Christmas at the Brown's

Celebrations are winding down here in Cincinnati. Philip's brother and wife (Nathan and Charity) were here when we got back from PA and they stayed until Sunday. Allan and Kathryn played well together and Daniel loved their dog, Chips. We had some exciting times and always enjoy the laughter and fellowship of the Brown get-togethers. The conversations are always enlightening and challenging. Having to watch out for two little ones forces me to miss some of the fun but soon enough they'll be joining in the conflabs.

We took some time to visit the train display at Duke Energy again this year and Allan LOVED it! He didn't seem to remember going last year.
There were also the interesting twists of having children around. Charity has a hair-raising story she may have the emotional energy to share someday. Daniel learned it's not a good idea to play on a treadmill that's running when you have no clothes on. (Allan learned a very important lesson about making sure then treadmill is turned off) And to make a long story short I gave Allan a black eye. But we're all alive! I've been down with a bit of the flu and now my father-in-law is sick too. My mother-in-law's sister, Carol Barrett, is here visiting but until we all get well I'm not sure if we'll be able to spend much time with her.

I'm now sitting down to journal some new goals that I've set for the new year. We read through our "stones of remembrance" book this evening all of the answers to prayer that we've had. God's been good to us. And then...to bed early! I used to stay up to see the new year in but that all changed when I had children. I'm anxious for the day they'll be able to stay up with me :o). Happy New Year!

Reflections of Christmas

As a Christian parent, it has been very important to me that my children develop a biblical view of life and all of its component parts. This includes celebrations and events. What is the celebration for, what is the proper way to view the celebration, how do we participate in this celebration in a way that will bring glory to God?

Christmas has always been a special time but as a child there was a focus on the "getting" part more than the giving. I would be hard pressed to name many gifts that I received over the years (a desk that my Grandpa Slagenweit refinished for me, a stereo, a shelf from an old boyfriend) but I remember with fondness the many times we'd go Christmas caroling at our church and then later as a family, the many plates of cookies that my mother gave out, and all of the gifts that I've given to individuals. Giving is always more fulfilling than receiving and more memorable.

As we entered this Christmas season we worked diligently to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. In family devotions we focused on the "comings" of Christ (as I mentioned in a previous post). We lit the candles on the coffee table centerpiece as a visual reminder (and boys have this attraction to flames!) As we decorated we talked about the symbolism of the nativity set, the star on the tree, the lights, etc. All of this was building to the day that we celebrate Jesus' birth. But we forgot one thing...or perhaps we didn't forget...it just didn't seem as important as what we'd been talking about and focusing on....presents.

Allan had no idea that Christmas involved getting presents until a faculty member at GBS asked him what he wanted for Christmas. After a slight hesitation he mentioned that he had already received a firetruck and a book. It dawned on me that "wanting" wasn't crossing his radar. I was very thankful that in all of our talk of Christmas and building anticipation it centered around celebrating the coming of Jesus. But it also made me sad because I knew by the time this Christmas season had ended that question or the question, "What did you get for Christmas" would be the main focus.

When we woke up Christmas morning Allan was so excited...today was the day we would celebrate Jesus' birthday! So we rushed around getting ready to go to Pop-pop and Gramme's house. I cooked breakfast, we gathered our things and went to KY. There we read the Christmas story and opened gifts, ate our Christmas feast and visited with friends and family and had a wonderful time. I brought the boys home in the evening so they could get to bed in good time and before turning out the light I sat down to talk with Allan. We talked about the day and his attitudes and behavior and then he asked me something that made me want to cry. "Mommy, was this the day to celebrate Jesus?" "Yes," I said, "today is the day we celebrate when Jesus was born." His little forehead wrinkled and he asked, "Did we celebrate Jesus?".....

