I know I’m late to the party, but I love BooMama’s idea of a Christmas Tour of Homes. There are over 160 bloggers joining in, and I’ve enjoyed peeking into their homes and seeing their beautiful Christmas decorations. I hope BooMama won’t mind that I’m straggling behind the pack. I’m sure the casseroles have cooled, but I don’t mind leftovers.

Friday the 15th was total craziness around here. No time to blog, with four class parties! And guess who waited until the last minute to wrap all the gifts … grrr. Why does it take the rush of party-day adrenaline to get me slapping on scotch tape and tying bows? (And where IS that scotch tape?) At least this year, my mother-in-law helped out with the preschool party so I could attend my elementary kids’ parties — and since they were in a small school, I party-hopped to all three, baby in tow.

But I did want to share some of our favorite Christmas decorations, especially since I don’t know how many of these will make it through the years. A few days ago, I caught my three-year-old smashing glass balls with the can of cinnamon air freshener. When I told him to stop, he just said, “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to.” (irresistible).

So, come on in and see what decorations survived the first week.

Here’s our front door. This is the table where I sit every day to read our mail and watch the kids play in the driveway.

Here’s our little Christmas cat who will greet you from her favorite perch on the stairway. She doesn’t know what the fuss is all about. As long as she can snooze, everything is fine.

This is our dining room. I put a spray of greenery over the mirror that will probably fall once it’s hit by a stray football. The little plate to the right is one of my favorite decorations. I got it from Southern Living, and you can change out the ribbons and write on the plate with Dry Erase markers. We use it for birthdays too.

Here’s one of my favorite decorations that is so breakable I don’t know how much longer we’ll have it. This Snow White globe belongs to my daughter who’s six. We bought it for her when she was so enamored with Snow White her second Christmas. My sister-in-law went crazy hearing her sing, “Some day my pwince will tum” at my mom’s house that year. This little snow globe plays, “We wish you a Merry Christmas.” I thought I’d set it up in a safe place, but my three-year-old got up on a step stool and was carrying it around a couple of days ago. So we may need an e-bay replacement in a few years.

This is the Advent Calendar we’ve put up every year since my oldest was born. I love it, and I never have to answer the question, “How many days ’til Christmas?” because I just tell them to go check the Advent Calendar. And they love taking a piece of the Nativity out of the pocket every day. Baby Jesus went missing one year, and I found him nestled in a pile of stuffed animals a few months later.

I display our cards differently every year. I bought this wreath several years ago and have it hanging on the back of our coat closet. I like to use something that makes it easy to transport my cards when I go to my parents’ house. My mom and dad get such a kick out of seeing my childhood and college friends grown up with their own families. And I love plowing through their cards too, reading the newsletters. Some years I’ve used a crystal bowl and let the cards pile up, but I love looking at our friends’ pictures all through December. Some will end up on our refrigerator.

Here’s our tree, humble and eclectic in all its glory. We only have one tree, though a friend of mine decorates her home in 14 full-sized trees, each with a fabulous different theme. Ours is full of glittery handmade ornaments the kids make, and I try to pick up ornaments when we travel. One of my favorites is a little Kiwi bird we bought when we were in New Zealand in 1994. We always use white lights — I’m just a white lights girl. They remind me of stars.

And this is the newest addition to our Christmas collection. I bought this quilt a couple of weeks ago at Cracker Barrel. They were having a Christmas sale, and I thought it would be something fun for us to have out for years. I wish I could say I made it, but it was made in China.

That’s it! Thanks for stopping in. If you’re looking for more Christmas inspiration, check out some more homes — decorated by REAL people — at BooMama’s Christmas Tour of Homes.

[Edit: I wasn’t the last one after all! The tour is still going strong as more bloggers join in — there are now nearly 200 Christmas-decked homes welcoming you to visit.]

You can contact me at:

heather ivester at gmail dot com

It’s the end of the semester on college campuses, and once again I’m stunned at what students will try to turn in as their work. My husband has had to fail several of his students for plagiarizing. He hates doing this. But people must think professors have never heard of the internet.

It’s not just the teenagers (who of course should know better) but it’s the adults, who take classes in between busy family and work schedules. So here’s where it really stinks to have to give them a zero. But come on! If you cut and paste off Wikipedia and pass it off as your own work, you don’t deserve a college diploma. Period.

