Well despite the horrible trip to my in-laws, Thanksgiving turned out well. God was gracious to give me a thankful heart and even a nap on Thanksgiving day! I don’t remember the last time I had a nap and it was great. We had a low key holiday. Instead of all the work with cooking we did spaghetti and meatballs and celebrated my husband’s birthday with icecream cake. We played lots of games and the boys dressed up as super heroes and ran around the house. George drove the boys home and I got to drive by myself and there were no car accidents stopping traffic during the trip. Yay!

Lately, I’ve had more than my share of days where everything goes wrong. Wednesday was one of those days. I drove the kids to grandma’s for Thanksgiving by myself. I took them for a fun outing before the drive so that they would rest during the drive. I had also planned to not return to the house and eat out on our way out of town. Well, while we were out Ian out of nowhere instantly developed a cold and seemed to have a fever. Then I realized that I had no food with me for Ian for lunch. So we drove all the way back home to get him lunch and get a thermometer. Then we headed out for the drive to grandmas. The trip is literally “over the river and through the woods.” There are only two ways to get to their house in the middle of the state, west and then north or north and then west. I took a road that heads west to the western end of our county and then was going to head north. It’s a two lane road with nothing on it but ranches and woods. Anyway, as we got to the end (about 25 miles from home) the traffic was backed up. I couldn’t see what was going on but I could see a long line of cars as far as I could see so I decided to turn around and head back the way we came (later I learned it was a semi versus pickup. On the way back we were stopped again, this time because of a truck on fire. While we were waiting to move ahead, Ethan had to use the bathroom. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere so I had him stand outside the door to go and as soon as he was done we finally got moving. How in the world does an accident and a car fire happen on the same day on the same road in the middle of absolutely nowhere? So I had to take the only other route available to me. Halfway there we stopped for a bathroom brake again. I bought them juice and then spilled it all over myself. Ethan then asks, Mommy are you going to be okay? We finally got there an hour and a half later than we should have. I thought my trying day would end but it didn’t. Ian cried most of the night, a combination of his cold and wanting to be in his own bed. Anyway, that’s my murphy’s law day and I’m hoping it will be a while before my next one:)

Holidays during war time are a struggle for military families missing their loved ones who are far from home. This year Sears is granting wishes to military families by working with other non-for profit agencies to help veteran’s, military service members and their families. Each registered family will receive a Sears gift card to use to purchase what they need for their families this holiday season. Sears is inviting visitors to their site to help contribute to the cause. Sears Heroes at Home Wish Registry shows a list of the most needed/wished for items. Kids clothing appears to be at the top of most wish lists. The site has touching video of specific families that have been helped through the program. You can read stories from military families and even leave a thank you message of support to our military. You can donate to Sears Heroes at Home Wish Registry directly online, the donations are not tax deductable. There are 30,583 military families being helped through the Sears Heroes at Home Wish Registry. I often take for granted the fact that my family is always together for the holidays and can’t imagine the challenges our military heroes and their families face, especially this time of year. I am certainly grateful for their sacrifices and know that the program Sears is doing this year for our heroes is one way to show them just how appreciative we are.

Advent is quickly approaching and I’m excited about all that we have planned. My friend and I started working on our “advent out of the box” back in July and I’ve finally gotten all my items together. I really believe in the importance of customs and traditions. It’s important both sociologically and psychologically in creating a close family unit. Many of a person’s positive memories about their childhood are of the traditions their family had. The advent box is one way for us to incorporate a yearly tradition to our celebration of Christ’s birth. My box has 25 doors and each day, Ethan will open a door and there will be a little item inside that will symbolize something we will talk about or an activity we will be doing that will help him better understand what we are looking forward to. My goal is to use the activities that we normally do during the season to help educate him about why Christ was born and what he has done for us. So, for example when we are planning on driving around to look at lights on houses, I have a tiny tree light bulb in the box and we will read and discuss passages about Jesus being the light of the world. In another door, he’ll find a tiny bottle of purfume to symbolize gifts of the magi and we will read and discuss that passage. We have a few activities planned with some of his friends, including watching a cartoon version of the Christmas Carol. After watching it we will read and discuss how Scrooge wasn’t prepared for eternity and what that means. And on the day that winter starts, (some of my northern readers will find this funny I’m sure) I have a snowflake ornament in the box and we plan on going to see snow. How will we see snow in Florida? Well lots of places this time of year make snow for the kids to play in, I know, I thought it was humorous myself after I first moved here. Most of the items in the box are tiny ornaments and I picked up a small tree for Ethan to put them on for him to have in his room. Anyway, that’s what we have planned for next month and while it will be busy, I am looking forward to it and especially to the memories that are created. Thanks Marilyn for sharing the idea with me!:)

In my post the other day I mentioned how difficult it is to find time to be by myself to pray and be in the word. Christians always joke about being careful about what you pray for and also joke about never praying for patience because you may not like what God gives you. Anyway funny thing, Ian was up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night last night screaming and crying and George was at work. So I had a lot of time to myself (since I couldn’t sleep with Ian crying) to read and pray. I guess when I say that I need time alone to myself to read my bible, I wasn’t thinking about 3am:)

