Kristy Dorminy

We were all excited to see Ruby after school.  She brought her stocking home to open with us.  Mack was very interested in the candy.  Molly helped her open the gifts.  It was fun!  Her whole day must have been fun because, in her words, they “partied, partied, partied!!!”

Books, stickers, pencils, and jewelry!

Ruby read Molly her new books.  She is doing so well with her reading, and I am proud of her.  She is often-times heard asking what words spell.  It can drive you bonkers, but you never let it show because I am just glad she cares to know!

Mack was content to suck on a rainbow candy cane while sporting only his diaper.  He had made a mess of himself at the Mexican restaurant right after school, so I made him strip down as soon as he walked in the door….Josh was traveling, so we decided to celebrate the last day of school with dinner out!  It was a last minute decision I made when I realized at 3:00 I had not eaten lunch, just a couple of cinnamon rolls had sustained me through the morning and into early afternoon.  Oh, so healthy.

Someone should really potty train this guy because somebody doesn’t seem to change diapers regularly any more.  That would be a good New Year’s Resolution….potty train your really big, almost three year old boy.

Today is Ruby’s last day of school until after the New Year, and we could all feel the excitement in the air this morning!  Ruby woke up early and happy as can be.  A huge part of the hype was that she did not have to wear her uniform.  Evidently, the administrator gives the staff and students a “Dress as you like” day for Christmas.  Ruby also had cinnamon rolls and gifts for her teachers.  She was so excited!  Each student has a stocking that they get to open up today as well.  Fun times.

Ruby chose jeans, boots, and this cute owl shirt.

Molly seemed genuinely excited for all that Ruby would get to do today.  Sweet girl.  She and I have had a fun morning.  We painted and colored and read all of the Christmas books….well, almost all of them.  There is one little book that we cannot find; Mack was the last one with it, so who knows where it might be!

Mack was set on getting a picture made just like the girls did–holding our “Merry Christmas” sign.

Sweet Sisters

Mack is so funny…and he almost always has an audience willing to encourage his silliness.

There are a million things I could be doing right now.  They include, but are not limited to, folding laundry, cleaning toilets, sweeping, mopping, putting water in the Christmas tree stand, cleaning off the pile of stuff that has made its way to the stairs…….but the day is YUCKY again;  I just feel unmotivated….not to mention that I will have to clean before our family comes to town next week, so I am thinking I should just wait until Monday.  Not sure our toilets can wait that long, but is it wrong to try and make them????  Hmmmmmmm…………………….Mack’s is the one that is screaming, “A TWO YEAR OLD BOY IS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW THIS THING WORKS!”  Yuck.

Molly & Ruby needed a haircut, so I decided to call Merrilee.  Merrilee is Jason’s girlfriend of about 9 months.  Long time, ‘eh?  She had a spot come open for us at 7:00 tonight, and we took it.  Molly was beside herself with excitement.  She is all about hair.  She filled her purse with two brushes, 500 ponytail holders, and some make up brushes and headed out the door.  Ruby is not into that stuff at all, but was still excited to get a hair cut.  It had only been six months, at least, since their last cut.  Merrilee was very nice to them, of course.  She washed their hair, cut it and dried it.  They were cute, cute, cute.  Molly hides her excitement very well.  No smiling for the picture from her.  OH well.  Thanks, Merrilee, for cutting their hair!  It was fun.

I made them again.  THE most delicious cinnamon rolls ever.  The recipe is from thepioneerwoman.com, and I love to make them.  It takes time, but it is so worth it.  Our family hasn’t actually been able to enjoy a whole pan of these because I usually make them to give away.  I have half the dough from this batch in my fridge because I ran out of cinnamon, so I may try to make them this week for us and for our neighbors.

Or maybe I will run to the grocery store to get the cinnamon…I am starting to crave them after looking at these pictures.  It doesn’t help that we are soooo close to Christmas!!!!  All the yummy food out there just waiting to be eaten!

Put  up #13 (the last sheep), #14 (the last shepherd) and you’d see that we only have 10 days until Christmas.  Wow.

