For most families the days right after Christmas can be a bit hard, but not at the Ayers House.  There is still much activity here.  The older kids, especially had a good time with the gift giving this year.  The younger kids also had a good time giving gifts to the extent of their ability.  Most of the gifts were very practical  - Giovanna got new clothes since she has grown a foot since last year.  She has had fun giving us a fashion show which continues as she is learning how to combine pieces to make different outfits.   Can’t wait for my computer to get back from the Geek Squad so I can post pictures.  She has the biggest smile on her face as she continues to put new outfits together!

Movies and Music were big on everyone’s list.  We have a few new movies to watch.  Comedies like Alvin and the Chipmunks (Geoff’s request) and Night at the Museum II (very funny) to the more serious, Sense and Sensibility.  It was so fun to have the whole family gathered together curled up with blankets to watch a movie last night.  Even Garrett made the comment, “Take a look around, it is not often we are ALL together to watch a movie!”  Music is always popular and the Christmas CD’s will be playing until 06 January!  My Trans Siberian Orchestra collection is almost complete!  I got two of their CD’s including their new one, Night Castle, for Christmas!  They are such great story tellers to and see and hear how their songs are so interwoven to the stories that they are telling – absolutely amazing.  Night Castle’s story is set in the Vietnam era and is absolutely amazing!

We will also be playing games as Giovanna got two new ones – UNO tippo and Candy Land.  She was so excited and we have been playing them a lot.  At least now we have some new games and the older kids seem to love the new UNO game!  Giovanna is some what amazing in her ability to use strategy during the game!  She is blossoming into a master player!

There is more food in this house, especially sweets, than we generally have and I will really need to be out running to get the weight off gained from all the fudge that has been consumed over the past month!  I was experimenting with some new recipes, so we had more than the normal amount of fudge around this year!  Glad I have already registered for a race on New year’s Day – although it will be a pretty cold run!

All in all it was a nice quiet, well at least as quiet as it can get with 5 kids + a dog, Christmas!

Geoff has not felt good for some time and Christmas day he was almost without his voice and curled up with a blanket!  This is not typical behavior,  so the day after Christmas, we decided it would be best to take him into the clinic.  We wanted to make sure that he didn’t have Strep or walking pneumonia.  Thankfully he tested negative for both and was started on an antibiotic.  He is doing much better and has even been out to play in the snow!  However pneumonia is still a possibility and so we are praying that he will not get it.

I won’t be traveling to Nebraska this week due to the storms that we had and that are predicted for Nebraska this week.  Mom and Dad said that as of Sunday, many of the main roads were still closed because they (not exactly sure who the they refers to) didn’t want people traveling.  My dad is lonely and would like to have some company, but also does not want anything to happen to me while en route to and from his house.  So while I would like to go down and be with them, at this point I am planning to stay put.  Knowing that I would not be driving to Nebraska made my Christmas day much more enjoyable and relaxing.

We have been enjoying time with friends during these days off and I will be doing some deep cleaning before we start school next week.  I am praying that my computer comes back quickly as I am very far behind in school related things and it is getting harder to get on a computer these days!

Hope you all had a great Christmas celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior!  Happy New Year – a bit early, but I most likely won’t be updating before New year’s Day!

This is really beautiful – Enjoy.

Song by Jill Phillips

It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David’s town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother’s hand to hold

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David’s town
In the middle of the night

So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love

I love the season of Christmas, but my favorite day of the entire year is Christmas eve.  It is a very slow and relaxed day and this morning we woke up to a foot of new snow.  There is nothing like fresh snow to make everything look beautiful.  This is the morning that I make calls to friends that live in other states and chat with them over a cup of tea and catch up on life.  But this is the day that we as a family all look forward to as we worship with the body of believers and celebrate the birth of THE one who willingly gave up heaven for a manger and was on a mission his whole life and 30+ years later gave up his life to pay the price for my sin!  It is a precious time.

This day is special as Giovanna will light the advent candle at the Christmas eve service at 4:30.  The Christmas eve service is one that we look forward to all year.  It is a lovely time of celebration with the body and tonight is especially significant as our youngest child Giovanna will lead the procession in as we begin worship and light the last advent candle.  This is the last time anyone from our family will have this priviledge.   Once we get back from that early service, we will have a light supper and then open the gifts in the Christmas Stockings and this year everyone’s stocking is complete and hanging up!  What a joy to watch the kids faces as they dig through their stockings and open up the gifts that have been picked out for them.  Courtney has been reminded of how much she loved last year’s gifts in her stocking – even more than what was under the tree!  Over the years what has gone into the stockings has changed, but the sheer fun of picking out those items has remained.

