The Miracle of the Green Scarf...

This was the first Christmas where afterwards I felt like I should have done more. I felt guilty for not teaching my boys more about Christ, for not getting everyone gifts or thoughtful enough gifts. I want to do better next year.

***

But Heavenly Father knew I needed a miracle, so he gave me one. The other day as I was walking in Walmart I ran into Karen, a lady from the ward who was with her daughter. They didn't have a shopping cart so I teased her and asked how she could be in a store right before Christmas and not have a shopping cart. She said they were looking for her daughters missing green scarf, they were sad to lose it but were sure it was gone because they had gone through the whole store. My heart went out to her so I told her I would keep my eyes open.

***

I found my sister Melissa (we were having a girls day and were all shopping together) and asked her if she had seen a scarf. She hadn't, so I told her to keep her eyes open for it. A Walmart employee overheard the converstaion and mentioned to me she had found a scarf and put it in the front enterance. I asked her if it was green and she said no it was pink. :o(

***

I finished my shopping and went to check out when I had the thought to find Melissa and take her broken remote car starter to the jewelry counter and get her a new battery. As I went to the back of the store some lady came out of an isle and said "here you go" and handed me the green scarf. I hadn't seen this woman before and have no clue how she knew I was looking for it.

***

I wrapped it up and left it on their doorstep Christmas Eve to Madison from Santa.

***

I got an email from Karen saying that her daughter was so excited to get her scarf back. She told her Mom that although she hadn't mentioned it before she had prayed twice in Walmart to find her scarf. She wanted to say a prayer with her Mom and she gave the most sincere prayer of thanks.

***

I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves his children so much he found a way to touch so many lives with one green scarf miracle.

Staying Up Late...

I am learning to make every day count. I am also learning to make everything benifit me.....somehow. I am selfish like that :o)

Last night we had a "game night" at Melissas house. It was mostly an opportunity to let the kids play while us girls talked. It was a school night so normally bedtime is 7:45, but we decided to make an exception last night because us girls wanted to just chill. So if I am going to let the kids stay up till 11 (which NEVER happens), what can I get out of it?

I went upstairs while the boys were playing and asked them if they wanted to go home now or keep playing.

"KEEP PLAYING KEEP PLAYING KEEP PLAYING"

Me: "OK I will make a deal with you. I will let you stay up VERY late tonight if you promise to go to bed an hour earlier tomorrow night WITHOUT complaining'

Boys: "I PROMISE I PROMISE I PROMISE I PROMISE"

So One night I get to just hang out with my wonderful family having fun and the NEXT night I get to send the boys to bed at 6:45.

I am getting SO good at this Mother thing!

(in all fairness to me the boys will need this extra sleep because they get REALLY grumpy otherwise.)

Cleaning a Mirror and Reflecting...

Tonight one of our boys informed us that he had one less present than his brother.

"do you really?" I inquired.

"yes" I was told.

I did the "good Mom" thing, talking to him about the meaning of Christmas and how it's better to give than to receive and ya da ya da. I even pointed out that of the bazilion gifts I've bough this year I only have ONE under the tree. (and sadly I know what they are, beaded earings Chase made me.) This talk didn't sink in.

I asked if he would rather us spend the same amount on each kid or give each kid the same amount of presents.

THE SAME AMOUNT OF PRESENTS!!! Of course.

Later this night as I was cleaning a mirror I started to plot. First on my to-do list, take away Billys presents under the tree. But until when? What should the proper dicipline be for this, that would instill the true meaning of Christmas while simultaniously not be forcefull and cause more contention.

I cleaned my mirror. I had some great ideas to make him earn them back, most of them went like this: Make him learn the true meaning of Christmas. Make him serve someone everyday till Christmas. Make him teach us a Family Home Evening on Christmas. Unfortunately forcing someone to understand the true meaning of Christmas might be counter productive. So I continued to clean the mirror. I said a silent prayer and thought some more.

This is what I came up with. I will have Billy read 5 Christmas stories in a book we own. Then he will chose his favorite one and read it to the family. THEN he can have his presents back. How can you not be touched by the Spirit when reading Christmas stories?

He'll have to be right?

Answers come when we clean mirrors. This is what I've learned so far from being a Mom.

My Biscuits are Burning!!!!

Yesterday I was I was rushing out the door to go to a play date I realized Adelle only had one pair of clean jeans, and they were wet. They weren't pee pee wet, but she had spilled my water bottle all over herself earlier that day. We were so late I did my "quick fix" I've done before, but never with jeans. I put them in the microwave. I supervised them for the first 45 seconds with no negative effects, they steamed beautifully. I walked away for the last minute. Bad bad mistake. I came downstairs to smoke. Inside the microwave.....FIRE. Great. Did the smoke alarm go off? No. I threw water on it and put it out. Now I had no jeans for Adelle, a smoke-filled house, and a broken microwave.

Want to know what really erked me?

Read on.

Today I made bacon. After 10 seconds of the bacon frying on the pan, the smoke alarm went off.

It's so reasuring to know that my house is safe from bacon, not fire.

Gotta Love Santa...

A picture's worth a thousand words.

To be fair Santa looks just as happy.