Dear Wal-Mart, It's Over.

Dear Wal-Mart,

It’s over.

The relationship has been strained for about 5 years now, but I’m calling it quits. In June 2007 I began a boycott of Wal-Mart that lasted almost an entire year…I literally did not set foot inside Wal-Mart during that time, which is more difficult than you might think. But I began shopping there again shortly after Ella was born because we had to tighten up the budget and, as much as I hated to admit it, it was cheaper than other grocery stores. I even remember the details surrounding our last “break-up.” It was a couple of days after two of our good friends, Nic and Toni, got married (and a couple of days before I found out I was pregnant with Ella!) and I went to Wal-Mart on my lunch break to get pictures developed. I went back after work to pick them up. Those were the two worst customer service experiences I’ve ever had. Until Friday night.

I hate taking my children with me to the grocery store. Don’t get me wrong, they are very, very good in public. I’m very lucky. However, I only like to go to the grocery store twice a month, so obviously those are two big trips, and with Kendall sitting in the front and Ella in the back that takes away a lot of cart space. Ella could walk, but then my grocery trip would be a couple of hours longer and a lot more frustrating. So I end up going to the grocery store whenever Ronnie is home and can watch the girls. This often ends up being late at night. On Friday night I got the girls in bed and left the house at 9 p.m. Ronnie wasn’t quite home from work yet but Ross was here. I did some browsing outside of the grocery section so I wasn’t actually ready to check out until about 10:45 p.m. And so the fun begins…

I pushed my extremely heavy, overstuffed cart to the front of the store to find that no checkout lanes were open. My blood pressure began to rise. Since I’m a frequent late shopper I know that they usually have only one checkout lane open this late and since it’s so late it’s not usually busy, I might have to wait briefly behind one person. So tonight there are about 12 self checkout lanes open and no regular lanes…but wait I see a lane open!! Thank goodness! I head that direction, only to notice a sign that says “20 items or less.” No way. Then I spot two employees at checkout lanes right next to each other. Yay! They’re about to open and I’ll be the first one! As I get closer I realize that they are counting money. I usually don’t say anything in situations like this and go with the flow, but I wasn’t about to self-check $200+ worth of groceries. I will abandon my cart and leave before that happens. So, blood pressure still rising, I walk up to the two ladies, one who appears to be a manager.

“Hi, ummm, are you all about to open one of these lanes?”
“No, but all the self check outs are open and lane #14 is open.”
I push my cart forward a little so she can see it, blood pressure continues to rise, my heart is pounding and my face is getting hot…
“So I’m going to have to self check out ALL of these groceries?”
“No, lane #14 is open.” She points as if I am blind to the light on lane #14. “It’s the cigarette line.
Fantastic.
"Yes, I can see that, but there is a sign that says ’20 items or less’.”
“That’s ok.”
“So if I go over there they will still check me out even though I have more than 20 items.”
“Yes.”

So to lane 14 I go - the cigarette lane.

I got in line behind two or three other customers waiting to go through the cigarette line when I see the manager go to the lady working the customer service desk and ask her to open up a lane. THANKS A LOT!!!!

She reluctantly opens a lane, after complaining about how busy she is, and I told the couple in front of me to go ahead and then I got behind them. I was frustrated, but glad to be in line. I don’t mind self checking out at all. If I have only a few items I always use the self check out. But I still feel that it is completely rude to have no lanes open. As part of their service to their customers they should scan and bag everyone’s groceries if they want them to. Oh wait, I forgot the cigarette lane was open, with its false advertisement of ’20 items or less’.

