Life...crazy life

What a weekend!! Debby is in the hospital having multiple tests run, Joshua has fluid in his lungs, and I have a bronchitis like cough. Fun times I tell you, fun times! Not been much to share lately. Just life, which I am certain could not be too terribly interesting for others to read. Though there are some things that a 2 year-old does that are worth mentioning. This afternoon, for example, as we were walking in the hospital parking lot to go see his Meme.

Joshua had an apple clutched in one hand, while his other hand was plastered to his ear. He was pretending to talk on the cell phone. I could not understand the majority of his conversation; however, the salutation was quite clear. I told him I needed him to get off the phone and hold my hand as we walked through the parking lot. Did I mention that one of his new found joys in life is talking on the cell phone? Any way, he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and let out a little sigh as he almost rolled his eyes away from me. Without hesitation I heard him say in the phone, "Gotta dough. Talk later. Bye." He then took his little hand away from his precious ear, and graped my finger. Obviously I had interrupted his plans, but how nice of my darling son to be willing to end his all important imaginary conversation and allow his mom to prevent him from running into traffic:).

Joshua's new phone interest spiked about 3 weeks ago when we were sitting in the "big chair" one night. Out of the blue he leaned over and asked to call Adin. Adin is I guess what you would call his best friend, and the only child his age that Joshua has spent time with on a regular basis. I pretended to call, and he had a fit until I finally dialed the number and asked if Adin could talk. They shared about a 5 minute conversation of only God knows what (I couldn't interpret the gibberish at that speed) before saying bye and getting off the phone. I thought it was hillarious. His daddy thought it was less hillarious when I called him a drama diva:)!!

Anyway...I need to help get Joshua to bed and get ready for work tomorrow. I was just feeling that guilt that mommies and women every where sense when we feel we haven't done our "jobs". I just felt the need to write something, even if it was nothing:)!

The Holidays

I know I haven't updated in a while, but things have just been crazy. I trust that everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope that you all had an opportunity to spend time with family and close friends and remember the real reason that we gather and celebrate the Christmas season!! On that note, Lee and I have started a new tradition in our family.

After seeing how commercialized Christmas has become, particularly with children who believe in and worship Santa Claus more so than they do Jesus Christ, Lee and I decided we wanted it to be different for our children. We started by scaling back on JLee's ghifts this Christmas. We even went so far as to ask our parents and relatives not to go over board with their purchases. We told him the nativity story daily, but were really just searching for a way to help him understand in his two year old brain why we celebrate...why we give gifts, why we get together with family, why everything. It occured to me that Joshua gets the whole birthay thing. He knows that at a birthday we celebrate one person, have cake, and give presents. So, we had birthday party for Jesus. Each time Joshua was given presents we made sure to talk to him about why he was getting the presents...that it was Jesus's birthday and we give each other presents to celebrate that day. I don't know if he got it completely. I'm sure he didn't understand all that I hoped he would. But it's a start at least. We even baked a cake for Jesus and sung happy birthday to Jesus. I think we'll do it again next year as well!!

On another note...seeing so much of our family this holiday season helped Lee and I to reflect on how blessed we are and what things we would like to chang during 2009. We have family nearby that we can count on. Family that we are very close to and love dearly. In that respect we are so blessed. But, we also have family that, for what ever reason, we are not quite as close with. We're both a bit sad about it, but have decided to do what we can over the next 12 months to see if it's something we can change. We're going to try to do more on our parts to initiate and maintain interactions, whereas in the past we just let it go. We'll see what happens, and we'll keep ya'll posted;)!

What follows is a picture tour of our favorite Christmas moments. Sorry, there are no pictures of Jesus's birthday party:(. We were all so involved in pulling it all together, that we completely forgot the pictures!!!