December 31 And so it goes ...

New Year's Eve 2023:  Dylan and Kelly invited me to the New Year's Eve party over at their church this year. They haven't had one of these last-day-of-the-year parties for several years (due to COVID); so this was a big event. The plan was that I would come, have dinner, and assist with the kiddos until they were ready to go home for the night--(the kids, not the parents) at which time, I would return them to their house, get them tucked into their own beds, thus freeing up Dylan and Kelly to stay later at the party. It was a good plan and worked out very well.

As I was getting ready to leave here and drive over to the church (at 6:15) I searched my purse for my driving glasses only to find that they were NOT there. My sunglass visors were right where THEY were supposed to be, but no glasses were attached. I drove to church this morning with Ruthanne and Terry (Terry was the driver) and I just grabbed my glasses to wear during church so that I could read the screen at a distance. NOW, however, my glasses were NOWHERE and it was time to DRIVE! I searched everywhere inside this house, practically tore my purse apart, looked under and over things here to no avail. I called Terry and asked him to look in the back seat of their car to see if they had fallen from my purse--but they were not there either. I phoned over to church to see if there was any event over there so that I could sneak in and go to the Lost 'n Found--but there was NO event tonight and the church was locked up tight. I called over to Buddy's Pizza where we had eaten lunch after church to see if perhaps they had fallen out of my purse while we were there--but NO glasses were found at Buddy's. 

I don't enjoy driving at night WITH my glasses; much less WITHOUT. But that is what I had to do. Thankfully, the last time I had my driver's license renewed, the girl at the counter encouraged me to squint through the eye exam and I was able to pass it without wearing my glasses; so on my driver's license, glasses are not mentioned. That doesn't mean that I do not NEED them. Anyway, I made it over to Holy Trinity in one piece and found Dylan and Kelly and the kiddos.

This is the "hall" at Holy Trinity where most of their social events occur. It was all decorated and set to go for the dinner and party. Cal was very enthused to be here. He's a little ring-leader type of person. He's got IDEAS! He encourages others with his ideas and stuff happens!

Here is our sparkly and beautiful little Erin. There were snacks to eat before dinner--crackers, cheese, olives, cashews, and other yummy things; so the kids filled up a couple of plates each and ate really well. All of them (including me) rejected the salad. I was sitting next to Brendan for awhile before the dinner was served and we were playing with our salads, trying to figure out WHERE the leaves came from--which plants, etc. We ate all of our cucumbers, because they were easily identifiable--but we were quite uncertain about the other greens. I did eat a bunch of mine because I felt it was a good opportunity to try something "new" and some of them were quite tasty. !! 

The little kids let loose on the dance floor. Cal and Erin were especially happy dancers.

It was after 9:00, though, when the real dancing began. Can you see how exhausted little Cal is? Kelly told me he hadn't slept very well last night ... look at him! He's still going strong.

There was a "quiet" room for kiddos who were tired where they could watch "Zootopia". Now and then, all four of the kids were relaxing and watching the movie. I joined them for awhile too.

Look at little Erin kicking up her heels and dancing ... she's a party animal! No . . . She's an O'BRIEN!

Meanwhile, once Aidan took a look at the lights and the folk who were dancing requested: "Grandma, will come and sit with me and watch the movie?" He asked so politely. I looked at his little face and could not refuse. Look how tired he is.

Cal wore himself out dancing and came back to the movie room. He looked whipped.

It was about 10:20 when we loaded the kids up in my car (minus Brendan, who elected to stay). I told the kiddos that I had lost my glasses and asked for their help navigating our way back to their house. Aidan didn't really want to leave the party, but he truly was visibly exhausted and his folks made a good decision to have him come home from the party. Once we were at their house, they all walked inside of their own accord and within about 30 minutes everyone was tucked in their beds and quietly sleeping. I was super thankful it went so smoothly.

Dylan, Kelly, and Brendan were home a little after 12:30. The whole evening worked out well, at least from my standpoint. I drove back to my little house and was inside and warm by 1:15.

2023 was quite a year. I don't do politics on this blog (for good reason)--but I have begun to wonder what kind of a country we will be living in this time next year. So many changes happened this year, many of which were frightening and terribly sad.

I am not going to go into a long "thing" about my goals or dreams or wishes for 2024 except to say that I hope with all my heart that this is the year the Lord Jesus returns. Help me keep that hope in my heart all year, Lord. Help me to know You better and follow You more closely this year than ever before. Help me be ready for Your coming, please.

December 30 This year's Christmas Card

Saturday:  I worked throughout October this year designing a Christmas card for 2023. I was happy to be "early" this year on getting it printed, and for the most part I was happy with how it turned out ... 

Card Front:

Inside Top:

Inside Bottom:

Back of Card:

Verses three and four have always been my favorite verses of this Christmas Carol. There is so much said in them! I ran across this quote by Corrie TenBoom ... kind of out of nowhere about a year ago and immediately felt it would be appropriate to use with this beautiful carol. Isn't it amazing that Christ can come and live in our hearts?

