The Best Christmas Ever

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this holiday season with my new philosophy guiding my every word and deed.  I’ve purposed to give God the biggest gift of all by ME not stressing out about anything.  It’s worked wonders!  Each day I’ve remained calm and I haven’t raised my voice once.  I’ve spoken kind words and reacted with a level head.  I’ve not run around like a crazy woman doing too many things, yet all the things I normally do are somehow getting done, even at my slower pace.  It’s like I’ve entered some kind of weird time/space dimension.  I like it, and I’m trusting God is up in heaven smiling.  I know Kory and Kaleb have enjoyed the “new me” as much as anyone.

This past week Kaleb turned 12.  This was his first year to ever have a real birthday party on his birthday.  I normally avoid that because it’s a busy time of year and getting kids together is nearly impossible, let alone adding one more thing to my to-do list,  but as it worked out, he just wanted pizza and cake at a local laser tag/go-kart place and it couldn’t have been any easier.  The night before, I could hardly sleep as my mind kept racing over the details and all I could come up with was that I was supposed to pick up a pizza and cake sometime before 6pm.  How was that possible?  What have I been doing to myself this last decade by having lavish parties that take months to plan and super human strength to execute?  I’m so done with that, well, maybe.

Kaleb enjoyed his birthday on every level.  He mostly loved that he was free from school for three days so he could celebrate it.  On Monday we had the neighbors over for our traditional soup lunch.  We are blessed to have such great neighbors.  Tuesday, Grammy J took him to the Space Needle for lunch (see photo). He was a little worried about making conversation with her without us around, but he did just fine.  She’s a class act and came prepared with all kinds of conversation starters.  They both had a great time.  And that evening was his party with his buddies (see other photo), so he made out.  Two of his friends came over to spend the night so the party went right on into Wednesday as the kids played all day together.  I love that about homeschooling, we can just call a day off when we want.

I’ve had the usual crazy busy weekly schedule and still managed to fit in his birthday, Christmas baking, design and print the Christmas cards, wrap gifts, write the Christmas newsletter, celebrate Christmas with my step-mom and brother and host a party for one of our home fellowship groups.  I haven’t slept much, but I haven’t been stressed out either, so it’s all worked out okay.

Kory went for his treadmill test on Friday.  They put the blood pressure thing on his left arm so he was unable to feel if he got any angina when he was running on the treadmill.  He went way past what they expected and they said he passed with flying colors.  When the technician injected him with the nuclear dye so they could photograph his heart, she made a mistake and the dye went into his tissue, not his vein, so they had to stop the whole thing and reschedule.  They apologized profusely and said he wouldn’t be charged for it, so now he has to go back this Wednesday and do the whole thing over again.  I haven’t seen him glowing in the dark yet so I trust their mistake wasn’t a bad one.

As I was wrapping gifts on Sunday I turned on a Canadian TV station just to have something to listen to.  It was some show where people present their ideas and then a panel of rich people decide if they want to invest in them or not.  I could not believe my ears when I heard a guy present his invention – and it was exactly the same as something Kaleb invented when he was eight years old!  Kaleb called his the “reticulator.”  He said you take a small stream of electricity, run it through some magnetic coils and the electrons would spin off and create a bigger stream of energy out the other end.  We just laughed about it behind his back, but I’ll be darned if some guy didn’t make it work, get a patent for it and is now a millionaire – and it’s exactly as Kaleb had designed!  I had videoed Kaleb describing it in 2008 and he has notebooks full of drawings he’s done to show his design.  He wasn’t happy that someone beat him to it.  Kory and I usually just roll our eyes when Kaleb goes on and on about these crazy ideas of his, but now apparently, we need to pay closer attention.  Yikes.  

Happy Birthday Week

The night before Kaleb’s birthday every year, we fill hundreds of balloons (thanks to our air compressor) and put them in his room after he’s gone to sleep. The idea is that he wakes up to a room full of balloons on his birthday, but inevitably he sleepwalks in the middle of the night and crawls into our bed. He loves the tradition so we still do it, but it would be nice if just once he stayed in his own bed for the night. Balloons usually float around the house until after Christmas every year but they make Kaleb happy and they give him something to play with, so we won’t be stopping that tradition anytime soon. He had a wonderful birthday, as usual, as we had the lunch with the neighbors and they watched him open his gifts. We got him a Wii this year so he was thrilled. Technology has replaced toys which I appreciate because they don’t take up as much room in the house but they sure cost more. Raising kids ain’t cheap.


This week was much about Kaleb. He had a day off school on Monday for his birthday then Tuesday he completed his science course and got a 93% for his final grade. Pretty impressive, I say. He started a new class on Earth and Space Science with Johns Hopkins yesterday so we’ll see how he does on that one. He’s always “inventing” things so studying science gives him a lot of good information. I love watching his brain at work. I’m also now loving to watch his fingers work as he tickles those ivories on the piano and plays beautiful music! He had his first piano recital last night and did very well. I don’t know why I’m so surprised by his talents and abilities, but I am. It’s just so shocking to me that he came out of my body and he’s actually GOOD at stuff.


We’ve had incredibly cold weather this week which really highlighted all the hot and cold spots in our house. Our furnace does not distribute the heat evenly so we have rooms that are too hot to stay in long and others that are like a walk-in freezer. Keeping doors closed helps, but that’s a discipline that’s tough for a little boy to remember. I’m glad it’s warming back up again as I hate being cold. Kory has appreciated the crisp days and has been outside doing yard work but I’m happy to sit inside and address Christmas cards. Some days I feel there is no time to just enjoy life - that it’s all just about getting stuff done. I hate that, but this time of year comes with quite a bit of stuff that really needs to be done.


I went to two fabulous cookie exchanges this week and they both (unfortunately) contributed to my waistline in a marvelous and tasty way. I was able to have some female chit-chat time, something I lack on a day-to-day basis around here, and I realized while being able to verbalize some things, that I just need to be done grieving Norway. It’s time to get out of my pit and accept that life is what it is here on the Ridge and start looking for things I enjoy about that – like the flocks of Trumpeter Swans that fly overhead each day or the sliver of orange that peeks out between the gray clouds at sunset or the way the ice formed a beautiful protective shell over the fountain in our pond this week. Each day there are blessings and small miracles and my eyes just need to see them and not the piles of laundry or trail of books Kaleb leaves throughout the house. I am blessed, and I know it, but in Norway, I felt so spoiled. But as my Daddy used to say, “This too, shall pass.” He meant it to comfort me over bad things, but it’s also true of good things – they don’t last forever either. Today would have been his 77th birthday.