So then it’s my turn. I get a little stressed out unloading groceries onto the belt. I have a system and anyone who’s ever been grocery shopping with me makes fun of me, but I have a system. Produce first, followed by frozen foods, followed by refrigerated foods, followed by boxed items, followed by cans, followed by drinks, etc. Make fun if you want, it’s just how I do things. I didn’t have an opportunity to unload while the people in front of me were paying because they didn’t scoot up far enough, so I was in a hurry. I had about 1/3 of my cart unloaded and was frantically trying to hurry when the unthinkable happened. Two kids, probably late teens, got in line behind me and put their stuff on the cart. I paused, unsure of what was happening. The lady pushed the belt button, the belt moved, so then it was my stuff, separator, their stuff, large empty space. What the heck?! The lady took off a few things to scan, and I replaced them with a few things, thinking eventually the kids behind me would notice what they were doing. Nothing. This continued for a couple of minutes. I was breathing as slowly and as deeply as possible, trying to hide the fire that must have been coming out of my ears. I realized that the guy behind me had talked to me in the produce section. He was asking me about apples. Seemed like a nice guy, wouldn’t expect him to be a rude conveyor belt hog. Though this reminded me of another way Wal-Mart had annoyed me that night. The produce section was really bad. Ella specifically asked for apples. They only had about 15 gala apples out and I picked the only 4 that weren’t bruised. So instead of saying, "Are you a moron? You can't put your groceries on the belt until I'm finished! I was here first! Go take your Coca-Cola to the self check out line or the cigarette line!" I politely said, “Do you mind pushing your stuff down so I can finish unloading my cart? “Oh yeah!! Sorry!” he says as if he had no idea what he did. Figured. So I unload groceries. I was annoyed because he didn’t completely take his stuff off the belt. I clearly could fill up that belt another time or two with all the stuff I had left in my cart. Check out lady pushes the button, belt moves, we are in the same predicament. I was stunned. I had to ask AGAIN for him to move his crap. He laughed again. I contemplated punching him in the face but decided against it. This seriously goes on about 4 more times until I am finally finished unloading my cart and my groceries are literally piled on top of one another. So much for my neat, organized system. I couldn’t even see straight. $217. That just makes my trip even more fantastic!!

So I pushed my insanely heavy overflowing cart toward the doors and I pick up my phone to call Ronnie and tell him why I’m NOT getting a movie from Redbox. The nice older man at the doors says, “Bye, have a good night!” I managed to smile and tell him to have a nice night. He seemed like a really nice guy and I felt sad that he was working for such an incompetent corporation that I would never, ever support again. Then as I push my cart through the doors three high school boys come barreling in through the “out” door and I had to push my heavy cart over to keep from hitting one of them. “OH MY GOSH!!” I finally yell. I was so mad that I was about to cry, because that’s what I do when I get really, really mad. And then all I could think about was how I wish I hadn’t moved my cart so I would have hit one of those kids right in the kneecaps. Ronnie picks up at that time and I just yell, “I’m not getting a movie, and I’m NEVER COMING HERE AGAIN!!”

I realize that very little of my problems Friday night are directly related to Wal-Mart…just the idiots who happened to be there when I did. But still, this seems to be the only store where I have these types of problems. So I’m done. While I still feel like I spend less money when I shop at Wal-Mart, that will just be a sacrifice that we have to make. And now I need to find a new, cheap brand of diapers for Kendall, because I unfortunately had become a big fan of the Wal-Mart brand. Then again, if I ONLY bought diapers there it would give us an opportunity to poop on Wal-Mart.

Who needs the shake weight...we've got The Bachelor Workout!!

So I really like watching The Bachelor. I know, it’s trashy. Every season I say that I’m not going to watch it, then every season they do all the little promo ads and it gets me interested enough to watch the first episode, then I’m hooked. Now that we have DVR (yes, we just got cable and DVR. We haven’t had it since we moved into our house in May ’08!) it makes it even easier for me to just relax and watch it in peace after the girls go to bed.

So anyway, the new season is a few episodes in and my family has figured out a way to incorporate exercise into The Bachelor. It has also allowed me to find a way to get Ronnie and Ross to watch it with me, hehe. I was joking around with my mom about this today and she found our new Bachelor/exercise routine hilarious and asked me to post the details on my blog. So here’s how it goes…

This all started because one episode we were watching and making fun of the girls (and the guy…Womack is a bit of a softy) for saying the same cheesy lines all the time, ‘I wear my heart on my sleeve…’ ‘I put myself out there…’ ‘I let down my walls…' blah blah blah. Lightbulb!! I suggested to the guys, why don’t we each pick our “favorite” phrase for the next episode, and each time someone says that phrase, whoever chose it gets to pick out some type of workout for the other two to do. Much like a drinking game, but we don't drink, so this works for us! So I got out pen and paper and we started setting rules. Those three phrases I mentioned were our phrases - the first was mine, then Ross’s, then Ronnie’s. Unfortunately mine wasn’t used one time (can you believe that?!) but Ross’s was used five times and Ronnie’s was used two or three times. So we spent the episode doing a variety of crunches, pushups, mountain climbers, wall sits, etc. I may need to change my Monday workout at the gym. It is usually my long run day, but I ran six miles about five hours before our shenanigans began and it made wall sits incredibly difficult! We had a lot of fun doing this, but of course Ronnie and I are exercise nuts and we are turning Ross into one, so most people probably wouldn’t enjoy this and would think that we are crazy.

