As you can see, the kids wanted to be a part of this week’s photo session. What am I going to do when there are three of them?

As I was driving to work on this momentous day (ha ha ha) I was thinking about what I want for my birthday. Or more accurately, what I want for this 32nd year of my life. Needless to say there are a lot of things that I want to see happen this year – get out of debt, loose ten pounds, run another race, etc. However, my mind kept going back to one thing: my brother.

A few months ago I wrote about how my mom and dad met and how he died very unexpectedly when I was two years old. What I didn’t mention was that I am not the only child he left behind. I have an older half brother and half sister. My sister has been a part of my life since I can remember – she has always been there for me and even though we only share one parent (dad), she is wholly my sister. My brother is a different story, I remember bits and pieces of him up until I was around 4 or 5 and then he just disappeared. I arranged to see him about 5 years ago and it was a brief dinner, uncomfortable and over quickly.

My brother was not in a good place when our father died. Wayne Jr. was his father’s namesake and was knowingly disappointing his dad prior to his death. Needless to say, the bad behavior only increased after our father passed. My brother was 19, an addict and directionless. He resented my mother for reasons I don’t fully comprehend and little Jenn was just another reminder that his father had moved on with life after his divorce to Wayne Jr’s mother.

Fast forward to last night. I received a call from my sister and she explained that our brother had run away to Belize and abandoned his wife. He was in a crazy drunken state, escaped from rehab and on a very destructive course. My sister called to tell me she was basically disowning him and couldn’t take his behavior any longer. Wayne Jr. is smart, wicked smart. He is a physician’s assistant, a medical school graduate but a residency drop out. However, in South America, he has enough schooling to be considered a full fledged doctor. So he escaped there to write his own prescriptions and pretend that he is the medical professional he wishes to be. He escaped there to be someone different than he is here.

My brother is one of only two links to my biological father. I have no other connections to this side of my family. I have longed for years to know more about my father’s family but sadly, no one related to my father (other than my siblings) is still alive. I have fantasized about sitting down with my brother and asking him to tell me stories about our father. I would give anything to have a meaningful conversation with the man who so resembles my father and had more many more years with him than I. Yet, that is truly a fantasy because Wayne Jr is a shell of man and his memories are probably very jaded by now.

This morning on my drive I realized Belize is the perfect place for Wayne, it is removed, it is different. It is the perfect place for him to hit bottom and find Jesus. I know that sounds cliche but let me explain. As many of my church going friends know, Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was forever changed. Saul was busy persecuting and killing Christians, until he met Jesus. It was at that time that he became known as Paul and he eventually was the catalyst for the spread of Christianity. You can’t really meet Jesus and not be changed, Paul being the best example of this. I believe that God is still meeting people “on the road to Damascus” and he is still changing them entirely. He changed me and he can change my brother. No matter how hopeless Wayne Jr’s situation is, God is hopeful.

I decided that this year I will pray every day for my brother, for a missionary or believer in Belize to meet Wayne and offer him something no drug could ever promise: hope. I know there is someone in Belize that God will put in Wayne’s path – God never stops offering a chance, not until every opportunity has been exhausted. Maybe a missionary will stumble into the clinic where Wayne is working and he will see with new eyes.

Join me, will you, in praying for Wayne to find what his heart really needs. Pray for that person who will deliver the message of love and hope to him, that they will be blessed beyond measure. I want to celebrate on my 33rd birthday the gift of a brother reborn in this life.

Internet I have been busy! I know that you have too so we will make this quick…

First of all, Christmas was great. A while back I promised you a slide show of what I like to call the “Great Toddler Nativity Scene Re-enactment of 2008.” As I mentioned before, I had the pleasure of watching 30 toddlers act out the Nativity scene which was, by far, one of the highlights of the season.

Isaac took his role of king very seriously, focusing on the baby Jesus intently. So intently, that while the others faced the audience to sing their songs of adoration, my eldest son sang directly to the plastic baby in the wooden crib. He is very spiritual.

While the king was praising the plastic baby Jesus, Joshua the “angel” was busy wandering around the stage, rubbing his eyes and looking for Mommy.  

Below are a few pictures from the event, I hope you enjoy. Please ignore Isaac’s hair in the last picture – let’s just say the crown wreaked some havoc. Give a kid a break, okay?

On to Christmas. Well, we packed up our car with a ridiculous amount of presents and junk and headed to my mom’s house for 5 days. There really is nothing better than traveling with toddlers – toddlers who are aware their presents are behind them in the car(not the ones from Santa of course) and they can’t open them for 24 more hours. Oh the Joy! And did I mention that everyone (besides mom) developed a sinus infection on the 23rd? We ended up in the doctor’s office on Christmas Eve and were loaded up on antibiotics by noon that day.

Aside from the snot and the complaining (Kevin!) we managed to have a lovely Christmas Eve with my parents, Grandpa and almost all of my sisters. The kids got to play with their cousins a lot and it was great to see how Morgan, our token girl in the family, did with the big boys. Christmas Eve we got all of the little ones in the bathtub together, which was awesome, and by “awesome” I mean there were lots of pictures taken that will embarrass the crap out of the kids for years to come.

