An Original Psalm by Tommy

For those of you who were not at Revolution Downey on Sunday (and for those that were), we were learning how to write our own Psalm. Here is what my 11-year-old Tommy wrote and then read out loud in church.

"Jesus, You are the wonderful creator, teacher, father. In my life, You have provided me with a loving family, given me talents and intelligence. When I'm connecting with You, I feel safe and peaceful. In my life, I will choose You over anything in the world. I love You because You are the one who made me and have given me a wonderful family."

I sat in the back with pride and amazement as the tears were welling up in my eyes. I couldn't believe these beautiful, thoughtful words came out of my son. After the service Christopher and I both looked at each other and said "you have to post this on your blog". "But of course."

YOU ROCK TOMMY!!

Happy Birthday Martin

Everyday after work I go to pick up Jimmy from Preschool. We walk to his classroom to sign him “out” and pick up his lunch and papers from his box. Well yesterday after I pulled out the papers from his box he grabs what’s called a “Weekly Reader”, opens it up and says “we get a stay at home day because it’s this guy’s birthday” and he points to this picture if Martin Luther King Jr.

I start cracking up, and he says “why are you laughing”. As you may know a 4-year old is very sensitive about laughing after they’ve said something. I say “Jimmy that was really cool what you just said”. He smiles the “yeah, I know I’m cute” smile. I continue to laugh and he kind of looks at me like “I don’t know why you think that is so funny”. Of course, as a parent, when your child says something funny it’s usually 4 times funnier to you then to somebody else. As we are walking out I am still pretty hysterical laughing. He says “you can stop laughing now Mom”, with that look of my mom has just lost it. I just love that kids are so matter of fact like that. It doesn’t matter to him who MLKJ is, just that he gets to miss school because of his birthday.

(sigh) Kids have it so good.

Yellow, Red, Green, Green, Green

My apologies for not blogging in a while. Well I survived the Holidays. We started with Thanksgiving at Tim's sister house and 35 of his immediate family. (and that was only about 1/2 of them) Good times. Then onto the "big" Rubber Industry Christmas party the following week. The whole evening felt pretty surreal. Everything was flying by and the whole year was coming to an end fast.

Next was Tim's Christmas party for work. Definitely a different atmosphere from mine. Hardly anyone from the Education Dept came. We had some laughs, but ended up leaving early. Then my work decided that the week before Christmas would be a good time to have an Open House, so we were so busy preparing for that and our Christmas luncheon. There were a lot of late nights spent shopping, wrapping and decorating. And blah blah blah, now onto the good stuff.

My church put together a very dramatic Christmas Service. We really have many talented people. I also helped pass out Free Toys for kids in Norwalk with church. It was so good to see all of their little smiling faces. God Bless the company that donated a truckload of toys. I just pray that my children will remember the true meaning of Christmas and not just the toys and games they received. Thank you Lord for sending your only Son, and for the many blessings you have given us. I mean that sincerely regardless of the paragraph I am about to write.

One thing that happened over the holidays is that I discovered a "new" talent that I have. It turns out that I can totally shred on Guitar Hero. I knew I had coordination, but who knew that I could "rock" with the best of them. It is my new guilty pleasure I must admit and feel no shame for. My thanks to the maker of Guitar Hero I, II & III!!!