The days after Christmas

As you can see by the slideshow, below, Christmas came to Western Nebraska.

After candlelight on Christmas Eve, in which the voice choir sang twice and Lars had crawled away into the narthex while I was singing, we came home and went to bed. The pastor, of course, stayed up writing a sermon. All is quiet and calm.

Christmas Morning, Al left early and I grabbed a shower and quickly got dressed, as I had about seven things to do before we left.

Eden woke up, ran to the bathroom in tears and started crying b/c she'd had diaharreah all over the bathroom floor and was standing in quite a mess. I undressed her, tossed her in the shower and threw her clothes and the rugs into the washer. Ran upstairs, got Lars up and into the highchair for breakfast and back down to Eden's shower. After her shower, she was, quite naturally, cold and shivering.

Back upstairs to the kitchen for a naked baby breakfast. Eden has to go again. Off the stool, into the bathroom, onto the toilet just in time. Back to the table for breakfast. We left the dishes where they lay and got some winter church clothes on. As soon as her tights and shoes are on, it's another run to the bathroom. Again, just in time. I change out the underware for a pull up, just in case...

Out the door, down to the car, back inside for the blankets, back down the car, back up for the cheesecake, back down to the blazer. The driver's door won't shut. Chalk up one more reason for a new vehicle. We drive to church, holding the door shut with one arm and steering with the other. Get to church just in time to run in and sit down. Except Lars has pooped up his back.

Eden sits in the back pew while I take Lars down, strip him, clean him up and put his sweater and pants back on over a clean diaper.

Get up to the pew, Eden has to go to the bathroom three times before the sermon. We really need a bathroom upstairs!!

Get through church, head home to eat lunch. Lots of cheese and yogurt offered up for this meal, along with some whole milk. Daddy comes home in the midst of this and we open gifts before crashing in various locations around the house for naps. After naps, we open some more gifts, play and read stories, then watch The Grinch and Frosty the Snowman beofore popping popcorn and heading to bed.

All in all, a great and relaxing day. Full of adventure and always full of something to smile about.

Has anybody seen my sheep for the manger??? Eden??

Yesterday, we got a sitter and Al and I headed to Scottsbluff to do some after Christmas shopping. It was great, except that Al and I both had what Eden did the day before. Thank God for the Wal-mart restrooms on both ends of the store! We hit about seven stores in 5 hours and test drove a vehicle we'd like to figure out how to pay for :-)

Love to all, enjoy the slideshow!

Christmas 2008

From the Strawn Family to yours, Merry Christmas!

Twas the week before Christmas...

I’m sorry, did somebody say ‘last week is over’? But I’m not ready yet!

That means Christmas is coming soon! Not yet, we don’t have snow! You can’t have Christmas without snow! Can you? Well, in Western Nebraska, apparently if you have biting cold weather and a whipping wind, then you can have Christmas. With that in mind, I guess we’re more than ready!

Needless to say, this week has been cold. The weather channel has varied it’s adjectives by saying, “Very chilly”; “Extremely Cold”; “winds in excess of…”; “very bitter”; “dangerously cold” and the like. At least they are creative. Wind chills tonight will approach -30 degrees. That’s unimaginable, but what’s even stranger to me is that, in a matter of 24 hours, we can have a 40 degree swing and the sun will be shining. By Thursday, it’s supposed to be bright and 42! What’s up with that?

Per usual, our week before Christmas was somewhat cramped with time. Somebody had something every night this week, and sometimes more than one thing. Poor Lars just went along for the ride…over and over and over. He looks like a snow creature in his bulky coat and hat. Cute, but annoying.

In the rush of the week, I completely forgot Eden’s Christmas Party at daycare on Friday…oops. We had the Austin’s over for supper that night, in a delayed thank you and also to sit and visit over fine wine. The kids played darts downstairs and watched Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special.

Eden is practicing hard for her Christmas program tonight…she is an angel and has had her line memorized for weeks, but she’ll only say it in private. I said it really doesn’t matter how the program goes, Jesus will still be born and we’ll still celebrate it and it will still be the best pageant ever!

May all of you who are travelling have safe trips home and back. Those of you who will be stuck in the airports, watching the snow fall and eating crumbs off the floor, hoping for Mom’s home-cooked meal, may the peace of Jesus be with you!

For everybody else, far away from home or family, may the peace of Jesus be with you also. It’s the day to celebrate Him and His Holy Birth, so be thankful for what you’ve got and be pleased that you can have a quiet house to take a nap in!

For those of you like us with a small family within arm’s reach, may the peace of Jesus be with you. Stand around the piano, sing carols and stay warm, passing out hugs and hot chocolate as you are able.

Tigger comes to town

A British Surprise

What a wonderful week in the Strawn Household!

Our surprise guest arrived on Sunday evening, hungry and ready to put her feet up. Jenny, otherwise known as “Tiger” to the camp world, came to the states from England for the Christmas/New Year season, spending much of her time on the mountain in Colorado, connected to a snowboard.

