LEGOS, Baby Alive, hope for the future, and the magic lives on after all...

The Christmas spirit didn't come so easily for me this year. That seems like a terrible thing to admit considering my usually ultra-positive personality. I couldn't really put my finger on it, but I just couldn't shake an unsettled feeling in my heart. I didn't want the excess and the unnecessary. I wanted to protect my children from selfish hearts and attitudes of entitlement. I wanted it to be all about Jesus, but everywhere I looked, commercialism reigned, and He seemed to be in the shadows.

Because God knew just what I needed so many years ago, Tyler stepped in and saved the day. He gently brought Biblical truths back to my mind, assured me that our family priorities were intact, and even took over shopping and wrapping duties for the kids. Then he sent me to bed on Christmas Eve while he stayed up until the early morning hours prepping and pulling out presents for the kids that I had never seen before, so that I could be surprised right along with them.

Talk about bringing back the magic. He's good.

Thank goodness for fun husbands who remind us of the wonder of Christmas (along with my need for an attitude change!), and for one amazing one who reminded me that it is okay to have four little bodies sneak down the stairs with pure, innocent excitement on Christmas morning. They know Who we celebrate (every day of the year, not just one!), and my negativity might have just been dampening the celebration.

Sometimes we moms think too much, when what we should be doing is spending our time joining the rest of the family as they dance to the cranked up Christmas music in the kitchen.

Anybody with me? So the magic returned and the latest LEGO sets appeared. And you know that there's always room for one more LEGO set in the Daugherty house... I had to crack up at this fireplace scene. Tyler is a bargain shopper (and likes to buy in multiples... pretty sure this is a man thing...), and we all know that you can get Colts attire for a real bargain this season (90% off in this case!). But we're loyal fans, we believe there's hope for the future, so we'll be more than ready for next year. :) And the prize for the most ironic present goes to Tess, whose Aunt Stephanie thought it was imperative that she have a Baby Alive doll. You know, the doll that eats real food and then conveniently goes potty in her pants? And to solidify the irony, it's so incredibly fun to feed Baby Alive that she ends up going through A LOT of diapers.

Fabulous marketing scheme.

You know what this means, don't you? After nine long years of changing diapers and spoon feeding several small (real live) children, we only give ourselves a break for a year before we actually purposely pay to start this process all over again. That's right, I'm spoon feeding and changing the messy diapers of a fake, plastic baby (whose insides are bound to get gunked up sooner rather than later, don't you think?).

For fun.

Something is clearly not right with this picture. I will remember this for a long, long time, Steph. You just wait until next Christmas.

And since we're committed to celebrating Jesus every day, the celebrating is still going on around here.

And here I thought I wanted to just get it over with.

Lesson learned.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,” Titus 2:11-12 ESV

Juggling...

This is Chase's depiction of me juggling life as a mom. No one tells him to draw stuff like this; his little five year old mind is just as honest as it gets. Apparently we moms must multi-task or something, and we also have go-go-Gadget arms that help us do a hundred things at once. He knows me well to include a phone, my cup of chai, an apple, a bowl of cereal, homework, my Bible, and a handful of kids. He just forgot to draw the three year old hanging on my leg. And thank goodness he threw a couple of hearts in, or else I would really start to get worried.

Tess spilled her milk the other day, and Chase said, "Geesh, kids sure do make a lot of stress," just like he wasn't a kid, and just like he'd never in his life caused his parents any grief. Funny kid.

December means lots of extra juggling as a mom. Throw in four kids on constant sugar highs, a surgery and an excited nine year old's birthday and you're almost done for. But I sure don't want the only thing my kids to remember about the holidays growing up is a stressed out mom who over-committed to lots of good things, but forgot to focus on what was best. I don't want to be known for hangups like hanging the ornaments by myself so they'll be perfectly spaced, or shooing eager children out of the kitchen so they don't mess up my perfectly decorated sugar cookies (which get eaten in like ten seconds anyway).

There will be plenty of years when my children are gone to choose all white lights to elegantly decorate my entire house. But for now, they want some fun color mixed in. Who can blame them, really? And for crying out loud, the world will not come to an end if they insist on rearranging the Nativity a hundred times a day, confiscating baby Jesus to ride in the Batmobile or keep them company while they sit on the potty.

It's sort of a compliment if you think about it, and Jesus is everywhere anyway, right?

I'm pretty sure my kids don't care if I can tie a cool bow on a package, or if their teacher's gift was the coolest in the class. But they sure do love it when I sit down beside them and we enjoy our cups of hot chocolate together (they MUST include a heaping pile of whip cream, sprinkles, and a candy cane hung on the cup's rim) at random moments in the day (when I often tell myself I should be doing something productive... hmm).

I want them to experience more than a juggling mom this Christmas. I want them to see Jesus in me as I humbly serve. I want them to hear Jesus, as we tell the story of His birth, and as we worship Him for coming to save a broken world. I want them to feel Jesus' love as we say no to just enough stuff so that we can surround them with ours.

And Mary said:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior." Luke 1:47