Our Christmas

We had a nice time visiting with family in Pennsylvania for a few days. One of the highlights for the boys was checking out the fox that Unca-D (my brother) shot on Saturday. I wish I had a picture to share, but suffice it to say, it was pretty cool!

Of course, there were lots of nice gifts. It would be hard to say which was the overall favorite, but I think the coonskin caps were riding high on the list this year. :-) See below for pictures.

Here is the newest addition to our "family!" Mr. Blue-Eyes received a hedgehog from Grandma! It isn't a stuffed animal. It's a real hedgehog, dead and preserved for the last 30+ years. It originated in Scotland. Of course, our animal-lover is fascinated.

Here are the kiddos with their Cuz in front of the tree at Grammie's house.
Both boys got Crockett-style coonskin caps for Christmas, boy, were they a hit!
Here's a nice one of the boys in Great-Grandpa's chair.

A Flop

Here is our lovely gingerbread house...
...and here it is after Mom tried to move it. :*(

Thankfully, Mr. Blue-Eyes thought it was really funny. And it meant we got to eat it a lot sooner than we planned. Yum!

A Sad Loss

Just last night we heard that the brother of Stephen's sister-in-law lost a baby. His wife was 33 weeks pregnant with their first child, a boy, and now the baby has died in the womb. How tragic a loss for this young couple! We are encouraged to know that they are believers and that they are trusting the Lord in all things, including this great trial. Pray for them, that they would know the closeness of God's Spirit and be comforted.

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What a reminder to us to be thankful for the blessed little ones God has given to us. Cherish each moment with them! Teach them well. Just yesterday I explained to my older son that disciplining them is not a choice - it's a command from God. Proverbs tells us that the rod and rebuke bring wisdom but a child left to himself will bring shame to his mother. I need to keep reminding myself not to neglect this daily training. As an elder in our church often says, "Pack it in now; God will unpack it later."

Oddly enough, as I'm typing this post, Mr. Blue-Eyes is in the kitchen playing with his Cars cars, and Mr. Tex is talking about God's Word, he tells me. Now I can hear him - he's in there making Mr. Tex teach the other cars. I'm catching snippets of "Children, obey your parents in the Lord...this is right...that it may go well with you..." And of course, Boo-Boo is by his side hearing every word. May it sink in deep!

Christmas Tea

If you know me much, you'll know that I love "tea". I don't necessarily mean that I love tea, the drink, so much as I love "taking" tea. I love the idea of tea and the loveliness of the ceremony of tea...even if it's a cup of tea in my mom's kitchen, just the two of us drinking out of old mugs. There's just something about sharing a cup of tea with a good friend.

I especially love Christmas teas. It became a tradition for the ladies of my home church - where I was raised - to have a Christmas tea each December. After I moved away, I made my attempt at having a Christmas Tea for the ladies of my new church in Arizona. It didn't stick....meaning that it's not a tradition now, but we did enjoy it more than once. And in our New Hampshire church, there was also a ladies tea in the fall. So I was excited to learn that our church here hosts a Ladies' Christmas Tea each year!

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending this tea and it was a special blessing. There were two sittings - morning and afternoon - and approximately 300 ladies in attendance! Wow! The dwarfs the numbers at all previous teas I've been to. Everything was beautifully decorated, and the piano and violin played lovely Christmas music. But the best part of the tea was the talk given by a member of our church, a woman who has struggled with cancer for the last year and has been a faithful example to us. She gave a clear gospel message as she related her testimony. What a blessing to hear how the Lord has worked in her life, drawing her out of her sinful state into a right and blessed relationship with Himself. I heard that the message was recorded...if they put it up on our church website, I will add the link here. You don't want to miss it!

And the conversation at our table after the message was so encouraging. I happened to be seated with a number of women who are not members of my church, so I didn't know any of them. But it was a joy to get to know them a little bit and to hear of how God is working in their lives to draw them closer to Himself and to be encouraged by their examples to trust Him in all things.

Tea is always enjoyable for me, but tea...at Christmas...with the good news being spread...is even better!

Some Good News and some Good Pics

We had a fun weekend in Pennsylvania over Thanksgiving. The weather on Thanksgiving Day was really weird...70 degrees in the morning but dropping over 20 degrees by afternoon with rain and lots of wind! But the boys spent a few hours playing outside in the morning...catching butterflies even!

