Category — Fun Life

A new holiday tradition for our family this year was an advent tree—a small prelighted, artificial tree to which we added an ornament every evening of the advent season. The idea was inspired by an event hosted the Monday after Thanksgiving by a friend and fellow homeschooling mom, Tamara Dirks. (Click here to see her blog.) She invited friends, friends of friends and even strangers to come hear storyteller Darlene Danninger talk about the idea that inspired her book, Let’s Make a Jesus and Me Tree. (Darlene, also the author of numerous other self-published books, proved to be an energetic, entertaining and engaging speaker. She’s been called “a one-of-a-kind encourager” and serves as a chaplain at one of the municipal police departments in our area. Click here to visit her Web site.)

Darlene explained the significance of various aspects of such a tree in teaching the message of Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection—and of His desire, expressed throughout the Bible, for a relationship with every human being:
• The tree itself should be an evergreen, she said, to demonstrate that God’s love is not seasonal, but unconditional and everlasting.
• The tree’s triangular shape (narrow at the top and wide at the bottom) represents the Trinity—God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit.
• All of the ornaments are tied onto the tree with red ribbon to symbolize the redeeming blood shed by Jesus on the cross.
Beyond those three symbols, which Darlene described as “essential,” the possibilities for ornaments are limitless. Her book lists 100 ideas—from angels to watches—and includes Bible verses that can be attached to each one to explain its significance. At the end of the evening, Tamara sent each guest home with a complimentary book and a complete set of 25 ornaments to start their own tree.

My kids enjoyed taking turns each evening before bed selecting an ornament to put on our tree. Following are their favorites, along with the Bible verses that accompanied each one:
• Kellen—lamb: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” —John 1:29
• Kerrick—calendar: “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ ”—Jeremiah 29:11
• Kennah—heart: “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”—1 Samuel 16:7
• Keillor—styrofoam snowball: “ ‘Come now and let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be as wool.’ ”—Isaiah 1:18

I waited until our tree was complete to share it here and show its full effect. Next year, we hope to make a few more ornaments to add to our initial collection. Thank you, Tamara and Darlene, for the inspiration!

By now—if your house is anything like mine—the stockings have been unstuffed, the presents have been opened and everyone is enjoying the day we’ve been anticipating all month. It’s been fun counting down to this time with a “carol a day” from my collection of Christmas CDs. I hope you’ve found a new favorite or two among the songs you heard here. As I ponder the countdown possibilities for next year—I’m thinking ornaments!—I thought I’d share a carol that captures a sense of winding down before the new year comes and we start all over. Here’s Amy Grant, with Til the Season Comes ’Round Again from her CD A Christmas to Remember:

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Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the CD cover above, you will link to Amazon.com, where you will have an opportunity to purchase the CD—and if you do buy it after clicking through from my site, I will receive a small commission to support my work here. No pressure—just a fun way to share resources and ideas!

2009 was a pretty typical year in the Hemmings household—which means that it included some incredibly fantastic times (such as our first-ever family trip to Disneyland!) and a few challenges, too (like trying to carve a somewhat orderly life out of the chaotic “remodel-recovery mode” in which we continue to operate). We survived—and thrived, as revealed in the “firsts” and “favorites” of each of us listed below:

KELLEN, 9

Firsts: piano lessons and recital, pet guinea pig (Root Beer), swim team (Kiwanis Piranhas), weekend campout (with his Webelos pack), magazine article assignment (for Living Without, about having food allergies).
Favorites: Pirates of the Caribbean (Disneyland ride), backstroke, French Children Sing (piano piece), “Oh, snap!” (catchphrase).

KERRICK, 7

Firsts: Ebay purchase (a Webkinz lava dragon), pet guinea pig (Prairie), swim team (Kiwanis Piranhas), overnight campout (with Kellen and Dad), top tooth lost (knocked out on accident by his friend with a bungee cord).
Favorites: Tower of Terror (Disneyland ride), freestyle stroke, Scout-o-Rama event, trading Pokemon cards, rock-climbing/rappeling (at an indoor gym).

KENNAH, 4

Firsts: bicycle (with pink training wheels), Webkinz (a pink pony), manicure/pedicure (with pink polish, of course), Broadway-scale musical (Little House on the Prairie).
Favorites: Cinderella (whom she met along with ALL the princesses at Disneyland), Pinkalicious and Purplicious (books), girl time (with mom, friends or cousins), babies (real and toy), shoes (all kinds).

KEILLOR, 2

Firsts: tricycle (he can steer, but not quite pedal), true trick-or-treating experience (he wore his “punkin’ suity”), haircut (NOT! He’s never had one, as mom can’t bear to do it yet!).
Favorites: It’s a Small World (Disneyland ride), “Super high!” (way to be pushed on a swing), “Beary, Doggy, Froggy” (stuffed animals), cars (real and toy), balls (all kinds).

SONYA

First: www.hemmings.com (blog!).
Favorite: Splash Mountain (Disneyland ride).

SHAWN

First: Cub Scout den leader.
Favorite: Thunder Mountain (Disneyland ride).

Wishing you all many firsts and favorites in 2010!

It’s Christmas Eve! Tonight’s the night! In light of that, I’m sharing Welcome to Our World, performed by Michael W. Smith on his CD Christmastime.

