One Reason I Love My Husband

There are many, many reasons why I love my husband. Of the many, one is simply that he is amazing. That may sound vague, but he really is just all-around amazing. It blows me away how incredibly talented he is in such a huge variety of areas. It's not just that he's skilled at his particular profession - though he can do taxes like nobody's business! - but he can also fix anything, build anything, learn anything, and pretty much do anything! He's just incredibly smart, athletic, handy, etc. all rolled into one...in a word - amazing.

Often at Christmastime, I come up with or hear about some idea that I want to add to our Christmas traditions. Last year it was this...

I decided that I wanted to add a manger to our Christmas decorations. So, Jay built me one. We kept the manger empty until Christmas. Then, when the kids woke up on Christmas morning, the first thing they did was to go on a treasure hunt by "following the star" (star-shaped clues) to find Baby Jesus. We placed Him in the manger when they found Him and then we presented our gifts to Him (more on that another time).

This year, I was inspired by my friend's wooden candle-holder wreath to mark the days until Christmas, which she had gotten from Ann at A Holy Experience. I loved the idea of lighting an additional candle each night, making it brighter and brighter as it got closer to the coming of the Light of the World. (Or, you could just move one candle along to the next spot each night.) Our budget, however, requires us to do homemade sorts of decorations. So, I showed the picture to my husband, and a day later, here's what I got out of it...

My job is to stain it, which I obviously have not yet done.

Are you beginning to understand why I think my husband is amazing?

On a side note, Jay's right-hand man was, of course, by his side as he worked. He was working on trying to make himself a bow and arrow from tree branches and a rubber band. I commented that the razor blade was probably a bit too sharp for a 6 year old to be using. But Jay's response was, "The boy's got to learn how to use tools at some point." I have a feeling that Jake is going to be amazing just like his daddy!

Redeeming the Season, Part 1: Rethinking Santa

I'm going to try to post a couple of blogs with ideas for ways to point this Christmas season to Christ. (I already posted about Rice and Beans for Advent a few days ago.) Before I begin though, in case I come across as someone "holier than thou" because we don't do Santa around here, don't be fooled. We're just trying to be intentional about putting our focus where it should be and doing the holidays a little bit different than the norm. I wish I could say that my focus is where it should be all the time, but that would be far from the truth. That's why I need to put these little things in place...to help me to try to remember that Christ should be at the center of all that we do. I wish it just came naturally to me all the time, but, unfortunately, it doesn't. So, if anybody else needs some help with that too...

Rethinking Santa

Santa Claus doesn't visit the Herron household. (Gasp!) I'll give you a minute to reread that, let it sink in, and feel sorry for our poor, deprived children. Okay, now I'll explain why he doesn't and why we don't feel like our children are missing out because of it. First, I don't think that Santa is bad. Afterall, the idea of Santa comes from the real Saint Nicholas who is famous because of his amazing generosity to the poor and his love for God. Our kids know all about him and that he was a real person, and they also know that Santa is not a real person. They know that God is the only one who "sees them when they're sleeping and knows when they're awake," and that the gift of God's son is not for those who are good enough, but because none of us are good enough. God actually does "know if we've been bad or good," (bad!) but His gift is for us anyway. And that is what we want to focus on at Christmas - God's amazing gift to us, not Santa's.

Because we are bombarded with Santa at Christmastime though, we have chosen to use the opportunity to teach the kids about who Saint Nicholas really was and what he did for Christ. Our hope is that that will spur them on to want to be like him and to also want to give generously for Christ. When they see someone dressed up as Santa, they assume that it's because that person wants to emulate someone who was such a generous and caring person. Each year on or around December 6th (which is actually St. Nicholas Day), we have our own little St. Nicholas party with a few friends, and the kids get to pretend to be him. We usually do some sort of craft related to him and read some of the true stories about him, and then the kids get to deliver goodies in secret to people in the neighborhood. We choose a few random houses to leave something at the door, and then they ring the doorbell and run away. And they love it. In doing it this way, they get to focus on the joy of giving like St. Nick, rather than the joy of receiving from St. Nick.


I know that there are people who think that we are somehow stealing an important part of our kids' childhood from them because Santa doesn't come down the chimney and deliver presents to them on Christmas Eve. I completely disagree. We just choose to make different memories that include leaving presents for Jesus rather than cookies for Santa Claus. I know that we should be focusing on what we can do for Jesus all year long, but shouldn't Christmas, when we celebrate His birth, be a time to ESPECIALLY focus on Him and what He did for us? That is the main reason that Santa doesn't visit our house. There are some others, but it is mainly because we don't want Jesus to just be the side story to Santa and reindeer and presents. I want the kids to be excited that Jesus is in the manger, not because Santa came down the chimney and left them lots of goodies. I want Jesus to be THE story and THE reason that we celebrate.

