a recorded show for just a bit longer)

all. just. be.

Jesus. Emmanuel.

God With Us.

Let us turn our focus on you.

Let me look to you. Alone.

I re-read His birth story. That beautiful true tale.

Somehow we - I - forget that there was so much risk involved

Yet none at all.

What God has planned, so it will be.

Oh, how He loves us. Oh, that sweet love.

There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.

It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle -- the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.

(from The Jesus Storybook Bible, a definite favorite...)

_________________________

My heart has been battling within me this Christmas with how to instill and impress on my children that this is a time to focus on Jesus -- that all the presents, Santa, the elves, the snowmen, and all the other holiday fun is just that, fun. We enjoy watching "The Polar Express" and every morning we have fun looking for Henry the Elf (of Elf on the Shelf). They know that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birthday, and they know who Jesus is -- but do they KNOW Him? Do they get emotional thinking of how God Himself donned flesh, blood, and bones? And how He did all of this in accordance to every scripture? Just for us??

There are some things, presentations, and traditions that have really impressed the true meaning of this time on me that I would love to pass on to my boys. Some are for the now, some are definitely for the future, but I'm placing them here as a reminder to myself as well as passing along to friends who might be on the lookout for similar ideas.

The Jesse Tree - this is a "must" on my list of traditions to begin next Christmas. Regretfully I did not prepare my heart or all of these daily devotionals to begin it this year.

Star of Bethlehem - This presentation is one of the most powerful I have ever witnessed. It speaks to both my right- and left-brain, if that makes sense... It appeals to my scientific, intellectual and analytical senses as well as my heart and faith. 2,000 years later and the stars still proclaim His presence!

Behold the Lamb of God - I had heard of Andrew Peterson's fabulous Christmas music tour a long time ago, and had listened to the music. It's a beautiful compilation of the story of Jesus, starting back with Moses in the Old Testament. Our church recently did this whole entire program, and oh. my. It's truly an experience. Take a listen - you can hear the entire album online.

Our Four Year Old Turkey...

Did you all enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving? We did. After participating in our local YMCA's annual Turkey Dash (I ran the 5K and then joined my crew for the 1 mile family walk), we spent the day over at my parents' home with my cousin Anne for a very laid-back and relaxing meal and afternoon. The boys then spent the night and next day with Gram and Papa while Ryan and I tried to make the most of some Black Friday specials. We've done this the past several years. Sometimes we come out feeling like we've practically stolen some items, due to the combined discount of deals and coupons. That didn't happen this year, but we enjoyed our day together anyhow!

On Saturday we celebrated our Logan's fourth birthday (which was this past Monday, the 28th) with a little bowling party with family. There's an obnoxious amount of photos below from our time at the bowling alley -- it's safe to say that fun was had by all! Logan, for whatever reason, hates it when people sing "Happy Birthday." It's one of his many quirks, I guess! For all his quirks, though, he's such a great kid. He's really grown and developed into a fun boy this year, and his ingenuity and creativity blow me away sometimes. I'm excited to see how he grows this coming year... I like four-year-olds. :)

The Second Half...

...really felt like a First all over again! It's been nearly seven years since I last ran a half-marathon, and my life has completely changed in the years between races. Before, I was teaching full time, Ryan and I were training together on the weekends (he race-walked the full marathon that year), and we didn't have any little ones and didn't know if we'd ever have any little ones!

Oh how things have changed. It was much harder to get into running this time around (people, ladies don't lie when they say their bodies change after having a baby! or three!) and I felt much slower. BUT, I had some incredible friends who were in it with me. These two ladies had never run a half marathon before, so we were all learning and training from the beginning together. Through the past six months, we've experienced several highs and lows together, and had some of the cheapest therapy around while taking it to the pavement at 5am on Saturday mornings and 9pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, and/or Thursdays. These two are like sisters to me in this time of life, and I am so grateful that we have been able to reach this goal together.
Here's Erin with her bib number. This was at the Expo the day before the race. We drove out to San Antonio on Saturday, checked into our hotel, and walked over to the Alamodome where the Expo was held to check in for the race. There were all sorts of vendors at the Expo, selling all manner of running/walking/biking gear as well as so many other fitness goods. After walking around the Expo for a bit, we went back to the hotel to freshen up before going to an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. It was then back to the hotel for an early bedtime.
This is Jessica. This was her first night away from her little boy, who will turn one this week! She accomplished two very major - and very different - milestones this weekend!
And then there's me. (Not gonna lie... I was excited to have a 'girls weekend')
We all laid out our clothes for the next morning, went through a mental checklist of what we needed to do after waking up, and went backwards on a timeline from the start of the race to see when we needed to wake up and when we needed to leave to go to the start. 5:45am was the time we set our alarms to wake us, and we had to laugh because it was "so late" for us to wake up in order to run together!
We had some shirts made for us, just to have a bit of fun. All three of us have major sweet tooths (should that be teeth?), so it seemed appropriate to have these little slogans on our shirts. Honestly, I'd run for all three of these things! Ha!

