MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM JONAH

Christmas Eve Drama

Nothing makes me laugh like Dan getting frustrated. You have to understand, my sweet hubby does not have a temper and rarely gets his feathers ruffled. So, when it does happen, all I can do is laugh. Tonight has been a comedy of errors at our house and I can't quit laughing. It is currently 11:57 p.m. and little has gone right here. I'll give you a quick run down of the drama.

One of our traditions is to buy a children's Christmas book to give to Dan on Christmas eve for him to open and read to our child. We started this before Jonah and it has been a fun tradition since. This year, I only read the cover of the book when I got it. I neglected to open it and look at. Dan opens it (2 hours after Jonah's normal bedtime) to read him the quick story and the book was a novel! Seriously, the pages were full of text from top to bottom. It would take a couple of hours to read that. I had to go dig a book out from his first Christmas that the Hibbs' gave him instead.

Dan always gives me an ornament on Christmas eve. I opened what he thought was beautiful silver star ornament to find a MACY's inscribed ornament instead. So much for a non-commercial holiday.

We put reindeer food out, put cookies and milk out for Santa, decorated a John Deere tree and then got the sweet little boy in bed. I set out to make breakfast casserole while Dan put Santa toys together. He got the first one out, put batteries in it only to discover it didn't work. Umm...problem!

He pulled a wrapped toy from the tree that was to be from us and started putting it together only to discover it required 3 D batteries. We only had 2. (Note to self: make sure we buy batteries before Christmas Eve next year!!!)

In the midst of all of that, I browned my sausage and had everything in the pan for breakfast casserole. I poured the cheese from the bag into the dish only to discover it was moldy. Yep, not set to expire until February but it had already bitten the dust.

It is now 12:07 a.m. and the Glenn household is no where ready for a certain 3 year old to wake up but I'm certainly in the Christmas spirit. Hey, this is what memories are made of, right???

Oh, and to top things off, our awesome Worship leader just delivered batteries to our house at 12:10 a.m. on Christmas morning. Does he deserve a raise or what???

The Grinch Meet and Greet (with a video!)

My birthday with Jonah

When Jonah got up from his nap yesterday, he was ready to give me my gift and card from him. He even wrapped it himself.


Dan told me I would really crack up at his card because he picked it out himself and no matter how hard Dan tried to direct him to a different card, he HAD to have the one he picked out.
Yep, my card was a Dora and Diego card for a 3 year old. Dan wrote a five on the 3 to represent my actual age...35!

Jonah also made me two pins at preschool. He was sure I needed to wear them. So, being the good mommy I am, I put them on. He was pleased as punch!




Who would have ever thought a card that was not age appropriate and two gaudy homemade pins would bring so much joy to a mama's heart? I'd take these things any day over diamonds and jewels!

Our 2009 Christmas Card

FRONT

BACK
(with our address blurred)

A Grinch dream come true!!

If you are a follower of our blog, a friend of our family or just someone who has met us once or twice, then you know Jonah LOVES the Grinch. This is due to his relationship with the Welch Family. They host a Grinch party every Christmas and that ignited something in my little boy. He used to walk in there house (several times a week) and immediately ask to watch The Grinch. They always put the DVD in for him and watched with him. They even gave him a Grinch doll for his birthday. He sleeps with it every night and calls it his "birthday Grinch!" Just last week, he opened a package from them containing his Christmas gift...Grinch pajamas!!! Needless to say, the foster his love of the The Grinch and were so excited when I told them about our plans.
One day I was online looking at some fun Christmas things to do in this area and came across "Breakfast With The Grinch" at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. I immediately called and got details. In the meantime, one of our church members was discussing Jonah's love of the Grinch with some family over Thanksgiving. That family member works at Universal and contacted us to see if we would like free tickets into the parks so we could do this. We were blown away by their kindness and so very appreciative.
We purposefully did not tell Jonah about this because his little three year old mind can't quite understand patience and waiting. I had grand ideas of how we would wake him up the morning of the breakfast to tell him about what we were doing. It was going to be perfect. He would be in his Grinch pajamas with his Grinch doll in the bed beside him. Somehow, I forgot to share this dream with Dan. On the way into our hotel that night, he shared the exciting news with Jonah.
Jonah's normal bedtime is 8:00 p.m. We got to our room around 9 after taking pictures with Santa. He was already 1 hour late for bed so we knew he would go right to sleep. As the Grinch would say, WRONGO!!!! He was so excited that he couldn't sleep. He was in the bed next to ours and would just randomly giggle. Then he would scream out something about "meeting that Grinch!" He finally settled down some time after midnight. Not good considering we were getting up at 6:00 a.m. EEKS!
The breakfast included The Grinch, The Cat in the Hat and Bubbles Who from Whoville! Obviously, Jonah was most interested in The Grinch but was pretty smitten with The Cat. I packed a back up shirt for him for the day and it just so happened to be The Cat in the Hat.
The Cat saw it and picked it up and acted like he was going to wear it. Jonah told him he was too big for "that little blue Cat shirt!" The cat gave it to him so he wore it instead.




