Sesame Street Mini-Party

Given how much I love throwing kid parties with a cute theme woven throughout, the thought crossed my mind earlier this year how it might work if one of our guest kids had a birthday during his or her time with us. I imagined meeting up with the child's family at a park or somewhere convenient for them (if unsupervised visits were approved, of course).

As it turned out, BGC's birthday was a few weeks ago, about six weeks after she came to us, but her family would not be able to join us for a party. I certainly wanted to celebrate her (and her mom made a point at our first supervised visit of asking me to send pictures of BGC on her birthday, party or not) but wondered what we should do. Invite a bunch of our friends and family over, like we would for Kate or Claire's birthday? Just sing to her at dinnertime, the five of us around the kitchen table? She's only one, and doesn't eat table food yet, so she wouldn't remember it or even get to enjoy a bite of cake. What to do?

As it turned out, I thought about the people who have seen and helped us care for BGC in her time with us, and I thought of our church family. Like the rest of our PKs, she has been at church at least three times a week (Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening) and everyone has welcomed and doted on her as they would any new child in our community. Since our Sunday evening service, The Road, is a smaller and more casual gathering that always includes dessert afterward, I had the idea to have a little mini-party in that time when everyone is milling around after the service, enjoying cookies or cupcakes and starting to break down the tables, sound equipment, etc.

My chosen theme was Sesame Street, mainly because I wanted to make these cute cupcakes I'd seen online! Since I was working with just a tabletop instead of a whole house (our downstairs, at least) the other thematic elements were just napkins, balloons in an Elmo basket, a little card I designed (since invites weren't necessary), and Elmo himself!

 

Claire thought the cupcakes were pretty tasty (even if she just licks the frosting off and leaves the cake!) I wish I could show you how cute BGC looked in her red dress and rainbow party bow, but here's a glimpse along with a very handsome shot of our dear pater familias.

To update/clarify on a few things: It is looking like BGC will be with us until at least April or so, and that is just fine. She fits into our family so well, being toted along to gymnastics and church and being doted on by two big sisters. We enjoy our visits with her parents and feel confident they'll work their plan and be reunited with her in the spring. She has some developmental delays, so we've started several therapies to help her catch up. (I'm so grateful to my premie-mama friend Nancy for helping me know even where to start!)

And if you don't know what "BGC" is all about, it's short for her blog alias, "Baby Girl Chandler," which itself is a reference to my favorite, most quotable show, Friends, which Matt likes to remind me began almost twenty years ago and went off the air almost ten years ago. Eeek!

VBS Week

Tonight is the final evening of Vacation Bible School, which I am directing, despite the fact that I have no experience besides being a very low-responsibility volunteer a few times in the not-recent past (like high school and college!) But I figured I'd take advantage of my WAHM-status to do more at church, and I can't resist an opportunity to both organize and theme-decorate (my two greatest skills!) so here we are.

It's gone well! We're doing Cokesbury's Everywhere Fun Fair theme, which I keep describing as "county fair meets world's fair," since it's carnival-type decor with some exposure to other countries as we learn how to love God and love our neighbors who live both near and around the globe!

We start each evening with the opening skit between me and the puppet, Godwin Merrifeather, and some great volunteers lead the music!

 Then the kids, in three groups, rotate around to crafts, games, Bible story, and supper.

The country themes get woven throughout the sessions, starting with a display up front during the opening gathering, and then have cultural elements in the crafts, games, and food—and even in the Bible story, a little bit! Here are my displays for Australia, Japan, Mexico, and Zimbabwe. (I've had to wonder, if other countries were doing a "USA" display, what would they put in it? Cowboy hats and cheeseburgers?)

Here's the United Kingdom—then dinner was fish (sticks) and chips, and Matt even wove the British theme into his Bible lesson by making his Innkeeper (telling the Good Samaritan story) into a Mr. Carson-type character!

What a creative hubby I have! One of the little girls, upon seeing him in the tux, stopped in her tracks and said, with great fanfare, "Mama-mia!" 

Here he is as Zack the Tax-Man (i.e. tax collector Zaccheus!)

It's been an exhausting week (don't forget several big work deadlines on top of getting my ducks in a row for each day of VBS!) and tonight it will all end with our Family Fun Fair, where parents can join their kids toward the end of the session for a carnival of games, fair-food, and a little performance of a few of the songs the kids learned. It's been fun, and I hope the kids have learned a lot too!