Overall, Christmas was great. I got a lovely pair of hand carved jade earrings, Kevin got a guitar, Isaac got a Leapfrog Leapster and Joshua also got a guitar (aka his “la la”). Since Christmas, we have only had to go to Target once to return the defective Leapster and there has been less than 10 meltdowns/tantrums over sharing new toys – we measure success in small steps. Below are some pictures of the Christmas festivities.

Tomorrow I turn 32 and well, yeah that sucks. My birthday kinda makes me sad so I have resolved to write a post tomorrow about what makes me happy: beauty products. Stay tuned for reviews and suggestions for favorite products.

I also mentioned in an earlier post that I started Weight Watchers and I will be offering a review of that on Tuesday, after I complete my first week. I will give you a hint though – I have already lost 1 pound!

This weekend I made 100 sugar cookies. I am broken and tired but they are finished. Every year I make the same cookies and every year I swear I won’t do it again because they are so much work. However, sometime around the 20th of December I find myself knee deep in flour and sugar and home made icing.

The recipe I use is from Mrs. Fields cookie cook book, and it is very simple. I just quadruple the ingredients and then add some powdered sugar frosting. This year I used powdered sugar to roll the dough out, which was a GREAT new trick because the dough doesn’t get hard with added flour and the cookies are a little sweeter! Below is what they look like before frosting:

And here is the final product:

I bought Christmas themed Chinese food boxes and put about 6-8 cookies in each box and attached a bow. I then delivered my little goodies to my fellow employees. Yeah me!

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the boys Christmas pageant, whereby about 35 toddlers re-enact the nativity scene, complete with a fake baby Jesus. It was more hilarious than words can describe but the pictures will give you some idea of the fun had by all.

On the way to school the morning of the pageant, as Isaac was preparing for his role as one of the 3 Kings, he was more pensive than usual. I could tell he was really thinking about something so I asked him what was going on in his little noggin that had him so serious. He said he was thinking about babies. It took me a while but I realized that the whole nativity scene thing had him rather focused on baby Jesus, thus he was “thinking about babies.”

The following conversation ensued:

Me: What babies are you thinking about?
Isaac: I was thinking about where babies come from.
Me:Hmmm. (in my head, HOLY CRAP COME UP WITH SOMETHING CLEVER NOW!!!)
Isaac: Where do Mommies come from?
Me: Girls become mommies when they have babies.
Isaac: But how do they get the babies?
Me: They are in their bellies and then they come out.
Isaac: Oh I know what happens!
Me: (oh crap, here we go)
Isaac: The babies are in space and God catches them up and then throws them to earth and into the mommies bellies. Yeah! That’s it, that is how it happens.
Me: Wow Isaac, you are so smart because that is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS!

Clearly this kid is going to outwit me very soon…actually who am I kidding? I think he is smarter than me now. I’ve decided he should have been delivered with an instruction manual and education requirements. His brother however, just needed a helmet and some boxing gloves.

Well, as my last post indicated, we got our tree last night. It wasn’t without a bit of stress and the usual family calamity that I’ve grown so accustomed to. You see, when we moved last June, a good portion of our stuff went in to storage. Well the Christmas stuff, the stuff I spent years collecting and hundreds of dollars amassing, is at the very back of the storage unit. Basically it is unreachable.

So, I had to head to Target to pick up a few decorations and some lights so that we may have some semblance of Christmas this year. By the time I got to Target and saw all of the people, I was much more “Bah Humbug” than I was “Jingle Bells!” In fact, I really just wanted to cancel Christmas this year.

Luckily, by the time we got to the tree lot, my mood had changed and we managed to have some fun. Isaac was so excited to pick a tree and Joshua was just excited to be on an adventure so their collective merriment made up for my utter lack of holiday cheer. We managed to snap a few cute pictures of the event for your viewing.

In the end, the tree was decorated, the lights were hung and Mariah Carey’s Christmas album was ringing throughout the halls. Happy Holidays!

I did it! No seriously, I hard rocked Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, green bean casserole, rolls and gravy. Thanks to the help of my sister-in-law Karen and my neighbor’s kitchen, I was able to accomplish a real Thanksgiving meal. We had a lovely dinner and a great time hanging out with family and friends.

My mom was on speed dial all day (thankfully), I swear she received less than 5 panicked phone calls. The ones she did receive revolved around the fact that my 24lb turkey cooked in 3 hours. Apparently my little tiny oven has some, balls guts. And yes, I am aware now that 24lbs of turkey was completely unnecessary for 7 people. You live and you learn people.

I decided that photos would tell the story of this Thanksgiving better than words so here goes…

After the beach we headed back to the house to watch the Cardinal’s game – that was ugly. Then we ate desert, courtesy of our local Costco. Overall, fabulous day.