Our first full day in Indiana is another long day of traveling. We drove up to Warsaw to visit Dan's some of Dan's family. First stop was Grandma Bea's place.
Dan, Evelyn, and Grandma Bea
Grandma Bea was trying to get her to smile
Evelyn loved the bear Grandma Bea keeps on her bed!
Night night...
She pretty much loved everything that Grandma Bea had in her room...
And taking rides with Grandma Bea
We then went to Uncle Ron & Aunt Jackie's house. Aunt Jackie filled us up with new scarves, kitchen hot pads, and headbands that she had crocheted. Evelyn loved roaming through their rooms, too! She also got a new puppy from them - it used to be Grandma Bea's.
We then drove over to West Lafayette to visit with some friends from Purdue and Bethel (my old church in Indiana..now Connection Point).
Evelyn loves leaves - and we don't have a lot of them around here since it's still 85 degrees in December...
Leaves and sticks!
I decided to start a new tradition of taking her picture on the Purdue logo inside Mackey Arena every year.
These were the two best we got with a curious 18 month old!
Then we played outside for a bit so Daddy could swing Evelyn around a bit!
Sigh. I miss Purdue.
Then we headed to our friends' house for dinner. This is the only picture we got from the night...but these are two of my best friends from my time at Purdue. (missed you, Nicole!)
Carlee, me, and Susanne
It was so good to see everybody and catch up in person while we watched our growing families play. I can't wait until next year when Debjani will be HOME where she belongs!
A lot of traveling - especially after a day of flying from Texas to Indiana. But Evelyn did great! It's fun to watch her warm up to people. It's a good thing she isn't too shy - she'll be meeting (re-meeting) a lot of people this week!
Evelyn loves playing with balls - and Daddy's basketball is one of her favorites. If we walk in the garage, she knows exactly where he keeps it and will walk over to it to try to get you to let her play with it. Today, Daddy was teaching her some fundamentals...
I decorate our house for Christmas early. Don't judge, all you "let the turkey have it's day" people. We are usually gone for a week to Indiana over Thanksgiving, then I come back to the last week or two of the semester before Final Exams - which generally means A LOT of grading (and really whiny, suddenly motivated students). We then leave as soon as Finals are over for Colorado for Christmas, so to enjoy it more than 3 days - I put the tree up around the 2nd week of November.
Evelyn has been pretty good about staying out of our tree (yes, it is already up...don't judge - we go to Indiana for a week in 9 days, and leave for Colorado around the 15th of December - so my tree is up as long as yours is, as long as you just count the days that we are actually home to see it!) :-). I saw this on Pintrest and thought Evelyn would love it - so she and I made her own Christmas tree this morning!
We started with a big piece of green felt and I free-handed a Christmas tree shape
Then we made ornaments and presents out of other colors
A quick look up at the Grinch...
No, I don't normally let my child play with scissors...we had to document the process!
The finished product!
She has been playing with it exclusively since I started writing this post...
So you know that scene in Tommy Boy where they forget to take the oil can out, so the hood flies up onto their windshield while they are driving?
Yep, that happened to me today. No, I didn't leave something under my hood - but I did take my car in yesterday to get the oil changed and my state inspection done. Apparently the technician who worked on my car forgot to push the hood down and latch it when he was done, and really - who checks their hood to be sure it's latched after you get your car back. (I will, now, forevermore!)
I was on my way to work, only about 2 miles from our house, going about 65mph when bam!, my hood flew up onto my windshield. It was the loudest sound I think I've ever heard in a car, and it totally jolted the car. Both of my sun shades dropped down, the little garage door opener compartment door popped open, and stuff in my backseats fell onto the floor. I am incredibly thankful that Evelyn was not in the car with me. Fortunately, no one was immediately behind me (I'm pretty sure I slammed on my brakes) and I was able to blindly get to the side of the road. I had just crossed over a bridge - thank God - I would have rammed right into that trying to get off the road. By God's grace, alone, my windshield didn't shatter.
After I got it pulled over, my first instinct was just to get the hood back down. I had to pretty much hang on it to get it to flip back down, but was able to get it latched. Unfortunately, today was about the only day in a semester that I could not miss or be late to work. We had a candidate for a faculty search on campus, and I am chairing the search. So my thinking was get it latched and try to get to work (hindsight is 20/20...there are a handful of people I could have called who would have driven me to Kingsville). It did get it latched - and drove about 40mph to work. Dan got a bawling voice mail asking him to call me back and I tried to calm down enough to drive.
Dan had his biggest event of the year tonight, so it was the worst possible day for him to have to play knight in shining armor...but, of course, he did! I called the dealership and spoke with the manager of the quick lane - and she was immediately trying to help. Her first question was if I was ok - and she was going to send a wrecker to get my car. Knowing Dan was working until past 9pm tonight, we opted to just have me bring the car back to the dealership after work. Dan met me in my parking lot at work so we could get all of my stuff out of the car (car seat, stroller, etc.).
