on my mind

in recent years my immediate family has exchanged extravagant gifts for Christmas, drawn names and given just one gift, played “Dirty Santa”, and just not given gifts, etc, etc. this year we are talking about not giving gifts, but adopting a needy family instead. i know that we will probably also do this in our churches and other organizations as well, but my family just simply does not need any more STUFF. we give and get plenty with the other families we’re a part of and sometimes it seems kind of ridiculous to spend so much money on unnecessary STUFF that we sometimes don’t even care for.

so who to “adopt”? my sister is an elementary school counselor and she has access to plenty of children who would not only love some extra Christmas presents but probably won’t get many. my parents also volunteer at Open Arms Community Center and know several kids who will get little and they could use some extra love.

plus that takes a wee bit of pressure off the shopping requirements because it’s easy to buy for someone who will appreciate anything they get.

by the way…

i am totally participating in this.

maybe it will hold me a little more accountable. i know it’s going to be hard to do and i’m going to whine and stress out that i forgot to take a picture of something before i ate it, but i’m going to try hard not to cheat. that should at least make me think about what i'm eating.

so far this morning i have captured my bowl of Cheerios on camera. i know it’s only 10 am, but i also wanted to snack already (how sad) and all i had to do was think about getting out the camera again to decide i didn’t need anything else. plus how embarrassing would it be to show the world that i ate Baked Lays before noon? thank you, Zoot for the good idea.

also, the little girl has learned to fake cry. it is so hilarious. her verbal/language development has skyrocketed in the last couple of weeks so she's making all kinds of new (and funny) sounds. when she's sitting somewhere and we're not paying attention to her and she wants to get up and "walk" she starts this fake cry sound. it's not her usual fuss. it's more like real cry sounds, but you can look at her and tell that she's putting on. she's learning to manipulate us. my little girl is growing up!

what is the funniest is when we can get her to half smile in the middle of it. i'll try to get a video to post.

and finally, as i mentioned before, my ten year high school reunion is next weekend. they emailed out this picture last night with a message encouraging everyone to buy tickets. too funny! the picture is a little small, but can you find me?