Gingerbread and Carouseling

A couple of days before Christmas we decided to hit the big city and see some gingerbread spectacularness!  It was just us girls and our mom and the kiddos! You never know what's going to happen when we get together!

We ran into a much longer line than we anticipated, but we found some cozy chairs, a fountain to throw change into, and a checkerboard along the way! All in all, not bad.

They were worth (most) of the wait!  We admit, we were still one line from being able to view them up close, but we gladly hoisted the kids up for a quick look.  We also seized the break in the crowd to send them up close for a good look.  

Once again they were quite spectacular this year!!  My favorite was the Narnia-themed wonderland.  Check out that wardrobe! Such detail! I love it!! 

On the way out the kids were running ahead up the staircase and I couldn't resist snapping some quick photos! I mean, just look at them! SO cute! 

Then it was back to the streets of downtown for some epic redlight/greenlight in the rain!  I just love spending time in downtown in winter! 

After Noah slid twice in the rain, we decided to call an end to red light/green light, but thankfully we'd made it to Westlake Park.  I have so many fond memories of meeting up with the Turners at this Starbucks in Christmases past!!

Then it was carousel time!  While the kids waited in line I snuck out into the rain to catch a picture of the horse-drawn carriage.  It's just one of the best sites to see in Seattle at Christmas! Love! 

 

I love our dog!

He's so crazy and so cute!  One of his favorite routines is to be playing with a toy, flicking it in the air and pouncing on it, then suddenly attacking his tail.  Roundy-rounds ensue for anywhere from 10 seconds to several minutes. It makes me laugh every time! He gets going so fast! He's completely oblivious to where he's at when he gets the urge. It's resulted in some knocks to the head, but that doesn't slow him down one bit!

Here's a couple videos I managed to capture of him in action (sorry they're a bit out of focus and one's sideways). It's like he knows when we pull out the camera and he stops in his tracks.

Let's be ladies!

Today I was standing in line at Starbucks, eagerly awaiting my own festive little red cup with the white lid all full of holiday cheer, which was extra cheerful as it was paid for by a cheery little gift card!  As I’m waiting in eager anticipation, contemplating the variety of deliciously wheaty breakfast treats, I hear a couple of young women (for they were not ladies) enter behind me. I shuffled forward as best I could to accommodate them in the very small and equally crowded lobby. 

The girls behind me were dressed to the nines for work, both very pretty and very stylish.  All of this was almost immediately lost, though, when I heard the string of profanity unleashed from their mouths in the course of their conversation.  There was no blocking out the voices just inches behind me.  I must say, there is absolutely nothing ladylike or feminine about uttering the f-word, particularly when it is used to punctuate each sentence quite emphatically. 

I was quite relieved when I picked up my order and hastily made my way back out into the general hum of downtown Seattle where such harsh words blend in with the melodious sounds of ferry horns, train whistles, traffic, and at this time of year festive greetings on every corner. 

I will say I have grown accustomed to salty speech around me, and though I don’t like it, I admit I’m fairly immune to it.  I have never, and will never, get used to women, particularly young, well-put together women uttering such words.  It makes what was on first glimpse beautiful and fresh, ugly and vulgar.  So please, women, let’s be ladies.  Let’s get creative with our speech and season it with kindness and lovely words, not the harsh vulgarities all too common in today’s society.  Let’s live up to our external beauty by striving for equal, if not much greater, internal beauty, which after all diffuses a kind of warm and beautifying light across even the plainest of features. 

Happy Holidays from my Employer

Each year LMN sends out a super cool, original holiday card, and I thought it was too cool not to share with y'all! I work with some amazingly talented, original, creative people! I love it! 

And now, without further ado, 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM LMN

To which I will add my very own MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy New Year!  

Because everyone should hear and say MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MEEEEERRRRRRY CHRIIIIIISTMAAAAAS as much as possible this time of year! 

Santa Claus is Comin to Town!

Every year the Courys make a tradition of going to see Santa at Nordstrom.  This year my mom (Nana to the kids), Isaac, and I tagged along.  Since I work in downtown I was able to walk over from my building after work just in time to get the page that it was time to go wait in Santa's house!


Waiting is hard, but cookies help pass the time...


These kids keep us smiling! They love each other, and there's rarely a dull moment!


We had a great Santa this year! He chatted with the kids, and let us take as many pictures as we could want! He really got the kids talking this year. Ava asked for an American Girl Doll and Noah asked for Snow White & the Seven Dwarves -- oh, and a prince charming!


We were getting ready to go, thanking Santa, and he insisted on a family picture of the Courys and the new young couple! :) Well, okay! If you insist, Santa!


After seeing Santa we were sooo hungry!!! We arrived at Pacific Place just in time to see it start SNOWING indoors!  What a fun treat! We had a blast dancing around, watching the snow fall. Noah even caught some on his tongue...aaaand he found out that indoor snowflakes aren't so delicious as outdoor flakes.


A few final pictures, and off we go!