As soon as the Cat left our table, Jonah took his Cat shirt off so his Grinch shirt could be seen easily. He wanted to make sure the Grinch saw it and liked it.



And, since this was a breakfast, you might be wondering if they served green eggs and ham. Yep, they did. Dan had some on his plate for proof.

He was a little afraid of Bubbles Who at first but warmed up to her fairly quickly. She talked to him about The Grinch and he shared all of his Grinch knowledge with her. Then, I just snapped away as he watched The Grinch. Can you tell he was having a good time?




Every few minutes, he would turn to Dan to say "did you see that?" or "did you hear that?" He wanted to be sure we did not miss a single moment of this experience.





I took lots of pictures yesterday and will post them as time allows. Breakfast was not Jonah's only encounter with The Grinch. Stay tuned for more.

My birthday surprise

Our original plans were to get up this morning and spend my birthday at Disney. But, the next two weeks at Disney are insanely busy so we opted out of that. Dan said we could do anything I wanted and being the adventurous spirit that I am, I chose to come home and clean the house. (Yep, I'm a geek!) In my defense, I really just wanted to enjoy the next two days but knew there was so much to do at home. I figured if we could get home and get that done, then Christmas eve and day would be full of fun with no cleaning in sight! We walked in the door and Dan started cleaning like a madman. He knows my love language is acts of service so I thought he was just giving me the ultimate birthday gift. Little did I know, there was a little surprise up his sleeve.

This afternoon, the doorbell rang and I opened it to a group of people singing "Happy Birthday"! I was blown away. They brought a surprise party to my house. How awesome is that? If you have a Christmas birthday, then you understand and realize that Christmas is such a busy time that your birthday just gets overlooked. It doesn't bother me because I really am used to it. So, to open my front door and see a group of smiling faces from our new church home was so very special to me. (they even brought party hats!) I had my first ever Baskin Robbins cake and it was super yummy!




That is Melody. She was the mastermind behind this entire event. She worked out the details with Dan because she wanted me to "feel special on my birthday!" What a gift. I do feel so very special and so loved today. Thanks, Mel!






Gentry Rose was the ultimate lifesaver by opening my gifts for me. I think she got the memo about me hating to open gifts in front of people. So, she walked right over and ripped into those packages for me. LOVED IT!



Don't ask me what kind of face Dan is making in the next picture. It appears he may not like the guys he is talking to but I can guarantee that is not the case. We are so blessed to serve with the amazing staff at Stetson Baptist and these two guys are no exception. We love doing ministry with them and their families.

After everyone left, Jonah grabbed his party hat and we headed to dinner with Reggie and Kim.

It truly was a fabulous day! It started with my boys in Orlando and ended with fantastic memories shared with special friends. If all birthdays in Florida are like this one, I have a feeling my birthday will be something to look forward to. :-)

Way back WHENsday

Since I am in a bit of a hurry, I don't have time to go back and find lots of cute pictures from this day from a previous year. So, I decided to go to my 12th folder and find the 23rd picture. You know, after the date today (12/23). This was taken in July of 2008 in front of the back pew that used to sit in front of the window in the FBCV sanctuary before it was renovated. Jonah took some of his first steps there. Jonah stood there and greeted everyone who walked in on a Wednesday night. Jonah won the hearts of many people in that very spot. It appears he was playing with keys at this very moment. What a sweet little boy!

The Santa Line

The Santa at Mall at Millenia was awesome! My friend Stacy told me we needed to see him but there were several others closer to us. When I knew we were going to be in Orlando Monday night, I decided to wait until then to see him. The wait was 90 minutes! OUCH! Jonah was in a great mood and had no problem with the wait. I used the time to play with my new flash for my SLR.

Birthday blessings

I turn 35 today. I remember when that seemed very, very old. Now, as I reach the half way point to 70, it doesn't seem all that old anymore. Even if I did feel very old today, I'd gladly take that in exchange for the blessings of my life. I got to spend all day yesterday at Universal Studios with my precious hubby and sweet little boy. These five pictures are reminders to me of why my life matters. Aside from my salvation, Dan and Jonah are the most important things in this world to me. My greatest earthly joy comes from being Dan's wife and Jonah's mommy. So, on this day, I am especially appreciative of the many ways God has blessed me because of these two Glenn boys!





***These five pictures are just a SMALL preview of the many pictures we took today that will be blogged very soon. Stay tuned!***