Pastor's Wives Uncensored

My friend Kim invited me to participate in her blog series, Pastor's Wives Uncensored. I confess my previous status as a "disgruntled" pastor's wife, and also explain some of my recovery from that cynicism.

Here's a little teaser:

Unlike Kim, I wasn’t turned off at all by the idea of dating a pastor/pastor-to-be. Matt was working in youth ministry when we met on our first night of orientation at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Being a religion major in college, and going on to study religion in grad school, I already had a notion of hoping to marry a man preparing to be either a pastor or professor. My parents told me to hang out next door at the Law School, but I liked spiritual, scholarly types, and knew there was a good chance of getting my MRS at the same place I was getting my MTS (Master of Theological Studies).

Go read the rest on Kim's blog, The Seeds You Sow.

Eggstra Easter Pics

A bad pun is about all the April Foolishness you'll find from me :0) but I did want to share a few more photos of our Easter activities.

Despite the rainy, gray Easter Day (that always feels so wrong, a gloomy Easter!) we did have some festive fun interspersed between our many Holy Week services, which ranged from celebratory to somber, as they are designed to do. By yesterday morning, when Matt left early for church and I told Kate the rest of us needed to get ready to go to church too, she said, "Again?!?!"

Yep, that's Holy Week for a pastor's family!

Before I forget, there are just a few more hours to place an order on my virtual Thirty-One party, so if you still want to check out some great bags and home organization, please do! Here's the link. I'm going to get this cool hanging organizer for my home office :0)

Our first egg hunt was the day before Palm Sunday, when we went to Breakfast with the Easter Bunny with Granna and Opa. Last year, Kate would not go near the Easter Bunny and Claire was fine. This year, totally reversed. Kate was happy to hug the bunny whenever he came near! We enjoyed a nice breakfast and then the girls both gathered eggs like pros.

(People always misspell our last name.)

Thanks for a fun time, Granna and Opa!

On Holy Saturday was our church egg hunt, and again Kate was buds with the Easter Bunny, who, like last year, was actually her daddy. That familiarity did not help Claire, though, who was still pretty wary. 

We dyed some eggs Saturday afternoon (before Mommy and Daddy went on a date to see SNL's Seth Meyers doing stand-up—woo hoo!)

Nala and Popi babysat, since they were in town for Easter. We enjoyed a nice lunch at home after church, before heading back to church for The Road. (I'll echo Kate there, "Again?!?!")

We had just a little bit of time between lunch and evening church to relax, so while Daddy took a quick nap, the girls had a jumping-on-the-bed party! What better way to express the joy of Alleluia when you're a little kid? :0) 

Show and Tell

I'm starting another new series here on The Parsonage Family, basically designed to showcase random stuff worth sharing. Like the name indicates, Show and Tell is reminiscent of that classic kindergarten activity where you bring in something from home to show your classmates and tell them all about it.

Blogging in general is more or less just a giant exercise in show and tell, so I guess you could say this series is basically an excuse to share more random things than I usually would! Maybe a recipe I've tried or a new craft project, or some other fun thing. I'll invite you to tell about any random thing you want in the comments too!

First off, allow me to introduce our Show and Tell mascot, Sunny. Sunny is a yellow Kennel Kuddlee (a knock off of Pound Puppies, I guess) from the 1980s. I loved Sunny and even wrote his name on our deck in black crayon when I was five, and held him by the ear with my teeth when climbing on the playground monkey bars. I took Sunny for Show and Tell every week in kindergarten. We had weekly themes, like "something blue" or "something green," so I would tie a different colored ribbon around Sunny's neck each week so he would fit the rules. Mrs. Cruickshank finally sent a note home saying I needed to bring something other than Sunny for Show and Tell.

Justice for Sunny! He can appear every week here on The Parsonage Family with no teacher to tell him otherwise :0)

But just in case Mrs. Cruikshank is looking down on us (we were her last class before she died of breast cancer) and wishing we'd share something else, I will point you over to Ministry Matters to see a series of collages I made in 2006 for a Stations of the Cross worship experience at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Matt and I have used these for Holy Week in various churches every year since then, and I finally photographed them so they could be shared more widely and projected during worship.

Here's a sampling of my favorite stations, and you can download all of them, with corresponding scriptures, at Ministry Matters.

Have a blessed Holy Week!

Taking Stock of Our Time

This past week's Lenten challenge in our church's "Taking Stock" series was taking stock of our time, and I have to admit, I was just no good at this one.

