Snowy Christmas!

I've put away the Christmas decorations. That's right, y'all -- if I've gotten my days mixed up and today is actually December 20th or something, DON'T TELL ME because I've put away the Christmas decorations. (Insert video montage here of me twirling and dancing around the extra space in my living room. Ahhh....)

Christmas was a bit unusual this year. Wes and I are Texas-born, Texas-grown, so the closest we've gotten to "winter storms" have been those rare occasions when the roads have iced and collected about half an inch of powdery snow-like substance. We took the girls to Chickasha to see the Christmas lights on Monday night last week and even commented about how bearable the colder weather was since it was a DRY cold. Should have kept our mouths shut because on Christmas Eve, it started icing. Then, it started snowing. By that evening, we were under eleven inches of snow (!!!) and were in what the weather men on TV were calling a blizzard. A BLIZZARD, y'all! (And I know that those of you from up north are rolling your eyes over this since you go out and sunbathe in worse weather than this, but let me tell you -- it was a BIG deal to us!) BC was appropriately horrified and stopped eating so as to avoid trips to the backyard. Smart dog.

Wes's parents made it into town before the weather turned bad, then couldn't even make it down the road to their hotel for the night. So, we had a full house (no guest room, since each of our girls has her own room) with limited groceries since I wasn't planning on being snowed in and needing to feed six people for two days. I had bought food for a Christmas Day brunch, which meant that we ended up brunching morning, noon, and night for two days. Ha! The girls loved being snowed in, mainly because that gave them plenty of time to play with the hordes of princes and princesses and the gigantic castle that Wes's grandmother got them. If we hadn't taken them out to build a snowman, I'm not sure they even would have known it snowed. This is how preoccupied they were with the castle and its occupants. (Ana was also very exuberant about the "scratchy-book" that she got me for Christmas, asking every few minutes if I was going to need all of the princess stickers that came with the kit. Someone was looking to take back part of the gift that she gave!)

We made it through Oklahoma and down into Texas on Christmas evening, stopping by my parents' house for the night and doing our Christmas with them. Em received a Belle Christmas dress, complete with shiny gold high heels, and twirled, twirled, twirled all through my parents' house. So sweet! And so very stylish, especially when she put on a pirate hat with it.

We got in the car AGAIN the next day and drove down to San Antonio. Along the drive in Oklahoma, we had seen a dog lying on a couch out in the middle of the snow-covered road. Hmm. I had hoped to see something equally interesting on the drive into San Antonio, but believe it or not, there wasn't ANY snow! Just increasingly hotter and hotter weather, until we were there and half of the winter clothing I had been wearing had been cast off somewhere in the middle of the state. Tundra to tropical in one day! God bless Texas.

The rest of the weekend was spent with Wes's extended family. Wes and I were able to get away for an evening to do some shopping and eat at one of Wes's favorite restaurants, which he tried to sell to me by saying, "This is the San Antonio equivalent of Waffle House." Y'all, comparing something to the Waffle House is never a ringing endorsement. Surprisingly enough, though, it was good. And it was GREAT to get some time out and about with Wes after so many family gatherings and being holed up in our house. The girls, meanwhile, enjoyed the time with Coach and Nana, watching videos about Disney World and getting excited about seeing the sites. (For those who don't remember, Wes's parents gifted all six of us with a trip to WDW this Christmas. We leave at the end of January. Eeeeee!!!!! We're so excited!)

We had our last Christmas celebration on Monday night in Fort Worth with my dad's extended family, then raced back to Duncan yesterday morning before it started snowing late in the afternoon. Wes had been shoveling snow out of the church parking lot when he called me to tell me that it was snowing again and that we'd likely be stuck in the house again for a day or two. This morning, though, it was back up to 34 degrees, and the roads were clear enough for him to go into work. I'm sad that he's not here but very glad that we can leave the house if we want to. Not that we will after all the travel we've been doing, but we could if we wanted to, which makes all the difference in the world.

And that? Was the most boring blog post ever. Here's hoping for more interesting news in 2010...

Merry Christmas!

Some fun tot tidbits to start off Christmas week the right way...

• Our all-time favorite "Emism" was the emphatic "TURNITON, Papi! TURNITON!," said while pointing at the television. Now that she's getting older and her annunciation is (sadly) improving, she says, "Turn it on, Papi!" On the bright side, it's easier to understand her now, but we're still sad that the days of running several words together into mega-cute mega-words is over. Sigh.

• Ana told me the other day that she wants to be a missionary when she grows up. That or a gorilla. It's good that she's leaving ALL of her options open at this point.

• Emmy is a big fan of Christmas lights. While we were driving to church the other night, I told her to tell me whenever she saw a house with Christmas lights. She did so, yelling, "I SEE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!" every time we'd pass a house with them on. I'd tell her, "Way to go, Emmy!" And she'd say, "Thank you, Mommy. I SEE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!" On and on she went without ceasing, so much so that poor Ana couldn't point out any of her own Christmas lights and decided instead to stump me with questions, like the one below...

