Elijah Lightyear

Just in case anyone was unclear about Elijah's obsession with Buzz Lightyear, his grandma Susan comes to the rescue. Guess how easy it is to get him out of this costume every day?!! He is having a BLAST!

Stir Crazy

I run the risk of having people throw things at me, but I am going to post it anyway. I am actually sick of so many days off. Between Mary being sick (3 weeks ago), 2 hour delays (NO AM Kindergarten) 2 weeks ago, 3 snow days+ a 2 hour delay (last week) now this Monday we are off for President's Day. I have only seen my AM Kindergarten class about 4 days in the last 3 weeks. I am ready to get back in the routine! Plus it's been so cold and snowy that we are pretty much just cooped up at home all day. Aughhhh!

On a brighter note: tonight is Forgiveness Vespers. A beautiful prayer service for asking and receiving forgiveness from our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is such a cleansing way to begin Great Lent.

We've been having a pretty fun weekend, too. On Friday night the kids stayed with Aunt Megan and Uncle Everette for a sleepover. They had planned a bunch of fun activities like making their own pizzas, ice cream with toppings, playing games, taking a tub with new tub crayons to play with...it was so cool! Brian and I got to visit with our friends, the Neulieb's, whom we hadn't seen in a while, so that was fun.

The big snowstorm of 07

Well, all the naysayers were wrong. And TV 18 was right for a change. 17 inches of total accumulation. It's more than I've seen in my adult life. The poor car parked in front of our house is buried almost to the top once the snowplows came through. The one bonus of living on a busy major thouroghfare is that our street is one of the first cleared. However, now we just have to dig out our L-O-N-G driveway so we can get to the street.

Repentance and God's Forgiveness

Here is what is both amazing and hard about being Orthodox Christians. The season of Lent is a preparation for Easter. The season we are in right now? Pre-Lent. Preparing for Lent. This faith is raising the bar on holiness and devotion to a level that is...well, set apart. Thanks be to God for molding our character through these seasons. This past Sunday our priest made me cry--in the children's time. It was the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. I have heard this parable many times, it is familiar to most people. He shared how as a little boy he "ran away from home" and when he got down the street he realized that he would be cold, hungry and needed his parents after all. They were there waiting for him on the porch with open arms. Such a simple message, but how true for us too? We turn our backs on God in big and little ways and all we need to do is repent and come back to him. He is waiting with his arms open to us. I've been trying to reflect on what true repentance is. So often I return to the same sins over and over again. I was reading about gaining a repentant heart through prayer, fasting, and works for the needy. The last one was the part that interested me. My initial thought was, "How can acts of service to others help me to stop sinning?" but as I've been thinking about it more, and in light of the verses about "what you do for the least of these...", it seems likely that taking the focus off me and putting it on helping others could really help me to love Jesus more, thus raising my awareness of my sin and how it separates me from God. I suppose God could use that to help the recipient of my help as well as heal me. Okay, that's great. What does that mean for me? That is my next question. I will be pondering on my (4th day in a row) two hour delay tomorrow.

SNOW!!!!!!!!!

I put the title caps, because we got a LOT! We were on a 2 hour delay today because of the cold weather. So when we left for daycare at 9:30 it was just starting to snow. By 11:00 when I went to lunch it was getting bad. And by the time I got home at 4:00 we had over 5 inches. We didn't stay out very long, but we at least got the sidewalks cleared. Then we had to come in and drink hot chocolate!