To be completely honest, that title was the furthest thought from my mind mid-December when the stomach bug hit our house. Ugh. Only about 24 hours after visiting a huge indoor play area ---I know, I know, I should have seen this coming a mile away, but the freezing temps and rambunctious kids obviously clouded my judgement--- , Gideon was throwing up every 30 minutes, along with other unpleasant side effects. 24 hours later, little C joined in. I was next, followed by Matt. Yep. The WHOLE family was blessed by the bug. (By 'blessed' I mean that I lost a good 5 lbs and the house had never seen so much clorox and lysol.)
Sometime after G's recovery and before my turn with it, Gideon and I headed out for a little fresh air. Literally. After a couple days laying on the couch, he was ready to burn some energy, so we hit the Children's Museum for a couple hours. At this point, I was thinking perhaps I could avoid getting the bug...wrong! Needless to say...it was a rough week around the Brewer house.
Fortunately, everyone was back to normal before Christmas! We had a blast enjoying lots of holiday fun around the city! We had a special story time at The Wild bookstore, complete with Santa, holiday cookies, crafts, and of course a reading of "The Night Before Christmas". We also discovered a drive through Christmas lights display in Noblesville. This will definitely be an addition to our holiday traditions for the years to come.
Speaking of traditions, Matt and I really wanted to start a new family tradition that focused on showing God's love to others in a practical way. We are trying our best to help the kids navigate all that Christmas entails without getting caught up in the 'getting'. We decided that every Christmas Eve, we'd pack bags for the homeless and hand them out. Here, in Indy, we have a pretty large homeless population, and they are hit the hardest in the winter months. So, we headed to the local Goodwill to pick up a few back packs and water bottles, then hit the dollar store for things like hats, scarves, hot hands, toiletries, peanut butter, granola bars, etc. We also added a bible and cards that Gideon and Charlotte had drawn. We had so much fun doing this together as a family that I have a feeling we'll do it throughout the year as well. I can't tell you how many times Matt has had conversations with homeless men since that day. Without fail, every night at least two of those men are prayed for by name by one of the kids, and Charlotte constantly reminds us while driving in the car that, "We've gotta keep looking for Mr. Arnell!" (Seriously, the sweetest thing ever!) Just the idea of someone not having a home seems to have gotten Gideon thinking. When we first mentioned what it was like to be homeless, Gideon said, "Well, I don't know how to build a house...but Daddy does. Let's build them a house!" If it were only that easy!
Another fun tradition we started this year was following the Advent reading plan in the Jesus Storybook Bible. We found printable ornaments that go along with each story that we let the kids color each night and hang on our painted tree :) With G & C getting older, it's so neat to see them connect the dots in the stories and ask questions as we read.
Lastly, we have Christmas morning! Yet another tradition that we have is making homemade cinnamon rolls together. I've found that I tend to forget just how long making them from scratch actually takes...so we might have to switch to making them Christmas Eve night and baking them in the morning! We were all starving and raring to get into our stockings by the time they were ready! (Notice I didn't even get a pic of our finished product, we scarfed them down so quickly!) The kids loved their little goodies and some surprise gifts Nana and Pop had sent. All in all, it was a great day hanging out as a family, and we look forward to lots more holiday memories in the years to come!
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