Christmas Train 2009

In 2004, we decided to drive over to Pryor to see The Christmas Train. I was eight months pregnant with Reid, it was cold, but we were hooked. The place is just magical. The next year, they closed for renovations and stayed closed for three years.

Last year, they reopened and we were there. It is officially a Crawley family tradition. This year, I bought the tickets as soon as they went on sale in November and we headed there on Sunday night.


Our first stop was Santa's Palace. Reid talked to Mrs. Claus and asked where the reindeer were - we got conficting answers. Mrs. C. said they were on the roof, but the Santa assistants said they were in a pasture nearby, because if they stay near the Christmas Train, children feed them candy and they get a tummy ache.

Jackson sat on Santa's lap and gave him his list - an Archius stuffed animal (Pokemon), Nerf Elite for Wii and a Nintendo DS. Reid would not sit on Santa's lap, but did walk up to the edge of the carpet and at least talked to him. Last year, she would barely go in the door. She asked about his reindeer and gave him her list - a real horse, a toy horse, a real unicorn, and a stuffed unicorn.

After visiting with the Claus', we had dinner and headed for our ride on the Christmas Train. The Train takes you on a 10 minute ride that tells the story of Christ - from the creation of the world to Christ's birth, to his death and resurrection. Jackson and Reid made friends with some kids that were in line with us and ended up sitting with us on the train.

We finished our train ride, walked through a couple of the shops (and, second year running - the decorations we liked in the store were not for sale!), hit the bakery for a cinnamon roll, and let the kids play on the playground for a while.

Good, fun, special family evening.

Christmas is Here

Well, the party is behind us and it was a smashing, tasty success. The Christmas decorations are all up and my shopping is all pretty much done, with the exception of one or two gifts. I can now sit back and enjoy the lights.

Thanksgiving Day we stayed home and enjoyed a quiet day (or as quiet as it can be with Reid around). Friday I did venture out to shop at 3:30 p.m. to Hobby Lobby. It was nuts! And, it was filled with amateurs. I have come to the conclusion that you should have to go through Hobby Lobby boot camp before being allowed in the store during a holiday season.

Damon's mom came up Saturday and we all headed to Winfield, with turkey in tow. Damon made Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes and his infamous cranberry sauce. We spent the day with Grandma and helped her get out her Christmas decorations. It is still somewhat hard to walk into Cumbernauld without having my Dad there. He lived there just under a year, but for some reason that is where I miss his presence. Maybe it is because that is the last place he lived and where we spent the most time with him. Ever since Grandma moved into her apartment four years ago, my Dad would always meet us at Grandmas. We were hardly ever at the house once my mom passed away. I missed my Dad Saturday. I missed my Dad for my kids.

I am headed to Oklahoma City to see Beth Moore on Friday! Yeah! We have had these tickets for almost a year and I can't wait to hear her in person and to worship with Travis Cottrell. It is going to be a good weekend.

I took Reid out last night to get milk and she wanted to see "Cwistmas Lights" so we drove around a couple of neighborhoods. Coming home we drove by a house on our street that has Santa, with his sack, reflected on the garage door. I hear from the back seat, "Momma, that Santa is stealing stuff. That isn't nice."

I went to the doctor today to determine what I need to do about my knees. They have bothered me for about a year and a half and the grinding is getting worse. It is to the point, I question myself before I get down on the floor...will I be able to get back up? is it worth the trouble to get back up? I know my weight is contributing to some of it, but at 40, it seems a little early for total meltdown. I went to our PA and he is concerned; concerned enough to get me into the ortho doctor on Monday. That freaks me out a little. He said it could be arthritis, it could be the cartildge needs cleaned out, or it could be something that would require knee replacement. Uh, no thank you. All I know is, we won't do any surgery until after the February crop. I am not missing the crop.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Operation Christmas Decoration is done! Most of it anyway.

This weekend we focused on getting the Christmas decorations sorted, put up or sent out. We have a ton of Christmas crap and we don't use a fraction of it. My goal this year was to sort through it, as we put it up, and get rid of things we don't use. We had stuff we have never used, we had stuff that we took from my mom's collection that we have never used, and we had stuff that we have just outgrown that style. Goodwill here we come.

We have the "forest" in the den - a group of three narrow trees that are decorated with white lights. We put the "Heritage Tree" in the dining room. This tree has all of the sentimental ornaments we have collected over the years or ones that kids have made. Damon and I both have ornaments from our grandparents and those are on those as well. The sitting area/fireplace has the "Photo Tree," which has 5x7, 4x6 and 2x2 picture frames, with pictures from the last year. We also put on some red Christmas balls. This tree is still lacking a little, so we are going to try to find some 3 x 5 frames or wallet size frames to fill in.

