JOY

JOY....it is a word that is used often during the Christmas season. But, what does it really mean? What does it mean to choose joy everyday? I don't always do a good job at being joyful. My family will tell you that I use the phrase "choose joy" on a very regular basis in our home, throughout the year. But I am talking to myself as much as to anyone else.

From an academic perspective, the definition of JOY is this:
The emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires ; The expression or exhibition of such emotion; A state of happiness or felicity; A source or cause of delight

Joy is referenced in the Bible hundreds of time and all are excellent reminders of what Joy truly is. A few of my favorites:

..."the JOY of the Lord is your strength."- Nehemiah 8:10

"For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your JOY will be complete." - Deuteronomy 16:15

"Shout for JOY to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs."- Psalm 100:1-2

Over the last couple of days, as I have been fluctuating between joy and irritation, I have tried to focus on what in me causes joy. Why do I choose to have joy some days, but not others? It is easy to blame our inability to be joyful on those around us...right? But, in reality, it is always our choice to respond to individuals and circumstances with joy. A hard lesson that I am committed to learning, every day. But for today, I have found an easy (albeit somewhat cheesy sounding) way to understand what choosing JOY means for me. It is all about my priorities, if everything is in the right place, then it is easy to find JOY. So, here we go:

Jesus
Others
Yourself

Now, if I can just follow through and put my focus on things that matter, in the appropriate order, then peace and joy will follow.

And because no post would be complete without pictures....some sights and scenes from our home to yours....Merry Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

FUN....And, CHRISTMAS, of course.

We were blessed to attend the Fort Worth Parade of Lights on the day after Thanksgiving this year. We have attended the parade several times, but this year, thanks to Wade, we had a special viewing spot...two floors up overlooking the parade route at the City Club. We had a super fun time and enjoyed our birds-eye view...

Anna and the downtown tree just after the "lighting" ceremony

Mom and Wade

Anna and Molly had matching outfits. It was so totally CUTE. I think that secretly Anna is pretending that Molly is the little sister she never got to have...and absolutely LOVED matching with her :)

They even had matching shoes...



Molly loved the cute snowman cookies :)

Will and Alex spent the entire evening glued to the window...even before the parade started.


Then the next morning...my children are forming a Boggle addiction. It doesn't help that their Nan and Daddy are equally addicted.


Now fast forward a couple of days, and I am happy to bring you a storyboard...a reenactment of what happens on Christmas Eve. Alex is playing the role of the sleeping child, Eli is Rudolph and Will is Santa. We LOVE after-school play time!!

I hope and pray that you and your family are finding JOY in every day of this Christmas season!

Merry Christmas,

Thank-Full

In 2005, I started a Thanksgiving Day Scrapbook. I take an individual picture of every one in attendance and then each person creates their own scrapbook page with their picture, detailing what they are thankful for that year. (Sorry for the run-on sentence)

So, this year, in addition to our scrapbook, I thought I would do a simple blog post with this year's pics and what everyone is thankful for. According to Alex, it should be "thankfull" because we are full of thanks, get it? :)

Uncle Junior, my 87 year-old Great Uncle, is thankful for Family and Turkey Day

Nana (Jana) my beautiful grandmother: "I'm so happy to be with my family! The great-grandkids are special."

My Mom (Nancy) is thankful for love, laughter, purpose, family, Jesus, friends, her home, joy, 8 grandkids, health, fun, peace, LCCS and her mom.

My brother (Wade) is thankful for his family.

My sister-in-law (Cathy) is thankful for her sweet husband, fun and adorable boys and her precious baby girl!

My handsome hubby (Chris) is thankful for his family and traditions.

My most beautiful princess (Anna) is thankful for God, a house and food.

My buddy (Alex) is "thankfull" for Family.

My nephew (Will) is definitely a thankful kid, I am just not sure what for. We forgot to ask him that specific question. I will be doing that today after school and will update accordingly.

My nephew (Eli) is thankful too. But ditto the above. :)

Now, I didn't ask Molly either, and I am not sure she could articulate perfectly what she is thankful for. So, I am just going to go on the one word that I heard her say the most over the Thanksgiving break....."Anna". I am pretty sure that Molly is thankful for Anna, among many other things. :)

Now, you may have noticed that there is no picture of me. Or maybe you didn't notice....but, anyway, that is because I forgot to take a picture of myself. But I am so thankful this year for many things....but most of all for Love, Joy, and for all of my precious, big family. :)

I hope that you and your family are enjoying a "thankfull" holiday season!