With a lump in my throat I analyzed our day. Did we? Did we really celebrate Jesus? Was the reading of the story of his birth, the very heartfelt prayer before dinner enough? Though he didn't audibly speak the words I could tell that my son was not convinced that we had done what the day deserved. I wanted to push the rewind button on the day and start over. I wanted once again to wake up and hear him say, "Wake up, it's Christmas! Today is the day to celebrate Jesus!" I would have done things differently. We wouldn't have rushed anywhere. I'd like to think that we'd have stopped right there in our PJ's while still in bed and had a family hug while we prayed and thanked God for sending His Son. Slowed down and taken the time to tell the story again and marvel at God's plan. Some people may think that children wouldn't appreciate the miracle of what we're celebrating but I disagree. (I will not go into any child-rearing philosophies at this point)

So we're not done "celebrating Jesus" yet in our home. I made a lot of preparations for celebrating the day but was woefully unprepared for celebrating Jesus. It's taken some additional planning and time but we're going to do it right this time. So, "Joy to the World, the Lord has Come!" We'll see you in the new year.

PS. Normally these reflections are reserved for my journal ... but perhaps all of us need to see our celebrations through a child's eyes. Merry Christmas dear friends...have a wonderful, Christ-honoring, new year.

Pictures of the Slagenweit Family

Here are some pictures of my family. For whatever reason I have no pictures of my sister! The entire family picture was taken from my sister-in-law's blog .

Trip to PA

We made a trip to PA for Christmas to visit my family for 6 days (2 of those were travel time). The boys traveled wonderfully (8 1/2 hours) and that made it much easier. Allan enjoyed pappy's fish tank and Daniel loved being able to explore unknown territory. This was my nephew Evan's first Christmas! Philip managed a herculean feat and actually was able to pack every single gift into our car. Both of the boys had things packed under their feet so that their legs stuck straight out in front of them, dirty laundry stuffed the cracks and crevices. I've never seen anything like it! God answered our prayers and we didn't have any flat tires during this trip... I'm not sure if our car with make another trip to PA or not.

My mother managed to stay out of the hospital this Christmas...though not without it's doubting moments. Thursday evening she gave us a scare with a pulse rate of 150 (that was as fast as my sister-in-law could count in a minute) which lasted 45 minutes. All of us were there that evening and so we gathered around her upstairs and asked God to intervene. He did and within minutes it dropped and she didn't have any heart episodes the rest of the time we were there. I'm convinced that if prayer didn't work my mother would have been in heaven a long time ago. But it does and I'm grateful for another Christmas with her.

We arrived home on Christmas eve, unpacked the car (and all of the fancy new toys), ate supper and the boys promptly began squabbling over who's turn it was to play with the old vacuum hose (I received a new one for Christmas). I have unpacked very few of their new toys (except their books) and they don't seem the least bit bothered.

Whirlwind week(s)!

Last Monday - finished purchasing items for Jackie's cake Tuesday - made 6 batches of icing Wednesday - began baking. I baked the 14 inch heart first because that size takes an hour to bake. I ran over to the cafeteria to pick up our lunch leaving instructions with Allan not to touch the cake. He had been begging me all morning and though I was tickled he was asking for food (he's lost 7 lbs since Thanksgiving) he knows he's not allowed to have the wedding cakes. I promised him I'd make cupcakes out of the leftover batter and he could have as many as I wanted. When I returned the first words I heard were, "Mommy I had cake!" And bless his heart he had...1/4 inch was eaten out the entire perimeter of the heart. The conversation went like this, "Allan, what did mommy say right before I left?" "Not to touch the cake." "What did you do?" "I touched the cake." "Allan what did you just do?" "I disobeyed." Sometime I just look at him and think, "Are we not putting two and two together here?! " So we "fixed" both the cake and the disobedience and went on. Thursday - finished baking - was one cake mix short so I had to run to the store. Forgot to put the eggs in one cake so I had to do that batch over again. Psalm 34:1. Finished making the snowflakes. Friday- iced and decorated as much as I could. Saturday - did set up, came home and got everyone ready to go to the wedding, went to the wedding, I had the job of cutting the cake so I was there until the very end...all day affair. I forgot my camera so other people had to help me out. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures yet when the fountain was turned on. Oh, well.



This next week is unreal! Today I babysat, finished Christmas shopping (Philip took care of the boys from 1:45 to 8:00) YEAH!!!
Tuesday - Allan has Dr's appointment and the GBS Faculty/Staff Christmas banquet is tomorrow evening. Wednesday - making a meal for a family who just had a baby last week.
Thursday - Daniel has a research study visit at Children's Hospital and his one year checkup with his pediatrician. Our pastor is having the church board members and their wives for supper.
Friday is our church Young Adult Christmas get together. Somewhere in there the gifts will get wrapped, Christmas cards addressed and yearly letter written, and I'll continue to enjoy seeing Christmas through the eyes of little people.

