Life as a Lewis

As I've laid in bed every night this week (unable to sleep), my mind is racing with two different thoughts. (1) how different this time of year is than last year and (2) how much I have to be thankful for. This Christmas season was much less stressful than previous years, but even still I somehow managed to make it through without taking time to really reflect on how many blessings I have in my life. Last year we were a family of 3. Last year Becky had just finished up her cancer treatments, but was still feeling the effects of that 8 month ordeal. Brian was just beginning his teaching career and only had a one-semester contract. The list could go on and on. We were certainly blessed last year, but when I think of all this year has held for us, I am in awe of God's provision and especially His blessings on our family. He has been so good to us, and so many times we don't remember to thank Him for the big things much less the small, day-to-day things. I am grateful this year

I am thoroughly enjoying having this extra week with Brian home and a free schedule. It's times like these that having a teacher for a husband is GREAT. Our Tuesday started off with a couple of firsts. Camden got up at 5:00 a.m. and threw up (with the exception of baby gagging - he's never just thrown up). Now I'm sure he didn't feel good right at that moment, but the not feeling good quickly moved into TOTALLY faking it because he didn't want to go shopping (see below). Now how does a 5 year old know how to do this. Believe me - his lying/faking it face is not very good and I was on to him immediately. He discovered that being sick and having to stay in bed isn't very fun and surprise, surprise felt quite a bit better when offered pancakes. Not sure where the 5:00 a.m. vomiting came from, but he was perfectly fine the rest of the day. After the fake sickness drama, our day consisted of a Target run, a trip to the downtown library (yes, we live exciting lives),

Things are back to normal around here: I can't sleep, Rory and Camden aren't getting along, and we're headed to the grocery store on a Monday morning. It's only 8:22, and the kids are driving each other (and me) crazy and I'm losing what little patience I have. Brian is spending the day hunting/working with his dad so it's just the 3 of us. I've promised them a trip to McDonald's Playland if they cooperate. We'll see how that bribe works. Some funny things about the kids. Camden: 1. He said something funny Saturday morning and I laughed at him. He glared at me and said, "don't even think about putting that on your blog." I'm pretty sure he didn't know there was a blog (or what it was) until our church friends started talking to him about pictures and stories they've seen and read. 2. He came up to me yesterday with a card he had drawn for me and said, "I just wanted to give this to you because you're the best mommy.

Lots of pictures! How the week began: gloves for The Hulk and Batman Our Christmas week weather Xavier and Aunt Melissa Opening one gift on Christmas Eve Grandma reading the book my Grandma Elledge wrote and my mom illustrated Christmas Eve at bedtime: You have no idea how many of these we took just to get them looking in the same direction. Stocking time Camden LOVED the Rubik's cube in his stocking Xavier enjoying my chocolate pie Every once in a while Rory only wants Camden to hold her The whole group Brian Lewis Family William in his cute hat Rory right before opening gifts Opening her very first Christmas present Camden's favorite present: a "light saver" (also known as a light saber) William and Xavier: the new black Power Rangers Screaming when Camden tried to "help" her open a present A fun hat from Aunt Jessica A new kitchen for Rory (and Camden) Oh, there's one for Rory too! Who taught him to stand that way? The aftermath Rory and Aunt "B

. . . deciding which picture is cutest. Sometimes they smile at the same time and my heart melts. Rory's new fake smile You don't want to know what bodily function they were laughing at here

Our last bit of company left this morning, and I am wiped out! We had a wonderful week of Christmas festivities, but I feel too tired to even begin to recap. We spent a couple of hours this morning trying to make the house look decent again, but have pretty much vegged out the rest of the day. If you want Brian's list of top 10 events and bottom 10 events you can read them here . I'll be back Monday with the holiday pics. In the meantime, here are a few pages I scrapped last week before the whirlwind began. Kasia Designs: October Afternoon Dani Mogstad: Woodland Winter

I'm moving slow this morning. I could not sleep last night, then woke up with a sinus headache. We've been busy doing last-minute cleaning, taping the kids for a little Christmas video (tune in Christmas Day), making a last batch of cake balls, etc. I think I need some heavy-duty coffee. Unfortunately, there is no Starbucks in this blink-and-you'll-miss-it town. :) We bought something yesterday that I never imagined (a) wanting and (b) actually buying: a Kitchenaid Mixer! I might eventually turn into a domestic queen and make my mom happy one of these days! I can't wait to pull out the pie recipe tomorrow and I know Becky is going to be happy when she starts making pizza dough and homemade bread this week! We had our annual birthday cake (or cupcake in this case) for Jesus last night, and the kids loved it. Along these same lines, I read a post by Shaun Groves yesterday that was pretty amazing. I read his blog occasionally and he has some very interesting and though-

Not me - I can only keep with this one, but Brian has decided to join the blogging world. You can read his first post here . I have a feeling he's a bit more philosophical than I am. :) We had a really nice weekend. Our trip to Patti's was lots of fun, and the food was seriously good! Micah, Becky, and the boys made it in Saturday evening and within 5 minutes had rooted out any and every Batman and Lightning McQueen toy Camden owns. They had tons of fun playing together, and I can see this Christmas is going to be full of boyish laughs, screams, and high-energy romps through the house! Rory was a little less impressed and pretty much sat on our laps and watched them play. We'll see how long it takes her to jump in. Our children's Christmas program was last night, and just as I suspected, Camden was the loudest one there! He seems shy in person, but put him in front of a crowd and there's no hesitation. He told us last night after the program that he was just tryin

I was going to include this in my normal post, but then decided it deserved it's own post. Our friend Christian, who is 16 and has a rare form of leukemia, is very sick with kidney stones. He is also nearing the end of his chemo treatments and is facing a critical time as they prepare for his bone marrow transplant. Here is his latest post . Please pray fervently for him and his family (and feel free to leave him a little note on his website if you'd like).

