An Oh-So-Pleasant Christmas:).

The quietness of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was almost overwhelming... almost. To have a whole Friday evening with Nat is almost unthinkable... almost. Saturdays are usually a work day for me, so it almost never happens that I see my husband on the one day he's off... almost never. To say this past weekend was a treat for us is an understatement!

Sleeping in, reading the Christmas story, quietly talking while the candles flickered and the tree lights cheerfully lit up a corner, lots of hot chocolate with biscotti (thanks to a cute Sunday School student!), cutting up tons of fruit for a brunch at church, and then going to the craziness at my mom's house sums it all up!

We both love family time, so after a call down to Texas to say hello to Nat's family, we geared up for a family Christmas with my side! I have never seen so much food in my entire life for a smallish group of 13. I should clarify that I've seen lots of food (case in point was at Nat's grandma's house for Thanksgiving), but there was tons of food at mom's for just a few siblings gathered together:).

I told Nat I haven't had to cook in a week because of my crazy work schedule last week, dinner (and leftovers!) at mom's, the Christmas brunch at church Sunday morning, and now going to camp this week.

Yep, it's winter camp for us! My sensible husband has already packed his stuff up and is now getting a few things at the store for me. I decided to spend my morning cleaning the house since we're having a New Year's Day party with some friends. We don't get home from camp until Thursday night and I work Friday, so that doesn't leave much time to clean and get ready for the party:). Plus we have a New Year's Eve fellowship at church.

Just another loaded week for us ~ like usual!

By the way, I couldn't do a post without a picture.... isn't her grin contagious?!?

Checking Out.

I got my work schedule for this week and it's insane:), so I'll see you Christmas Eve??? Christmas Day???

Merry Christmas!

'Tis The Season...

..... for cookies.

Oh yes, working at a bakery means tons of cookies (and pies, and cakes, and brownies.... I'll stop there)! I don't make the cookies at the bakery, but I do box them and I must say that cookies aren't high on my list:). When people come into the bakery and look at all the food and goodies, they usually say something like, "oh, it must be so HARD to work here! I would eat everything all the time!"

Well no, not really. You know, that phrase "familiarity breeds contempt" is very true. I'm not too tempted (usually) to sample every single item at the bakery. That's a good thing!

I know bunches of people get into the holiday spirit by baking cookies.... I won't be joining them though. Too many cookies!

Christmas-y Things:).

For the first time in a long time, my church is not doing a manger program (outdoors or indoors), a drama, or a cantata. Instead we're doing a Christmas concert this year!

I'm extremely excited yet slightly nervous for my husband as he is doing the dramatic reading but I know he'll do a great job! The kiddos of my church are going to sing as well as the big people and then the hand bells are going to be played by the teenagers. Overall it's going to be a great night!

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Nat and I saw a cute little 3 ft. tree at Home Depot and chose to go the "artificial tree" route for our first Christmas together:).

A few ornaments have since been added, such as our first first Christmas ornament. A sweet family at church had our names and 2010 engraved on a Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus ornament and now it is hanging on our cute little tree:).

When I was younger, my family and I would always sit in the living room with all the lights off except for the Christmas tree lights and enjoy them. I've added candles to that little tradition and now one of my favorite things to do is to curl up on the couch with the tree lights on, candles lit, and quietly chat with my husband!

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I feel like I need a third picture to complete this post... yikes, OCD is kicking in!

Nat and I are going out to Sight and Sound to see "The Miracle of Christmas" and I am quite excited about this for several reasons: (1) I get to spend time with my husband! (2) Nat's grandma just saw it Tuesday and said it was terrific (3) S & S always does a good job (4) I haven't seen this one yet. :)

As bonus, we're going to Yoder's Restaurant for lunch since my parents talk about it constantly:). It's going to be a great day!

Toothpaste Tubes.

My pastor was preaching on contention tonight and made me chuckle (to my self, of course) at one point. I have unknowingly spared my marriage from one of the classic marital disputes: the dreaded toothpaste tube. Squeeze in the middle or bottom? (Or top I suppose). How did Nat and I manage to skate past this potential land mine that would threaten wedded bliss?

It's quite simple. Really!

When Nat and I first got married, we packed for our honeymoon separately (insert a big "obviously" here!). That meant our toiletries were separate... right down to that little tube of Colgate (or Crest... we're not picky). When we returned to our apartment, we continued the trend we started on the honeymoon: using our own toiletries. Including that little tube of Colgate (or Crest... like I said, we're not picky!).

Never once have we had a dispute over the tube being squeezed in the wrong place because we each have our own. I don't care how he squeezes his toothpaste tube and he doesn't care how I squeeze mine. Rocket science is taking place here at our little apartment:). And thanks to Pastor's message, we're reminded about a little piece of contention that we are missing out on... gladly!

The Party That Wasn't.

