Three things will last forever.

"Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13 (New Living Translation)

I know that 1 Corinthians 13 is a familiar and favorite passage for lots of people. I have always read this passage and applied it to my relationship with Mike. But today, the last verse really caught my attention. Three things will last forever. Faith, hope, and love.

It seems like within the past few months, several tragedies have unfolded around me. Life interrupted. Thankfully, my little family is healthy and well. But there are several people that I am aware of that are really hurting right now. Within the past few months, a 14 year old boy at my school passed away after complications of a very routine surgery. A mother to two and administrator at a middle school in town passed away from an ear infection that spread to her brain. This weekend, a friend from grad school passed away in an automobile accident, leaving behind two young girls. She was 30 weeks pregnant with a son, who was delivered via emergency c-section. She never got to hold him or hear his cry. My heart aches for her family. Several of "my kids" at school have lost a parent within the last year. More are hurting as a result of divorce or illness. I know that the world is filled with sorrow and sadness. Yet it seems to have snuck up on me. I keep thinking about how temporary and fragile life truly is. And then I start to think about the gift of each day.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about my "legacy." What will I leave behind when I am gone? Would my children even remember me if I were to die today? Would my good outweigh my not-so-good? Would my life truly matter for anything?

There are days that I get so twisted up in the temporal yuckiness of life- things like ambition, pride, vanity and plain old fashioned selfishness crowd out the joy that God intended for me to experience each day. I want more than that. I want to live my life intentionally focusing on the three things that last forever- faith, hope, and love. I want to live with eternal perspective. I want to make the most of each moment. I want my children to see Christ in me. I want to live long enough to be a grandmother. But even if God has other plans, I want today to count. Faith, hope, and love. These three things will last forever.

You better watch out. . .

It never occurred to me until this year how creepy the song "Santa Claus is coming to town" can be. I mean, it seems rather threatening- you better watch out, he sees you when you're sleeping, and he knows when you're awake. I have had mixed feelings about what to teach our kids about Santa. I want them to know that Christmas is about Jesus, and I don't want Jesus to feel "fairy-tale-ish" like Santa. That said, it would seem that Santa is almost unavoidable, and so we do the whole Santa thing. We just try to capture the teachable moments of the season too.

So, Carter is especially into Santa this year. There have been many questions about the naughty list, how elves make toys, how Santa knows if Carter is sweet, what Santa's last name is, etc. He wrote the sweetest letter and even wrote for Evyn because she is too small to write for herself. He asked for a Wii and a fishtank (which we luckily have in the attic) and legos for Evyn. Some friends of ours invited us over to meet Santa, so we jumped at the chance.

They live pretty close to us, so Carter rode his scooter and Evyn rode in the wagon.

Evyn was much more interested in dancing and eating snacks than sitting in anyone's lap, mine included. 

Carter, on the other hand, was super excited to see Santa. He ran right up to him and told him that he loved him. He used his best manners and asked what kind of cookies Santa would like us to leave for him. He also told him his address and asked him to please write it down so he would remember. Santa was lovely with Carter, and the magic in Carter's eyes was truly priceless.

While less impressed with the man in the red suit, Evyn at least tolerated Santa long enough for a picture.

What you can't see in this picture is that Carter is sitting right behind Santa eating his snacks. He was so perfectly content to just be close and sip his coco.

Every year, Mike and I find ourselves saying "This is the most fun yet." I have no doubt that these will be the days that I smile back on one day when I am an old woman remembering the magic of Christmas. I am so blessed to be a mommy to these sweet babies, and I love experiencing Christmas as a mommy. These are sweet days for sure.

Best Buddies

Because I am too lazy to do separate posts. . .

It seems that I find myself with lots of little stuff that I want to put on the blog, but then I wait too long and end up lumping it all together because I lack the mojo to do a bunch of different posts.

Let's start with our annual tradition of wrapping our precious children in cheap lights. While not the safest thing to do for a photo op, we feel like we can't break the tradition now. Carter is a more willing participant in the silliness.

I wish that Evyn would remember how to smile and look at me all at the same time. In the mean time, you will have to settle for one or the other. She looks like such a little girl to me in her velour jogging suit. It just doesn't get much cuter than this.

In the interest of keeping it real, I thought I would post a picture of one of my better parenting moments. Both kids looked really cute on this particular day, but neither one seemed to have a happy heart. Because I am mother of the year, I threatened Carter to smile or else. You can see the results below.

When we came home from church today, the kids got distracted by the leaves that had fallen in the front yard. They were playing so sweetly together that I had to run in and get the camera.

Mike will be home late Tuesday night from Morocco. We all miss him when he is gone. This has been the first time that Evyn has really seemed to notice that Daddy is not here. She keeps walking through the house saying "Daddy whereareyou?" and "Daddy in rocco?" I think we are all looking forward to having him home!

One last random thought to end with. . .

Carter loves candy canes. He begged me to buy some of the little ones at the grocery store. Like any 5 year old, he much prefers for the candy cane to be in one piece. I threw two of them into my purse to keep him busy in church this morning. We were sitting with a friend, and Carter took the candy canes out. He examined them and noticed that one was broken and one was not. I watched him look at the candy and then look at my friend. Then he handed one to her. I assumed that he decided that the broken one was not worthy of consumption, so he generously "shared" with her. I was speechless when I realized that he gave her the whole one and kept the broken one for himself. I thought of all the times that I keep the bigger brownie for myself or eat the cinnamon roll from the middle of the pan. It was a sweet reminder that we should give out of love and not out of obligation or with selfish motives. Amazing how much you learn from your kids.