For advent this year we've been focusing on the three aspects of Christ's coming. 1. Christ is coming again for His children 2. Christ comes in many ways all through our lives 3. Christ came as a baby. Last week we dealt with #1 and did a review on Saturday. We asked Allan if Jesus was going to come again and why he's coming again. Philip then asked him if he was going to go with Jesus when he came back and Allan answered that he was. So Philip asked him, "So how are you going to go to heaven with Jesus?" We were expecting his version of the plan of salvation (which he knows and has explained to us) but instead he said, "First you have to get in a REALLY BIG crane and it lifts you up!" Hope all of you have a blessed week!

Allan at the Concert on the Lawn

Allan has loved music ever since he was an infant. This clip was given to us by one of the GBS students and was taken last May at the annual Concert on the Lawn. He uses my cake dowel rods as his "conducting sticks" and tries his best to imitate Mr. Wolf, the chairman of the music division here at GBS.

Philemon and Allan

On Monday's I watch a little boy whose parents are students here at GBS. I snapped this picture the other day when Philemon was trying to teach Allan how to smile. Somehow it's looks more natural on Philemon than it does Allan.

Some Cakes done recently

I had a bridal shower cake for Jackie Pearce (who's wedding cake I'm doing this coming Saturday) and a baby shower cake for Dorcas Hallam. The baby shower cake was patterned after a cake her grandmother used to make. The key was getting it to look like a cradle without having it rock!

A Strange Kind of Busy

The past two weeks have been a very different kind of busy. Instead of trying to stay on top of cleaning, laundry, dishes, and Christmas preparations I've been preoccupied with a sick child. Allan began running a fever on November 19th which instead of improving became worse staying 102 - 103 even with Tylenol. A day later a cough was added to the list of ailments and then a sore throat. The Friday after Thanksgiving he was diagnosed with a "throat infection" and given an antibiotic. Through the weekend he did not improve and so back to the Dr. on Monday the 26th. His fever then was 103.4 (It's always nice when the child's symptoms stay the same when they're at the Dr's office so the staff knows you're not being an over-reactive mother!) She said everything looked and sounded fine but that we needed to do bloodwork (YEAHHH!!) and a chest x-ray to find out where the fever was coming from. I told Allan that when they "pinched" him we'd start counting to 10 and by the time we got to 10 they'd be done. Unfortunately they also had to do a blood culture and so we counted to 20 and then went back and counted to 10 again but while he was preoccupied counting he wasn't crying.

To make a long story short (since we left home at 10:30 in the morning and didn't arrive back home until 7:30) the chest x-ray showed a collapsed left lung so we were sent to the ER. There it was determined that he didn't have a collapsed lung but rather pneumonia. In my mind I thought, "Pneumonia is a serious sickness, give the child some medicine, they'll sleep for 2 or 3 days and then everything will be okay." Reality is: Pneumonia is a serious sick, they'll sleep for a week and be very lethargic even when awake, the fever will take 6 days to abate, they cough until you think they're going to cough their lungs out (particularly at night), you have to force them to eat and drink, the strong antibiotics cause some very nasty side effects, and you realize the most important thing you can do is spend extra time praying, trusting God, making soup, reading stories, giving backrubs, doing breathing treatments, and giving proper doses of medications. In general your life goes on hold.

Thankfully, Thursday evening his fever began to come down and today there was not fever. Philip slept with him last night and said there were no coughing spells either. He ate his first solid food on Friday and today he actually said he was hungry. I'm so very thankful for the Lord's help and strength these days. I'm also thankful for a husband who trades the night shift with me every other night so that I can get rest. Hopefully by tomorrow he'll be able to sleep alone again. We're now starting to resume some of the normal household routines (at least where Allan is concerned) and hopefully by the end of the week he'll be ready to enter back into the general population. This week I have a wedding cake so I won't be blogging until after that point. Life is good...although Philip said this evening he's not feeling very well.... :o)