Here comes Santa Claus

Tillman and Noble

The level of giddiness rises at our house with each passing day, each door on the advent calendar...while I work at keeping expectations under control. Now I know why my mom used to tell us every year, "Guys you're not going to be getting a lot this year." It just takes a little pressure off a parent. Except that when I say that to one of my children the most common response is, "Well, Santa will bring it." Actually, so far our kids have been WONDERFUL about what they've received and haven't received for Christmas. (That year Santa brought a pogo stick instead of an American Girl doll for Jess I worried a little- but she was just as stoked.) I'm also beginning to understand why my mom was always trying to minimize our holidays, planning less. As a kid I was always thinking, "Why can't she just have fun with Christmas? Like us?" Now I realize that she was the one making the fun. Parents are the magic makers - and that's great except when it starts to consume too much time and energy and money - and you start to forget why you're doing it and every priority gets reshuffled. So now it's my turn to say to my kids (and everyone else)"We're (I'm) doing less. You're getting less. Let's have more FUN!" - Still working on it.

Reviewing family videos

Snowy day ...
I've been trying to sift through old family videos - giving them to our parents for Christmas on DVD. I haven't looked at them for years. I haven't seen my children in that stage for so long. It's strange...not only to see them in motion as toddlers... but also myself and Mitch-Darling. I'm SO glad for video cameras; things are more real in motion. I can picture myself at 90 - watching and re-watching those old movies and feeling warm inside remembering my children the way they were.
As long as we're talking about videos... here's one not-so-ancient yet.
Here's a short clip from one of this summer's Saturday morning "Constitutional" hikes with my brothers/sisters. My brother Casey and his wife invented it - meeting every Saturday morning of the summer with kids in tow at a new trail for a hike - for our health (both physically and psychologically). Good times.

Per Mitch-Darling's suggestion, I'm inaugurating the family blog. He says that this might be therapeutic for me while serving a purpose (i.e. journaling the life of our family).

Anyway, having grown up in a pre-Internet world, I'm always a bit leery of the spotlight of putting our lives "out there". Should I assign all my children code names? Wow.

Yes, I named our blog after our dog. Nobe was about 4 years old when we brought our dog home from the shelter. When we asked him what we should name the dog, without hesitation he said "Jupiter the Space Donkey". Soooo... we HAD to go with it, except for everyday use we shorten it. When we're chasing our wild black lab around the neighborhood trying to retrieve him when he gets out we just yell, JUPITER!!!!