On Stress: Where I'm at

Not so surprisingly, I’ve got stress…and it’s camped out in my neck!  My neck and shoulders are so tight that my head, ears, temples, and eyebrows hurt. (yep, you read that right: my eyebrows are tender to the touch).   The remedy? Plenty of exercise and letting go of tension. That’s easier said than done for me.  I stress easily. I often don’t even realize I’m tensing up until it’s too late.

Practically for me this means letting Isaac bear the brunt of my burden.  Sound mean?  It isn’t, not really.  He wants to take this from me.  Perhaps I should explain: pretty much the only thing that stresses that wonderful man out is me being stressed out.  Bless him, he’s so even-keel!  Few things faze him, and when they do, you know it’s big.  The problem is that I was raised to be self-sufficient.  I made my own lunches, doctor’s appointments, did my own laundry, was out on my own within a year of college, bought my first “new” car at 22… I did things myself.  Don’t get me wrong, I relied on my family for advice and support, but at the end of the day, my life’s burden was on MY shoulders. 

Perhaps you’re reading this and you’ve already sensed something is wrong with this picture.  If not, allow me to enlighten you: I wasn’t giving over my burdens to God.  Jesus says in Matthew 11:29 "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." and again in 1 Peter 5:7, "casting all your anxieties on him for he cares for you." amen! 

The other place I store my stress is in my gut. I went to the doctor for what I thought was a sinus infection and came out with a diagnosis of stress and instructions to exercise more,  and eat wheat, rye, and barley.  Um... okay, YUM!!!  He wanted me to go ahead and take a celiac test, but I think (think!) that I had one about 6 years ago now... With everything that's gone on since then I'd rather forgotten, but I am 99% sure I do not have celiac disease. WOOHOOOOO!  The doctor thinks that, given my variety of symptoms and "red" foods (that I can't eat or I get super sick) that I have developed an aversion to these foods, but am not actually being made sick by the foods themselves.  He explained that an aversion can develop when I had a bad experience with a (coincidental) severe flare in my intestines following consumption of those foods.  If you know my story, you know that I was sick as could be after I got back from living in Guatemala. You might also know that I was pretty healthy, though lactose-intolerant, before I went there.  Conclusion: I was more stressed out there than I ever have been. EVER, and I got a really nasty sickness there from the water. Sooo, it's possible (perhaps even likely) that I just had a conglomeration of things that caused my very real sickness. So at this point I'm two days into eating wheat and so far I feel the same as I always do.  

One last word on stress and my gut:  I get sick, sick, sick when I'm super nervous or upset.  This first became evident when I was only 6 years old and I had tummy aches every day that I went to Springbrook Elementary.  My poor parents didn't have a choice! We couldn't afford private school for all three of us when Boeing was going to strike. Second grade found me back at Seattle Christian with no tummy symptoms!!! 

Sooo, all this comes down to stress.  Seriously, I could write a novel on stress and its effects, but that's not edifying.  Instead I'll tell you what I'm doing about it: praying to give things over to God and trust Isaac to take on what I can't/shouldn't, learning (trying!) to let things go, exercising (holy sore abs, Batman!), and trying to remember to breathe and relax my jaw, neck, and shoulders. 

Catching up!

Right...my blog.

As you may be able to tell, I am the ultimate procrastinator. I mean well. I really do. I intended to update this once or twice a week with our little family goings-on, and somehow I've managed to avoid it for over two months now. Shameful.

Part of my reticence to sit down and write stems from the talent my husband displays each week over on his blog (The Kingdom of God and the Modern Mind). Seriously, please go check it out! It will challenge you, make you think, and hopefully strengthen your faith or bring up questions. My blog's one big advantage is that it's easier. He writes as an intellectual, forcing you to think and question and resolve -- I write as an intellectual taking a break and showing you what I pin-complished this week.

I'm hereby promising from this point forward to bring you weekly (or almost weekly) updates from the house of McPhee!  We have some crazy adventures over here involving multiple kinds of stitching, doggie disasters, and marital moments (don't worry -- we'll keep things rated G around here), and so much more!

I might even get ambitious and back-fill a few posts including such things as our wedding(!), honeymoon, first camping trip, how we ended up with a dog, etc.

For now I'll leave you with a bit of holidayness:

While others were out scrambling for good deals on Black Friday, Isaac, Charlie and I stayed cozy and snug inside and unleashed Christmas explosion 2012 on our little home.  One of the items we unpacked this year was a Family Advent book I received several years ago from my parents.  It's a beautiful book that has one door to open each day until Christmas.  I admit, I've never opened it until this year.  It felt strange to open it and go through it without a family.

Well this year I have my own little family to share Christmas and we're creating our own special traditions.  We are spending each morning in December opening one door of our advent and being encouraged to remember JESUS, who which, after all, is the reason for the season.  We snuggle up on the couch, open up the book and Isaac reads the day's advent and we spend some time in prayer. A kiss, a hug, a pat on the head for Charlie and he's out the door for work.  It's short, sweet, and wonderful!

It's a tradition I think we've already decided to modify to continue into the new year! What a blessing to have a praying spouse who loves the Lord first and me second.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!