Some Holiday Pie, then Some Serious Ramble

Hope everyone had a large dose of joy and rest this holiday season! Here are some of our highlights:

-Mr. Pie talking to his little brother after the birth of our new niece, the siblings have all officially joined the ranks of parenthood now. Welcome to the club.

-the eating of clementines and pistachios (so against my attempts to eat local, organic, sustainable, etc.),and yet so addictively delicious!

-Mr. Pie and I both chose just one gift for one another - a book. And both are great selections.

-Youngest kidlet's refusal to take off his new Batman Lego outfit for 3 days straight. His superhero dreams were worth the stinky laundry.

-The yumminess below that went into this winter fruit pie, found here.


-a pared down, new-tradition-filled holiday, which, though exhausting, felt right and good.

-And last, but never least, the kidlets enjoying it all.


Now onto 2010. I've been debating and desparately ignoring this post since the clock struck midnight. Instead of looking ahead and reflecting on the past, I'd rather tell you about ridiculously fun and useless iPhone apps I'm in love with (like the Kindle for iPhone, which I'm giddy about, even though I'm disgusted by my part in the demise of the printed page). Or it might also be fun to wax on about my book selections for the Parenting from Different Faith Perspectives for church, or just all the books I have hanging on my "To Read List".It might also be entertaining to get your opinions on organizing posts and weeding out the useless. However, what keeps churning in my mind are the things which really impacted me this year and where it will all settle out in 2010.

This year, just when I had hit my weight loss goal, Mr. Pie had found his long sought after new job, and we finally felt settled and happy back in the midwest, our oldest kidlet had a lump removed from his foot. All went well and he recuperated with nothing more than a scar. When I say all went well, I mean we dodged the cancer bullet. For a couple of weeks, we weren't sure what that lump on his foot was, or what ordeal our son might endure to rid his body of it. Those are the kind of moments which freeze time -when you wait to hear whether your flesh and blood, your first born, your joy made real, will be yanked into a "new normal" of tests and medicines, needles and nurses, hospital walls. We steeled ourselves for a war which luckily we won in the first battle. I don't want to imagine what the fight would have been, but I know our family had the strength to bare it. I know because of the outpouring of love, love from family, friends and even acquaintances. Those nightmares which bring you to your knees, also keep you on bended knee in gratitude for all you've been given.

So where to put all that gratitude? How to keep up with the weight loss and lifestyle changes I've maintained, even with a big scare thrown in? How to keep living in the moment, instead of in my head, as I promised I would do when we heard his tumor was benign? How to give back to the universe the love we felt? How did that experience change my thoughts on God?

See? It's all a bit too f***ing serious isn't it??

Maybe an iPhone apps list and a good book club selection are all that's needed. I'll save it for next time when the mind stops regurgitating '09. Hope you all have entered 2010 in a less churnful manner than I. Thanks for the listen.

Peace

All is calm, all is bright.

Sleep tight.


Wake with joy.

Merry Christmas....

Crafty Goodness

This is a much behind schedule update on our very first year participating in the Crafty Crow ornament swap. It was so fun creating our "Kingdom of Nutville" ornaments and mailing them to all corners of the country. And, other than spending way too much on mailing because I thought they needed to reach the families a week before they actually did, our little project was a great success! (Note to self: read your emails carefully, even when you are also playing crazy eights with the kidlets and dinner is burning on the stove).

The theme for the swap was Fairy Tale. I have to say this was not a popular theme with my house of boys, but we settled on using walnut shells and adapting a Family Fun craft, here, which we did last year. This meant nothing new to buy, except for a new bag of walnuts. I was in charge of the queen, while the kidlets and Mr. Pie worked on the rest of the court. We used an old pack of cards for decoration, and odds and ends from the craft pile for the rest. The nuts have a little surprise hidden inside, which can be cracked open on New Year's.

We thought we should hang them on the tree before saying our goodbyes (sorry for the blurry pic, I'm hoping Santa sees my desperate need for a new camera).


We received many adorable ornaments in return, and the kidlets have found each the perfect spot on our tree. Thank you families far and wide for your little pieces of crafty goodness.

Happiness is...

-These snow balls fresh from the oven.

-Our new niece, born into such a wonderful family, and at such a beautiful time of year.

-Knowing our days grow longer, even if our ground becomes heavy with snow.

-Cub Scout holiday parties, where you see in the faces of these grade school boys, both the silliness of childhood and glimpses of the men they will be.

-And last but not least, almost everything crossed off my holiday crunch list.

Advent/Solstice Candles Finale

The last Sunday of Advent, and Winter Solstice eve has arrived. We had fun breaking out the nativity people for their first appearance in the ring. We found our little felted wool nativity set at a non-profit store which sells global items to help those who make them. I love how it looks like a little social gathering in the ring.



And here are Mary and Joseph on their journey (if their journey to Bethlehem were our dining table, and the manger was our candle ring). And, yes, kidlets request to keep baby Jesus up Mary's skirt until Christmas day has been respected.


The verse for the fourth week is my favorite I think:

The fourth light of Advent,
It is the light of man.
The light of love, the light of thought,
To give and understand.

Original words were found on Pea Soup's blog, here.

The winter sky was so gorgeous and clear this evening. It is nights such as this, filled with the promise of more light, and yet perfect in its crisp, cold dark, which I treasure. Happy Solstice everyone, hope you are finding peace in the winter air.

Advent/Solstice Sunday,Part 3 and Other Ramble

This Sunday found us lighting the candles in daytime, as we had to go from church to home to my nephew's b-day celebration and back home too late for dinner. The lack of night (or at least that's what I'm blaming it on) meant the kids were in no way tired or calm. Surprisingly, Batman was not produced when they were asked to pick animals to place in the circle. Being thankful for the animals, reminded me of this fella who was leisurely lying around in our backyard garden when we collected stones for this first week of Advent.

We have been quite busy with baking, crafting, and holiday activity. Pics will soon go up for our Crafty Crow kids ornament swap. They were fun to create and only one item ended up in the dog's digestive tract.
The holidays, the births of a new niece and nephew right around the corner,and a parenting book club I hosted last week, have put me in a contemplative mode. I'm wondering how well (or not well) Mr. Pie and I are doing in this parenting journey. In my book club reading, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, the author shares a word in Hebrew, tsimtsum, meaning "contraction of divine energy". The phrase suggests even God has to let go. I love that the translation uses the word contraction. Parenting is a beautiful and painful process, and the contractions, the labor of it all keeps coming in waves. Ultimately, with each contraction, we let go of them, they release their grip on us ... stand on their own, speak on their own, become their own ... hopefully the imprints we leave are more helpful than harmful, more good than bad, more light than darkness.

And Then Things Went Downhill

An Advent/Solstice candle bit the dust at dinner tonight, the dog ate some crayons off the craft table, and after just buying the most adorable wool felt nativity set (pics soon) our youngest kidlet lost baby Jesus. We searched and searched the playroom, until Mommy discovered he had shoved him up Mary's skirt. He said, "I forgot I put him there, 'cause it makes sense, it's not his birthday yet!" He then proceeded to ask if we could leave him up there until Christmas??