Resolutions for 2021

I just read last year’s post on my resolution for 2020. While it’s beautiful and wonderful and I’d love to reiterate that post, this year’s post is going to be a bit different. (However, I am happy to say that I mostly did keep my resolution for this past year, not perfectly but mostly.)

Because I have reached the end of my physical capabilities and my time is maxed out, I can only make resolutions that change things I already do and doesn’t require adding on more. 

I have a list of things I try to do everyday regarding my spiritual/devotional time with God. They aren’t really resolutions so much but more like guidelines or goals. I don’t freak out if I don’t complete them all each day. I just do what I can that day and start over the next day.

That being said. I am making two resolutions. 

First, I’m going to give up eating added sugar at home or at restaurants (not homemade desserts at other’s home that they made for me; that seems rude and unappreciative of their thought and work and kindness). This is a very boring and typical one, but I know it’ll keep spiraling out of control if I don’t reign it in now.

Second, I am going to try to speak truth (about myself, my family, situations). Based on what the Word of God says about it, not on what I see or feel. Because the unchanging Word (Jesus) is reality, NOT what I see. Satan is the master of illusion and appearances, causing the people of God to interpret the Word of God according to their experiences (sight and feeling) instead of taking His Word to mean exactly what it says and not backing off or making excuses or trying to reinterpret it to fit our experience. 

...for actively alive is the word of God, and energetic, and sharper than any two-edged sword, going through even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a sifter and analyzer of the reflections and conceptions of the heart.   ~Hebrews 4:12

Holy-days {Advent & Christmas 2020)

[edited version of the 2017 Advent post]

Simple. Focused. Intentional.

That is our motto for this time of year.

If you want bunches of ideas for celebrating Christmas, you should probably go to Pinterest. We are more about cutting out a lot of the hoopla -- going for special and memorable (yes) but simple. It is Jesus' birthday; so, we focus on Advent ("waiting with hope") and then throwing a birthday party for Jesus. Simple as that. Although, we also like to enjoy the 12 of Christmas (after Christmas Day) and Epiphany on January 6th. This was the fourth year we were home on Christmas Day! Here is what we did this month:

Devotions: We are usually more structured with this, but we traveled a lot and had company and other obstacles preventing routine, so I just set out three devotionals that we have used in years past to choose from. Ricky most often read from Christmas Around the World by Mary Lankford. I, also, gave the big kids storybooks to read during Advent (Ishtar’s Odyssey and Tabitha’s Travels).

Activities: Sometime in the course of each day, we:

• Read a Christmas book. I arranged and stacked all of the Christmas books we own according to our schedule (I usually get some new ones every year). Then, Aolani would get one out each day. The big kids typically would read them out loud. 
• Schooling: We were only able to complete two weeks of half days this month (equivalent of one week of school)!
• Our Advent devotional in the evening with Daddy (depending)
• This year we did an Advent Activities Calendar. I came up with 24 things to do, one for each day leading up to Jesus' birthday. I adjusted the calendar so that the daily activities suited our monthly plans. We missed some days, but ended up working them in and just doubling up on other days. The list of this year's activities are below. Sometimes I told them beforehand.

1. Play hide & seek in a tree lot
2. Decorate puppy tree 
3. Make popcorn garland 
4. Cooking Day 
5. Hot drinks & look at Christmas lights
6. Celebrate St. Nicholas Day by reading his biography and watching the Veggie Tales about him with friends 
7. Invite family over to watch Christmas Veggie Tales movies in jammies 
8. Make and decorate gingerbread cookies 
9. Paint pine cones and make centerpiece
10. Watch Christmas movie marathon
11. Make No-bakes 
12. Farewell party  
13. Make paper snowflakes 
14. Make a birthday treat for Micaiah 
15. Make Grandma’s Mix 
16. Make a pillow bed on living room floor and watch Christmas cartoons 
17. Make glitter globes
18. Listen to Focus on the Family’s radio drama Christmas Carol in the car 
19. Celebrate Micaiah’s birthday party and watch The Nativity Story movie under blankets 
20. Watch The Star movie and drink hot chocolate while playing games 
21. Pick out Jesus’s birthday gifts 
22. Make Puppy Chow and deliver coffee to neighbors 
23. Act out the nativity story with friends and deliver coffee to neighbors 
24. Make a birthday cake for Jesus 
25. Throw Jesus a birthday party!