Anyway, my 6-year-old daughter has been overhearing our discussions about plagiarism, and she’s taken it all to heart. Last night, she was carrying her Bible and a little notebook around.

“What ‘cha writing?” I asked her.

“I’m writing a book about God,” she said.

“Can I read it?”

“OK, you can look at it. But I promise I didn’t copy it. I wrote it in my own words.”

Sure enough, when I began to read it, she was writing out the creation story from the book of Genesis in her own words.

After I read a couple of pages, I looked up at her and said, “This is wonderful. But you know, it’s OK if you copy the Bible. God likes it when we copy His Words. You don’t have to worry about getting in trouble for copying the Bible.”

I explained to her how people used to copy the Bible by hand a long time ago before we had copy machines.

Then I took my own message to heart. It’s OK if you copy the Bible.

Is my life copying the Bible? Do my thoughts and attitudes represent those of Christ? Are my actions worthy of a Christ-follower?

For all of us, “It’s OK to copy the Bible.”

This morning, I wiped away a tear as I dropped off a bag of little boy overalls and toddler-sized clothes at a friend’s house. Both my boys wore these adorable outfits, got their pictures made in them, and made me a proud Mama. But it’s time to pass them along as hand-me-downs.

I’m trying to keep FlyLady’s rules for organization in mind as I prepare for Christmas. When I bring in something new, I need to get rid of something old. OK, so I brought home a whole trunk full of Christmas presents a couple of days ago. (A lady in the parking lot saw my full cart and actually said, “Looks like you’re a last-minute shopper this year!” Huh? There are still 12 days until Christmas!)

Since I brought home a load of new, I filled up my trunk to take out a load of old. It felt great to give the Salvation Army ladies my boxes of good, used clothing — just in time for someone else’s Christmas. (If I’d had time, I would have shopped there too.)

But the overalls. Oh my. The only way I could part with those was to give them to my dear friend whose son is a year younger than mine. I know she understands how sentimental they are to me. She smocks and sews, so she appreciates the little rompers and such. These are NOT practical for a little boy who is now potty trained and independent.

Hand-me-downs make the world go round. When you bless others with your old things, you’re decluttering your house to make room for new memories.

Still, it’s hard. And in writing about it here, hopefully I’ll preserve what matters more than stuff: the images in my mind of my little boys in their overalls. Mary treasured all these things in her heart. Now we modern moms can treasure them in our blogs.

(sniff. sniff.)

Shopping madness has set in around here…

Be careful if you’re out with your kids! I’m tellin’ ya; people are NOT watching where they’re driving. I was taking my kids into Wal-Mart a few days ago, and a woman almost plowed over all of us. She was driving slowly, but totally not looking where she was going. She had her mind on one thing — finding a parking place.

In the nick of time, I grabbed my sauntering nine-year-old (who is too cool to hold our hands) and yanked her out of the way. And I did something I never do — I went up to this lady’s window and tapped on it and said, “You almost ran over my kids!”

She cupped her hands over her mouth and giggled, like “oops.”

OOPS!!!!

What do you do with events like this? I’m so mad just thinking about it, typing about it. This is the kind of thing you put into your “character sketch” notebook, and you make this lady a villain in one of your future short stories or novels.

All that to say … watch your kids. Keep them close to you while you’re crossing the parking lot. Try to shop during the day (yeah, right).

It feels good to rant. Thanks.

If you haven’t voted yet … here are my three picks for this year’s Weblog Awards:

Best Educational Blog. Three cheers for Spunky Homeschool! Even though she’s not blogging anymore, it would still be a great honor for all homeschoolers. When I voted, she was in second place. Click here to vote — once a day until the 15th.

Best Parenting Blog. If you’ve ever participated in Works for Me Wednesday, give Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer your support. YEA! She represents all of us Christian Mom Bloggers, and as of today she’s in a very close second place.

HolyMama! is a finalist in the Best of the Top 1001 – 1750 Blogs. She makes us all laugh, so vote for her too!

Does anyone have any advice on where to find a good set of encyclopedias? Of course, we’d like to buy them used — but I don’t want anything older than 2003 or 2004. The more recent, the better. We’ve been looking at World Book and Encyclopedia Britannica. Whoa…they’re expensive!

Our kids have all had research projects lately — specifically, science projects. While the internet has tons of information, we have to monitor them while they’re surfing (unfortunately), and we’d love to let them have at it on their own with encyclopedias. Plus, we’d like to know their research comes from reliable sources. (I’m also thinking this would be helpful for me writing children’s books and articles!)

