A Few of my Favorite Things

While home this last time, I mentally compiled a list of a few of my favorite things to do while here. I have included some visuals with commentary to explain them:

• Sleigh Ride-This is my favorite Christmasy song, and last year, Mom got me the piano music for an awesome duet arrangement of it. I practiced it all month to get ready to play it with her. It is not without mistakes, unfortunately, but it was very fun to play! Next year I'm going for perfection:-)
  
  



• Baby Calves-Dad got two new "Bottle Babies" on Christmas day. These are calves we buy from an early age and feed them with bottles, then wean them off, grow them up, and eat them. Yum! They're real sweet when they're babies and tons of fun to feed. Definitely one of my favorite things to do with Dad when I come home

• My parent's house-Along with all the great memories that come with it, it's just beautiful in general. Here it is, covered in tons of snow!

• Wintery Weather-We had the most magnificent snowfalls, and then this morning some type of weird "Fog Freeze" where it was incredibly foggy and then froze on everything, including these trees, and even the cows outside!

• Singing around the piano-This has become tradition. My whole family loves to sing, and our favorites are Selah and Getty music. Every time we're together, we gather around the piano and sing. It usually starts out with one or two people and then grows to encompass the whole family


• Games-I love playing games with my family! We always have a blast. The most hysterical moment of the week was when we were playing Catch Phrase with all of us, and it was Stephen's turn. He began quickly describing his word.
  
  Stephen: Okay, uuumm, King David had one of these!
  Shouts from his team: "A Kingdom!" "A son!" "Wives!"
  Stephen: Okay, yes, lots of those, lots of wives, it's called a--
  Team: Harem!
  Stephen: Yes! No...Um...wait...is there a plural of that?
  Team: Harems?
  Stephen: (looks very confused and disturbed) *Timer buzzes* Um...wait, isn't "Heirloom" the plural of Harem?
  
  He will never live that one down:-)
  
• Ernie-My brother's dog is simply adorable. I just love him. Here he is waiting to open his Christmas present of toothpaste and toothbrush

I could, of course, go on and on, but get the gist of it. I love my family!

Christmas with the Willcox Clan

We celebrated Christmas with Stephen's family on Christmas day. We were invited to his parents house for a Christmas Eve brunch, along with the rest of the family, and it was great to get together again! The house was abuzz with excited chatter, babies cooing, and children playing. Brunch was great, too, Mom.

Christmas morning we celebrated with Sam and Stephanie and their two little ones. We woke up bright and early with them and were there for the unveiling of the Big Gift--a parakeet for the boys! They had been begging for one. Petey is growing quite comfortable with his new surroundings. Friedrich helped him settle in, of course. We then spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon playing with all the cool toys the boys got and watching Ratatouille. Then we headed over the Milt and Lisa's for the Big Christmas Shindig.

There were a lot of us there. I lost count at 15. We ate a wonderful Christmas dinner and then dug into our presents. I got two sweet soundtracks I had wanted, plus the new Adventures in Odyssey trivia game! I was stoked! Stephen got the Works of Jonathan Edwards and a Systematic Theology book. He was also quite thrilled:-) All in all, it was a great day of fun, fellowship, and giving. I love giving to people, seeing their faces, and just being together. I love the picture of how much Christ gave to us, and how much He loves to give us good gifts and see our smiling faces! If we love to give good gifts to our family, how much more does He love to lavish us with good gifts! This is just another reason why I love Christmas!

Some snapshots from the Festivities:

Mom bought twelve bottles of sparkling grape juice! Anita and I were in heaven!

My nephew, Noah, and his Grandpa

Stephanie with Petey

Man, I was so excited about this game! Like a little kid.

Great Things=Small Packages

It has often been said that great things come in small packages (my mom for example). As I was meditating on this today, I realized just how true that is. Our very own Lord humbled Himself and came down to earth 2000+ years ago as a tiny infant. What a great thing that was! This fact was once again proved true last night when we celebrated Christmas with the Laird family. It was fantastic just to be all under one roof again, and we were anxiously awaiting the chaos/fun that would ensue in the forthcoming days.

Last night we celebrated "Family Christmas," pretty much the best time of the year. We ate a fantastic meal cooked by my very own mother, then turned on Christmas music and distributed the gifts. Once they were all allotted, we decided we'd open the ones from the Grandparents first and then call them to tell them how awesome they were. We are usually with them for Christmas, but alas, this year it was not to be.