Damon worked on getting our Snow Village houses out and used those in the dining room, mixed in our with the glassware. The only thing missing in the dining room is the table centerpiece. I will finish that up when I get the linens later this week. I decided to do the dining room table in white candles with candy canes, red ribbon and silver bells. The Polar Express is kind of our "family movie" and I love the symbolism of the silver bell.

The kids each have a tree in their room and we took them to Hobby Lobby to pick some additional ornaments for their trees. Jackson has a tree with blue lights and a golf theme. Reid went with red lights, soccer ball ornaments, and blue ball ornaments.

Party prep is still in full swing. I wanted to get decorating done this past weekend, so on party weekend I could focus on cooking and cleaning. Cooking won't take too long. I am contributing the chocolate fountain, onion dip and chips, and sausage balls. Cleaning, on the other hand, will take a while. My theory is it is necessary to invite people over at least once a year, just so the ceiling fans get cleaned, both bathrooms have a full roll of toilet paper at the same time, the floor is vacuumed, and everything is in its place.

I also need to figure out what to do with the goodie bags. We are going to do a treat exchange, with everyone taking home a goodie bag of treats at the end of the party. I bought white handle bags at HL and now I need to figure out something very Martha to do with them. My contribution to the treat exchange is Cowboy Christmas Cookie Mix Jars, courtesy of an idea from www.bakerella.com.

I do have to give a big shout out to my wonderful husband, who has worked his tail off for this party, just as much as I have. He has painted (a lot), trimmed, touched-up, hauled stuff down from the attic, lifted trees, and helped me sort through decorations. This weekend, I know he will be there to help me cook and clean. I wouldn't be able to do a fraction of the stuff I do without his love, support and hard labor!

Planning a Party

Exactly a year ago, when we decided to change churches, it was a difficult, tear-filled decision. We were leaving behind a church family that we loved. But, we also knew, clearly, that God's direction was for us to leave. So, in my head (you know, Man plans, God laughs), I said, "I am not going to get involved. I am not going to open myself up to get hurt again. I need time to heal."

A year later, I still don't know why exactly God did what He did at our old church or why He allowed it to fall apart. But, what I do know...we are involved, we have made new friends, we have found our groove in this church family, and I have gotten involved as ladies ministry coordinator for our Sunday School class. And, I also know I AM HOSTING A HOLIDAY KICK OFF TEA FOR OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL LADIES IN TWO WEEKS! That is 14 days people. 14 very short days. And, the to do list keeps getting longer instead of getting shorter and, the menu, well let's just say that is growing as well.

I did absolutely nothing in the decorating department, this weekend, except go to Hobby Lobby and get two new trees for our forest (two of them half-lite last year and gave up the ghost when we plugged them in yesterday), made a final decision on my dining room centerpiece, and bought supplies for that. And, my commentary to all of that is - I think Hobby Lobby should institute a policy that if you are a Hobby Lobby novice, you are not allowed to be in HL without a trained guide during the holiday season (November 1- December 23). If you have ever looked at www.peopleofwalmart.com...stayed tuned...I am going to create www.peopleofhobbylobby.com and it isn't going to be pretty.

The main push this weekend was to complete my contribution to the Cookie/Treat Exchange part of the event. I went with www.Bakerella.com's cowboy cookie mix jars and, as of tonight, there are 31 of them almost completed. I will take a picture of them tomorrow and get it posted. They look neat and will go over well. The checkout lady at Wal-Mart wanted one, after I had to explain myself and my reasons for buying 15 bags of M&M's, four extra large bags of chocolate chips, flour, sugar, brown sugar, etc.

This week starts the effort to put away Halloween/fall decorations, start sorting Christmas decorations, and prep for Operation Christmas Decoration next weekend. My kids have already asked when their trees are going up.

The downside of this, according to Jackson, is "we aren't going to forget to celebrate Thanksgiving are we?" The upside is we are going to have all of Christmas decorating done and most of the Christmas shopping completed by Thanksgiving. Rock on..I can then sit back, with my feet up, drink eggnog and enjoy the lights during the month of December.

It is going to be a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to it. We are going to have good food, fun and fellowship. A year ago, I didn't really see that I would ever find that again. God is good.

Halloween

Carving pumpkins Saturday morning - we try this every couple of years and my kids still don't really like it. Too sticky they say. Reid just drew on hers with a sharpie. Jackson cleaned his out and we carved it, but it wasn't his favorite part of the day.

Reid chose a butterfly costume this year.

Jackson dressed as Captain Cody from Stars Wars the Clone Wars.

Reid displaying our pumpkin carving final products.