We will finish dinner and the stockings just in time to leave for the late Christmas eve service and this year Courtney will be one of the readers at this service.  This service starts at 10:45 and ends right around midnight – Christmas morning.  What a way to bring in the day.  I have been bringing in Christmas morning this way since I was a teenager – my dad and I would always go to the 11 PM service and be the first to wish each other Merry Christmas right at midnight.  When Gary and I lived in California, most years he would call me shortly after midnight Pacific time, just to wish me a Merry Christmas.  It has been such fun to be remembered by my dad in this way.  This year, I will be the one calling him after we get home from the service.

Most of the kids are not as eager to get up early as they  know that we won’t the gifts under the tree until after breakfast on Christmas morning.  However that hasn’t dampened their enthusiasm one bit.  I have seen my 18 and 15 year olds checking out the stockings and the boxes under the tree – trying to determine what is in each one!  My 18-year-old has even been caught putting her hand into the stockings – not hers  but others just to see what is in there!  It warms my heart to see their excitement!

May you all have a wonderful Christmas and celebrate the real reason for the season!

I have been using the book, Come, Thou Long-expected Jesus, as part of my devotions this month.  I have gotten so much out of it while reading through it.  I have not progressed very far through the book as each chapter is so packed with stuff.  Each chapter has something to do with the Christmas story and preparing our hearts for worship.  Each chapter is written by different authors and taken from a sermon preached at some point.

Today I read, “The Gifts of Christmas” by Tim Keller.  This chapter alone is worth the price of the book (available from Amazon for under $10).   The Scripture passage used as the preface to this chapter is Luke 1:39-45;

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ”Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

God did not just give us His son at Christmas, which in and of itself is amazing, He also gave us truth.  This truth will transform us if we really take it in.  The truth comes from the highlighted part – Mary believed what God said about the human incarnation and it changed her life.  If we believe in this same truth and make it the center of our lives, we will be changed.

Mr. Keller goes on to explain that when we open the gift of Christmas, we are really getting several gifts – vulnerability for intimacy, comfort for suffering, passion for justice and power over prejudice.  Wow, when one really looks at what comes with the birth of Christ in the flesh, it is really life changing.

C.S. Lewis puts it like this – “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and probably broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to on one, not even an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.  Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  To love is to be vulnerable.”  (Lewis, The Four Loves)  I pray that this will never happen to my heart, but that Christ will so transform my heart that I am willing to let my heart be broken by the things of Christ and His direction.

But when one allows Christ in and learns to love in such a way that your heart brakes, suffering also enters into one’s life.  But if one has learned to treasure Christ, then there is  a hope in Christ to endure that suffering. And as we continue to open the gift of Christmas, we have a comfort to deal with suffering because we see the willingness of Jesus to enter this world, my world,  of suffering and suffer with us and for us.  Dorothy Sayers puts it like this;

“For whatever reason, God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine.  Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair.  He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from Himself.  He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death.  WHen he was a man, he played the man.  He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it was worthwhile.” (Sayers, Christian Letters to a Post Christian World).

When one thinks about just these two aspects alone and realizes the whole implication of them – one’s life will be transformed.    My prayer for my life, my family and friends is that we come to know this truth and our  lives to be transformed -

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are bein.g transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit-  II Corinthians 3:18

I had a really strange experience yesterday and 19 + hours later, I am still trying to process this event.  Here are the details;

I had an appointment in St. Louis Park, a standing appointment and I as I drove into the parking lot, I noticed a gentleman on the steps talking on the phone.  I parked and walked towards the stairs.  I never looked at this man, nor did I say anything to him, but as I turned to go up the stairs, he slowed his talking down and turned his head to follow me up the stairs.  He gave me a stare that I could feel and once I reached the door, I glanced with the corner of my eye and could see that he had turned his whole body and was watching me pretty intensely.  I really didn’t give it much of a second thought at the time.