Since The Kid had already been to the Grandparents and opened his, the family chose me to open my gift first. I pulled a small box off the top of the stack and tore it open. It was a white cardboard box, and on the front it said "iPod." This can't really be an iPod, I thought to myself. They must have just wrapped it in an iPod box. So I popped it open to see what was in it. And in it was...an IPOD!!!! I was so shocked, I looked up at everyone and just said "I....I....I...I..." to which everyone started laughing. Frustrated that I couldn't get any thoughts out of my mouth, I finally just closed it and asked something dumb like "Is this real?" I was so dumbfounded because just the day before, when all my sisters-in-law were carrying around their little iPod nanos with music and videos on them, I was thinking to myself how outdated Stephen and I are that, not only do we not own any of this stuff, I barely know how to use it. And I had just been thinking how wonderful it might be to have one when I go running.

My shock and awe upon opening my iPod

Upon opening the rest of my gifts, I found an iPod holder that attaches to my arm and this sweet chip that attaches to my iPod and goes in my shoe. Get this--the chip tells me how long I've been running, how far I've run, how much longer I have to go before I reach my goal, how many calories I've burned, and a number of other things while it plays inspirational music to motivate me to work out more. Amazing.

So anyways, I've determined that it is indeed true that great things come in small packages, like my sweet new iPod. Now I just have to figure out how to use it.

Christmas Fun

Stephen and I celebrated our own personal Christmas on Saturday--all day. It was fantastic! Stephen ran off as soon as we woke up to "run some errands" and I stayed home and made biscuits and gravy. After our brunch, we tackled the house cleaning and laundry and then sat down in front of the fireplace to open presents.

We each had three to open, and we videotaped the whole thing, thus forgetting to take any pictures. I have therefore included a snippet of our Christmas video for your enjoyment. We think it's pretty funny and will probably look back and laugh at how poor we were.



Apart from the socks, I gave Stephen a book that he wanted, and the Newsies soundtrack. He listened to it all day the last two days. Stephen gave me two fantastic books, Treasuring God in our Traditions, Noel Piper, and Answers to Prayer, the prayer journal of George Muller. He also gave me Elf, and another present has yet to arrive, so I'm still in suspense on that one.

We then went to Target to see if we could find a new bookshelf for our hallway, but to no avail. We then picked up a pizza on the way home and enjoyed eating it while reminiscing about days gone by. Then we made carmel corn and called Skip and Cassidy to play games for the rest of the evening. Fun was had by all:-)

Winter Wonderland

We have been getting a few inches of snow every 2-3 days for the last couple of weeks. And if it isn't snow, it's rain. Since the polar ice caps are melting, there is much more moisture in the air than usual, so it is manifesting itself in forms of snow and rain here in Chicago. I prefer the snow to the rain, personally. Rain in winter makes me seriously nervous. You never know when it's going to freeze.

At any rate, we had almost 24 hours of snow over the weekend, and when we woke up Sunday morning, there was a glorious sight to behold. Somewhere around a foot of snow had accumulated during the night, and the trees and cars were covered in it. I include some pictures for my homesick Texas Sister's sake.

It took Stephen 20 minutes to clean off our car for church, and when we arrived to church, the alley in which we park had not been plowed. We got in okay, but I was pretty sure getting out would be a problem. Another women was already stuck in the lot trying to park. Stephen went over to help and it took three guys 20 minutes to get her unstuck. Some serious snow.

When we left church, we paired up with our new friends (who had parked next to us and helped get the lady unstuck) to make sure we both got out. They dug us out and then the husband and another gentleman who found us pushed while Stephen threw the car into reverse. We were out within minutes, and our friends fared much better.

Thankfully Chicago's street department does an AMAZING job of clearing the streets, so after we got out of that alley, we were home free. At least snow is beautiful:-)

Friedrich Loves Subway

For those of you who don't know, I have a bird. He's a parakeet, and his name is Friedrich. I've had him for almost two years now, and he makes quite a handy companion. His wonderful whistles and warblings keep one from feeling lonely on a blustery winter day when one's husband is working.

These are a few of his Favorite Things:

-washing dishes with me (he tries to jump in the water, though...)