• Ana asked me, "Where is God?" I know she's a literal thinker at this age and that it's impossible to explain some spiritual concepts to her. So, I said, "Well, God is with us because the Bible says that He will always be with us." Ana responded with, "No! He's right there!" She pointed to a nativity scene in a yard, saying, "The baby Jesus is right there!" Which prompted me to say, "No, dear, that's merely a graven image." Ha! (I seriously don't have anything against nativity scenes, but that was honestly the first response that came to mind.) I could see Ana's confusion through the rearview mirror and clarified, saying, "It's just a decoration. That's not the real baby Jesus. God is with us, all the time, even though we can't see Him." Ana didn't have any response to this which means either A) She understood, B) I had confused her into silence, or C) She had simply grown bored with the conversation. (The answer is C, probably with a side of B, for those who are wondering.)

• My parents told me that every time they would tell Emmy that they loved her this weekend, she would smile and say, "Papi say that." (Awww! And aww?! What about the million times that Mommy tells her that?!)

• Ana came into the kitchen last night and shrieked to Wes, "PAPI! I gotta tell you something!" Wes said, "What? What?" And Ana responded, with her arms open wide, "I love you, Papi." (Awww! And again... oh, forget it.)

• The girls figured out that we had an anniversary and that "anniversary" had something to do with getting married. So, when they pulled up to the church yesterday morning with my parents, Ana proudly proclaimed, "My Mommy and Papi are getting married!" Finally, right?

Hope you have a WONDERFUL Christmas and a great start to 2010!

Around here...

It's early. Very early. I've been up for quite a while now. Everyone in our church is having surgery this week (or so it seems), so starting today, Wes is leaving the house at the crack of dawn every day to be at the hospital. I woke up early to see him off, and Ana woke up early because that's what Ana does most mornings. (She and Wes apparently spend their mornings together in the living room, unbeknownst to me, as evidenced by Ana's hands-on-hips rant this morning that, "Papi! You not in the living room when I wake up!") Emma is still asleep, so she's out of luck. Or maybe she's the lucky one since she's still snoozing. Hmm...

As we had promised we would do, we took the girls to see The Princess and the Frog on Wes's day off last week. (Technically, half day off since we had a church Christmas party that night. But a half day is better than nothing!) They didn't take their eyes off the screen for the entirety of the movie, and as we were leaving, Ana kept saying, "That was awesome!" and Emma kept saying, "I see Princess and the FROG!" I think it was a hit. We enjoyed it, too, and highly recommend it to any of you who were on the fence about braving the holiday crowds to go and see it.

We had a dinner and party with the senior adults from our church that night, and by the end of the evening, the girls were so hyped up that they were running circles around the fellowship hall, screaming as they went. No one seemed bothered by this, so I just let them go right ahead. Ana and Emma loved riding on the church van to the restaurant and passing around gifts during a game later on in the evening. I'm really thankful for our church family and how much they love our children and welcome them at any event. I wouldn't be able to be at any of our events if it was any different and would probably hardly ever see Wes as a result, so I'm REALLY thankful, especially during the holiday season.

We woke up early on Saturday morning to travel down to Fort Worth for my extended family's Christmas. There were seven children there under the age of five, which meant that the gift exchange was a blur of paper, running tots, and squeals. We had so much fun, and the girls loved the time spent with their cousins and their second (third?) cousins. So much so that Ana started crying hysterically when we told her it was time to leave. Kendall kept telling her that it would be okay and that they would see each other really soon, prompting Ana to look at me and shriek, "We taking Emmy home, RIGHT?!" If she was losing Kendall, she was making darn sure that she wasn't losing Emma, too! Oh, the drama. We ran by Target on our way out of town (because Target is exciting when you don't have one within an hour's driving distance), then picked up some Burger King for the girls to eat on the road. We weren't even out of Fort Worth when Ana shouted, "All done!" and Emma added, "More chicken!," so we had to stop again in Decatur to buy MORE chicken nuggets. About thirty minutes outside of Decatur, where there isn't anything, Ana kept saying, "Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie!" When I asked her what was hurting, she said, while shaking her leg, "Holding in the pee pee!" Thus began some minor speeding on Wes's part to get us to Bowie, where Ana just barely made it into the Dairy Queen's restroom. Whew! While I was putting her back in the car so we could finally get home, Wes shouted, "Ew! I smell something!" Sure enough, even though she feigned innocence when asked point-blank if she had done some business, Emma had the dirtiest diaper of her life. In she and I went to the Dairy Queen, and thirty minutes after we had pulled into Bowie (TWO HOURS after we had left Fort Worth), we were finally leaving Texas. It was like the state wouldn't let us go!