A couple of weeks ago, Nat told me he would be going away for a planning retreat with some staff members on Thursday into Friday. Immediately I began to think about my husband being gone for 24ish hours. Now I realize this happens to lots of people all the time, but you must forgive me for being wistful over my husband leaving - we've only been married 5 months. :)

I had been tossing around the idea of having some girls over and realized this would be the perfect time: girls over while hubby's gone without me having to kick hubby out. Sounded good to me! I knew that Thursday night is a strange time to have a girls' night, but I was working with what I had. Of course several girls had to work or couldn't make it, so I was planning for 8 girls and even chatted with several of the girls on Wednesday night.

Now the one thing I hadn't planned on was being sick... all week long. In the back of my mind, I was just going to get better and never actually thought of the alternative. Thursday morning rolled around and I felt like getting up took a huge amount of work. When Nat came home for lunch, I asked him what I should do. Being the great guy that he is, he knew I wanted to have these girls over so he was trying to make it work for me.... but reality settled in and I knew I couldn't do it and so did he.

I sent texts and facebook messages to my friends cancelling the party, slept some, bid a good-bye to my husband (yes there were a few tears), slept some more, read some.... ding dong.

My friend stood on the other side of the door with a cheerful rendition of "we wish you a merry Christmas!" while I felt bad because she didn't get my message. She understood though and we parted ways.

I went back to my place on the couch and within ten minutes.... ding dong. Oh no! That made two friends who didn't get the message about the cancelled party. This friend actually came up and visited for 15 minutes. I had to laugh when she said she didn't get my text. Here I actually sent a text to her mom's home phone number... whoops! She also called a third friend to let her know about the party. By this time I'm realizing the unreliability of facebook messaging. :)

In a way, it worked out not having the party Thursday night. I crashed on the couch trying to feel better and thinking about the irony of not wanting to be alone the first time my husband goes away and yet finding myself in that very position anyway. :) God has a sense of humor!

My husband comes home today (yay!) and the party will be had .... another day!

Thanksgiving At Our House.

Nat and I hosted my family for Thanksgiving on Wednesday with an Italian menu. Wow, talk about being anti-tradition;o). We didn't want to "turkey" everyone out since my brothers/sister were all going to their in-laws on Thursday, plus we had received as a wedding gift a gift certificate to a local Italian catering place, so we chose to use it on Wednesday. Our apartment is small, but we fit 12 people in just fine and had lots of fun in the process:o).

If you look on the wall to the left, you'll see a bunch of pictures in a wall hanging. My brother laughed when he first came in, because every single picture in that hanging is of Nat's family (minus one of Nat and I). I jokingly told my brother it's because my family is all local and we see them often enough not to need their photos on the wall;). I actually have to just go find a frame that will look just right, but I haven't found one yet.

My husband loves to help and jumped right in to help with the meal... what a guy;).

Chatting and hanging out

These two willingly offered to do the dishes... yay! I think I caught my brother off guard though:).

Within 5 minutes of coming in, my niece managed to get candy juice all over her outfit... hence the onesie!

Ethan playing Apples to Apples - toddler version;o).

My sister-in-law Ann playing Apples to Apples the real way!

Apparently something was funny to Tom...:)

All in all, we had a marvelous time with my family. I'm so glad that we could work out schedules to visit with my family on Wednesday and Nat's extended family on Thursday... yummy times!

Off.

All week long I was holding my breath just waiting for that question to be asked: could you work Saturday? It came oh-so-close yesterday, but it was never asked!

My sweetie and I are enjoying a quiet Saturday together with no program, major plans, or (and this is the best part) work schedules! It's rare that we're both off on the same day since I work just about every Saturday and he works every Tuesday and Thursday (my days off) so we started this day off by sleeping in... which we actually accomplished! Now at 10:30, we're ready to start the day - IKEA here we come!

Confession.

Apparently confession is good for the soul, but I think that might have more to do with some church of old being steeped in tradition. Regardless of the origin of that statement, I shall do a little confessing on this blog of mine!

• Vacations are horrible, horrible, horrible in one area: weight. I'm so sorry to admit this, but both Nat and I gained weight on our little vacation to the mid-west. We're chalking it up to too much junk food and not enough veggies and exercise. We are very glad to be home now and I have stocked my fridge full of yummy fruits and vegetables. Now if I could just get rid of the chips, pretzels, and chocolate that found their way into our kitchen.
• Ironically enough, I did enjoy three little chocolate-covered black licorice bites that were simply delish! For our engagement anniversary, my husband bought two 1-pound bags of chocolate-covered pretzels (in a word: fabulous!) and a pound bag of those licorice bites that are too tasty. I'm going to have to have some family or friends over to finish them off!
• When the Kohls envelope comes in the mail, Nat and I play a little game of who has the bigger discount. He won yesterday by scoring 30% off (compared to my measly 15% off), but I think I actually won today by finding some boots on sale at Kohls! Teamed up with his discount coupon, I was very satisfied with my shopping. I also bought him a package of dress socks to celebrate our 4-month wedding anniversary because I'm romantic like that;o).
• I promised pictures of our apartment but was waiting on some curtains for our bathroom to be hemmed (yet another confession: I don't sew. GASP!) Amanda finished the curtains (thank you muchly, Amanda!), but I haven't taken pictures yet. I don't remember why now, but it sure was a good excuse this afternoon:o).