In a future post, I will give some ideas of how we try to get the kids excited about Jesus in the manger. (For those of you who couldn't care less and just want a few pictures of the kids, I'll try to get those up first!)

Rice and Beans - Our Advent Conspiracy

A large focus in our family over the past year and a half has been on learning to live more sacrificially and give more generously. I say LEARNING because we are certainly not there yet and have such a LONG way to go. This does not just involve our finances, but that is obviously a big part of it. When it comes to money, I have never been a very generous person, so it has been a long road for me. Although we have always given "our 10%," for me, in the past it has always been because that's what I feel we should do and I did it out of obligation- not because I was doing so cheerfully and because it brought me joy to serve God in that way. I would never have dreamed of going above and beyond what I felt was necessary just for the joy of giving. Jay is far more generous with money than I am though, and I have slowly learned to be more so. I have started to learn that it really does bring joy to give money away. Really. That is especially true when we can see the direct impact of giving on a personal level, outside of just the monthly check to our church.

Another reason for the gradual shift in my attitude is because I have become increasingly aware of how much excess we live with. Yes, there are MANY times when I love our excess, and when I am so selfish and want so many things that I absolutely don't need. But, becoming more aware of what the majority of the world lives without, and seeing it firsthand, makes it far more difficult to justify gratifying my selfish desires when so many others are living without basic necessities. I am learning that we have been blessed in order to bless others, not so that we can hoard the blessings for ourselves.

So, in keeping with our family theme of learning to give sacrificially, last year during the advent season, we wanted to make an effort to try to reject the typical consumeristic mentality of the Christmas season, and to actually make the focus of Christmas be Christ and His birth and how He gave so sacrificially for us. We, along with other friends, decided that one way that we would attempt to do this would be to eat rice and beans for dinner every night from the day after Thanksgiving up until Christmas Eve. We would then take the money that we had saved by eating only rice and beans and give it away. It was a way for us to sacrifice something in order to have the ability to give more than what we would ordinarily give. It was also a great way to allow Jake and Addi to be directly involved in the giving...and the sacrificing. They were as much a part of it as we were, and some great things and wonderful lessons came out of it. It really helped us to be able to teach them to take the focus off of themselves and what they wanted to get for Christmas, and instead put the focus on Christ and what we could give Him. One verse that we really tried to focus on was Matthew 25:40, "The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me."

So...we are gearing up to do it again this season - another advent season of rice and beans. Now the question is...Does anybody want to join us??!!

Swim Lessons and Soccer Trophies

It was a big week in the Herron household. Jake received his first trophy ever (more on that shortly), and Addi started swim lessons. It's a huge blessing for us that Addi is able to take swim lessons and we are so grateful. Jay had decided that we would have to take the sink or swim approach with her in order for her to learn. I was afraid that she would sink for sure though and really wanted her to have lessons. Fortunately for us, somebody that we know from church owns a swim school near us, and very generously offered to give Addi lessons there for practically nothing. She was so excited to start and was literally counting down the days until her first lesson. I think that a part of the reason for her excitement was because she was going to be doing something that was just for her. It feels like we have gotten to do various things over the years for Jake that have been just for him, but she has never really had that. I loved that she was so excited about it. Here she is at her first lesson...

And, Jake had his last soccer game and his end of the season party last week where he received his long-awaited trophy. He could not wait to get that trophy, and he now often carries it with him around the house, making sure to place it where he can continue to admire it wherever he is. When his coach was passing out the trophies to each player, he would say something about that player and then everyone else had to try to guess who he was talking about. Before handing out Jake's, he said something along the lines of..."This player has really improved a lot this season. When he wasn't smiling and waving to his parents or grandparents or neighbors on the sidelines, or talking to the other players on the field, he played some great soccer." With ZERO hesitation, all of the other players started saying, "Jake, Jake, Jake!" We were always laughing at the fact that he would be out there on the field talking and laughing with anybody who happened to be in his general vicinity - it didn't matter who it was or what team he was on. As I think I've mentioned before, Jake does not know a stranger, and really does not have a competitive bone in his body. He is all about making friends and having fun, and because of that, he loved every second of his soccer games. I'm actually pretty sad that the season is over. I loved watching him out there each week.