Anyway. We did finally get back home. Sunday was busy, and we concluded the evening with (another) church Christmas social. You know, I worked really hard to lose what weight I gained during Thanksgiving, and it's a really good thing, because I keep putting it back on with every church event we have. Is there some unwritten law that says Baptist Christmas celebrations have to include extreme amounts of food? I need to research how the guy from Man Vs. Food does it -- pigs out every episode, yet doesn't seem to gain any weight -- so that I can get through seasons like this. (Of course, it doesn't help that I leave these events with a doggy bag. Like last night, for instance, I left with half of my dessert dish and what was left of a plate of someone else's fudge. Do I regret taking the fudge? No. But I will likely regret it tomorrow when I step on the scale, after eating every last bit of that fudge throughout the day today. Mmmm.... fudge...)

We have laundry and housecleaning on the to-do list today, so I better get to it. This week is especially special since Wes and I will be celebrating five years of marriage on Friday. We're really proud of that number, since five sounds like a long time to us. Of course, when we mentioned that we were having an anniversary this month to our church family, we discovered that there are many couples at our church who got married in December. Except they're celebrating 39 years, 51 years, and -- hold onto your hats -- 63 years. Kinda makes five years seem like a mere couple of days. Even so, we're planning on celebrating. Ana and Emma are going to Texas for the weekend so that we can go out by ourselves without worrying about finding chicken nuggets on a menu or finding a potty out in the middle of nowhere. Looking forward to that!

Hope your week is off to a great start!

Thank You for this Food

Ana went in with me to tuck Emma in, as is her custom. She normally prays for Em before I can finish pulling the blankets up around her shoulders, kissing her sister so sweetly on the head when she finishes praying. But on this particular night, she was extra sleepy and forgot, so I prompted her with, "Ana, are you going to pray for Emmy?"

She put her hands on Emma, closed her eyes, and said, "Dear God, thank You for this food. Amen."

Seems Miss Faulk only knows two ways to pray -- goodnight prayers and mealtime prayers. And exhaustion leads to some confusion between the two.

Either that, or Emmy was looking like a tasty little snack.

Hope you're finding many things to be thankful for (sisters, food, or sisters who ARE food) as you prepare for the holidays...

Ramblings on a Cold Day...

So, it's cold here in Oklahoma. Just a few mornings ago, it was 21 degrees. With the sun out. During this season, I always wish humans were more like bears and could spend the entire winter snuggled up in bed, conserving energy. (And I would totally be into the calorie-loading that bears do before they go into hibernation. Point me in the direction of the nearest Krispy Kreme, and I would do just fine.) Alas, I am still a human and still had to get out of bed this morning and go about my day. And since I won't be missing three months' worth of meals like my bear friends, I won't be needing a Krispy Kreme donut to enjoy with my hot chocolate. Bah.

We had a great weekend despite the frigid temperatures. I heard rumors that it was snowing all over Texas, but the only snow we saw here in Oklahoma was at the mall, where our girls ran up to Santa in his winter wonderland as the poor man was trying to go on break. (Excuse me, while he was leaving to feed the reindeer.) We had gone early that morning to get flu shots at the health clinic here in town and then drove into Lawton to enjoy a gift card day. What is a gift card day? A day where you only do the things that you can pay for with a gift card that you've been given. Lunch at Chick-Fil-A, some shopping, and a movie. Fun, fun, fun! Ana actually slept through most of "Planet 51," but Em stayed awake for the whole thing, eating a lollipop as she kept her eyes glued to the screen. Afterwards, we all enjoyed some cookies together. Mmmm....

Not so appetizing, though, was when Ana threw up during lunch on Saturday. I loved Wes's reaction to Ana giving the table back the meal she had so sweetly thanked God for -- "I'll get the dog." Yeah, you do that, Papi. (Actually, this was a really good thing, as BC is definitely a scent hound and has gotten sick off of eating an array of disgusting substances, barf included. If that doesn't make you want to rush out and get a hound dog, I don't know what will.) Ana looked at me and said, "Mommy, I spilled on the table!," then proceeded to scream, "CLEAN ME UP! CLEAN ME UP!" hysterically until I could finally get her out of her clothes. (Which she didn't want me to do because she just wanted it "clean, not off!," but it was impossible to do that without taking it off. Almost as impossible as rationally explaining this to an OCD three year old who freaks out when her hands are merely wet with clean water, much less vomit.)

Anyway, it was an isolated incident. Whew! My mommy senses go on high alert when someone spews, and I don't rest well until we've gone twenty-four hours without further explosions. Emmy took to imitating her sister's retching noises (just for fun, of course), which made me even more high-strung. So much so that I dreamt one night that I was under lockdown in a house in central Asia with President Obama and that we spent the countless hours we had together playing card games and discussing the merits of private schools, homeschooling, and public schools. Not sure what that was all about, but that's what happens when you stay half-awake at night, listening for someone to get sick in their sleep.