We went Trick-or-Treating Saturday night at Circle Mountain, a neighborhood south of Bartlesville. The kids brought home a stash, even though they were tired and whining before we got through half of the neighborhood. They spent most of the evening fighting over who was going to get to ring the doorbells. We stopped at another friend's house on the way home, hit Sonic for their 50 cent Halloween corn dogs and were home by 9.

53 Pages

Okay, so I didn't quite top my record of 70 pages in one crop, but in my defense let me just say, this crop wasn't as long as the last one I went to.

I put together a crop for our Sunday School class ladies and we had 4-5 ladies at a time, people kind of floated in and out as their schedule allowed. I worked Friday night from 6-11 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. until 6. Everyone said they had a good time and most of them got done what they set out to get completed. We are going to do it again in January, but change it to a one-day crop and open it up to anyone that wants to come.

My goal was to crop all of our Atlanta vacation pictures and I did it. I put together 12x12 pages for our family Places We Go album and worked on smaller pages for the kids' albums. I also taught them how to do the box bag and they were super-thrilled with that project. One lady left the crop, went to Hobby Lobby, bought paper, went home and put together 25 of them for her son's school fall party.

I have decided to sell my Cricut and save up to buy the Expression. I am in love with my Cricut, but I want the bigger one. QVC has an Expression package for $379, which is $20 cheaper than HL and it comes with four cartridges and a bunch of other stuff. Damon sold my Xyron Wishblade for $90 and that is going in a savings account awaiting the rest of the money. The Cricut is just the coolest little toy.

I started a second job on Thursday, back at Graham-Rogers, the insurance company I worked for before I took the job with EDGE. Business with EDGE is struggling and everyone is taking an hour/wage cut. I dropped to 25 hours a week. Graham-Rogers gave me 15 hours a week, for a couple of months to come in and clean up all of the marketing stuff that has gotten messed up or dropped since I left in February 2006. I am hopeful that after we get into first quarter of 2010 and our new sales guy gets in the groove, business will pick up for EDGE.

We went to parent-teacher conferences for each of the kids Thursday and Friday. Damon went to meet with Jackson's teacher. He had B's in Language Arts, Science and Social Studies, but a C in math and that C came purely from not making sure he answered every question on his worksheets. And, he struggles with organization. So, we are now sitting down each night, with his binder, going through helping him organize all of his papers and walking through each paper to make sure he has answered every question. We told him 90% of life is showing up and making sure all of the lines are filled in. He understands most of the material and does well, when he slows down, reads things carefully, and then TURNS IN THE PAPER.

Reid's teacher said she is doing MUCH, MUCH better with her listening and following directions. She still struggles with staying focused during circle time, but most of the kids still struggle with that at this stage of the school year. We are going to spend more time working with her on letter recognition. She can recognize "R" and that it is the first letter in her name, but she can't look at "K" and tell you it is a "K."

Okay, signing off now to watch The Next Iron Chef.

The Other White Meat

I know the swine flu really has nothing to do with pigs, at this point. It has been a part of the conversation now for months and I have wrestled with the hype and sensationalism of it on the news. It is a legitimate news story, but I think it has been blown out of proportion sometimes and created unnecessary panic. I also debated, "do we get the vaccine or not?" With Jackson's problems, we really shouldn't risk not vaccinating, but at the same time, what risks did the vaccine carry?

Well, never piggy mind. The swine flu arrived on Thursday, with Jackson down with a fever, headache, ear pain, and generally lethargic. He laid in the recliner all day, wouldn't eat much or drink. I took him to the doctor Friday morning and it was confirmed h1n1. The pediatrician prescribed Tamiflu for all of us.

We were supposed to go to Lincoln, this weekend, to see the Drennon family. We decided not to go Thursday afternoon, after Jackson wasn't getting any better and one of the Drennon kids came home from school sick. The ironic part, I had set aside $200 for the trip. I dropped $200 on Thursday, between the pediatrician, the pharmacy and Sonic.

Jackson laid around all day Friday, took his medicine and slept off and on. By Saturday morning, he was fever free and back to his normal self. But, Damon and I were another story. We both woke up with fever, headache, cough, and achiness. We are both still sick today. Reid is still symptom free and taking her Tamiflu faithfully, so hopefully she will miss the fun.

Damon finished up painting yesterday, even though he felt like crap. He finished painting doors, touching up the hallway, painting the front door and painting one small wall in the kitchen. He painted the front door black, with chalkboard paint, and he painted the small kitchen wall with magnetic paint and chalkboard paint. It rocks! We are giving a couple days to dry and cure and then we will write on it, take some pics and post them.

He is now done painting until Spring. Then, we are going to take on our bedroom, the kitchen, and our bathroom. The kitchen and the bathroom both involve wallpaper, so that should add a new degree of fun.