We have decided to do things differently for the next episode because we want to get more of a workout afterwards. We need to wake up sore from this! So we picked some frequent occurrences from the show…easy to do…and set an exercise value to each one. So this is what we’ve got…

- Inappropriate female shot – 10 crunches of choice
       This refers to anytime we see a part of the female’s body BEFORE we see her face. Crunches are good to do after an inappropriate female shot...most of the girls are in good shape and I want my abs back.

- Inappropriate male shot – 10 push ups
        Anytime we see Brad slowly pull off his shirt, or like mentioned before, when we see parts of his body before we see his face.

- Steals Him Away – 10 tricep dips
        Anytime Brad is talking (or making out with) a girl and another girl “steals him away” – this usually happens on group dates and at the rose ceremony. It’s gotten pretty ridiculous so we should have some killer triceps when this season is over.

- Crying girl – 20 jumping jacks
        Enough said.

- “Last time” – 30 second wall sits
        Brad was The Bachelor a few seasons ago and at the end of the season he didn’t choose a girl. No big deal, right? I think it was a respectable decision. Not these chicks. They are constantly talking about “last time” and worried that he will do the same thing again. Whatever…

- Therapy – 10 power squats (love these!)
        So after his last season Brad went through some “intense therapy” with his “amazing therapist” to “sort through his commitment issues” blah blah blah. This gets mentioned a lot and the therapist frequently shows up. So for this, we will squat.

- Violent references – 10 lunges each leg
        These girls are seriously out for blood.

So there you have it. This is what we will be doing when we watch The Bachelor each Monday. I will not patent or copyright the above workout, so feel free to adapt some form of it or copy it completely. Let’s get in shape while we watch crazy, psychotic girls fall madly in love with Brad Womack in six weeks! All but one will get her heart broken, one will (possibly) get a ring, then 3 weeks later they will break up and it will be all over the news and every magazine cover and they will get a special on ABC to talk about it more and extend their 15 minutes of fame. Woo hoo! (Oh, and I'm pulling for Emily!!)

I can hear my voice in the sky!

Ella has been full of hilarious one-liners lately. Today we had a couple of funny ones. This afternoon she was playing with her favorite baby doll, Suzy. She informed me that Suzy had hit her head and she had to hold her. Then she layed her on a makeshift bed and said, “Suzy, you need to chillax.” She has definitely heard that phrase from her Daddy!

This evening she had one of her best lines ever. We had just gotten home from Half Price Books. I went to get the mail and she was standing on the front porch yelling for Ross to open the door. She was going, “Ross! Ross!” Then she said, “Mommy! I can hear my voice in the sky!” I said, “What?” She said, “I can hear my voice in the sky! Listen! Ross! Ross!” When she yelled "Ross" loudly she could hear an echo, and listening to it from her perspective it really sounded like it was coming from the sky! It’s so funny what kids come up with!

She has been cracking me up since her birthday. She is the proudest 3 year old I’ve ever seen! She keeps saying, “Mommy I can do this now because I’m a big girl, I’m 3 now.” The other day we were eating chicken nuggets, which she usually eats with ketchup and I usually eat with barbeque sauce. She said, “Mommy, now that I'm 3, I really, really, really like barbeque.” Fortunately for me she has developed a stronger desire to help out now that she is 3. I was putting new batteries in her VReader the other day. When I got out the screwdriver she said, “Mommy, I can help you now since I’m 3!” Then last night Kendall threw up on me and a chair. While trying to give Kendall to Ronnie and clean up she said, “Mommy I can help!” I wiped off a teether that got hit with the mess and asked her to put it in the sink for me. She ran off, threw it in the sink, then ran back and said, “Now what do you want me to do?” Such a sweet, big girl! I think she is most proud because she is able to go to the “big girl room” at the Y now. Most of her friends have already turned 3 and get to play in the Adventure Center, so it was a very big deal when we went to the Y the first time after her birthday and she got to play with her friends. This has been her second full week in the Adventure Center and she is still so excited every morning when we get ready to go. On Tuesday morning we were on our way into the Y and a guy, who Ella doesn’t know, was going in at the same time we were. She said to him, “I’m going into the big girl room because I’m 3 now!!” The excitement may not wear off for awhile! I hope it doesn’t, because it’s so fun watching her have such a great time being 3!