It has been C-O-L-D today.  I went outside to help Josh bring in the groceries, but that was it.  Not only did he go to the grocery store, he took all three kids with him.  (Let’s pause for a moment of gratitude—–)  The house is pretty clean, laundry is done, we finished all of Monday’s school assignments, Josh has handled cooking for our Sunday lunch tomorrow with friends, I got to exercise (purely for sanity purposes), and none of the kids had naps, so they will be ready for bed earlier than usual.  Good, good day.

We started on some of the school work and just ended up finishing it all:

Ruby colored her manger scene sheets.  I copied them for Molly so she could do what we were doing.  It just works better that way.

Before

After.  Cute pink barn and nice hot pink robe Mary is wearing.

It’s amazing the mess that can be made on such a small project.

We went into Mack’s room to play.  I love his room.  It isn’t decorated the way I want it to be, but maybe soon he will have a big bed and some pictures on the wall.  For now, though, it is still really cute.

The tractors

The trains

The trucks and books about tractors and trains and trucks

Oh, let’s not forget the fierce dinosaurs just waiting to bite your head off.

And then, in the midst of all the boy stuff, you’ll see clues that two little girls live across the hall.

Do you see what I see?

Cinderella and Snow White.

How funny.  I can’t wait to see how Mack turns out with two older sisters.  I tend to believe it will make him a great husband one day.

I have asked my kids so many times what they want for Christmas.  Ruby says, “Oh, you can just get me anything.  I will like whatever.”  (Really?)  Molly hasn’t said much except that she wants some hair things to pull her hair back. Remember, she knows how to do her own ponytails these days.  And they are lovely, just lovely.  Mack’s answer has consistently been, “Fider Man Wash.”  He sometimes adds, “so I can go to work.”  He wants a Spider Man Watch to wear and that will mean he can go to work since Daddy wears his watch to go to work.  Makes sense to me!

Last night Josh was bathing the kids and Ruby closed her eyes so he could wash her hair.  She told him, “I can see all of my Christmas presents when I close my eyes.”  Josh said, “Really?  What do you see?”  He said she named off a lot of different things.  In an effort to make sure she isn’t disappointed on Christmas morning, Josh said,”Now you know you won’t get all of those things just because you see them in your mind.  Remember that it is Jesus’ birthday and that is the reason we give gifts….”  She abruptly said, “Well, I want a nativity, too!”  Oh, well that makes it all better.  We’ll run out and complete her list that she can envision right away!!!

Funny kids.  I am finally finished shopping for all of them, the three cousins that were on our list, two adult gifts to exchange with my sisters and their husbands, Daddy, Mama, Merrilee, part of Gran’s, and the kids bought me a cute little necklace today.  They really wanted me to have something.  They weren’t actually with me when I picked it out, but I am sure that they would have wanted me to have SOMETHING in my stocking.  I told Josh that they want him to have something, too.  My limit was $20, so I told him to be sure to stay within those boundaries.  ha!

Isn’t that cute?  Hoot.Hoot.

Last month when I was in Augusta visiting my family, we stopped in to see Meme.  She is my mom’s mom and lives in a nursing home now.  She is doing fairly well, but definitely needs the help that they provide.  My mom gets to see her about once a week.  I have seen her the last few times I have visited, and I am glad.  She is kind of hard to talk to now.  She doesn’t always remember who you are talking about and her mind seems to go in neutral with the kids moving all around and four adults taking over her room.  I ask her questions, but the answers are usually pretty short and to the point.  This past visit everyone left the room to head back to the car, and I stayed back a few seconds to hug her and tell her goodbye.  I also wanted to touch her and look at her and let her know that I love her.  I held her hand and it was so soft.  I rubbed it and told her how soft her skin was.  She just laughed a little and said, “Well, I put lotion on every day.”  My mom says that there’s a stockpile of lotion somewhere because my Meme always asks her to bring some when she comes to visit.  Her room mate piped up and said, “We don’t wash dishes and scrub floors or do laundry anymore, so our hands stay nice.”

