December Sunday Funday
Prayers and Praises
It is not the end of the year as I write this, as all my carefully laid plans were disturbed as we woke up Christmas morning to Covid positive tests. It is the middle of January, but we are here! We are doing well! December was full of fun celebrations at school for the girls (Jessica’s first performance, and Sofia had a solo speaking part) and Caid (at the Palladium in Carmel? That place is impressive, as was the whole performance).
We all loved the whimsey Wonka movie, and IHOP Wonka-inspired food. It makes me really happy to have themed food around movies, and I am not sure why, but let’s do it! I thought I had my Christmas plans laid out well, and then remembered my daughter has a Christmassy birthday (December 19th) and we were able to fit that in nicely. Tis the season of unicorn pink sparkles as well.
It was our first Christmas Bazaar at church without Cassie (who passed this year), and everyone put in the effort to honor her and missionary moms, which blessed my heart. Erica had an amazing Visuals and Vibes event, and I was honored to be part of the board. Thankfully, we had our traditional time in Madison Indiana and Carina Christmas before Covid hit! Sofia was all the emotions as she and I tested positive (Caid made it through unscathed, and Jessica’s test was weird, so who knows about her), and we zoomed opening presents with both sides of the family, instead of just one.
I was pretty out of it Christmas day. Sofia didn’t really have any symptoms. The day after Christmas I went slow, but got some cleaning done—but the next day I went hard, and was then back in bed the fourth day. After that it was pretty smooth sailing—so when we all held our breath and tested again after 5 days of quarantine…it was nice to all test negative. The girls spent New Years with Grandma and pa, while I had Caid listen to a podcast on goals while I cleaned the bathroom. I really wanted to wake up to a clean bathroom in 2024. One of the things I am most grateful for this year is being able to add Uncle Loren and Aunt Carol to all the fun family stuff when they moved here in June. So grateful!
Interweb Stuff
Me stuff: One of my fav Podcast episodes of the year: Where do you Live?, There is like 26 new posts in the Saturday Sponsorship blog, as I released my new book! Here is one of those posts: Why Child Sponsorship?, On my Friday Finds blog, I have Advent things 2023, Books 2023, Counting the Cost, How Far to the Promised Land, the Myth of Equality, Best of my 2023, Favorites from 2023. From my other blogs, I have Listening for Advent, 10 questions for the end/beginning of the year. Ok…that is a lot. No wonder I am late.
Missionary things: Missionary Complex: Thoughts on Renee Bach (Amy Medina- I finally got to watch this documentary myself…recommend it!), It takes a village-including for missionary families (A Life Overseas), The Myth of the Ideal Childhood (A Life Overseas), Christmas in a foreign land (A Life Overseas)
Other things: Ella Enjoyed: 5 Books she’s loved (Everyday Reading—Ella is a 3th grader, so perfect!), How different Languages laugh online (Rest of World-I’ve always thought this interesting!), 60+ Christmas day traditions (Everyday Reading- or you could just get Covid), My favorite books of 2023 (Sarah Bessey)
NOTE: how nice to have these monthly summaries to look over at the end of the year and remember the stuff that happened:). Who knew?