SCL moment

Some of you may read the blog "Stuff Christians Like". I feel like I just lived a moment right out of the pages of Prodigal Jon's cyber-world.

Jay has been away for a few days so it's just me and Laina holding down the fort here. There is this church literally 5 minutes up the street from out house that has a couple Saturday evening services. I won't be able to go to our normal church in the morning because we'll be picking up Jay from the airport. Jay and I had been to this church right up the street before, a couple years ago when we were first looking for a church in the Denver area. There were some things we liked and some things we didn't, so we kept on our church hunt. We found our current church and it really felt like home, so we settled in. Now with a kid and 2 years later, I often drive by this closer church and, knowing they have Saturday services that work fantastically with Laina's schedule, keep thinking we need to give it a second chance. So, with Jay gone, I thought it would be the perfect time for me to go check it out again.

I got Laina settled into the right classroom, headed into the sanctuary, and immediately remembered why we didn't feel at home there. It feels very "over-produced" and they have camera people all over the place filming. It's pretty distracting. I got a seat and seriously could not focus, there were so many things I was critical of. I'm not saying this to talk bad about the church. It really is a wonderful church with hundreds if not thousands of attenders. They are obviously doing something right. I am saying it because I know this is an area that I need to work on in my life - being critical.

So about half way into the service, I think in my head, "oh my gosh, I'm totally here for free childcare!" That's the SCL moment. I'm pretty sure there is a post about using church for free childcare on his blog somewhere in the archives. The message ended up being good and I was glad I went and didn't completely feel like I was "using" the church, but it was still funny to me.

There you have it - my real-life Stuff Christians Like moment.

Christmas Trip Finale

I'm going to wrap up the Christmas blog, as its already 2009...

So, after spending a couple of days at Jenna's folks' house, we headed down to Orange County to my brother's house on Christmas Eve after stopping off for Christmas Eve services at our old church, Rock Harbor. I was dreading the Christmas Morning early wake-up call, since Jenna and I were both fighting colds, and really needed sleep. Luckily the kids didn't wake everyone up until around 6:45, and we managed to sneak downstairs and join them without waking up Laina, so she got to sleep in. It was a fun day spent hanging out with family, staying in (rainy outside), and playing with all the new toys. Their living room is really a play room, so there was all kinds of fun stuff for Laina to do even if she hadn't gotten any presents (of which she got plenty).

Laina loved her cousin's new dollhouse (and luckily got a more age appropriate one from Grandma Hoskinson for Christmas) and spent a huge amount of time playing with her cousin Kaity (and wanting to ride in the little car they have, and go down the slide in the living room). She also found a connection with her cousin Conner in a love of fighter jets (my kind of girl... from dollhouses to fighter jets in no time flat).


Her cousin Kylie got to read her bedtime story, and I got to give her some drawing lessons (if you can call them that), along with playing endless games of Sorry, which she dominated consistently.

The morning after Christmas, we met up with a bunch of our old friends from our church small group. It just so happened that despite most of them living all over the country, we all were in town that day to meet for breakfast at Ruby's (mmm). It was awesome to see everyone again, like zero time had passed (despite the three munchkins in tow, and the two more on the way).


Then we headed back to the airport, and had a much less eventful flight back, actually arriving early. The only panicked moment was when we got to my car way out in the economy lot and realized I had left the dome light on, so the battery was dead. Luckily we had just been chatting with another couple with kids while walking to our car, and I was able to run and flag them down to give us a jump.. (whew).

The next morning was Saturday, so we had our own mini-Christmas at home, with a few presents to open. We had a "Christmas Story" style Christmas Dinner at a Chinese restaurant (the roast duck).


So, this year the Christmas week was a little more hectic than we'd like, but it was good nonetheless, and we had a great time getting out and seeing everyone. Laina loved all the attention for sure. Its really an amazing holiday, in that we're celebrating the fact that the very God who created everything and everyone actually took it upon himself to be born into our world as a helpless infant in a stable, and despite his omnipotent authority, revealed himself first to the lowest of the low in the culture (shepherds, then prostitutes, tax collectors, etc). Its really rediculous if you think about it. Its absurd to even suggest, if not for the fact that it actually happened. One of the things I love about the way God works is that he doesn't tend to do things the way anyone would expect. Of all the ways that a writer would conceive of God invading the earth, none of them would look anything like the events documented in the gospels. Probably more like Independence Day.

Anyway, Happy New Year!

Christmas in California part Deux

Jenna narrating this time...