Oh, I take stock of my time, alright, in a super-organized, Type A sort of way. I use an online time tracker (Yast.com) to keep track of the hours I spend on various work projects (especially important now that I'm freelancing and paid by the hour, in some cases) and I write things in my planner even after the fact so that I have a record of how I spent my time. But the specific challenge this last week was to carve out ten minutes for prayer and devotion each day, and I have to admit that more days than not, I just forgot.

I pray a lot, in that I talk to God throughout the day and try to live ever-mindfully of God's presence and will for our lives, but I really struggle to sit down and focus only on prayer for a period of time. To stay focused, I generally need a pencil in hand, to underline lines of scripture that strike me as I read it, or to write and sketch my prayers creatively. Judging from these two extremes, it seems I have trouble just doing "nothing." What a shocker. I can go about normal life prayerfully, or I can productively draw, write, annotate, etc. Just sitting and "being" in the presence of God is tough for me on an ordinary basis. When I think of times I am able to do that, it's generally when I've gotten "away from it all" in a cabin or whatnot, and sit in an Adirondack chair with a mug of coffee, just staring out over glorious hills and trees. 

This week is "taking stock of our relationships," being mindful of the people we come into contact with each day and the health of each of those relationships, particularly any anger or grudges we may need to let go of.

Taking Stock of Our Closet

Week Three of our Lenten series on "Taking Stock" was all about our clothes closets. Talk about a place where most of us have so much abundance that it is more of a curse than a blessing! Matt started his sermon with a scene that is all-too-familiar to most of us: bleary-eyed, coffee-drinking, freshly-showered, staring into our closet with the inevitable but illogical lament, "I have NOTHING to wear!"

Since I've been working from home, this has been less of a problem, since I really can wear the same five outfits over and over and be comfortable and content. But if I'm headed to church or a meeting, that familiar angst comes right back. I had been looking forward to this week's challenge ever since Matt told me about it. (I last purged almost a year ago, when I read the No-Brainer Wardrobe ebook—I highly recommend it.)

The scripture for the day was Jesus' admonitions against worry, including worry over our clothes, and Matt challenged the congregation to take stock of our closets, purging the items that we don't wear or need, that are nothing but clutter, and bringing them in to donate. Our church collects items for a store called ThriftSmart, which is like a Goodwill, but they have an excellent model for collections with local churches. We have a large bin in the commons area, and when it is full, ThriftSmart comes to pick it up, weighing the donations and giving the church gift cards in the amount of $1 per ten pounds of donations. The gift cards can then be handed out to people in need who come to the church seeking assistance (often, our food pantry clients, when they need more than just food).

As with last week's pantry challenge, there is both a personal and missional element. Yes, we are donating to people in need, but also, by assessing our own abundance, we come to a better understanding of what we need, what is excess, and the joy of simplicity. Clearing out my closet was fairly easy, since I already had a box in the back of my closet, full of stuff I was considering giving away anyway. (It was sort of a "if I don't miss it while it's boxed up here, I won't miss it when it's gone completely" thing.)

I also found that so much of the excess in my closet consisted of things that might come back into style or I might be able to fit into again. As for the fitting issue, I tossed my "fat pants" and kept things that were just a bit snug, that re-joining the Y (as I am about to do) could take care of. The style issue was a little more difficult. It's aggravating how styles ebb and flow, and as sure as you toss your flared pants, the skinny jeans fad will end and you'll buy wide-leg stuff again.

Since I was staying home all day the day I first started going through things, I put on some things I hadn't worn in a few years, just to see if I could get any use out of them again. Matt commented, "Those are some big pants..." I assured him they fit exactly as they were intended, but yes, the style was so much looser than things are worn now, I felt completely dumpy and had to change. I wore about six different pairs of pants that day, I think, as I tested out different pants and found most of them intolerable.

I hate to be wasteful, so if there is a chance I'll wear something again, it seems silly to give it away only to buy something similar a year or two down the road . . . but how often do I really do that? I did keep some things that I doubt I'll wear much, but I managed to fill two large boxes with things to give away. Here are my before and after shots:

Before: messy, cluttered with tons of things I don't wear. (We have a very long, narrow walk-in closet, so these are three views of my side.)

After: I don't feel like I purged that much, overall, but taking stock of what's there, organizing and simplifying, made a big difference in the look of our closet. I hope it has a similar impact on the way I view my clothes, appreciating what I have and not constantly feeling I need more, newer things to be in style. 

