So many blessings ...

I haven't kept up very well, but my efforts have been focused on time with the boys, and never-ending house work. One thing I hope to use the blog for in December is to assist me with the Ali Edwards December Daily project, so unless you are following along with that, most of what will go up here is geared toward that project.

A few things to note over the past few weeks is that Matthew is far more excited for Christmas, than his 4th birthday. He said the other day in an excited voice "I cannot wait for Christmas and Santa - that's when we open all the presents!". I'm not sure we can top Aunt NeeNee and Nana's gift this year; they teamed up and got the boys a Wii. Unbelievable. The boys are thrilled, excited, and a little obsessed.

Daniel's collar bone is healing well, only 2 more weeks before we get it xrayed at Schriners again. He's using his right arm more, and letting it hang down occasionally, saying that it's only hurting when he tries to put it up.

We started the Advent calendar from Gram on time this year - a small miracle in and of itself. I also managed to dig out the Advent book, and we're reading the Christmas Story a little bit each night.

It is still the Year of Harry Potter with Daniel. Matthew could take or leave it, but gets some QT with Dad when he reads a different story. I'm truly loving the process of reading this to Daniel, we have had some amazing conversations based on his attempts to understand the subtext in the book. We talked a little about the nature of death, and human souls. What happens when we die, and why characters in the book believe that Voldemort isn't truly dead. That was a hard concept for Daniel, and I explained that the true value of the books is that they are fun to read when you are five, even if you don't understand everything. But, as you grow older, some of the things that are confusing at five become easier to understand when you read the books again. He got that, and we moved back into laughing over Fred/George turning Percy's badge into one that said BigHead Boy, and thinking up other names they could have used: BigMouth Head, BigMouth Boy, and others. It is delightful to see him thinking about the books, and how anxious he is to read them each night, and I'm blessed to be here every night now that classes are over, so we don't have to skip so many nights. I'm even thinking ahead to the movies - he's asked, but I've told him we need to finish all of the books before I let him watch the movies, since there is more in the books than they can fit into the movies. It's just delightful...