Christmas Cookies - Easy AGAIN

Yes, I know that I am behind on my blog...it's just how it's going lately :)

Well last year worked out so well to buy the cookies made and to buy the frosting all ready to go that I decided why not keep it easy for a second year in a row. I figure that as long as we are both working full time that we are just going to do what we can to keep things easy :) After all the kids could careless, they still got to decorate and eat the cookies.

Here are a few pictures of the finished results...

You can see even Bercan helped out this year.

It was actually pretty impressive to see how long

he stuck with "decorating" his cookie.

My goofy boys being goofy.....I wouldn't want it

any other way....most of the time :)

The finished product....yes the icing and cookies

were bought from the store but we gave them a good

Larson decorating and I think we did fantastic :)

Prayers of an older brother....

I'm amazed sometimes how God works. Really? Aren't we all. The good times are easy to deal with and delight in, praising God for them comes second hand. The bad times however, are something that most people, especially me, have a hard time coping with. Instead of leaning on God, I tend to think "what am I doing wrong as a parent?", "is there something wrong with my child?", "does he act this way because of something that I did?". Instead of reflecting on James 1 in that all troubles should be viewed as joyful as they are growing us in and helping us to become closer to God. Easier said then done, right? Well our little Vaughny has been giving us a run for our money. We've gone through a few phases with Torin but as they say each kid is different and Vaughn's temper is MUCH different then Torin's. He can get pretty verbally abusive and it really upsets Torin. To the point that Torin has told me on a number of occassions that he doesn't like when Vaughn talks like that. Vaughn will say that he hates himself, he hate this and that and everything in between. He'll bite himself or hit himself. Obviously, it's not something that we take lightly but being a pretty tempermental child myself I'm not overly concerned about it. But it does really concern Torin. The other night he was saying that he was afraid when Vaughn said things like that or did things like that so as we were praying by himself, not asked by me, he prayed "Dear God, please give my brother Vaughn strength to calm himself down so that he wouldn't say such mean words and help him to see what a cool kid that he really is. Always protect him and love him so that he doesn't get himself so worked up." My heart melted at hearing this. I told Torin that Vaughn was really blessed to have a brother like him and to never stop praying for Vaughn as it will only help him. Since then pretty much every night Torin will say some type of prayer for Vaughn. Sometimes it's light and when there's been an episode of sort it's usually a little more detailed. Of course I don't like Vaughn going through this, no parent would, but to think that if we weren't going through it that Torin would probably not have started praying for Vaughn makes me think that there's a reason behind it. Can you imagine knowing that one of your sibilings is praying for you every night? That every day someone cares enough about you to put you in their prayers. And not just pray for good health and all that good stuff but truly, a heartfelt prayer. Honestly, I know that my brother and sister love me dearly but I also know that they have probably never said a prayer for me. So if this was God's plan to show Torin the power in prayer then so be it :)

Smarty pants....maybe?

This past week Torin has just been off kilter. He's had a fever every day, not high, but enough to keep him home from school. He's had no desire to play, eat or really do anything. The other night I decided that 1) it was too nice to stay inside with the other boys and 2) I really didn't want them hanging around their sick brother. So I asked Tor if he would be alright if we played outside and he could just stay inside and watch TV. He was fine with it and knew that if he needed me we would be in the neighborhood. Well we got back and Bjorn got back home and asked "So did you know that Torin texted me from your phone?" I asked Torin how he knew how to do that. Of course the simply answer "I looked for the place to send texts." Granted for you and I that use phones all the time would know how to easily navigate to find the icon, type the text and click send. But our kids do not use phones and don't have anything that even semi resembles it. So I looked on my phone and here is what the text read: Dear dad I was wondering if you could till me what moms cell phone number is Bjorn then called him to say that if he gave Tor my cell number that it would call the phone that he was texting from, thus not getting me. Torin giggled realizing that his plan wasn't going to work. The little guy was fine but he actually felt like eating and was wondering if I would make it for him and didn't have enough energy to walk outside to get me. Overall it was pretty amazing to us that he found the icon, found Bjorn's contact information, typed the text and sent it. That's now his new thing "Mom can I text Daddy something?". They are always so cute that I haven't been able to resist him yet.