Lissa

Let me introduce...

I don't believe that my brother, Ryan, and his family have had very much face time on my blog. Most likely due to the fact that they live approximately 300 miles away :(. So today, I am happy to introduce Ryan, Ashley, Cate, Cara and Claire.

We had an amazing time this weekend visiting with them in San Antonio. I absolutely HATE that they are so far away. Yes, I know that hate is a strong word, but in this case it is totally appropriate. It took about 30 minutes or so for the little girls to determine that we were not total strangers and then all was well. Intense play time with cousins continued for the entire 60 hours or so we were there....they had so much fun! And, I loved getting to visit with my brother and sis-in-law and love on my nieces!

It was a very relaxing weekend, but we managed to throw in a few activities. We had a birthday party for Chris, we went to the Alamo, we attended a Southwest Dragons basketball game (Ryan is the coach) and we ate, lots :)!

Recapping the events in pictures and video....

The Birthday Cake

Uncle Chris snuggling with Claire (when we visited two years ago, she was a newborn, and he held her the WHOLE time)

Cate and Anna (aren't they beautiful?)

Me and my Cara (it was love at first sight)

And, finally, for your viewing pleasure....a performance by Cate and Anna. They are absolutely wonderfully cute :) If you make it to the end of the video you will be rewarded with a cute, totally unprompted ;) word from Cara.

Blessing on you and your family this Thanksgiving,

Happy Birthday, Honey!

Today my precious, amazing husband turns 35 years old. Can it really be true that I have celebrated every birthday with him for the past 16 years? I remind him everyday that we are young, NOT old :). I am blessed to have been by his side for so long and pray that the Lord allows me to be by his side for every birthday he has yet to come.

I did something I have never done before. I surprised Chris on his birthday, not for a party, though. I showed up at his office yesterday at 3:00 and took him away for an evening with just the two of us. Time for just us, together. I was hoping that he would be excited about this "gift" and he was! We had a fun evening and are very thankful to Nan for keeping the kiddos so that we could enjoy some one on one time together. Due to many reasons, that is a rare thing for us.

We are headed to San Antonio today to visit Ryan, Ash and the girls. Nan is going along with us. We cover your prayers for safe travel.

Blessings,

Catching Up

Wow, last week was a busy week and I have a feeling that it is just going to get busier. All fun, just busy fun. I love the holiday season!!

Recapping our weekend:

Friday after school the kids had their friends, The Matheus, over to play. This would be 3 boys, K, 2nd and 4th grade, plus my sweet peas. Sound crazy? A little, but they are really very low maintenance when they all play together. Kris, their mother, and I were discussing this phenomenon. It is a huge blessing for my kiddos to have them to spend time with.

We have been needing to have a Christmas Parade of Lights Float Planning Session :) with the Carrolls. So, at the last minute, we decided to do that on Friday evening. In reality, it turned in to more of an eat dinner together (yummy Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice soup and a Raspberry-Chipotle-Cream Cheese appetizer), play Wii and squeeze in some float planning type of evening. We had a blast and did manage to get most of the planning done in there somewhere, now we just have to execute that plan. The parade is always so much fun and this year we are excited to have a "real" float! Please plan to join us on December 6th in Euless if you are free. There is sure to be a reenactment of the Great Fall of 2005. If you're not sure what that is just ask Rachel. :)

Speaking of Rachel, we had muchas fun with she and her sweet hubby, Kris, on Saturday. The guys played golf (in the cold) at Texas Star. While they were busy doing that, we went and played with Aunt Cathy, Will, Eli and Molly and then spent the afternoon shopping at Southlake Town Center. It was so much fun! Even Alex was a trooper :). We met up with the guys and Nan for an early dinner at P.F. Changs. We were home by 6, and finished up the evening playing and cleaning out closets. A fun AND productive day, I just love it when that happens.

Anna and Rachel playing with Molly

(Molly has on Anna's old PJs, it makes me cry almost every time I see her in Anna's old clothes, the time sure does fly by)

Sunday morning we were up early and headed to Church. It was an absolutely wonderful message and we were blessed to be with our sweet friend Christian as he was baptized. Christian is in 6th grade and Alex absolutely idolizes him. So, it was really neat for Alex to get to see Christian living out his faith.