Some of my husband’s favorite books growing up were his family’s set of encyclopedias — he loved browsing. You look up one subject, and you end up discovering tons of other things. I guess that’s what made him so smart. (Well, he does have his doctorate!) 😉

If any of you out there have recently bought a set of encyclopedias for a good price, where did you find them? We’re hoping to have these shipped to us by Christmas!

[Edit: We found a good price on a 2005 used World Book set. Fingers crossed it will arrive in time for Christmas.]

I mentioned a couple of days ago I was tangled in Christmas lights. Well, I was still tangled in those things this afternoon. But I couldn’t put it off any longer. I needed to get the half-dozen boxes of ornaments out of the den. Tomorrow is our 9-year-old’s slumber party here.

Yet every time I unwound the lights from last year’s cardboard thing, only half of them worked. What do you do with half a string of lights? I had 20 minutes before I had to leave to go pick up the older kids at school; the two little ones were napping/playing upstairs.

I was so frustrated, I just threw the lights away and decided I’d buy new ones. Ever done that?

We stopped at a drug store on the way home, and I picked up two new strings of lights. The guy at the counter must have been in a good mood (maybe he felt sorry for me), but he said he’d give me $10 off my bill. So the new Christmas lights were free!

I got home and made a strong pot of coffee. My mood lifted. What is it about a 4 pm caffeine fix? I couldn’t live without it. The new lights went up easily, and my daughter turned on some Christmas music, so we were all listening to the Hallelujah chorus, decorating the tree together.

And I had to think of Busymom’s slogan: Better Parenting Through Coffee. Got me through the day, and our tree is up at last.

The best part of the day was receiving a Christmas card from the Philippines. YEA! (Sara, if you’re reading this, congratulations!!

The blogosphere is still reeling from Spunky (Karen Braun)’s announcement on Tuesday that she’ll no longer be blogging at Spunky Homeschool. She has built a loyal readership of homeschoolers and others who enjoy her inspiring faith and wisdom. Her popular blog was recently chosen a finalist in the “Best Education Blog” category of the 2006 Weblog Awards.

Karen is one of the best researchers and writers I’ve ever come in contact with, and I hope she’ll continue writing in some other capacity.

Her last post, titled See Ya ‘Round, explains a little of why she’s decided to stop blogging for now. She says:

Please accept as I have, that at times it’s necessary to end one activity and move on in order to continue to walk with the Lord and in His ways.

That’s all. There isn’t a reason for leaving, but a calling to go forward. What that is will unfold as I obey and take the first step in leaving this behind. Is that being secretive? No. It’s telling the truth as I always do. If there were more to tell I would tell it. You deserve that from me.

We’ll certainly miss Spunky. I’ve gotten to know her as a fellow reviewer for Active Christian Media. I wish her the best in life — and look forward to reading one of her books one day. If you’ve enjoyed Spunky Homeschooling, I hope you’ll click over and leave her a comment. She says she’ll keep her archives up for future reference.

Karen, along with her husband Steve and their six children, specialize in living history presentations of the Civil War time period. They also conduct a variety of workshops through their business, Liberty Family Resources. I read on their website that Steve has an extremely popular military drill for ages 10 and up. The site says:

It’s the perfect history lesson for any homeschool support group, private or public school, or church youth event. We bring Civil War history to life! Join us for the fun — leave with a new appreciation for the sacrifices of our ancestors.

If I lived somewhere closer to Michigan, I’d love to see their presentation! You can see some beautiful pictures of the Braun family here.

Where has Zep been all my life? I’m actually enjoying cleaning windows. In fact, I have no time to blog because I’m too busy swishing dirt and fingerprints off my windows with my new best friend: Zep Commercial Glass Cleaner.

I didn’t intend to bring Zep home. I was at Home Depot looking for a satin nickel doorknob when voila! I saw this cleaner with “guaranteed professional results.” So I bought it, with new visions of streak-free windows (at least for five minutes before little hands touch them). I also bought these nifty cleaning cloths that were for sale right next to Zep.

This is the best stuff! It doesn’t smell as strong as Windex, and the cloth wipers don’t leave little linty things on your windows like paper towels or coffee filters do. So I had to tell you about it. If you’re in desperate need of some window cleaning in your home, grab a bottle of this the next time you’re at the store.

(Too bad you have to clean windows on both sides. It’s cold outside!) 🙁