Here we are, 6:45am on Sunday, ready to walk out to our corral in the starting area. We were in corral 25 -- they had organized groups into corrals to start in waves so it wasn't just a mad stampede at the beginning, and to spread the runners out. There were over 30,000 participants in this race, which was both a full and half marathon.
The start line was directly out the doors of our hotel. Nice! However, we had to walk about six blocks to get to our corral. Oh well!
It took us about 30 minutes to actually cross the start line after the initial gun went off at 7:30am to begin the race. Two hours and forty-four minutes and 13.41 miles later (according to my RunKeeper app on my iPhone) we crossed the finish line! It was a very HOT morning by running standards. The starting temperature outside was in the mid-sixties, and when we finished the announcer said something about it being 76 degrees. When you run, your body "reads" the external temperature as twenty degrees warmer than it actually is... Plus, factor in about 60% humidity... It wasn't easy. All three of us had moments were we struggled, but thankfully we were in it together and took turns cheering each other on.
This is one heavy medal!! I am so proud of Erin, Jess and myself for accomplishing this goal of finishing a half marathon together! We've already signed up for another one -- March 4, 2012 will find us running the streets of New Orleans! Hopefully we'll have cooler weather, but I know that's a gamble at that time of year just as it is here in Texas in early November (apparently). At any rate, I've got some great running buddies who make this all worthwhile.

Hero Halloween...

We had so much fun this year with our costumes and going trick-or-treating. The boys really got into it - especially Logan.

Logan: black Spiderman (not to be confused with Venom)
Caleb: Wolverine
Toben: Superman (this was Caleb's Halloween costume when he was nearly two years old! We're into recycling costumes around here...)

Go Sonics!

Caleb started Flag Football this past Saturday. It was really a good time and went so much better than I could have imagined! He's playing on a team with his best buddy Hunter, who has the ball in the photo above. Caleb is "blocking" for Hunter--we'll work on skills as we go along.

Considering this was his first EVER time to play, he did a great job!
Coach had him in the QB position for a while, then as a running back (we'll work on protecting the ball, too), and finally as a center. He played a bit of defense during the game, too.
I asked the boys at halftime to give me their best Game Faces... gotta love what I saw! Caleb's mouthpiece is blue, and he must have thought it was cool to wear it non-stop as he wore it in the car the entire way to the fields, throughout practice and his game, and we had to ask for it after the game.

Saturday mornings are going to be tons of fun this fall!

"Safe Harbor"...

Last Wednesday after saying goodbye to Jon, Sara, and the kids and leaving Bakersfield, I drove to Valencia to meet up with Chris on the NCIS lot. (Chris is married to Ryan's cousin, Kerri.) I was in for a very cool treat -- not only were they filming that day with all but two of their main cast members, but it was also one of the episodes that Chris wrote! Chris gave me a fabulous behind the scenes tour and I was able to watch the process of filming two scenes -- rehearsal with the actors, rehearsal with stand-ins to mark proper camera angles and lighting, and then filming (take after take). We even ate lunch (it was turkey burger day, an apparent favorite for everyone) with the cast and crew. Chris and I sat at the same table as Sean Murray, Cote De Pablo, and Diane Neal. I was pleasantly surprised at how warm and inviting everyone was and how they all seemed to genuinely want to get to know me as well.