Ella's 3 year checkup

Today Ella and I made a visit to Oldham County Pediatrics to see Dr. Bindner for her 3 year checkup. It seems we've been at the doctor a lot lately, with all of Kendall's well baby visits, but the first thing Dr. Bindner said was that Ella hadn't been to the doctor for a sick visit since last February! Yay! Though I feel like we kind of cheat. If Ronnie weren't a doctor she would have probably been 2-3 times since then. He gives me reassurance when she's sick..."Kelly, she's fine. It's just an upper respiratory infection. It's viral so she doesn't need meds. It will just be the waste of a copay." He really comes in handy sometimes! ;)

The first thing the nurse did was weigh and measure her. She is 27 lbs 6 oz (30th percentile!!!!!) and 35 3/4 inches (25th percentile). I couldn't believe she was in the 30th percentile for weight! She has been eating like crazy lately so I thought it was probably higher than at her 2 year checkup (around 8th percentile), but I never expected that much of a jump. Way to go big eater!!

Everything else looked great. We talked a lot about her allergies, which have been completely out of control lately. She's always had allergy problems and has been on medicine regularly since she was 15 months old, but the last month has been especially difficult. Aside with taking Claritin everyday, she has been having lots of bad allergy attacks and it seems like it's every other day that I have to give her Benadryl and allergy eye drops. Today Dr. Bindner wrote her prescriptions for both Singulair and Nasonex and encouraged us to schedule an appointment with an allergist and have her tested. We've been putting this off for awhile, but we can't any longer. She is miserable. Last spring/summer/fall we basically couldn't go outside at all because her eyes would swell up and her nose would start pouring. We can't go to anyone's house who has a cat because within seconds of walking in the door her eyes swell up. And all of our friends and most of our family have dogs and she usually has an attack at their houses, too. Lately she has been having really bad attacks when we aren't around any animals...and I'm fairly certain that she is allergic to almonds. She needs to be tested so we can know for sure what she is allergic to and make adjustments to help her. Dr. Bindner recommended an allergist at Kentuckiana Allergy and I'm excited to meet with him. She mentioned that he is very conservative and won't put her on allergy shots unless he feels it is necessary. That's exactly what we're looking for. In the meantime, hopefully these prescriptions will start to help. They'd better...it cost $58 for both of them. Ouch.

Ella had to get 1 vaccine today. She seemed prepared, but when the nurse walked in with the shot she kept saying, "But I really don't need a shot. I don't need one..." She refused to lay down, so I held her arms while she sat up and watched. I could tell the nurse didn't want me to let her do this, but Ella is so interested in medical stuff that I thought she might as well watch. She screamed as soon as she was injected and then for 5-10 seconds, then she was fine. When we got home she was excited to show Daddy, Ross & Kendall her shot. She said, "Ross, I got a shot. I got it in this leg, NOT this leg. It's on my left leg. Don't touch it."

Kendall is 9 months!

I feel like I just wrote about Kendall being 8 months old, and now she is 9 months old! I can't believe she will be one year in just three short months. Before you have kids you hear people talking about how their "kids just grow up so fast" and "they'll be grown before you know it" and you just kind of think "ok whatever" but it is soooo true and has been especially true the second time around. I wish I could just freeze my kids right now. I don't know if anyone else watches Parenthood, but it's one of my favorite shows. The last episode really got me thinking. One of the couples on the show has a daughter who I believe is around 8. A bird flew into their window and they sort of took care of it, and then it died. They had to have the death conversation with their daughter and were so upset because they knew it would change her entire outlook on life. When we get to that point our converstaion will go a little differently than theirs, because their beliefs in the afterlife aren't exactly in line with ours, but it's still difficult to think about talking to our kids about those things. I love that they can just play and have fun and be so innocent with no worries. Ella's most frustrating times right now are when I won't let her watch another episode of Dora or eat another package of fruit snacks. I don't even want to think about the things that our girls will face as they reaches adolescence. Ok so I totally didn't mean to have that rant. Back to Kendall's 9 month birthday!