Jenny and I met almost 12 years ago back in Michigan, both working our first year as pool assistants/camp counselors at the Girl Scout camp that I attended as a child, five miles from my house. We taught each other the “American” and “English” languages, respectively, spent nights off discussing cultural differences and weekends off together with the other Brits touring my hometown and the surrounding area.

My favorite memory of that first summer is when nine Brits came home with me at the end of our first session. We slept all over the floors and couches and my mom and dad woke up to a surprise houseful and made a huge American breakfast of bacon and eggs and all the works.

Skip ahead to this week, Jenny, a city girl, got to see Western Nebraska and all the panhandle has to offer. Though we were not able to see everything we’d planned, we hoped to entice her to come back someday!

After Samson’s bath on Monday, we drove around town and showed her our day to day life, making potato soup for the Christmas Supper at church. As it were, we didn’t have enough people to act the skit for the ladies that night, so she played the part of the “lady who wrapped one too many Christmas presents”. Naturally, she was a hit and I think her accent helped her cause!

Tuesday, we drove to Chimney Rock and the cemetery before taking her over to Scottsbluff. We got lost looking for 11^th Ave (I was on 11^th St) and she saw a real tour of the residential area. We then drove up Monument Pass and looked out over the city, just as the sun was setting. It was beautiful.

Wednesday was naturally busy and she joined us for Advent Supper and service, where my children were so naughty, she had to sit alone while I was in the back of church, yelling at my daughter. She planned to leave that evening, but we sat on the couch talking so late, she thought she’d better stay one more night.

Thursday, we drove around looking at big tractors, which Western Nebraska has an abundance of. We drove out into the hills and tooled around as far as I dared without getting lost. As a field trip, we stopped at Mark’s work and he took Jenny and the kids on a ride on a couple of the John Deere tractors. He gave her a hat to take back to her nephew, who loves tractors, as well as a book and a ball cap for herself. After that, we went to Laura’s to visit and gather eggs. That was a first, and quite possibly, a last!

Since it was already Thursday, and she had to catch a plane on Friday morning, she decided to stay to babysit while I was at choir. Then, after supper that evening and after another late night chat, we turned in for bed.

As all good things must come to an end, she took off Friday morning, with farm fresh eggs, a few cuttings of Sarah’s plants, lots of John Deere goodies and a disk full of photos. It was great to have her here for the week and I’m still catching up in sleep from those wonderful late night chats!

Last night, Al and I watched the Red Wings game to the very end, shoot out and all. I was so hyped up from that, I had a hard time settling down to sleep. Eden crawled in with me in the middle of the night with every piece of her exposed flesh below zero Fahrenheit.

Sunday is cold and windy here. The thermometer says -2, and the wind chill is -22 right now. A good day to stay indoors with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate.

Decorating the Tree

A week of Surprises

Lars can crawl!!! Not only that, he can walk, too!

On Friday night, he stood alone for a moment, freaked out and ran towards daddy’s open arms. We all watched in amazement as he took those first steps, as if it was a miracle. In some ways, I guess it’s a miracle how every part of the body works in its own time, but I won’t get all biblical at the moment. It was so fun to see first hand, as I suppose every mother thinks their child is the greatest at that very moment.

I was worried because Lars never crawled. He’s get up on his knees occasionally, but never crawled. He would scoot to get wherever he wanted to go. Well, worry no more. Two minutes after he walked to his daddy, he got up on his knees and crawled all over the living room, chasing Al, who was also crawling all over. Eden joined in shortly thereafter, and everybody was laughing and crawling on the floor in circles. It wore him out and he laid in the crib and went right to sleep an hour later.

Earlier this week, I had a surprise phone call from and old camp buddy of mine who is in the states from England visiting her boyfriend in Colorado. Turns out, we’re only a few hours apart and she is driving up on Sunday afternoon to visit Western Nebraska for a few days. I’m looking forward to digging out some old photos and having a few good laughs during some serious story telling adventures.

Got the tree decorated this week, as well as the rest of the decorations put up around the house. Eden was so fun to watch as she found new things every day. She loves my small nativity, and will sit on the stool next to the table and move them around for hours. She grabbed my cell phone earlier today and told me that Baby Jesus was on the phone and wanted to talk to me.

Lars is enthralled with the lights on the tree. He has reached up and tried to touch them, but changes his mind at the last moment.

I was in a cooking frenzy for two days, making several batches of mom’s peanut brittle. What a sticky mess, but boy does it taste good. Hoping to get grandma great’s star cookies done this week and cut out cookies after that. So much for those 30 pounds I lost this year…

Al spent his morning off recording Christmas themed lessons for the radio station, and his afternoon off cleaning the garage, coming in to warm up part way through the day.

The weather has turned and winter is here to stay. It was 5 degrees last night and then 40 today. Such a vast difference, really.

Sunset this week was 4:25 in the afternoon and that makes for such long evenings with the kids. I miss the Central Time Zone. Going to have to get creative as the winter gets longer… Thank goodness for NHL Center Ice, Go Wings!

Strawn Siblings Visit Cousin Lea!