All you cold weather people out there - don't hate me. It's 64 degrees right now (at 7:00 in the morning). Of course, we also haven't seen the sun shine in probably 2 weeks, but it is warm (and raining yet again). It's also December 19, and 64 degrees just seems wrong. Every single present and stocking stuffer is wrapped and under the tree or ready to be put in stockings with the exception of one small stocking gift for Rory that is still in a UPS truck somewhere. It took well over an hour with both Brian and I furiously wrapping. It's good to have it done. My floor is covered in glitter from wrapping paper, bows, and tissue paper! Brian only has school until 10:45 today, and he is quite excited at the prospect of 2 weeks with no 4th graders. We're having dinner at his parent's house tonight. Tomorrow they are watching the kids, and we're going to Patti's Settlement with a church group. Micah and Becky arrive late tomorrow afternoon and then the fun

I think these turned out well (they look much better in person). They're going to take up a massive amount of wall space, but that's all right because it's pretty much all I had planned for this room anyway. The pictures aren't the best, but you get the idea. The frames and matte color are the exact same for all 4 pictures.

I am feeling so frustrated with this whole sleep thing with Rory. (Aren't you excited to now be getting day-by-day updates?) She's now moved past the crying and into a pure 2-year-old tantrum rage. This happened for over an hour at naptime yesterday, again for over an hour at bedtime last night and then again at 5:00 this morning. I just don't know what to do. To be honest, it pretty much ruins my day. It is torture to listen to your child cry for 3-4 hours a day (much less listen to them scream cause they're mad!). The good news is that except for all the crazy bedtime stuff, she seems perfectly fine during the day. Well, besides all the crying and screaming yesterday, I had a great time with my friends and their little ones at our party. I am so happy to have them as friends, and it has been really wonderful to get together once a week. I consider the holidays officially launched: there were gifts, Christmas cookies, and lots of food. We went Christmas caroling last n

I told Mayme on the phone yesterday morning that it felt like vacation to have Brian at home helping with the kids while I got alot done. Yeah, that "vacation" feeling didn't last so long. After 4 batches of cookies, 4 loads of laundry, and countless other household chores, I was exhausted by the time we got the kids in bed last night. I still didn't get everything done that I wanted, but I did get quite a bit finished up. We were going to tackle wrapping presents after the kids went to bed (since underneath the tree is pretty empty right now), but I decided to just skip it. We'll mess with it tomorrow. Oh, and I did not get to go meet my friend for lunch - we decided not to risk driving on the roads so I was very disappointed. Rory cried for over an hour last night so maybe the nightlight was just a fluke. Who knows! My friends are coming over this morning for a Christmas brunch. I made a really great brunch casserole that you mix up the night before, then bake t

Despite the fact that it was 58 degrees when I got up yesterday at 6:00 a.m., it was 24 degrees when we went to bed last night and combine that with a little bit of rain and wet roads means that Brian was out of school at 12:45 yesterday and has a snow day today! We grocery shopped after naptime yesterday, and I should have known better. Not only is it the week before Christmas, but ice was in the forecast. Tennessee is one of those southern states that freaks out at the thought of winter weather, and Wal-Mart was like a war zone. We managed to get everything on our (long) list, and came home to a cozy house with Christmas music and Christmas baking. I baked 2 batches of gingersnaps (Brian's favorite) and mixed up Russian tea cakes. Brian was a domestic king last night and helped me not only bake, but clean up as well. Rory cried less than 10 minutes last night at bedtime (and she's still asleep at 7:00 a.m.)! You have no idea how excited I am about that. We bought a night ligh

We had to cancel our playdate with Joy, Ellis, and Sumner this morning because of Rory's cold - I just don't want to pass it on to anyone or for Rory to get worse. I was so looking forward to seeing them again, and Camden most definitely needs to burn off some energy. All these rainy days are tough on a 5-year old, and it's supposed to rain every day this week. Brian has volunteered to either go grocery shopping with me tonight or to watch the kids and let me go by myself. Since I'm buying for Christmas, that will be so helpful - I'm pretty sure I'll have a very full cart. I'm boring today with pretty much no cute stories or pictures. I guess I could tell you that Rory cried again last night for almost 2 hours and then woke up MUCH too early this morning and refused to go back asleep until I got her up and she slept on my shoulder. I need serious help with this sleep thing, especially since we have lots of company coming next week. Holliewood Studios: Krafty

We have had a great weekend. Friday night we decided Camden might be old enough to watch Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe so we had pizza and popcorn and family movie night. He absolutely LOVED it (and it was nice for us not to have to watch Cars or 101 Dalmatians yet again), although if I would have remembered how intense some of the scenes were, we probably would have waited a while longer, but he seems to have no side effects of watching a scary move. Rory loved Aslan since lions are her favorite animal these days - she has good sound effects for a lion. Saturday we braved the crazy mall to try to finish Christmas shopping and had much success. I'm usually finished shopping by this point in the season so I have no idea if the sales were extra good or if this is how it always is, but there were definitely some good deals. We also packaged up and mailed out some family gifts and most of the Christmas cards. I ran out of stamps so I still have a few to se