I usually like to post about my struggles as a mom and what God has been teaching me along the way. With the craziness in our lives, kids not napping, and illnesses it’s been a challenge to even keep my blog up to date with what we are doing. But I do want to share my struggles as of late because it’s therapeutic for me to write. I’ve struggled with depression off and on for a long time and have learned what helps me get through it and what makes it worse. One thing I’ve learned is the importance of getting some downtime for myself. It’s kind of like what people get from having the weekend off from work. It’s time to be refreshed, relax and regroup before another week of work. My job is different and I never have the weekend off, and rarely ever an hour to myself during the week. I know other mommies can relate, I mean how many times do we actually get to go to the bathroom by ourselves? I’m not complaining because I do love my job and it’s the most rewarding one I’ve ever had(or will ever have), but I find that I don’t function well as a wife or mother when I don’t get the rest I need nor the time to be by myself to regroup. When it’s been a while since I’ve had that opportunity I find myself becoming increasingly irritable and depressive thinking starts to take over and then when I finally get a chance to take a break it seems like it too late, I’m already in the midst of being depressed. What I need to do is have a regularly scheduled time for me to get some time to myself whether it’s exercising (which really helps prevent depression), reading, and most importantly, praying. Reading for me is like running is for serious runners (those who run every day and run marathons). But I don’t read as much as I used to (in fact my book wish list is so long now, I don’t think I’ll ever get through it). I miss the days in college when they would have the day of prayer, no classes and everyone went their own way to pray. I enjoyed hiking up to a cliff on the mountain with my bible and just be alone with God. The challenge for me is that there is no consistency in our schedule, as my husband’s work schedule isn’t the same every week so it’s hard to schedule the time I need with any kind of consistency. (I mean how could I squeeze in that time when my husband has two full time jobs). I was sharing all of this with a friend recently, requesting prayer. And I appreciate my readers prayers as well (I frequently get emails from friends telling me they are praying for me, so thanks:) Anyway, these are my thoughts for today:)

I’m totally breaking my husband’s rule about no Christmas music before Thanksgiving but I can’t help it. I’ve just changed my music on the blog to all Christmas songs. I love Christmas songs and every year I can’t wait until I can start playing all my cd’s (I have at least 20). Since I’ve been doing a lot of Christmas shopping lately, planning Advent activities for the boys and planning our annual party, it seems like now is the right time to start playing it. Don’t you agree?

Sears has brought back layaway just in time for the holiday season. With all the issues with the economy, layaway seems to be a safe way to get the gifts you want without going into credit card debt for it. You can take advantage of all the great deals they have going on and pay it off with Sears Layaway as you have the money. Once you’ve selected your items at Sears for Sears Layaway, they’ll have you put down either $15 or 20% for the items and once you’ve paid them off, they’re yours. In checking out their website, I found a great number of deals going on right now. The boys are really into character pj’s right now and I saw some cute pj’s I know they’ll love getting for Christmas. They had Handy Manny, Cars and even Spiderman pj’s at 50% off. They were the cute button down ones that remind me of grandpa pj’s. I know Ian will love the Handy Manny ones and Ethan is into Spiderman right now and will be so excited to open his gift. I have family members that love to cook and I discovered that they sell cooking gadgets by Paula Deen and Racheal Ray including pots, pans, and knives. For friends and family that watch cooking shows on tv, I know they’ll love having kitchen items from their favorite cooks. The Racheal Ray knife is one of the gifts I’ll be picking up. So join me and stop by Sears today, check out their great deals and ask about their layaway option.

It seems like there is always some medical issue around our house, I can only imagine what it would be like around here if we were a larger family. Ian has been healing from his surgery last week but ever since he came home from the surgery center he’s been congested and his breathing sounds like a cat purring. We know that can be a side effect from being put under for the surgery but since it hasn’t gone away I asked the allergist to take a look at him this morning when I went in for my shot. She said he was wheezing in the lower part of his lungs and put him on steroids. He also got a breathing treatment while we were there (which he so enjoyed). He’s had a fever the past couple of days as well so she wants me to take him to the pediatrician. She said that him having surgery could have triggered his asthma or his immune system was weakened from having had surgery and maybe he caught something. She wanted me to give him his first dose of the Oripred this morning so I asked the pharmacy to put it together as soon as the they could because I wanted to give it to him before he fell asleep. My plan was to give it to him in the car and then let him sleep on the way home. Well it took them a long time to complete it and he fell asleep, despite my attempts to keep him awake. I asked for a spoon to give him the medicine with and they argued with me about it and told me I needed a syringe because it would be more accurate. Okay fine. So I pull over into a parking spot, hoping to give it to him without him waking up too much and wouldn’t you know it, the syringe wouldn’t fit into the bottle. So I had to wait until we got home to give it to him and he completely woke up when I finally gave him the dose. So it goes. Anyway, on to the next doctor.