We took the kids to our neighborhood's tree lighting and Christmas party last night.

The group sang carols then Santa arrived on a fire truck and threw "magic dust" on the tree to make it light up. Then the kids followed him into the golf course club house for a very long rendition of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, but the kids didn't seem to get as restless as the adults did.

Oh, and there were treats. The girls had their choice of cookies and cupcakes, so they were thrilled with that.

Now that I have been following Fly Lady (or trying to) for about a year now, I've seen how much I benefit from following daily routines. So I have started putting a morning routine together for Norah. When I am done with it, I'll print it and put it in her room somewhere, maybe on the back of her door, so she can always find it with ease to read it. I know I'll have to shepherd her in this at first, remind her to start to work on it every morning for a while, etc. But, after a few weeks, I think she will be well on her way to getting into the habit of being "on task," even without my reminders. I'm still making changes to her morning routine, but this is what it looks like on my desktop right now.

I've been asking God to help me condescend to my daughter. Or, now that I think about it, maybe God is the one who has been asking me to condescend to her.

She's seven and the things that cause her grief are so minor that it takes an act of my will not to totally dismiss her and send her from the room sometimes (like her friends who call her "Poop-head" and just won't stop calling her that even though she asks them to stop). The words, "That's no big deal" almost slide right off my tongue when she complains about something like this.

My daughter's a talker. She's a daughter, after all. She's not even sure what she wants to talk about sometimes. But it's clear that she needs to talk because she'll just kind of wander into the room that I'm in, situate herself in front of me (or as near to 'in front of me' as she can get), think of something random, interrupt me to tell me about it, then, once she has my attention, she'll take obvious pains to try and think of something else to tell me about real quick, hoping to coax me into conversation because she needs the face time. It's times like this when she doesn't care what she's talking to me about, only that she is talking, when it's especially hard not to send her from the room and say something like "Come back when you have real things to talk about."

But, she's only seven, so it may be a while before she has any "real things" to talk about. I've spent quite a bit of time with girls twice her age and they still don't have "real things" to talk about, either, not when I compare what causes them grief to what adult ladies I know are truly grieving over moment to moment.

But my daughter needs me to address the heart of her issues, even as "small" as the issues themselves are right now compared to what they will be one day. Because the same friends who call her "Poop-head" may one day be the ones who call her "Slut" may one day be the ones who call her "Lazy" for being a housewife or whatever.

Her issues are very real to her, so I am asking the Lord (or maybe He is asking me), to make those issues very real to me.

And, Lord, help me do it, for the adult-Norah's sake.

We went to the Christmas party for Dwayne's new job last night. They provided an amazing spread at dinner. We had such a good time with Dwayne's coworkers that we laughed harder than we have in ages. And Santa even came and gave all the kids gifts.

Norah got a collection of Robert Dahl books.

Avril was thrilled with her puppy. She fell in love with him right away and insisted on sleeping with him last night.

It would be impossible for me to express everything that's in my heart and mind after meeting the people Dwayne works with now and seeing further into the decision he made to change jobs, but as we drove home, these verses came to mind as I was thanking God for how He lead my husband to this.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-13

It's December 1st. We started our Advent celebrations tonight. We've been keeping these traditions since the first Christmas after Norah was born. I remember holding Norah when she was a tiny baby while Dwayne read from our Advent book and from the Bible and we hung the ornaments. Now, Norah is old enough to read the Advent book to us and Avril hung the ornament before we put the girls to bed tonight.

One of Norah's friends gave her two hermit crabs. The girls have been enjoying them. Norah calls the crab with the pearl shell "Shiny" and the one with the painted face on its shell "Molly."

We're keeping the crabs in the bathroom since that room has the highest humidity in the house (which is good for the crabs) and since, when the crabs were in their cage on top of her dresser, Norah couldn't sleep and was convinced that someone was outside her window walking in the brush since she heard "scraping and crunching."


We let the crabs out of their tank to crawl around in the bottom of the tub a few times a day. We've been spraying them with a bottle of spring water. They seem to enjoy it and come out of their shells when they feel the "rain." We don't use any tap water since it's chlorinated and from what we've read online, that's supposed to be bad for the crabs.

One of the crabs seems to enjoy walking up the incline at the back of the tub. He walks forward, slides back, walks forward again, slides back... almost like he's on a treadmill. It's pretty funny to watch.

Norah's been busy building hideaways and hills and mazes for the crabs out of Legos. We coaxed Shiny to climb this hill by putting a little food at the top.


We came back about half an hour later and he had found the "house" Norah had built and gone inside. It looks as if Norah will have to build another house for Molly, too.


Both crabs seem to enjoy crawling into the "pool" of spring water that collects around the incline by the drain after we've sprayed them enough.


I think we've found the perfect pets. They're very low maintenance and what little maintenance they require, Norah is more than capable of doing herself.

I ordered Norah the book "Hermit Crabs for Dummies." Not that Norah is dumb, but Dummies guides are the best guides out there, in my opinion. Norah's asking tons of questions that I can't answer, so the book can't come too soon. It'll be fun to learn more about crabs along with her.

It's December 1st! So the girls opened their Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar, a gift from their Uncle Donnie, and they did day one.