Then as I was leaving the office, I came out the door, turned to my right and at the end of the short hall was this same man, with the phone at his ear, but not talking.  He was by the window that overlooked the parking lot and right by the door to the stairwell.  He was standing in such a way so that he could see both the parking lot and the hallway.  It gave the impression that he was on the “lookout”.  Now I was a bit nervous, but was thankful that I had my keys hooked onto the belt loop of my jeans and casually reached down and unhooked them and checked to make sure my phone was easily accessible.  Once I went through the stairwell door, I listened intently to make sure it did not open again.  When I hit the outside door, I tried to not look continually over my shoulder and get to the car as quickly as I could.  However I really didn’t fell safe in my Big Rig until I was out of the parking lot.

I was still shaking a bit when I stopped at a friend’s house on the way home.  I hope it wasn’t too noticeable.  I have never had an experience that made me feel so uneasy and when I told Gary about it, he said it was very strange indeed .  I was able to talk with Courtney to see how she would have handled the situation and gave her some options.  So God did use it for some good, but I am still having some lingering feelings that I am not sure what to do with them.  Pray that God will replace these lingering feelings with feelings of peace that comes from Him.

Returning from Thanksgiving, I got a surprise when my computer began acting up.  Sunday night it seemed fine, but on Monday it was not always booting up on the first try.  Then it stopped booting up all together.  When Gary heard about the troubles, he immediately went out to purchase an external hard drive to back up all of my data.  After a couple nights of trying, my computer went into the Geek Squad.

Even they were having some troubles determining what the issue was and I was just beginning to think about looking for a new computer when we heard that it was the mother board on mine that was most likely shot.  Due to the age of my computer (it is 5 years old), they did not recommend fixing it.

A friend who knew I was looking for a mac had an interesting proposition – he had found a mac that had a program he wanted but was being sold with the computer which he didn’t need.  So the offer for me to consider was to purchase the set with him and then he would take the program and I would take the computer.  Sounded like a great deal – but since it was on Craig’s list, it sold before we had a chance to look into it.

I was sent a link to the listing of macs for sale on Craig’s list (I have never been on Craig’s list) and my son started going through the listing.  He had knew what I was looking for and found a couple that were of interest.  As I looked at this list, I began to realize that there wasn’t much extra money to purchase a computer.  I prayed that God would either provide the money for a new  or new to me computer or just give me a new computer.

Shortly after I received the link to Craig’s list, like the morning after, I received a call from  another friend.  He had a PC that I could have/use.  He thought that he and a friend could just move the hard drive from my computer to his and it should work.  Well nothing is ever as easy as it seems and the plan changed.  The mother board was installed into my computer which already had two hard drives – the operating system was installed on the smaller of the two and the files were still on the larger one.  However the two hard drives are not “talking” to each other.  Gary has been working on some of the issues, but so far I still do not have a working computer.  This means that school has virtually stopped since all of my school stuff in on my hard drive.

Now the keyboard is not working, the data on my computer still cannot be seen and I am just starting to get frustrated.    Three weeks is a long time to be without it.  While I can still access internet on other computers, sending emails is rather challenging as all my addresses are – you guessed it – on my hard drive.  I can’t send applications to individuals for upcoming trips, etc.

Life has slowed down drastically, which in some ways has been really good.  I have done more Christmas baking this year than any other year.  The house has more decorations and I finally finished Giovanna’s Christmas Stocking (it only took 7 years).

I am not sure what God’s plan is for getting my computer running or not, but at least I am trying to enjoy this time without it.  I know that once it is up and going again, I will need to catch up on a lot of things.

Oh the joys of living in a technological world!

I don’t often have guests post on my blog, but will make an exception for cute 11 year old boys!

Geoffrey has made an important connection between Christmas and Easter. He had a great idea for sharing the meaning of Christmas through some videos, but we could not find a video for one of the songs. So we will improvise.

This song called “What is Christmas” by Trans Siberian Orchestra reflects what some may think or feel about Christmas and the words are very interesting.  When Christ is removed from Christmas, there is not a lot left and the words of this song reflect that;

What is christmas?
Tinseled fairytales
Day old stockings lined up in a row

What is christmas
Could someone tell me that?
What is christmas?
Surely, I don’t know

And everywhere these lights
Who needs to color night?
Could this whole thing be planned?
I do not understand

This christmas
Trees with colored lights
Underneath they still are only trees
Do you think that one day perhaps they might
Find that christmas
Is kind of a disease?

Every year it’s waiting for me
Waiting for me
Every year it constantly defies
Placing strangers
There before me
There before me
Spreading hope and cheer
Mixed in with happiness
Fraternal bliss and other christmas lies!