Decorations: We got a Christmas tree this year (a cute 3-4 ft tree) and decorated it my 28 puppy ornament collection and a homemade paper star. We also have other items (ornaments, stockings, nativity sets...) on display and hanging around. We keep the Christmas music playing. Also, we simply hang the Christmas cards we receive on ribbon with clothespins. This year we decorated our house on the last day of November instead of the first day of December.

Treats: Our treats were almost daily this year -- popcorn and M&Ms, hot chocolate and chai tea, sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, Grandma’s Mix, Puppy Chow, molten lava cake, coffee cake, raspberry mud cake, peppermint bark, all kinds of chocolates and other goodies...

Presents:  This was our sixth year of doing it differently. We want to teach our kids that just as they get presents on their birthday, Jesus gets the gifts on His birthday (see Matthew 25:45) -- just keeping it simple (and imitating St. Nicholas!). After I had collected like a dozen (charitable) gift catalogs over the past month or so, we spread them out, allotted each person an equal amount of money, and let them go! Yet, we do buy a few gifts for ourselves as a family and some friends that are to encourage faith and witness (such as Voice of the Martyrs' prayer calendars) in the upcoming year, which we give after Christmas Day normally (we are thinking about doing it on Epiphany this year). [Yes, our kids get gifts from us throughout the year as does Jesus, but we all know that birthdays are special for the birthday person ;)]

Christmas Day activities and traditions: This has quickly become my favorite day of the year! This year, we ended up cooking our big meal that morning before our guests arrived (breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls and fruit salad). We pray much beforehand about who to invite -- poor, needy, lonely... This year, we got to share our celebration with our Filipino neighbors. After we ate brunch, watched Buck Denver Asks, Why Do We It Christmas? Then, we went outside to talk about gifts from God this past year to give him thanksgiving. Afterwards, we did our annual scavenger hunt. This was so much fun again! This year we had seven clues, and the theme was Newness  — new house, new town, new yard/trampoline, new baby, new job, new man (we are new creatures in Christ!) Then, we ate cake (Aolani had made a raspberry mud cake for Jesus’s birthday cake the night before), sang Happy Birthday, and shared with each other what we had individually selected for gifts to give Jesus (Aolani got to choose for baby Morgan). Our neighbors had to leave afterwards. We had leftover lasagna for dinner and played board games until the wee morning hours. It was a great fifth Christmas-at-home doing what we wanted and look forward to next year!

Hope you had CHRISTmas joy in your celebrations and preparation for the coming of the King!

(The week after Christmas Day, we continue to celebrate by watching LOTR and The Hobbit extended editions together as a family, looking at baby pictures, eating goodies, doing a jigsaw puzzle, and listening to Christmas music.)

Merry CHRISTmas!

2020

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”
John 1:4

Praying for you to have a deeper understanding of his full, overflowing, abundant life in you, even now!

Ricky, Aidan, Aolani (almost 11), Micaiah (9), Raphael (3), & Morgan (6 mo.)

October 2020

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• Activities during the month of October: Friends came over to help Ricky paint our front door and shutters a bright blue I selected (we feel like real homeowners now!) and we celebrated with a cookout); had family friends over for dinner; the E family (minus two) visit one weekend (yes, we fit 13 in our 3-bedroom house;) ) complete with games and visits to the neighbors; Teresa comes visit from Florida for a few nights (never long enough!); Ricky and I (and baby Morgan) drive to Dallas to attend a JGLM conference on healing and leave the three older kids with my parents (where they have a blast and take a mini vacation to Myrtle Beach); we celebrate Raphael’s third birthday at Dayspring; we have JAARS friends (fellow missionaries we trained with during Equip at Wycliffe’s headquarters in Orlando) over for a reunion party; and, a dear friend from the NC coast comes and visits for a day.
• At the very end of the month, I began to nurse only in the morning and supplement with formula r. It had become too stressful trying to have to keep finding donor milk to supplement since Morgan’s appetite increased in September and my supply didn’t. Plus, he was five months now. 
• I feel so bad not recording all the funny memories, but I’m reaching the end of my capabilities of managing it all with the time I have :(

• School verses: Aolani and Micaiah -- Psalm 8:7-9, Micah 6:8
• Verses I memorized: John 1:19-22