These photos were taken WAY back ... probably in about 2009 ... a little private drive around the block from where I used to live when I was married. I stumbled on it quite by accident and so badly wanted to walk this drive until it reached its destination--but there were "No Trespassing" signs everywhere ... which would not have stopped me except for those very loud barking dogs in the distance. Sigh. 

December 30 with KT

Saturday:  It was a bit of an unusual Saturday for KT and I. Her mom was out of town, so KT spent half of her day with her friends, Kenzie and Harper--and that's where I picked her up at 3:30. We went to my house to hang out for a little while, all the time with KT hoping to see Ayden later in the day over at Altitude--however, nothing had been definitely arranged on that account.

While we were hanging out here, Kaity and I did a little bit of art ... using my brand new ink pads that perfectly fit thumbs and fingers!

I should have snapped a picture of Kaity working on her sketches. I have TWENTY-FOUR tiny ink pads that we had spread out all over our art table trying to decide which colors to use. None of our sketches were supposed to compose an actual picture--we were just trying out various examples in our Ed Emberley Thumbprint book. I love doing art with kids!

Afterwards, we ate our meal and then headed out to Altitude. Kaity was still hoping to find Ayden there and was so obsessed with it that she finally messaged his grandma asking if she thought he would be there tonight. She responded right away and told Kaity that Ayden was with his cousins through Sunday night--so, no--he would not be at Altitude. SO ... Kaity switched gears, started running around with a few other kids and ended up having a nice time. 

I love this child. I love her honesty and her ability to connect with--not only me, her old grandma--but all different kinds of children and people. I'm asking the Lord to surround her with people that truly love Him so that she can be encouraged to exercise saving FAITH in this dark world we live in. Please, Lord, open Kaity's heart to You so that she will worship You in spirit and truth.

December 29 Odds and Ends

Friday:  I took a bunch of pictures of "Christmas" stuff around the house ... in no particular order, here they are:

A few years ago I started making Origami ornament frames and inserting pictures of the grandchildren. The ones I put above my front window are from a few years ago ...

The ones on my side door are even older pictures of the kids ...

Below are the ones I made for the tree this year. I love these pictures of the kids.

Brendan at about age 2

Brendan, perhaps age 4?

Chris ... a few years ago!

Matt, quite awhile ago

Kaity and Belle ... last year?

Emma from her middle school years

Baby Aidan

Tiny baby Aidan

One of my favorites of
Kaity, 18 months

Below is the Kincaid Christmas tree my mom had in her house for so many years. She gave it to me several years before she died. It has 4 train levels--the top tiny train doesn't move at all; but the other three trains do move around their particular circle. Little village lights work, as well as the Christmas carols that play as the trains circumvent the tree. It's very nice, battery operated, and I get it out each year for the entire season.

This is a book I purchased at Baker's on the sale table prior to Christmas, "The Birth of Jesus". Each page is a 3D illustration. They did a super job with telling the Christmas story and illustrating it this way.

This is the beautiful Christmas ornament gifted to me by dear Erin. She was sad that I had no "holy" things at my house, and so she wrapped this up for me. We nearly threw it away before I had ever opened it! Christmas morning we cleaned up (threw away) all of the wrapping paper that was laying on the floor around the Christmas tree, not knowing that Erin's gift to me was in a little envelope she had decorated. Thankfully, she remembered about her gift before the trash was taken out AND I was also thankful it didn't take too long to locate it in the first bag of trash we checked. I love this little ornament given to me by dear Erin and will cherish it all my life. I have a lot of things in my little house that I consider "holy" but not in the same way Dylan's family does--but this blog is not to argue theology! 

This is my Advent wreath that I wasn't quite as faithful about this Advent. It was more special when I could share it with Emma and read the appropriate Scriptures out loud and light our candle each week. I love remembering those evenings with her very much. But I do love this "tradition" and will try to do better with it next year--even if I have to do it alone.

This is the Christmas nativity my mom bought for me when Diana was selling candles and other items a very long time ago--probably TWENTY. I think it's very pretty.

This is my Nativity Calendar. It looks almost exactly like the one I bought the year before Emma was born; but that one was getting a little bit frayed around the edges, and we lost one of the little velcro figures. I saw this one a few weeks ago at Baker Book House and snatched it up right away!

Oh! And look at all the beautiful cards that came to my address!

I LOVE Christmas cards so much. Within many of these cards were newsy letters from close friends. I keep all of the letters but not every single card--I would love to, but my storage space around here is limited.

There is a lot of difficult stuff for people this time of year--family heartaches, loss of family, world-wide crises, etc. but I love this time of year. CHRIST became human (forever) with the purpose of identifying with human beings, living perfectly as Son of Man and Son of God, and then laying His life down in the most humiliating of ways, going to Hell, and raising to new life so that I could be adopted into a family where I actually BELONG--and even though I am a twice-divorced, inadequate mother--to my heavenly Father, I am His dearly loved child, with all of my faults, failures, and sins right out in front of His face. Forgiven. Made clean. Given a new start. Faultless because of HIS righteousness. He has gone ahead to make a place for all who believe! That's what Christmas is all about and I am so thankful for HIM.