After a quick afternoon rest, we headed to Grandma and Papa's for an early birthday dinner for Chris. They will be leaving for Japan this Friday, the day before Chris' birthday, so we celebrated with them early. We had lots of fun and wished for more time to be with them. Thankfully with the holidays coming up, we should get to do just that.

Daddy's Birthday Celebration at Grandma and Papa's

I will end this post with by bragging on my husband. Last night as I was taking a hot bath, I heard him unloading and reloading the dishwasher.....while watching the Cowboy game. Wow, I am blessed and loved!! Thank you, honey, for all that you do!!

Blessings on your week,

Yummy...Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Waffles

I like food. That is just the plain and simple truth. I like to read cookbooks, try new recipes, etc. Every once-in-a-while, I crave something that I cannot find a recipe for. Such was the case the other night. One recipe that we love to make in the fall is Pumpkin Chocoloate-Chip Bread, but that just did not hit the spot. I was really wanting waffles with that same taste, though, so I decided to create some. And, I must say, that the results were scrumptious :)

See the waffle maker pictured here...it is from Williams-Sonoma and although not expensive, was definitely a step-up from the 4 $15.99 WalMart versions I had gone through over the last 10 years. It has made a huge difference in the quality of my waffles, and I would have saved money if I had just purchsed it sooner :)

My resident taste-testers loved the outcome of my experimentation:

Now, I promise that Chris loved them too. He was just slightly distracted by the newspaper and has difficutly showing enthusiasm about my food ;)!

Since he was not enthusiastic enough, I decided to take a picture of myself...super cheesy!

God is in control...

Warning: If politics intermingled with a precious story about a little boy would bother you, stop reading now.

So, yesterday's Presidential election did not turn out exactly how I had hoped. However, I had prayed repeatedly in the days, weeks and months leading up to the election for God's will to be done. I know that God is sovereign and loves me and that no matter what happens He has good planned for my life. It may not be easy, but He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords and I have nothing to fear.

All that being said, I am 32 not 6. Alex is 6. And before I get into this let me say that I am not sure that he should have known as much about the election as he did. But he can read almost as good as I can and is very intuitive and aware, so he did know lots and there is no going back.

Alex had been adamant in his support of McCain for quite some time, but he became more serious about it in the days leading up to the election. I think part of this is due to misinterpretation of a story he heard about 3 days ago. In a nutshell, it was about Obama kicking off his plane the journalists from the newspapers that did not endorse him. True or not? I am not sure. But Alex took it very seriously....making a comment that Obama should be put in jail for doing that. It took me about 24 hours to realize that he had misinterpreted the story and thought that these people had been thrown off a moving aircraft way up in the sky, presumably falling to their deaths. As soon as I realized what he was thinking, I quickly clarified things for him but he was still adamant that was a terrible thing to do and he was still very displeased.

Then yesterday, he started reading the Sports section at breakfast. And quickly needed to call Daddy and let him know something, "We can not root for the Cowboys or Mavericks anymore." He is serious about this one. Our local paper polled players on all of the DFW pro sports teams and the Cowboys and Mavericks heavily favored Obama, so Alex is done with them.

All this leads me to this morning. Alex had gone to bed last night with a hopeful heart that his prayers would be answered. And unlike myself, who had prayed for God's will, Alex prayed specifically that McCain would win. And knowing that he would hear the results from classmates this morning, I had to address it before school. So, I sat the kids down and told them the outcome of the election. I read to them Romans 8:28 - "And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I explained that God was in control, no matter what. That He will be glorified in every situation and that it would all be ok. Alex cried, actually Alex sobbed. I felt so bad and at that moment I wished that he knew nothing about this election. After consoling him for a minute, I diverted his attention with some cinnamon-sugar crescent rolls for breakfast and then I left the room to get ready for the day.

About ten minutes later, I walked back in the room to this scene: Anna and Alex sitting on the couch with my Bible in their laps. Alex had asked Anna to please look up Isaiah 41:10. Not knowing that verse off the top of my head, I sat down with them to read what it said.... "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand." Or in Alex's words, "Fear not, for I am with you."

And in that moment, my regret of him knowing about the election changed. If this situation had caused him to recall scripture that he had memorized and apply it to his situation, then it was all worth it.

Like I said, our political choices as a Nation may not cause things to go just as we want them but if they draw us closer to the Lord, then it is all worth it.