Christmas

My heart is a little heavy this morning.  I've thought a lot this year about how we as believers celebrate Christmas.  I read an article on CNN today--it was a compilation of people who would categorize themselves as non-believers, describing how they celebrate Christmas.  The quote that really struck me was this one: "We exchange gifts, have elaborate meals, and spend time with our family and friends, many of whom are believers and know we are not. Sharing, giving, and loving are traits of humanity -- not divinity."— David Lilley.  The thing that bothered me was how much alike our celebrations are.  Just two days ago, I spent three days cooking this huge crazy meal for some friends for Christmas, but in the midst of all of that, where was Jesus?  I yelled at my child for crying (because his needs were interrupting what I wanted to be doing).  As parents of young kids, I really want to be teaching them from an early age that Christmas is about Jesus (not about gifts, not about Santa, not about getting stuff, not about decorations, not about consumerism, not about certain kinds of music, not about special food).  But I want that to be what Christmas is about in my own heart first.  After reading this article, I was so humbled and challenged-I have such a long way to go before I feel my celebration of Christmas will really reflect the One whom I claim to love and follow and worship.  I read on a friend's blog not long ago, "I love Jesus, and sometimes I act like it."  I felt like that was a perfect description of me!  Ugh!  I had been feeling kind of happy (proud) that whenever Maya sees a Santa, she shouts out, "Snowman!"  She has no idea who Santa is.  Aren't I spiritual?  Aren't I a good Christian parent?  GROSS!  Jesus birth was humble.  Unassuming.  He announced His arrival to common shepherds--the least of these.  Last night we went for a walk in a big shopping district near our house because I wanted to find a special hairbow to go with Maya's Christmas dress for church on Christmas day (I know, I am completely shallow and ridiculous--once I found the bow I had been dreaming of, Matt said it looked like road kill so that helped snap me back into reality!).  While we were walking along, a little girl came up and asked for money.  She had three little packages of chicklets gum she was selling.  We chatted for a while and I learned she was only nine years old.  No dad.  Sick mom.  She comes every Friday and walks the streets trying to gain some sympathy from shoppers, or people coming to pray at the mosques.  I bet her mom would like her to have a pretty bow too.  Yah, Jesus got some fancy gifts from the wisemen, but his parents couldn't afford to buy the standard sacrifice when they took Him to the temple to be dedicated, so they had to buy the birds instead.  If Jesus had been born in my lifetime, would I recognize him?  Would I be like Anna and Simeon and the shepherds, or would I be too busy hanging out with the Pharisees, proud of how "good" I am and how "good" my kids are?  Oh Jesus, show me how to make Christmas about you in my heart and in my actions.

Two Years Old!

Maya turned two today.  She sang happy birthday to herself all day.  We ate lunch after church at one of her favorite places: Fuddruckers!  The way that she says it is so funny!  She just learned to count from one to ten in Arabic (she mastered 1 to 10 in English weeks ago) and she knows the entire alphabet.  She loves to sing and is probably better than me at carrying a melody line already!  She loves her brother and has been super sweet with him.  Yesterday we had a big party for her birthday and it was so fun to see people from so many countries, religions, races, and socioeconomic levels brought together to have fun celebrating this little social butterfly.  She brings us so much joy and helps us to see things anew.  Happy Birthday baby girl!

Here are some pics of the awesome pie crusts I made for thanksgiving this year.  And a pretty cute new family pic.

 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150994063800204.776042.626700203&type=1&l=74080a4c57

 

The finished pie shown was a chocolate walnut success.  Heavely, really.  The other pie (not pictured) did not turn out quite so heavenly.  During dessert, Matt very quietly leaned over to me and said, "This one (pointing to the chocolate walnut pie) is excellent (insert dramatic pause here), this one (pointing to the pumpkin pie) seems like it might be missing something."  So I took a bite.  Do you think I should have put sugar in the pie, possibly? . . . Oh brother.  Sadly, it tasted so bad that it ended up in the trash.  I should have taken a picture of that.  It was such a pretty little pumpkin pie. . . :)  But we had a fantastic Thanksgiving feast together with the best family-away-from-family a girl could ask for.  So thankful for them. 