And there’s one more thing that i have discovered
And I would now like you to know
The reason for christmas i now realize
Is an excuse to tolerate snow
Snow!
I don’t even like the sound of it
Anyway, where was I
Oh, yes!

What is christmas?
Candles everywhere
A fire hazard any other day
Children light them
No one seems to care
All for christmas

Every year it returns here
And every year it’s waiting for me
Why can’t christmas disappear
And just pretend it never saw me
Every year I get my hopes up
That it will somehow just leave
But every year I wake to find
That once again it now is christmas eve

But Geoffrey knows what Christmas is all about – It’s about the cross as sung my Go Fish;

Some of the simple things in life bring the most pleasure and truly warm my heart. It is so nice to hear from friends, “We just want to hang out with you so when would bring a good time and we will bring the dinner.” This is really amazing as it is not easy to cook for my family with some of the food issues that we have. So to have someone willing to cook a meal that all in my family can eat, just so that they can spend time with us is a true blessing.

However it is even nicer when they call and say, “we are trying to build our Barnabas team, so when we bring a meal, can we invite a few people as well?”

Needless to say, it is so much fun to see friends make themselves at home in my kitchen and have the house filled with laughter and fun as we get to know others and become part of a larger sending team.

This warms my heart greatly!

Some traditions last for a long time and are passed down through the generations.  Some last for just a short time.  Some as in the tradition of our church during Advent, last until the youngest child completes the task.  Today  marks the end of one such chapter in our family.

Our Church has a tradition during Advent of the fourth graders lighting the Advent candle each week.  All of my children have participated in this wonderful tradition.  Giovanna is in the 4th grade this year and when we received the letter asking for children to volunteer for this year, Giovanna responded with, “I not do!”  She said this very forcefully and really did not want to participate.  But the older children all began to tell about their experiences lighting the Advent candle.  It was so good to hear that they all had a wonderful experience and enjoyed it.  The older three got to actually light a real candle at the downtown campus.  Geoffrey was the first from our family to light the candle at the South campus where we now attend.  Giovanna listened politely to their stories, but was not fully convinced.  I signed her up and told her I would make her a new dress.  Now that got her attention and we waited to see when she would be on the schedule.  When the schedule came, she was on the list twice!

Today was her first time to light the candle.  She was nervous, but did a great job.  Her biggest concern was that she would not be able to hold the candle and walk all the way across the stage.  However, she did and when she came off the stage, she had the biggest smile on her face.  What a joy to see her complete this act of worship successfully.

These pictures were taken during the practice session before church and she is wearing the new dress!  Her friend Nate was also lighting during one of the services.

Giovanna practices!

Giovanna is hiding behind her friend as he practices!

family tree

This is  our family tree.  I have been decorating this same Christmas tree since I was about 10 years old.  I think I could decorate it in my sleep.  When I was a child, my mother was very particular about the lights on the tree and I was the only one who could get them on the tree the way    she liked them.  To this day, I am still very particular about the lights on the tree.

This year however, the tree is having some issues.  The tree stand is broken and to get the tree to stand up, we had to improvise.  Most of the lights did not work and thus began the hunt for red and white lights for the tree.  We have always had red and white lights on the tree to represent the blood shed for us at Calvary and the purity of Christ as the perfect sacrifice.   So with all the lights going out at one time, it is rather difficult to find the “perfect” lights again.  The ones we alternated red and white on the strand.  Have not found any similar ones this year which means alternating red and white strands, but our Target was sold out of the red ones.  I was able to find some red lights at Target in Downtown Minneapolis!

Our tree is also shedding needles.  I think that there are about as many needles on the floor as there are on the tree.  And the Lord only knows how many needles were in the box!  If we make it through this Christmas with the tree still standing with needles on it, it will be rather amazing!

While the tree is not the center of what Christmas is all about, it does make the holiday much more festive.  The thought of having a Christmas without a tree and lights was a bit discouraging.  But God was gracious and brought all the pieces together and the tree is now decorated.

However we have also added a new tree to our family this year.  A good friend heard about all of our tree troubles and brought us a new tree.  It is sitting on the kitchen table and I smile every time I look at it.  I love this little tree and the friendship that we have with the person who took the time to help with the Ayers tree dilemma this year

Our New Tree

I am really looking forward to Christmas this year.  Praying that you all have a very Merry and Christ Exalting Christmas.