We had Christmas a little early at my parent's house up in Palmdale, where it was almost a white one! As we drove through the mountains between Santa Clarita and my parent's house, they were flecked with snow and it reminded me of powdered sugar dusted all over them. Mmmm. Snow is rare there so it was pretty neat to be there for it (though it was all done snowing by the time we arrived).

Laina had a fantastic time, after she got used to Sashi and Roscoe, the two little barky dogs. She absolutely loved the little blow-up, old-school reindeer my mom had - she was carrying them all over the place and giving them kisses the whole time! She aquired several new Dr. Seuss books, of which her favorite is Green Eggs and Ham and she even asks for it by name. One of her other favorite things about my parent's house was my dad's electric drum set. This little girl loves to rock!

I am sad it was a short visit but there was just so much to see and so many places to be in so little time...Next was a drive down to Orange County and our old church, Rock Harbor, for thier Christmas Eve service (which was awesome) and then on to Jay's brother's house. I'll let him post about that in the next installment. Maybe he can get this whole saga wrapped up on one more chapter, but it might drag on to four.

Christmas in California part 1

This is going to be a multi-parter, since there was so much activity packed into a weeklong trip. My dad was generous enough to offer to fly us out to California if we wanted for our Christmas gift, and after initially declining, I decided (and convinced Jenna) that we should go ahead and make the trip this year, since future years will be all spent at home and I hadn't seen everyone in a long time. We chose wisely as this was the first of three Christmases since we've been in Colorado that wasn't a white one.

The trip started out pretty interesting. As we were taxiing out of our gate, the pilot got on the intercom and announced that the west half of the airport was shut down for some unknown reason, and we were going to be delayed. We found out on arrival in Burbank that the reason for the delay and shutdown was that Continental flight that crashed on takeoff. Suffice it to say, that an hour delay sounded pretty reasonable given the circumstances.

We got to the Hoskinsons house (my parents) and put Laina to bed, then spent the next day at their house with Laina's three cousins (who were eagerly awaiting her arrival) and aunt and uncle (my brother and his wife). The kids had a great time playing with their cousin Laina, showing them as much fun stuff as they could come up with in a day. We went outside for a while and they all spontaneously broke out in a production of "The Wheels on the Bus" to Laina's sheer delight. I can't decide if she got a front row seat or she's the star of the show.

We basically spent the whole day hanging out, playing games, and watching the kids parade around the house with Laina. She loved it. We spent the night there, then headed up to the Ali's house (Jenna's parents) Monday for Christmas #1. That's all for part one. Here's some pics:

This is a classic "lets make the kids stand facing directly into the sun" picture... sorry guys

Dueling lego towers action. Later I started building lego robots for battle, and Kaity (red dress) kept asking me "Can you build another mighty robot Uncle Colorado Jay?" How could I refuse? Although I don't know how mighty they were if Conner kept destroying them. Incidentally, I'm "Uncle Colorado Jay" because they have another Uncle "J"

We discovered that Laina just perfectly fit inside the lego wagon, along with a teddy bear buddy, so many laps were made with her in tow (with all three cousins getting a 'turn'). Luckily she loves wagons.

She WALKS

Yes, it could be considered a Christmas Miracle! Just one day short of 20 months, Laina decided she can walk all by herself. She has been consistently walking with Jay or me holding her hands, and just in the last couple days would walk a little bit holding onto only one hand. We knew she had the balance and skill to do it on her own, but we thought she was afraid to try. Well today she conquered that fear. I was in our bathroom putting on makeup, and Laina crawled over and asked for the headband on the counter. I gave it to her and continued getting ready. Then I looked over and saw her walking on the tile, all the way across our not-small bathroom. (I love how she picks the hardest floor to fall on for her first walk!) When she got to the carpet, she sat down (for a break I guess), then got back up and continued walking on the carpet, half way across the bedroom, where she sat down again. Then she got up and walked right out of the bedroom and down the hallway! Of course I didn't have our camera with me upstairs, so I had to re-create the moment later. I particularly like how the lighting at the beginning makes it look even more like a Christmas Miracle.

eating crayons

Why is it that the baby doesn't eat crayons - the dog does? I should have taken a picture of the evidence the other day when Ella chewed up a crayon and left little bits and pieces of it all over the floor. And just now I caught her with another one in her mouth. Oh but she sure is cute, isn't she?

Story Time

Laina has been so cute lately, reading stories to her baby dolls and stuffed animals. I caught her on video yesterday reading "Go, Dog, Go" to Little Nut Brown Hare, who she calls Brown Hare. I'm putting both videos I took up here only for the grandparent's sake...I know most people will be bored by the same thing twice. She just says a few different things each time.

Also, check my other blog for my very own banana date bread recipe which I improvised from a few online recipes.