Taking Stock of Our Pantry

I expected to post a couple times between last week's "Taking Stock" post and this; at the very least a Working Mom Wednesday post, but I got busy and it didn't happen. Oh well.

This week, for our Lenten challenge, we were taking stock of our pantries by living off of the items that are included in a food box from our church's food pantry. It's a specific variety of canned goods, spaghetti, peanut butter, etc. It costs around $40 total. (We use this cute illustrated shopping list so Kate can help pick out items for the food pantry while we're grocery shopping.)

Matt's sermon last Sunday was really good, not just pointing out the reality of our community (3/4 of our county's public school kids on free or reduced lunch!) but examining the story of the feeding of the 5000 in ways I hadn't thought of before. First, that the idea of communal responsibility is assumed. The disciples don't approach the problem from a perspective like, "these people are getting hungry, we need to end the sermon!" or "they should have brought a picnic!" but automatically, "Where will we get enough food to feed all these people?" And secondly, that Jesus doesn't perform a miracle ex nihilo (out of nothing). He uses the bread and fish one boy brought, using what we have and what we bring to feed others. Connected with Jesus' refusal to turn stones into bread at Satan's tempting (preached on the week before) this especially made a good point.

One of our main family values is gratitude, so I'd like to think I look at our pantry pretty often with thanks for all that we have. We are fortunate to be able to buy the food we like and want in the quantities we like. Health plays more of a restraining role than money, usually. (Though I might buy more fancy cheese every week if we had unlimited funds. Cheese is my weakness.) It was a new experience, though, having to eat what "someone else" picked out for me.

We went grocery shopping as a family last Sunday afternoon, and while I picked out a couple soups myself, Matt grabbed the first chili he saw to add to the cart. "No!" I cried. "I want to pick out the chili" (since Matt doesn't care for chili and it would be me eating it anyway). Matt quickly reminded me that folks receiving a food pantry box don't get any choice about the veggie, meat, bean, or calorie content of their chili.

It looked and tasted like dog food, by the way.

I ate it for lunch on Monday. It was 32 grams of fat per can. Not what I would have chosen. Breakfast was healthier (instant oatmeal and applesauce) though I really wanted an egg white and english muffin. Ah well. Choice and health seemed to be the big things sacrificed in this experiment. Taste, too, being left with peanut butter and saltine crackers for a snack, rather than kalamata olives and wheat crackers, or whatever. But it was a little bit frustrating.

Our pantry for the week.

I even blocked off a couple shelves, so I would remember not to tap into our other snacks, seasonings, or canned goods. (Cereals and cooking oil were still fair game, I figured.)

We continued to eat any perishables we already had in the fridge, but I ran out of coffee creamer on Tuesday and was grateful we still had some milk left. I can't imagine what it would be like to need a carton of milk and not be able to afford it. And it made me ever more aware of the lack of fresh produce in poor areas. I was able to add some zucchini we already had to our spaghetti, and the kids devoured the applesauce and fruit cocktail. We need fresh fruits and vegetables, which are generally not available from traditional food banks.

This coming week, we'll be taking stock of our closets, and I look forward to purging all the clothes that no longer fit or I just don't wear. Jesus' statement "I was naked and you gave me clothing," may seem far fetched in this day and age, but there is still a need for free and cheap clothing for those who need it, and perhaps moreso for the more affluent among us to realize how much we have and learn to live more simply, so that we may live more generously.

Taking Stock

For Lent this year, Matt is leading our congregation in a series/experience called Taking Stock. Each week, we'll be examining a certain area of our lives, taking stock of what we have, what is excess, and what we can use to help others. While people may still give up something or take on another practice for Lent, we'll be challenging people with a certain week-long practice or focus each week of Lent. I thought I'd try to share a weekly reflection to keep me accountable and process my thoughts.

Last week was the first Sunday of Lent, so Matt introduced our Lenten theme and asked people to take an overall look at their lives (before we got to the specific challenges of coming weeks) just to be aware of how we spend our money, time, and energy, taking stock of any excess we noticed.

My initial thought was the excessive laziness of my evenings. After the kids are in bed, I typically spend a couple hours on the couch or at my kitchen desk, watching TV, reading blogs and Facebook, drinking wine and munching on non-nutritive snacks. It feels pretty slothful, given that I "should" be doing laundry, dishes, working some more, etc. But, I got over that pretty quickly. Yes, I should cut back on the empty calories, but overall, this is my relaxation time that I relish after a day of working and kid-wrangling. So while it isn't an absolute necessity, I don't consider my "me time/couple time" excessive, exactly. Though if I think about people who don't have enough to eat to nourish themselves at all, the fact that we rich folk can basically eat recreationally is quite excessive.