Today she had her 9 month checkup with Dr. Bindner. Last night I told Ella that we were taking Kendall to the doctor this morning and she said, "I'm not going, Mommy." I told her that she had to go, because Daddy would be at work and she would have to come with me. I was confused because normally she loves going to the doctor's office. Then she told me that she didn't want to get a shot. At Kendall's 6 month checkup Ella ended up getting a flu shot. It was a very last minute thing so she had no preparation, so she wasn't too thrilled! It took several conversations last night and this morning for me to convince her that she would NOT be getting a shot! This morning she finally said, "ok Mommy, I'll go."

Unfortunately Kendall did have to get a Hep B vaccine...her last, I believe! She also had to have a small amount of blood drawn to check her iron levels and a few other things. They pricked her big toe and squeezed blood into a small vial for this. I hate that. I would rather hold her down for 3 shots than hold her down while they squeeze her little toe. :( Thankfully she handled it pretty well or I might have been in tears! The rest of her checkup went well. Here are her stats: 18 lbs 12 oz (50th percentile), 29 inches (90th percentile), and her head circumference is 100th percentile. She is still our long, watermelon headed girl! :) Less chunky, though. Her weight percentile has actually dropped quite a bit. It took me by surprise when they plotted her weight at the 50th percentile, because at the last visit it was around 90th. Her doctor asked about her eating habits but she wasn't concerned. Kendall is eating well and satisfied after feedings. She is extremely active and started crawling since her last checkup, so she is definitely burning some calories! If you look at her she clearly is thriving and still has her pudgy little muffin top and chunky monkey thighs. In the beginning she was also taking in A LOT of milk but that has leveled off so I think now she is getting what she needs, rather than a whole lot extra. This also explains the terrible reflux she had up until 6 months. The collarbone that fractured when Kendall was born has completely healed. In fact, when she was feeling of it Dr. Bindner said she couldn't even tell which one it was! We're always thankful for a healthy checkup and look forward to the next one in 3 months!

Next up - Ella's 3rd birthday is in 9 days!!

Merry Belated Christmas!

Hey everyone! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We have been extremely busy the last few weeks so I will do a Christmas catch-up! We had 4 Christmas celebrations, so here is a little about each one!

Christmas #1 - Christmas at Mema's

Each year on the Saturday before Christmas we gather at my Mema's house with my family and my mom's two brother's families. We are all scattered in Scottsville, Louisville and Lexington, but this is usually the only time we all get together each year. Though this past year we were fortunate and celebrated Mema's 90th birthday party in June and most everyone was also able to come to Jamie's going away party in October. We had a great time, like always. Ella had a blast playing with her two older cousins, Sam and Bennet. This was her first experience opening presents since her birthday and after one or two presents she had the hang of it and wanted to open everyone's presents! The girls came away with new Christmas jammies for Christmas morning and lots of cute clothes and some nice toys. My cousin Jill's husband Jim is an amazing artist and graphic designer and he gave Mema a beautiful photo book he made full of pictures from her 90th birthday party. It was a wonderful present and we all enjoyed looking through it. Right after we finished opening presents we received a surprise phone call from Jamie in Tonga! Actually it wasn't a surprise to me...I happened to catch her on Facebook the night before and reminded her when we would be at Mema's...she woke up extra early just to give us a call! We all passed the phone around so everyone could say hi and Merry Christmas.

