I Don't Get It!!!

I made 6 dozen sugar cookies today. I have always loved the tradition of decorating cookies. I don't think I have ever missed a year in my entire life, except when I was a baby, of course. I've long looked forward to sharing this tradition with my kids. Last year we decorated cookies. Snapper did great with the cookies! Pepper did even better at decorating his mouth...

This year we sat down to decorate, and Pepper freaked out. Totally freaked out! He couldn't get the frosting off the spoon. He didn't want to drip on the table, even though it was covered with waxed paper. He didn't want the frosting touching his skin. He couldn't get the frosting right on his cookies. After frosting only 3 cookies, he had screamed at least 10 times, and was on the edge of a meltdown. At that point I fed him a cookie, which quieted him down, and set him up with a Christmas movie. I think this may be a sneak peak into his personality. Pepper is going to be a detail-oriented person. A neat freak. A perfectionist, perhaps. So opposite of Snapper! And I'm totally okay with that!

But here's the question: How can any child not like decorating cookies? I don't get it! I just don't get it!

That's Amazing, Grace!

9 years ago when Matt decided he wanted to marry me, I warned him, but he didn't listen! I told him--and my mother did, too--that he was willfully choosing to marry one of the clumsiest, most accident-prone women in the United States of America. He said it didn't matter to him. In sickness and in health, you know that whole bit...

Today he came right out and admitted that I am the most accident person he knows. Why?

Last Sunday, I went into the closet under our stairs to get some wrapping paper. When I came out, I discovered that Pepper had put his basket of toys in my path. I carefully stepped over the basket with my right foot. Then I stepped my left foot not quite over the basket. Unfortunately for me, that foot got caught in the basket handle, and down I went. I hit the ground so hard that Matt says the house shook. No one saw me fall, but I turned beet red anyway. I am quite certain that an hippo attempting ballet would be more graceful! I don't know what part of me hit the ground first...I think all of me hit the ground at the same time, right down to my face, which went mashing across the carpet. My right arm caught the edge of my lovely, iron/stone coffee table. I thought I had broken my wrist, but thankfully I didn't. THe next day my whole body was sore, and I had delightful bruises popping up all over. How did I manage to bruise my inner thight? I have not a clue, but I did!Dumb. That's all I have to say about that...D-U-M-B!

This morning I woke up finally feeling better. I wasn't hurting, and most of the bruises had faded away. I was all set up for a wonderful day of baking cookies. Every year I make a cookie sampler plate for each of my neighbors, all 20 houses on the cul-de-sac. I was so excited to get started that I didn't linger in bed, even though it is Saturday. I got the crust for my lemon bars in the oven. While it was baking, I began the dough for the Eggnog Thumbprints. While the butter and sugar were getting fluffy in the mixer, I answered the call of our crying kitty, who was locked out of the laundry room, and therefore was lacking access to her potty box.

Matt was very sweetly cleaning the kitchen floors for me. He pulled all the chairs out from the table, and got to work letting our iRobot sweep up. Matt had stacked our kitchen chairs in order to open up more space in the kitchen. As I walked past the chairs to open the laundry room door for Pixie, the chairs decided they no longer wished to remain stacked. I never realized until today that the top of our kitchen chairs come to a slight point. I realized it with complete clarity the second that one of the chairs speared the top of my bare foot.

By the time I managed to hobble across the kitchen and sit down at the dining room table, my foot had turned purple and my toes had gone numb. Matt removed the crust from the oven and put the mixer bowl in the fridge, and we headed for the ER. 3 hours later, I returned home, Motrin prescription in hand. Official diagnosis: Foot Contusion.

I don't think so. My foot is WHOA ugly tonight, and I can't feel my toes at all. And the pain? Let's just say if it's this bad with drugs in me, how much worse would it be without the meds! I think I'll be getting a second opinion on Monday. I think it's broke!

My friend Karon texted me tonight and said, "I'm going to have to start calling you Grace." I agree, because I am truly amazing...at getting hurt in the dumbest ways! And Matt? I told you so!

I'm BAAAAACK!

After a hiatus of nearly a month, Emily returns to the blog world! And oh, am I happy to be back! What a crazy, action-packed period this has been!

Between 14 photo shoots, 2 weeks in California, and trying to get Christmas gifts ready to ship to our out-of-state family, I have had no time to blog. Oh, and did I mention that my computer bit the dust again, and if I want to get online, I have to wait until Matt brings his laptop home form work? Ugh...All I want for Christmas is a Mac. I am SO over my PC.

So I could go back and give you a play-by-play of the last month, but I don't think you would like that very much, and it would be the blog that never ends. Instead, I think I'll make now the time I reveal the big news for our family...

May I have a drumroll please...

I'm not pregnant...

Nope, we are moving! To Florida! This summer, Lord-willing.
We have been offered a job with a different ministry and have accepted. The new ministry still falls under the umbrella of our parent organization, so none of our support needs/info changes. The change for us will be the location, and the focus of our daily work. We'll be working on a project that is relatively new, and teaches children the attributes of God, and helps them put down deep roots to their faith at an early age. One of the things we have seen over and over in the last 4 years is that many adults who were raised in Christian homes turned away from their faith in their teen years, or when hard times came into their lives. It saddens us that these people did not have the depth in their faith necessary to trust God through the hard times. We want to help the kids of today to really know God so that when they encounter difficult times, they will be able to cling to Him instead of walking away and floundering on their own. Has our heart for marriage and family changed? Absolutely not! We believe that our new job will prepare a new generation of adults to experience healthy marriages, and raise children who love and know God. Our new job complements what we have been doing for the last 4 years, and we are SO EXCITED!

I am not excited about moving away from Arkansas and the precious friends I have here. I cry if I think very much about leaving. But God has called us, and who am I to refuse to obey? No way, Jose! If there is one thing I know with certainty, it is that God's way is ALWAYS the best way, even if I don't fully understand it. I know that He will provide a great place for us to live, a wonderful new church, and new friends.

There is so much more I could say, but my husband is patiently waiting for me to sign off so he can take his computer and go to work. So I must go. I hope you have a wonderful day today!

It is good to be back.