We're in full holiday season mode around here. Yesterday was the Happy Birthday Jesus party at church, and I think our girls now believe that Christmas is, like, tomorrow. Ana keeps asking about the gifts under the tree, jumping up and down and yelling, "And then it will be Christmas and I will be so happy and I will open my presents and I will share everything with Emmy! YAY!" Emmy is excited in her own way, pointing to the tree and each and every present underneath, asking, "Emmy present?" We have a holiday party tonight for the association, one on Friday night for the senior adults in our church, a family gathering in Texas on Saturday, and a couple more next week. Are our girls going to be confused about what day is actually Christmas or what?

And with that, I should probably go and get some work done around here. Sundays tend to make our home look like a ravaged war zone, so there's PLENTY to do...

Flu shots... and other enigmas of parenting!

(Check out the scar on baby Ana's left arm. This will make sense later on in the blog. I promise.)

(And I couldn't post that picture without posting this one, which shows her wonderful reaction to my kiss. Ha!)

So, a few months ago, I asked my pediatrician about the flu shot. My girls have never gotten one, but after last year's bout with something similar to the flu (vomit galore, fevers soaring, zombielike behavior), I figured it wouldn't hurt anything to have them better protected this year.

Unfortunately, the doctor's office has had a shortage. And the waiting list has been so long that even all these months later, our girls still haven't gotten one. I called today to ask again and was told that they were sending people to the public health offices. I asked if there would be a concern with Emma taking one with her drug allergy. The nurse told me that as long as she wasn't allergic to eggs (???), she wouldn't have a problem with the flu shot. (Which makes me wonder what they put in those things, but whatever. I'm just not going to think about it.) I asked her what the pediatrician is recommending concerning the H1N1. She said, and I quote, "the doctor isn't expressing an opinion either way." Our pediatrician isn't one to hold back when it comes to any and all shots, so I'm taking this lack of enthusiasm as a less than ringing endorsement. We've heard varying opinions from several people -- doctors who recommend it, patients who have taken it, doctors who don't recommend it, people who don't take ANY vaccines -- and we're just a bit confused.

Not that I'm asking for national healthcare or anything, but I at least appreciated the way it was done in Japan. You got your slip of paper in the mail, telling you when you'd get what shots the doctors had agreed you needed, and you got it done. I remember expressing some reluctance in vaccinating Ana for TB, because the scar would look awful for a year (see the photo above!) and because her risk of getting TB in the US is minuscule, but ALL Japanese children were required to get the shot. So, Ana did, too. They knew better than I did, having studied medicine and having lived where TB once killed hundreds of children every year. I trusted their advice and did what they suggested. (And three years after she got that shot, she still has a very faint scar. And a lifelong immunity to TB, which will be great if she ever lives in a third world country, I guess.)

And now? We're just being left to decide what we need/don't need. And I understand that the seasonal flu rarely kills anyone, so there's not such a conundrum involved in choosing whether or not to take that one. But with all of the scary stories we're hearing about what can happen with the swine flu, we're left wringing our hands over the shortage of those vaccines and how widely it's disputed, wondering if our choice either way is ultimately going to have a life or death effect on our children.

What do we do?! What do we do if we're being left to make choices that we are in NO WAY qualified to make?! Is all of parenthood like this?! Feeling unqualified and wondering if you're making the right decisions! AHHHH!!!

That's it. I'm moving back to Japan, where they don't give you a choice either way, at least when it comes to health issues. (And everyone lives well into their hundreds, so they must be doing something right!)

Christmas Letter

So, I've been trying to write our Christmas letter. I usually get this done earlier in the season without too much trouble, likely because there has always been (until now) lots to recount from the past year. Here's just a sampling of the events remembered in Christmas Letters Past...

- We got married!

- I finished seminary.

- Wes finished seminary.

- We're pregnant!

- We had a baby!

- We moved to Japan... and we're pregnant again!

- We had another baby!

- We moved to Oklahoma.

These are all things worth mentioning that were worthy of a Christmas letter. And really, that's been the whole point of a Christmas letter for us -- a way to introduce new family members, to share where in the world we were, and to let friends and family know just the really big news from the Faulk family. This year, though? Here's all I can come up with...

- Ana potty trained herself. (Which was a huge deal for us, but I'm thinking that no one wants to read about this in a Christmas letter.)

- We went on our first family vacation.

- Wes spent every day working at the church, and I spent every day here at home with the girls. Just like the year before.

See what I mean? Booooo-rrrriiiiinnnnnnggggg. If Ana's bathroom success is the headliner, I wonder if I should even do a Christmas letter this year.

How about you? Do you send out Christmas letters? What kind of fun things are you sharing in your Christmas letter this year?