-loud music (his new favorite is RelientK's new Christmas album)

-Adventures in Odyssey

-nibbling (on anything, but especially shiny things)

-Drinking out of my water glass (and occasionally trying to jump in)

-Pepsi (although I don't let him have it)

-Some of his favorite foods include: spinach,carrots, corn, green beans, butter, Glazed Lemon Dainties (I know, I know, really bad for him...I only let him have a couple bites), popcorn

-His own reflection

-Uncle Andrew

-The camera (I have no idea...sometimes he hears the sound of birds chirping coming out of it and is convinced if he looks hard enough, he'll find them)

-my cell phone

-fingers, thumbs, and toes

-The computer keyboard

He likes a lot of things. It's always fun finding new things that he likes, too. I have developed a (bad) habit of allowing him to come over to me while we're at dinner and try whatever I'm eating. This has now become a regularity. Whenever he's out of his cage (which is 90% of the time), he notices we're seated at the table, and before I know it he has waddled quickly over to my feet, hopped on, and begged for a lift so he can sit on my shoulder and sample my food.

Today we got Subway sandwiches after church and before I knew it, there he was, standing at the foot of the table begging to get up. So I lifted him up, and he proceeded to reach for my sandwich. I offered him some lettuce, but he didn't want me to hand him the lettuce, he wanted the lettuce IN the sandwich. So...I gave it to him.

He proceeded to eat so much lettuce that I finally just gave him one end and started eating out of the other end. I know this probably seriously disturbs most of you, but if you had bird as awesome of Friedrich, you'd let him eat your sandwich too.

The Christmas Party!

We went to the funnest Christmas party ever on Saturday! Our friends, Skip and Cassidy, have friends who rent out the Museum of Science and Industry every year for this huge Christmas party, and they invited us along! The entire thing was open and FREE and they were having food catered in!

Now, the Museum of Science and Industry is my personal favorite museum. Stephen's favorite is the Field Museum. He says it's because the Field Museum is more geared toward grown ups and the MofSI is geared more for kids...I don't disagree with him. I love it!

Anyway, everyone else in my group seemed more excited about the food than the museum itself, which was hard for me to understand. I was bursting at the seams to show them all around! (Skip and Cass had never been there) While we ate, I listed off all of the exhibits (with my recommendations), and we got a good idea of where to go and in what order. Our first priority was the U505 submarine! This exhibit usually costs moneys, and since we are so cheap we only go on free day, we never pay extra for these exhibits. But tonight it was free, so we hurried over to explore it. It seemed to me that I had almost gone into it when I was younger and came with my family, but I did not for two reasons: 1)It was a boat, and even though it wasn't on water, I was still terrified. 2)It is actually quite small on the interior and when you cram a tour of 20 people in there, one could get quite claustrophobic, which I am (My husband constantly reminds me that I live in fear. I'm afraid I do). Our tour turned out to be us and 5 other people--quite comfortable!

Here's Cass and I in front of the Sub. Unfortunately, you can't really see us or the sub, but none of the pictures turned out because of the lighting:-(Joey--help?) Unfortunately, Cass was looking at the wrong camera:-\

This one just cracks me up. Believe it or not, it was NOT staged!

So we toured the U505 and it was AWESOME! (Dad you would have loved it) She even let us take pictures because she believed we wouldn't post them on ebay and sell them. We will not.

Thumbs up for the sub! (I am sitting down, because I was very weary)

While we were looking at the sleeping quarters, our guide said "And this grate I am standing over, please be careful if you walk across it, because if you lose anything like your keys down it, it is gone forever."

I looked at Stephen and raised my eyebrows in warning. He looked back at me and his face went pale.

"Stephen, stop it." I said, convinced I knew what he was doing. "I know you did not drop your keys down there." He always tries to trick me like that.

Stephen shook his head with wide eyes. "No...my car keys...they're in my coat."

Now it was my turn to pale. "And your coat is..."

"In the trunk of the car" he finished. We had parked in the building and so had thrown all coats, purses, and apparently car keys, in to our car trunk.

I, of course, did not have mine. Even if I did, they would have been in the trunk, too, in my purse.

It was at this point that Cass looked over at me. "Are you alright?" She asked.

I kind of started laughing nervously. "The car keys are in the trunk," I informed them.

They optimistically informed us that we'd find a way. They were AAA members, or our neighbor could break in to our apartment and get our spare set of keys (that's disturbing, I know). We decided we'd figure it out later and continued our tour of the museum.

Here I am in one of my favorite exhibits--the farm one. I'm driving a combine:-)

We saw all the best exhibits and then, by 10 decided it was time to head out.

"Let's get some pictures," I suggested. Stephen reached in his pocket for the camera, and pulled out...the car keys! His mouth dropped. "Guys, it's the keys! I must have checked my pockets a dozen times!"

He concluded that the camera must have been hiding them. I concluded that God put them there. All in all, it was a fantastic night, and we had a blast with our friend Skip and Cassidy. Yay, for Christmas parties!