Let's try this again......

So, I've fallen off the blog wagon, yet, again.  I am not sure if it is because I follow other blogs that are so creative and well written and I don't have much to say, or if it is because I am not sure I want to put into print my true feelings of inadequacy as a mother or if it is because I am just too lazy to think of something pithy to say.  All of the above are probably true.  

In a nutshell, the fall/holiday season was celebrated without any real drama this year.  Unlike last year, we were able to make it to the end of the year without any more hospitalizations or time spent in the ICU waiting room.  Praise Jesus!  Thanksgiving found all the Beattie siblings and families trekking to Chicago for Thanksgiving.  We were able to invade the same home in Lincoln Square we did last year.  I was not as savvy with my camera as last year, so I will refer you back to photos posted in 2010. 

The drive up was fairly uneventful, with the exception of seeing this in LeClair, Iowa at the gas station.  

not only a opossum, but another mystery animal.  Road kill Thanksgiving, mmmmm.

The dinner was delicious, we even got a free duck because the Chinese restaurant we ordered the turkey from was late, so we were super lucky.  

Yep, turkey still had head on.  

And so did the free duck.  It was a scene from A Christmas Story

Jake will remember this Thanksgiving because he had a sudden, but thankfully, short-lived illness.  We were all awakened to the sound of vomiting.  From a dead sleep I was down the stairs to the "sleeping porch" where the boys were camped out to check out the damage.  Glad the floor was concrete, but sucked to have to deal with sickness at someone else's home with my germ-a-phobe family convinced we would all be puking by dinner.  No one else got sick and aside from laying low most of the day, Jake bounced back quickly.

I am still amazed by the generosity and willingness of Karen's friends Dan and Celeste to offer their home to us, not once, but TWICE.  One more reason to be thankful this year.  

We took another family photo.  Memories were made, we went to see The Muppet Movie at a small neighborhood theater in Lincoln Square and then Friday some of us went downtown, others went shopping and still others went to the Northwestern Basketball game.  It is always hard to coordinate an activity that satisfies everyone.  Glad everyone seemed to be happy.

Ode to Ferris Beuller.  I LOVE Seurat.

Missed  Drew & Alison and Lijen & Josh

December found me trying to live out the Advent Conspiracy.  Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, and Love All.  I may not have been completely successful in passing on the desire to my children, but the attempt to downsize  was made.  I wanted the boys to see that Christmas is more about GIVING than it is about GETTING.  We helped buy gifts for a family sponsored by our new church.  Even though they didn't know them personally, I am hoping they realized that when the list of one of the kids included underwear, not just toys, that maybe they had more than they realize.  I tried to remind Sam of the homes we saw in Honduras, to remember what some of the homes looked like.  We are truly RICH compared to most of the world.  

Last year when we were holding vigil in the ICU waiting room on Christmas Day, a family came and gave us blankets telling their story that the previous year they had been where we were.  It inspired me to want to do the same thing, so over Thanksgiving we made a few fleece tie blankets and then I finished a total of five to give away. My sister-in-law did the same thing in Ohio.   I am not sure if other families may continue the tradition next year, but the process made me cry remembering how we were all convinced that Grandpa Bob was going to be in Heaven that week and all his family made a pilgrimage to Des Moines to say what may have been a final good-bye.  We are very thankful that he made a complete recovery.  I would have never guessed.  I hope we were able to show love to strangers in a way we felt loved last year.  

Over the Fall months in our new Sunday School class we read and studied the book Radical by David Platt.  It has been a life-changing study.  It has imprinted the desire to continue to live out our Faith, not just at Christmas, but all year round.  

Scott and I decided to try to give away to missionaries and organizations to spread the gospel of Christ, even if we can't go ourselves.  We have shopped for the food bank that is part of our new church, sent "bonuses" to missionaries we know and have committed to give sacrificially not just at Christmas.  I hope we are able to continue this.  The goal of the book was to commit to a year of being RADICAL.  Turning our lives upside down.  I want our children to see what we are doing and to encourage them to also live this way as they grow and leave our nest.  I want to raise children who love God with all their hearts, minds, souls and bodies.  

We rang in the New Year with me at work, Sam and Nick at a youth group party, Jake at a sleep over and Scott and Ted the Destroyer at home.  Not very exciting, but it closed out 2011 in far happier way than it started.  We are thankful for better health, continued family love and the ability to give away.  

So that concludes my quarterly update.  We finally had family photos taken by my dear friend, Susan.  Thank you for helping us make a memory worthy of framing.  Thanks, my friend!