Here are some pictures of the damage...
My poor car... :-(. One part that did make me smile was my sisters and friends quoting Tommy Boy most of the day on the picture I posted on Facebook. As I was driving back to the dealership from Kingsville, I was praying about it. Right now, we couldn't afford to fix this, and tomorrow is one day that we absolutely need two working cars. I have a conference in San Antonio that I am driving up to, and Dan will need to be at work in Kingsville. If it was a normal week, we could ride together and see if Amber could come for some long days while my car is in the shop. I remember praying, and just giving it to Him. It's his car anyway, and He knows our needs. He's such a good Father and had already taken care of everything. I barely had to say anything to the manager at the quick lane and she was arranging for it to be taken to their body shop and had a rental car waiting. Of course, this all took way longer than planned, so I am incredibly thankful for our nanny - who stayed late with Evelyn with no complaints at all! And I got to come home to this sweet face...sigh...wipes it all away!
To keep with the Tommy Boy references...
I'll just have a sugar packet or two...
Ornery...
I am so thankful for God's provision - how He gives us exactly what we need. While I wouldn't exactly want this to happen again, I'm thankful to get to experience His love through it!
These two pictures make me laugh..so I had to post.
I generally grocery shop on Friday mornings. Mostly to avoid the weekend crowds. I had to get two big plastic bins to start storing toys that we don't play with much and make some room for new ones with Christmas around the corner. They wouldn't fit under the cart, so I had to put them in the cart - which fit, but took away a lot of the cart space. This was good in that I didn't pick up a bunch of impulse buys because we didn't have space to fit them...but not so good because I had to use some of Evelyn's space to fit all of our groceries!
Umm, Mom, that milk is cold - and it's in my space.
My Mom got Evelyn this jacket and I've been sad because she's about ready to outgrow it - but it hasn't been cool enough for her to wear it yet. Enter Sunday - a little bit cooler (ok - it was like 68, and I'm a little ashamed that I made my kid wear a jacket) so I put it on her.
We have a 6-visit pass to one of our local "bounce house" places called Boing Boing Bounce. I've been wanting to take Evelyn when Dan could go so that he could see her get so excited...and because I know he's a big kid anyway and would love it himself. So we decided to go Friday night after dinner. Her favorite part this trip were the balls - she loved chasing them (inside the bouncys, outside the bouncys...everywhere!). It was fun for me to see how far she's come since the last time we went (about a month or so ago) - she was a lot more active this time, and loved the slides!
Dan took a video while we were playing in the tunnel...
I think we must have been too busy playing and having fun to get pictures in the bouncys!
These are my favorite pajamas of Evelyn's right now...and I love her wacky hair in the mornings...and the way she munches on muffins and bananas on my bathroom floor while I get ready in the morning...
And I love this new game that she and Daddy play...the "I'm going to get you" game. Tonight's version included a towel over the head, courtesy of Evelyn.
This year was Evelyn's first year to try out this trick-or-treating thing. It was a pretty successful evening. I was a little nervous about whether or not she would want to be in a costume - but she was pretty content the entire time (and sweaty after we were out in the muggy 84 degrees outside, stupid hot south Texas evening). Some footage of the evening...
She knocked on all of the doors...
And welcomed herself into some houses...
She wasn't sure about some people's decorations (neither was Mommy...)
And she didn't let go of this Hersheys bar for the entire time we were out (it was nice and melted by the time we got home)
She said "please" to most of the people she got candy from (even if they weren't home)...
And generally had a great time!
And we can't forget...she had her first sucker ever tonight!
So I let my kid participate in a holiday that I hate, and I'm feeling a little bit convicted over it tonight. I've been doing Beth Moore's "Esther" study recently, and have been drawn to how assimilated the Jews were into the Persian culture during that time. So much so that a Persian King welcomed a Jewish girl as his new Queen without even knowing she was a Jew. And it makes me look at my own life and how assimilated I am into this culture that is not my home. This world that is wasting away. This life that is just a breath - a vapor. Am I saying that Christians (or anyone) who celebrates Halloween is a heathen? NO! But I am saying that God is doing something in my heart right now, and I hear Him asking me to choose this day whom I will serve. Not just casually - but wholeheartedly. And wholehearted service requires abandonment to a narrow road. Am I willing to set aside the comfortable culture that I am so much a part of...I wish I could easily say yes, but I know I'm not doing it right now.
Break my heart for what breaks Yours...
What if I was given the whole wide world, but lost my own soul?
It's time for me to align my living with my thinking - and that scares me. I guess this is a scary holiday after all.