I better stop there because the little orange light is blinking so I think that means my battery is going to cease to exist soon. 'Night!

*The* Story.

When people asked me where we were going on vacation, I always managed to confuse people with the answer: Indiana, Wisconsin, and Texas. Most people followed the whole Indiana/Wisconsin concept, but Texas normally brought about a "whaaa?" moment. Naturally:o).

My in-laws live in Texas as well as some good friends of ours, so we decided to go now to do our holiday visiting, rather than during the actual holidays. Working at a bakery doesn't allow a lot of wiggle room for trips in the midst of the busiest time of the year!

We chose to make the 11 hour drive to Indiana to spend time with my brother and his family, drove the 3 hours to Wisconsin to spend the day with Nat's brother and his wife and also a college friend of mine, drove back to Indiana, and then flew to Texas. We were going to take our car to the airport, but then decided my brother or his wife could use it while we were gone so we left it at their house. My sweet sister-in-law dutifully drove the hour to Chicago Midway Airport to drop us off and wished us a happy time in Texas. At least I think she did. Since this took place at the crazy hour of 7 AM, I was barely functioning:o).

We did have a happy time in Texas (for those of you who were wondering) and we were finishing out our trip with a missionary friend of ours in Fort Worth when we got a phone call. My brother very nonchalantly asked me when our flight returned to Chicago and then asked me if I wanted to talk to my sister-in-law. When she got on the phone, her voice was raspy and muddled. She proceeded to tell me she just had a surgery because there was an accident, but I must admit the first thing I said was, "No way! You're joking with me... quit it!" She tends to be a prankster:o).

She actually wasn't though (surprise!) and when my brother got back on the phone, I asked him what in the world happened. He replied, "it's complicated... there was a car accident in the driveway. I'll tell you tomorrow." Uh-oh. I got off the phone and told Nat I just had this feeling our car was involved with her accident.

When *the* story finally came out, it was quite *the* story. Now my brother has to be the most laid-back man in the world, because he didn't seem fazed at all. I know that's not really true deep down inside, but there wasn't a frazzled reaction on the outside at all! But back to *the* story. My sister-in-law had used our car Wednesday morning, but left a light on so that drained the battery. That afternoon she was going to take her son out to eat but had to first jump our car with her car (which my niece had to use to get to work). Since the battery in her car is in the back, she told her son to back her car up to our car to jump it. Meanwhile she spotted something in the backseat of our car and went to quick grab it. As she leaned half-way into the car (with the door open), my nephew backed up her car and hit our car door. The car door closed in on her leg, but of course he had no idea. All he was thinking was, "Oh man, I'm in big trouble" so he just sat there. That whole time the car door was on her leg and she was praying for him to pull forward. After 15 seconds he finally did, much to her relief!

Her leg instantly swelled up into what looked like a drumstick around her calf to her ankle. If it had been any higher, it would've severed it off (details I'm sure you're glad I'm sharing!) or even cut off the main artery that would've killed her. As it was, she went through surgery on her leg, hoping to relieve a big chunk of pressure. There was still the possibility of amputation if infection set in, but we are so grateful that was not the case!

The doctor is giving her a 3-month recovery period, which is a long time to not walk. But that's a better option compared to not being able to walk ever again!

Obviously our main concern was making sure she was going to be alright. Once we were fairly certain she was, we looked into fixing our door. While not the biggest deal at the moment, it would've made the 11 hour trip home windy, to say the least! The bottom part was bent at a weird angle (thank you leg), so Nat got on the phone to see if he could find a replacement door. He knew the salvage place here in PA didn't have any parts for our car, but the Lord directed him to the right salvage place out in Indiana who had a matching door! Saturday morning Nat and my nephew spent a couple of hours putting the door on and we left soon after to return to Pennsylvania, minus the wind blowing through:o). Isn't God good???

Soon after my brother told us about the accident, Nat and I had a couple of minutes to ourselves. He instantly said it was no use playing the "what if....?" game ("what if we had taken our car to the airport?"). Instead we started to pray. Pray for those involved and for issues that God was dealing with. Would I choose to have this situation play out again? If God would get the glory, then yes! We serve such a mighty God Who knows all things and I'm excited to see what He is going to do through this situation!!!