I also thought of things like our energy usage. Leaving lights on accidentally, loading the dishwasher with things that could easily be cleaned by hand, taking two cars to church just so the kids and I don't have to go early or stay late for Matt, etc. are all issues to be examined.

It was when I did our monthly budget assessment this week that the excesses became more apparent. (I have tried Quicken as New Year's resolutions a couple years, but always abandoned it by April. Now, I just keep a simple Excel file to calculate and monitor our spending each month.) It's always amazing to see how much little things add up. Lattes while I work at Starbucks, fast food lunches while Matt's out doing pastoral visits and other errands, the random Groupon or other thing I buy online . . . they add up. I take for granted that we can buy such incidentals without breaking the bank, but if we were just a little more conscientious, how much money could be saved?

I feel like I'm a pretty frugal person. I look for bargains and won't spend much on any one thing, but so many of those little purchases are unnecessary, the impact could be big at the end of a year (or even the end of a liturgical season!)

So that's my first Lenten discipline added. I'm going to try to resist unnecessary purchases and be more aware of the $4 here and $8 there that could make a real difference for someone else.

Valentine dress for Claire, bought at consignment store. She's got a bunch of hand-me-downs, but I so often buy new stuff for her just because it's cute and a "good deal."

This coming week's focus is "Taking Stock of Our Pantry." Our church has a very active food pantry ministry, and the challenge will be to live on the items we give out in our food pantry boxes and becoming more aware of the choices and luxuries we enjoy in our food shopping. I've been wanting to try a challenge like that for months anyway, so I'm looking forward to this!

12 on 12-12-12

Last year we had 11-11-11, and I linked up with Dear Lizzy to share what I was doing at 11:11 on that day. This year, Elizabeth has been doing a "12 on 12" series, sharing twelve pictures from her day on the twelfth of every month, and though it seems she wasn't even thinking about the triple fun of 12-12-12, I decided to snap twelve pics on 12-12-12 for a little "day in the life" post.

I didn't take any during our crazy-rushed morning time, or after returning home at night (finally! we have something going on every night this week) so my day was pretty much divided into two parts: work and church.

Part One: Work

1. My colleagues and I broke out the Christmas decorations a few days ago, which mainly consist of a bunch of wreaths and a skinny little tree (see item 4). I love having some festivity in the office.

2.  I spent part of my morning reviewing the designer's proofs for the next issue of Circuit Rider. Gotta get to pre-press before everybody takes off for their Christmas holidays!

3. I joined the "stand up desk" revolution that is popular now in our company. So, lots of us have these desktop platforms to raise our computers up so we stand while working. Better for circulation, energy, etc.

4. Our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the coffee cube. It's decorated with a string of paper clips and a paper star made of yellow Post-It notes.

5. My new obsession is Yast.com, an online time tracker. I can start and stop the timers on my main projects and see how much time I'm spending on various tasks. It also keeps me from flitting around between tasks, because I know the clock is running on a certain project.

6. Ministry Matters editorial meeting. We all have the same ceramic and silicon coffee mug.

 

Part Two: Church

7. Wednesday night dinner this week was spaghetti. Kate ate two helpings. I put the non-messy elements in front of Claire to eat herself, but she screamed because she only wanted the meat sauce, which I fed her myself off my plate!

8. and 9. Cutie Claire eating an eclair.

10. Claire kept busy during Bible study by playing with both Matt's and my phones and the TV remote, juggling between all of them, tapping the screens and putting them to her ear in turn. "Ala?" She looked like a silly character in a movie, answering a bunch of phones at once.

11. Our study right now is A Different Kind of Christmas, based on Mike Slaughter's book, Christmas Is Not Your Birthday, which I edited. I love Mike's stuff!

12. Choir practice. Wednesdays are a long night, with choir starting at the time we're usually getting the girls in their jammies! Our Christmas cantata is this Sunday morning, so this was a can't-miss rehearsal!

Speaking of which, if you're in the Nashville area, join us for worship at 10:00 Sunday morning at Arlington UMC, or at 5:00 that evening for The Road, our casual evening worship (with free dinner!)