Christmas #2 - Christmas morning

The night before Christmas Ella and I continued in our tradition (which started last year) of making homemade cookies for Santa. It's a lot of work (mostly the dishes afterwards!) but we have fun using the cookie cutters and painting icing on the cookies. The funny part is that Ella has a blast with this, but doesn't care a thing about eating cookies! In fact, she paused halfway through for a snack...a slice of swiss cheese! After we were finished with cookies and Ella picked out which ones she wanted to leave for Santa, we read stories. Unfortunately Kendall had already conked out, so we only read with Ella. I read her "The Christmas Story". We had read it the past several nights and by Christmas she could "read" it to us. She especially liked saying "and suddenly an angel appeared!" and "and baby Jesus was lying in a manger" and "glory to God in the highest!" It was so cute! Then Ronnie read her "Twas the Night Before Christmas". My dad always read it to me, Jamie and Travis every Christmas Eve night. I remember one Christmas Eve when I was a senior in high school and arrived home late on Christmas Eve. Jamie and Travis had already gone to sleep but I, at 17, curled up with Dad and made him read it to me. In fact, Jamie called him from Tonga on Christmas Eve and she asked him to read it over the phone to her! :) Christmas morning didn't start out quite as we expected. I expected Ella to come flying into the living room attacking presents, but she actually woke up in a grumpy mood! She wasn't feeling well, and it took her awhile to get going, but once she did she became very excited! The present she first chose to open was her present from Aunt Jamie...Beauty and the Beast! As she ripped off the paper she said, "I think it's a movie!!" Her big Santa gift, a doll house, was actually the 3rd or 4th present she opened, but she was pretty excited about it! Kendall's big gift was a new carseat, and she also received some toys, her first Bible, a book and a few clothes. Ronnie's big gift was a new razor (thank goodness, his last one was loud enough to wake up our entire neighborhood) and I received a new jacket and some workout clothes. On Christmas morning I decided to do something I'd never done before - I made homemade cinnamon rolls, completely from scratch. They were delicious but it took FOREVER. It wasn't all that difficult, it just took so long waiting for them to rise, then doing something else to them, then waiting for them to rise some more. We didn't have "breakfast" until almost 1 p.m.! But it was definitely worth the wait!

Christmas #3 - To Mammaw's House we go!
On Christmas afternoon we headed to Glasgow to Ronnie's mom's house. Thankfully the girls were exhausted from a busy Christmas morning and slept most of the way down. We were excited to be with all of Ronnie's family and enjoyed a yummy Christmas dinner of Mexican food! Well, Pa wasn't too happy about Mexican food on Christmas, but the rest of us sure enjoyed it! We had a great time playing a new game on the Wii - Just Dance 2. If you are my friend on Facebook, please watch the video I posted of Ronnie and Rocky enthusiastically dancing. If you don't have Facebook let me know and I'll send it to you. If I can figure out how to post it on here I will. We did something new this year as far as presents go. It got pretty expensive buying for everyone in Ronnie's family so last year we drew names. This year we decided to play Dirty Santa instead with $30 gifts. We were a little skeptical about how it would go over but it went great and everyone seemed to leave with an appropriate present they were happy with! I think I got the best present, or at least the best one for me! It was a "date night" in a basket - complete with candy, popcorn, a movie, and a promise from Ross to babysit!! Sweet!! Ella had a great time opening presents, of course! She received a "Baby Alive" doll from Rocky and Rachel that came with a doctor's kit. She is a little Ronnie in the making, so she enjoyed playing doctor to her baby. Mammaw gave her a VReader, which I think is an awesome, educational tool and she has enjoyed playing with it. She also got her Dora's Backpack. As soon as she started peeling the paper away she said, "It looks like Dora!!" Tara and Daniel hooked the girls up with all kinds of stuff, cute monogrammed buckets, homemade blankets, matching outfits, and they gave Ella a Dora chest full of dress up clothes. After she opened that she had a different outfit on every time I saw her! Oh and Ronnie and I came away with some restaurant gift cards, so we need some babysitters! ;)

Christmas #4 - We're off to Grandma and Grandpa's!
Christmas night we got to mom and dad's house really late so the girls went straight to bed. When they woke up Sunday morning we did Christmas morning all over again with them. Mom and Dad had ordered the girls new monogrammed suitcases. They are soooo cute! They surprised us with a new storage ottoman for our living room, to take the place of our falling apart coffee table. We love it and it matches our couch perfectly! After church Laura, Tim, Charlie & Peyton came down and we all opened presents and stuffed ourselves silly with dinner and desserts. Ella received new accessories for her doll house and Kendall got a really cool Noah's Ark toy. We all tried to watch the movie "Inception" that night but I think Mom, Travis, Ronnie & Charlie were the only ones who finished it. Everyone else was too exhausted!

We had a wonderful Christmas and were so happy that Ronnie was off work the 24th through the 27th so we were able to spend quality time with all of our family. While we had a blast giving and opening presents, we tried to always remember the reason for celebrating. We are so thankful that God sent his son to die for our sins and that we have been saved by his grace. I know it is difficult for children to look past Santa and the presents, and we absolutely want our children to enjoy all of that, but we hope that they will always see the deeper meaning. Our biggest prayer is that, as they grow older and have a greater understanding, that they will always remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas and come to know Jesus Christ personally. We pray that you all have been blessed this Christmas season as we have! May 2011 be your best year so far!