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Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the CD cover above, you will link to Amazon.com, where you will have an opportunity to purchase the CD—and if you do buy it after clicking through from my site, I will receive a small commission to support my work here. No pressure—just a fun way to share resources and ideas!

It’s back to tradition today, with Vince Gill’s rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful, from his Breath of Heaven CD:

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Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the CD cover above, you will link to Amazon.com, where you will have an opportunity to purchase the CD—and if you do buy it after clicking through from my site, I will receive a small commission to support my work here. No pressure—just a fun way to share resources and ideas!

As we head into the final stretch of the countdown, I find myself returning to the three CDs in my collection that I love the most: Amy Grant’s A Christmas to Remember, Vince Gill’s Breath of Heaven and Michael W. Smith’s Christmastime. Today’s selection is from the Amy Grant CD, but it doesn’t feature her vocals at all. It’s an instrumental piece titled Gabriel’s Oboe—performed, as nearly as I can tell, by musicians in the Nashville Studio Orchestra, who accompany many of the songs on this CD. The music does, indeed, sound angelic and brings to mind the accounts of angelic encounters surrounding the birth of Christ—first by Mary, as she’s told by Gabriel that she has been chosen to carry Jesus, then by Joseph in a dream, and finally by the Bethlehem shepherds who are called to the manger after the baby is born. I hope you enjoy its sweet strains as much as I do!

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Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the CD cover above, you will link to Amazon.com, where you will have an opportunity to purchase the CD—and if you do buy it after clicking through from my site, I will receive a small commission to support my work here. No pressure—just a fun way to share resources and ideas!

Shawn, as we listened yesterday to this song—There’s a New Kid in Town, performed by Kathy Mattea: “I really like this one.”
Me, in reply: “Is that a request for the carol countdown?” (I took his smile and shrug as a “Yes.”)

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As I listen to today’s countdown selection—Tchaikovsky’s March of the Toys from Babes in Toyland—I find myself wishing that the holiday gifts hidden in various locations around our house would somehow magically march themselves into some wrapping paper and underneath the Christmas tree!

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Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the CD cover above, you will link to Amazon.com, where you will have an opportunity to purchase the CD—and if you do buy it after clicking through from my site, I will receive a small commission to support my work here. No pressure—just a fun way to share resources and ideas!

I had promised Kennah on her fourth birthday (Nov. 12) that we would plan a Girl Day, when she and I would spend the day together doing things that are fun for us but that don’t even remotely interest her dad or her brothers. We had a hard time pinning down an actual day to do it, but she never forgot about it. “When are we going to have Girl Day?” she’d ask. To which I’d answered, “Soon, I promise,” so many times that I think she could hardly believe it yesterday when I announced that today would be the day. “Do you mean after this day, when we wake up, it’ll be Girl Day?” she queried, scarcely daring to hope that the time was so near at hand. “Yep, that’s right,” I found myself repeatedly reassuring her.

Clearly, Kennah craves time alone with me—a fact that I’m reminded of nearly every night as she waits up for me to finish reading to her older brothers and taking care of numerous pre-bedtime tasks. “Are you finished with all of your chores yet?” she’ll ask between yawns, having set up her Disney Princess Old Maid card game or her Strawberry Shortcake Strawberryland board game for us to play after all of the boys are in bed. And when she does, I can hardly bear to tell her that the chores are never finished. So I don’t. Instead, I play a game with her and help her afterward to fall asleep—hoping that I can stay awake to tackle a few more chores before I, too, must close my eyes. I know these times are precious, and I hope they’ll always be as important to her as they are right now. A friend of mine with four daughters—all much older than Kennah, including two on the brink of the teen years—assures me that they will. Each of her girls “will take as much as I can give them,” she says.

And so today I think we’ve begun a tradition of sorts—one that I hope to repeat at least semi-annually, although I reserve the right to call a Girl Day whenever the budget will allow it and we’re in need of one. Following are a few photos from the first Girl Day, during which we each got our hair cut and styled (by our friend and fabulous stylist Renee Bau), enjoyed pedicures (a first for us both!) and had lunch at a tearoom (the Urban Tea Loft).

Newly trimmed tresses.

Premiere pedicure.

Pretty in pink.

Tip-top toes.

Icing on the cake.

Of all the music I’ve included in the countdown so far—and that I plan to include in the next week—this is my favorite. And not so much because of the music itself, but because the performer is my 9-year-old son, Kellen, who absolutely nailed his first-ever piano recital last night! To hear it, you’ll have to endure my rather low-tech recording of the event on iTalk using my iPod Touch, which I simply placed on the stage as he was ready to walk out. (You’ll hear a lot of random shuffling noises and some silence before his teacher, Eunice Elie, introduces him. Also, Kellen’s squirmy 2-year-old brother, Keillor, adds a few vocalizations of his own here and there. And then there are some muffled coughs from someone in the audience, as well as a few distracting camera clicks from—ahem—someone else in the audience.)

The actual Christmas carol, Joy to the World, comes at the end of Kellen’s performance. (His first piece is a medley of children’s songs: London Bridge, Mary Had a Little Lamb and French Children Sing.) The carol is a special finishing touch because he almost didn’t get to play it for the recital. Two weeks ago at his piano lesson, he was struggling with the song, and his teacher decided he wasn’t quite ready to perform it. But instead of just letting it go, Kellen worked really hard to master the piece, and his teacher decided two days ago that he’d gotten it up to par. Whew!

Without further ado, here is Kellen in concert:

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