Thankful for visitors

This is our paper chain countdown--only 10 more days until Grandpa and Nana come (my parents)!  I am SO extremely thankful that some of our loved ones can come and meet Zain and see Maya.  Matt's mom is also going to be able to come (in December)!  We are so blessed and excited!

Thankful

The month of November is thankfulness month in our family.  I can't remember when I started this tradition--maybe the first year Matt and I were married?  We began by writing down one thing we were each thankful for every night at dinner for the whole month of November, and then on Thanksgiving day, we read through all that we were thankful for and it made Thanksgiving day so much more meaningful.  Each year I did something different in terms of how we collected/displayed these things.  The first year I think I did something like feathers cut from construction paper stuck into a pinecone to look like a turkey (I think we may have done this at some point as a kid?  mom?).  Eventually it morphed into a scrapbook page because I wanted to be able to keep a record of what God had done and what we were thankful for from year to year.  Now that we are here, I have no idea where those pages are or even if we've done this activity in the last few years, but by golly, this year we are starting back up and I've already got the pages designed and the squares for each day cut out!  We have so much to be thankful for I wanted to make sure we got a jump on it and started from the very first day of November! 

Sorry this pic is sideways, but you get the idea. . .

So, since it's thankfulness month, I thought I would post about a few things this month that I am thankful for.  Today, I am thankful for blogs.  Not just any blogs, but blogs that specifically give me ideas for activities to do with Maya.  Being a mommy of two kids under two, living in the middle of a big city with few free options for kids' activities, I have to be creative.  While I tend to be a pretty creative person, I still feel like such an amatuer when it comes to how to incorporate a curious, messy, uncoordianted toddler into my crafty dreams.  But with extremely limited time (and energy, really) I'm just not going to do a craft project if I can't in some way include Maya and make it something that she can learn from and have fun being included in. In my quest to learn how to craft with kids, several blogs have been really helpful and I'll link them here, in case you're in need of the same kind of resources!

http://www.craftjr.com/

http://www.icanteachmychild.com/

http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/

http://www.breezyacresblog.com/

What blogs do you guys find inspiring when it comes to crafting with and teaching your kids? Please let me know in the comments!

Random Moments

With the recent addition of a family member, I've fallen behind in a few things.  Blogging.  Showering.  You know, the non-essentials.  I've written a jillion blog posts in my head.  Sometimes I even lose track of whether I've posted them!  We are having a blast with our latest addition.  Maya loves him and so far our biggest problem between Maya and Zain is that she loves to get right up in his face to kiss him and at the same time, leans her full body weight on him!  At some point I want to write a post about Zain's birth story (before I forget it!).  Right now I have a few random Maya moments to share.  Because of her blonde hair and blue eyes, her extremely gregarious personality and her ability to speak a little Arabic, people everywhere seem to love her.  She is such an answer to prayer, in that she opens doors all over the place.  She also gets a lot of free treats. . .

Free ice-cream at Chili's (only for her, there was no free ice-cream for us).

This place is called Pinkberry (I think it's a U.S. chain) and it's frozen yogurt.  I think it's the most excited we've been about any chain coming to our city!  They loooove Maya there and always give her gummy bears and animal crackers.

We're doing a lot of policing of this right here.  Maya is just so in love with EYES!

We're very excited about a trip we are taking to Turkey next week, and we've only got one more step to accomplish before all of Zain's paperwork will be done and we'll be okay to take him out of the country.  We have his passport and record of birth abroad, we just need to get a visa put in his passport before immigration here will let him leave, but as soon as we get it, we only have seven days before we have to leave, so we had to wait until next week to go and get it.

Nice To Meet You

Zain David Jacobsen was born on October 4th at 3:38 p.m. in Beirut, Lebanon, weighing in at 3.435 kg (7.57 lbs ) and 50.5 cm long (19.88 in).  Nice to meet you!!!