That was sobering for me.  I often times look at my hands and think how rough they look–dry, unmanicured, uneven nail length, and on and on.  I also never want to spend the money on a manicure because it just messes up after a couple of days.  But after that conversation I have decided to be thankful for my unkept hands and be thankful that I am physically able to do all that has to be done to keep up with the house and with the sweet bodies that make all the messes that live here.  heehee.  I have also started to use lotion more regularly.

Just thought I’d share.

And here is a quote from girltalk blog that I love!  Another great reminder that what God has purposed me to do as a wife to Josh and mom to Ruby, Molly, & Mack, right here and right now IS IMPORTANT.  Carolyn Mahaney wrote this about a move she and her husband were making:

Of the more than 8000 days I spent in this home, there were a few dramatic ones: the day I announced to CJ that “surprise, you’re going to be a father again!” or the day Kristin fainted and we had to call the ambulance, or when Mike serenaded Janelle outside her window at 6am, or when Nicole returned from the hospital after life-saving surgery.

But most of my days looked pretty much the same.

I got out of bed each morning so that I could do everything I did the day before.
I washed the dishes so they could be dirtied again.
I ironed the clothes so they could be worn and wrinkled again
I wiped noses so they could run again.
I picked up toys so they could be played with again.
I mopped the floor so mud could be tracked on it again.
I cooked meals so that I could go to the grocery store again.
I made beds so they could be slept in again.

Some days I wondered: if I do all I do, only to have it undone, am I really doing anything?

Today, as I pack up my home in June of 2008, I can see the answer more clearly than I did in February 1986. Each of my daughters is married to a wonderful, godly man, Chad will be a sophomore in high school this fall, and we’ll welcome our seventh grandchild at the end of August.

I realize that all of the mundane, repetitive days were actually full of significant, enduring work. A home was being built. A family was being knit together. Four souls were being shaped for eternity.

This home has spawned three more homes where the same tedious yet momentous work goes on day in and day out. And God willing, many more homes will one day be built, day by day, so “that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:9).

I am hoping that little Mr. Mack will be as polite in his future years as he is during his toddler years.  He just said to me, “Mommy, how you doin’?  Good?”  I told him I was good and asked how he was doing.  “Good!” he exclaimed.

At Wendy’s tonight he said, while finishing up his hamburger, “Thank you, Daddy!”  Then, Molly and Ruby chimed in with their thanks.  I just smiled, but that wasn’t enough.  “Say to Daddy Thank You, Mama.  Say Thank You.”  I complied.

And he will not go to sleep at night until he has gone into the girl’s room and said good night to them.  “Say Goo-Night, Mama.  Say Goo-Night to Dobby (Molly) and Rubby (Ruby).”

Like I said, I hope he keeps up such niceties.

Ruby gets to give each of her classmates a gift in the stockings that Mrs. Honaker has put up around the room for each of them.  I found some Readers at Family Bookstore on sale, and I thought they would make a perfect gift for Ruby to give to her friends.  She carefully wrote “From:  Ruby” on each one last night.

After dinner the kids were able to choose a gift from the basket.  The basket either has a wrapped Christmas book or a Christmas dvd.  They opened the new Veggie Tales video about Saint Nicholas.  It was so good!  We love this new tradition of opening something from the basket.  It helps them leave their stocking and wrapped gifts under the tree alone!

Ruby and Molly woke up Saturday morning and informed us that it was snowing!  We looked out the window and sure enough, there was snow falling to the ground!  It was beautiful.  A few minutes later Ruby said, “But it isn’t Christmas!”

It reminded me about last year when she woke up on Christmas and said, “But it’s not snowing!!”  In her mind, snow is supposed to be falling down from the sky on Christmas Day.  As nice as that would be, it just doesn’t happen down here in the South.  I can’t remember ever having snow on Christmas, actually.

Oh, well.  We did enjoy watching it the little amount of time it was falling.

Just for clarification, the roof isn’t covered in snow.  It is a metal roof.  The small white dots falling and then disappearing are snow.

On a more negative note, I think I am allergic to the live green stuff we have in our house this time of year…..the garland, the tree….oh my.  What do I do?  Zyrtec for the month of December?  Somebody tell me!