On Saturday we headed to the Bass Pro Shops to check out the many animals on display there, and - WOW - did Mr. Blue-Eyes love it! I don't know if I've ever seen him so excited. From the moment we walked in the door until he fell asleep in the car on the way home to Virginia, he didn't stop talking about the animals. "Mom, did you see that cougar? Mom, did you see that deer? Mom, did you see that black bear? Mom, did you see that wolf?" Constantly. The whole time we were in the store. He was on overload, I think. :-)

Now for the GOOD NEWS! When we got home on Saturday evening, there was a letter in the mail from the Bar Association saying that Stephen's petition for re-grading on his bar exam resulted in him PASSING the bar!! Can you say "THANKFUL?" What a great moment - of course, the boys couldn't understand why Mommy was crying and shrieking and jumping up and down... :-)

In all seriousness, as we look back on this LONG process of law school and bar exam stuff, we have so much to be thankful for. The Lord has been faithful in providing what we've needed. We haven't always been trusting Him for it, but even when we are unfaithful, He is always faithful. Praise God for this new mercy in our lives!

An interesting Thanksgiving article - with George Washington's address establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58754

My Favorite Holiday!

Here it comes - my favorite holiday! I suppose that maybe my favorite holiday should be Christmas or Easter, celebrating the birth of Christ or His glorious resurrection, but I get so irritated at how commercialized Christmas and Easter have both become. And so I will stick with Thanksgiving as my favorite. It seems like it gets overlooked as you walk into the stores this time of year...they're already marketing Christmas decorations and gifts, and Santa is EVERYWHERE.

By the way...here's a funny...we walked into Walmart for something a week or two ago, and the first thing Mr. Blue-Eyes said was, "Look, Mom! The creepy Halloween stuff is gone!" He was very happy about this (and so was I). And later as we made our way through the store, he yells, "Mom, there's Samson!" Well, it was Santa, not Samson. But as we've never taught our kids that gifts come from Santa, I wasn't all that surprised that he didn't remember the name of that jolly, white-haired fellow. And I was thrilled that Samson was on his mind since he'd been listening to the story of Samson on CD in the recent days. :-) From the mouths of babes...

But back to Thanksgiving... There are many things that I enjoy about Thanksgiving - the yummy turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and corn, PUMPKIN PIE! But I think mostly I enjoy the opportunity to be with family and think on God's goodness and His continued gifts to us. Pretty much everyone gives and gets gifts at Christmas, and we remember the gift of God's Son to us. But I just enjoy the quiet, less-commercial time in November when we gather to celebrate God's good gifts to us - in the bounty of food He provides, in the jobs He gives us, in the churches He draws us into, in the families He's given to us, in the Savior who sacrificed Himself for us.

This year it's a little more fun, I think. Mr. Blue-Eyes is old enough to understand a bit more of where the holiday came from, and we enjoyed a book about the Pilgrims' and Indians' first Thanksgiving. Recently when we were explaining to him what the holiday is all about, we asked what he was thankful for. And he very sweetly named his Sunday School teacher first. Praise God that Mr. Blue-Eyes admires this godly woman for the warm and caring spirit that she has while teaching Him of Christ's love for sinners!

We are thankful for each of you and the part that you play in our lives. We are thankful for your prayers for us, and we ask that you would continue to lift us up in prayer.

May God bless you and your family on this Thanksgiving Day!

What a weekend...

Friday we left for Pennsylvania to go to a wedding over the weekend. Stephen hadn't been feeling well since Thursday evening, but he somehow managed to drag himself to work on Friday (big deadline on a case) and he came with us to PA. Unfortunately, he ended up in bed the whole weekend, and although we made it home yesterday, he's still in bed. Must be the flu or something equally yucky.

I've posted a few pics from the wedding as well as a couple others with cousins and some wild animals! :-) Check out our Picasa album: http://picasaweb.google.com/sncstraub/Nov07. There's Mr. Blue-Eyes "dancing" with the girls at the wedding reception. And a couple of the boys with their cousins and Grammie. And one or two of Mr. Blue-Eyes posing with some "stuffed" animals at a local sporting goods shop.

At the Lake

Recently we spent a few hours at a nearby lake and the boys had a blast enjoying the great outdoors. We found lots of small seashells (yes, in a lake!), and they threw lots of rocks into the water. Splashing with sticks held lots of appeal too! We didn't see many land animals that day other than squirrels, but there were lots of Canada geese and other kinds of ducks swimming in the water.

The next day, though, on the way home from the library, we were driving just a mile or two from our house and saw a bald eagle swooping down over the road! It was an incredible sight! We, of course, parked the car to get a better look and were rewarded with another flight from the nearby tree. Amazing! We've seen bald eagles at the zoo, and while we were thrilled with their beauty there, it was another thing entirely to see one flying in the wild. What a blessing to have a glimpse of God's creation in all it's glory!

Here we are...

I guess I'm taking the plunge and joining the blogging world...been thinking about it for a while. I'm not sure we're too exciting or that we'll have a lot to tell, but I thought it would be a fun way to share the "little things" with friends and family. :-)

I hope, too, that we can share some of the blessings in our life and also hear back from YOU about how God is blessing you.