Here's Chris!
Most people will recognize this guy! This is Mark Harmon, star of the show. Funny story... I was taking Chris's portraits by the NCIS wall (the set was empty as everyone rushed out to Craft Services for their burgers) and Mark walked up behind me saying, "Oh, this is no good. You need to be in the picture with Chris, Cousin Sara." So he proceeds to take my camera out of my hands and then snaps several pics of Chris and I together by the wall. Chris then laughed about it, and took the camera back and had Mark stand by me for a photo or two. I believe a comment was made by Chris something to the effect of "You know you want to be in a picture with her anyhow, Mark." It was really funny at the time, I promise!
This is Pauley Perrette's wardrobe room for her character, Abby. Well, it's part of the room. I can't get over how many different kinds of platform, combat-style boots they've got crammed in here! She was not on the set that day, which made me a bit sad as I would have truly liked to have met her. She seems like such a fun, quirky person.

I shot this during rehearsal. I won't give away any details of what is happening... but it will be interesting and maybe a bit funny to see it when it airs in late October! The episode is titled "Safe Harbor." Another funny (maybe just to me) story... Michael Weatherly, the actor behind the character Tony DiNozzo, felt the need to serenade me across the set during rehearsals. It just made me laugh and feel awkward, but I was warned that he's quite a character in real life. He likes to cut and splice his lines together on a tiny cheat sheet that he keeps in the palm of his hand, and glances at it whenever a camera isn't trained on him. True story.

Other notes... Sean (Timothy McGee) is very quiet and reserved, but also genuinely nice. Cote De Pablo (Ziva David) is gorgeous and absolutely pleasant, and has a beautiful singing voice. Mark Harmon has the coolest refurbished Airstream trailer parked in the alley between warehouses, and he kept trying to get me to sit in his chair (the director's style chair with his name on it) even when I was seated in another chair. We even talked football for just a bit. ;)

I hope to make it back to the set of NCIS someday -- and with Ryan next time! It is no secret that we are a fan of the show, and have been for a long time.

My Teensy Nieces...

I can't go revealing ALLLL the photos just yet. Aren't they sweet? Skylar is in pink, Spencer is in turquoise, and in the bottom one Spencer is resting on top of Sky.

A Visit to California...

This past week, I was able to spend several days in California with my brother Jon, his wife Sara, and their four children - Jorja, Jude, Skylar and Spencer. It was my first time to meet the youngest three, and I had only been around Jorja just briefly when she was about nine months old. I really enjoyed getting to see them and get to know their little personalities a bit, and snuggling with the one-month-old twins was very special to this auntie.

Here's Jorja, playing with one of my headbands that I brought for some photos of the twins...
Sweet Jude, with another headband. He was having some issues with it at the moment... ;)
This is a horrible photo, but it made me smile to see my brother carrying both of the twins at once. They are soooo tiny still - both just over six pounds. I loved seeing Jon as a dad. (Skylar is on the left, Spencer is on the right)
Sis-in-law Sara was manning the camera here to get a great photo of me with Jon and his crew. I hope it won't be another 2 1/2 years between visits, but we'll enjoy whatever time we do get to spend together, whenever it might be. I can only imagine how much bigger these kids will be the next time I see them!! (Skylar on the left, Spencer on the right)
Last but not least, I was also able to spend a bit of time with Ryan's cousin Kerri and her husband Chris, as well as their son Andrew. They live in the Los Angeles area, and Chris is a writer for the CBS show NCIS. I snapped this sweet photo of Kerri and Andy as I was leaving their home. They live in a gorgeous neighborhood, and dangerously close to a frozen yogurt store. I "had" to walk down there on the night I stayed with them to get a cup of fro-yo. It may or may not have been my dinner.
More pics to come... I know I have family antsy to see more photos of family out West. ;) I also have a post of my day spent with Chris and the cast and crew of NCIS!

Toben's 2nd Birthday, Part 1...

Toben doesn't "officially" turn two until this coming Friday, September 9th, but we had a little party for him a couple weeks early. It had a paper airplane sort-of theme, and since it was just some of our family coming over we didn't go too crazy. We enjoyed cake (a three-layer round cake with white, chocolate, and cookies-and-cream layers surrounded by buttercream icing), Toben had a cupcake, and we also ate homemade pizza rolls. Favorite foods for a favorite nearly-two-year-old.
He loves Mickey Mouse right now, so this was a definite favorite of his many wonderful gifts.


More celebrations to come this Friday!