December 28 with KT & Ayden

Thursday:  Kaity sent me a text last night telling me that she had spoken with Ayden and that it was very possible we would be able to rendezvous with him over at Altitude this evening! YES! YES! 

I arrived at 4:00 over at Jesse's to pick Kaity up. He let me know ahead of time that Kaity was with Kenzie and Harper roller skating--so she might not be home exactly at 4:00. I was fine with that because ... well, then I would get to chat with Jesse for awhile, and that's always a good thing.

Kaity arrived before 5:00 and we took off right away to my house so that I could feed her and then get over to Altitude in time to meet up with Ayden. Everything worked out! It was SO GOOD to see our friend again! Ayden is just one of those hard-to-explain, rather unusual kids in that he is just SO easy to be with, easy to like, completely entertaining, very nice, super friendly people. We have missed him very much--but we listened to his grandma's advice to let Ayden take the initiative of when he was ready to socialize (in lieu of his mother's sudden death five weeks ago). 

These two had so much fun jumping, wrestling, chasing, hiding ... playing!

Ayden is very dramatic. We've told him he needs to go into acting. He is the funniest kid, and can just comes up with cool stuff to do and say. Here he is pretending that his arm is broken and he can't get back on his feet ...

And then here he is pretending to be a robot (I think) ...

This child. Oh, Lord--please keep Ayden safe from this rough and difficult world. Shower Your mercy on his life with a keen awareness of WHO You are and what You have done for all of us. Help him come to you in faith believing in You alone for His salvation and purpose for living.

And my Kaity-Girl too, Lord. I love her so.

At 7:30, our "hour" was up and it was announced that those kids with speckled bands on should exit the trampoline area. Both Ayden and Kaity wanted to play longer (it was only 25 minutes until closing time); so I told them we should ask the management if that would be okay. I went over to the front desk and asked the manager. She was so nice! She said that Kaity and Ayden could play until closing. Super nice people run Altitude; but I am glad we asked because otherwise it would be dishonest to just remove the bands and continue playing like nothing was amiss. I know that God sees us wherever we are and that He expects us to do the right thing, no matter how badly we want to do otherwise.

So thankful that we were able to see and be with Ayden this evening. 

December 27 At My House

Wednesday:  Dylan brought the children to me today at 11:15; they are on their "Christmas break" from school. I got the house all ready for their time here--dolls for Erin, cars for Cal, drawing material for Aidan, and books for Brendan. I always put the stuff far away that I don't want little kids messing with--it's enough to just keep them from emptying every cubby in my house--and I don't want to be hyper about what they play with. FYI I have NINETY cubbies containing everything from books to games to toys, art supplies, etc. You should see this place when all four of them have played here for four hours--it looks like a disaster struck. But do you know what? It only takes about an hour to put everything away in its "proper" place once again! I would rather have a messy house for a few hours than to have ZERO children come and visit me. I tend to be rather obsessed with ORDER vs CHAOS and find that I don't do well at all with prolonged DISorder. This is a rather pathetic admission, but it is the truth about me--I just like to organize my little place so that I know where things are and can readily find them. There are worse faults to have, honest!

Brendan brought over his Anime drawing book and he worked on sketches throughout the afternoon. He's very good at this!

I finally gave permission to the little kids to play on the upper bunk--I'm always concerned one of them will get pushed off or some other mishap may occur--but they were very happy to go up and down and were very well behaved about it. Cal knows that he is not allowed "up" until he is FIVE. I know this is very random-sounding--but this little guy has soft bones and we can't risk him breaking one ...

I could--but I won't--eat this child right up.

The little lantern is a nice toy to play with in this dear little spare bedroom.

They just love to play here! Erin gets the dolls all tucked in and Cal enjoys being draped with one of the dinosaur blankets and they are so sweet ...

I coaxed the kids into building for awhile with my magnet toys. I have such nice toys--I am very thankful for them! Something about not being allowed to have many toys as a kid rubbed off on me and made me a toy enthusiast.

I pointed my camera in Cal's direction and was just about to suggest that he growl for his picture when he opened his darling little mouth and very fiercely growled at me. Way to go, Cal! 

Here is Cal with our little doll mirror ... not sure if he can SEE himself holding it right against his face--but whatever!

Dear Aidan. Dear, dear Aidan. You are difficult to put into words ... but you are greatly loved by your grandma and your mom and dad. Lots of wisdom requested for you.

Cal got a "bang" out of my dinosaur match game/puzzle deck. He truly loves dinosaurs.

Erin enjoyed our little dolls and changed their outfits throughout the day.

Our almost five hours went by without any catastrophe's or meltdowns or ... grandma having a nervous breakdown ... the Lord is strong when I am weak. He is very good to all of us, and I am thankful.