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Safe Families For Children

Our church is partnering up with an organization that Jay and I have been involved with called Safe Families for Children. Actually, the organization is Olive Crest and the program through Olive Crest is Safe Families. It is separate from the foster care program through Olive Crest. Basically, they have started partnering up with churches and volunteers to care for at-risk children who are not a part of the foster care system. According to their website, "Safe Families for Children is a movement of compassion designed to reduce child abuse and return the church to the forefront of caring for children, as it had been throughout history."

Our pastor has asked us if we would be willing to briefly share a bit of our experience at an upcoming service in order to encourage others to get involved, and I am finding it tricky to try to figure out what to say. Yes, we need others to get involved and it is a great organization to get involved with. At the same time, the experience has been a very difficult one for us and has really tested and tried us and our faith. That is a good thing, but not necessarily what will encourage others to come running for the same experience! I want to be honest about the reality that it might be difficult, but let people know that THEY SHOULD DO IT ANYWAY.

The child that we were caring for is no longer with us and I have not written about that here for a couple of reasons. One, I don't really know how to put into words my feelings about it all; and two, I want to respect the privacy of her situation. This online world is a crazy place and I don't know who will come across this blog. I ended up removing another post that I had written while she was with us, just because I don't know that it is appropriate for me to be sharing in this place things about her or her family or her time with us. I want to be careful with that.

So, without going into too many specifics, here is what I think I would like people to know about our experience and why I think it is important to get involved...

There's no nice, neat ending to our story, and it has actually been really difficult all the way through. I would love to say that the experience has been rewarding and amazing, but the more honest reality is that it has stretched our family and tested us like nothing else. That is a good thing too - so please don't let that thought be what keeps you from getting involved. Caring for a child who is not your own and who also has some very special needs is really hard, and our family faced some of our darkest times over the past few months as we dealt with this.

THAT SAID...we also began to see an amazing transformation of a little girl, and we saw our own kids loving her like a sister and learning to care for others. We were given the opportunity to love a child that desperately needed to be loved, and watch her learn to love and trust us in return. That was the amazing and rewarding part and why I would encourage others to get involved and do the same thing. Or, even if you can't take a child in, you can support others who are doing so. That's actually the current role that we are taking on - supporting another woman who is in the same spot we were in. Jay and I felt very alone in what we were doing and that's why we eventually reached out to Safe Families for their support. (Our involvement was a little bit backwards. We first took the child in, and then later found out about Safe Families as we were struggling through things. At that point, they came alongside us in what we were already doing.)

Ultimately, the reason that we chose to do what we did was because it was a real, tangible, sacrificial way for us to love "the least of these" with the love of Christ. The little girl in our care absolutely needed (and needs) to be loved and to know that she is loved. And, for two and a half months, we were able to do that, and are now able to do it indirectly by supporting someone else. Like I said, there's no nice, neat ending to our story, and it was messy and it didn't go the way I envisioned. I am the ever-optimist and dreamer, and I envisioned our story ending with this child becoming a permanent part of our family. That's obviously not the way it went. But, again, we provided something that she so desperately needs even though it was temporary, and we were stretched and we grew and we learned more about ourselves in the process. And, we learned more clearly than ever that we are not in control (an ever-present theme for us!), but God is. We cannot force things to go the way we think they should go. All we can do is be obedient to Him and trust Him in the process.

Date Night

Tonight, I had a special date night with Jake. Jay took Addi out on a date, and I took Jake out on a date. I really didn't realize how much I needed that one-on-one time with him until we went out. I am with my kids all day everyday, and there are times when I feel like they might make me crazy. I have been feeling like that lately with Jake and really not being the kind of mom that I want to be or should be. I have been short on patience and quick to get irritated and speak harshly. I have been seeing his flaws when I look at him, rather than seeing the wonderful things about him. But, tonight, I was reminded of the absolutely amazing kid that he is.

He was so excited to go out with just the two of us and was so focused on trying to be a good date. It was adorable. He would run up ahead of me to open all of my doors, and any time that I asked him his preference on something, he would say, "Well, what do you want?" When we first got in the car, he asked if we could stop at Starbucks on our way to wherever we were going. He had taken $5 of his money and had decided that he wanted to stop and get me the coffee drink that I like. He kept asking me to remind him what it was called so that he could order it for me when we got there. It really melted my heart to see him so focused on me and on wanting to make the night special for me, rather than being focused on himself. Later I found out from Jay that he had wanted to bring all of his money and spend it all on me to take me out, but Jay had told him that $5 would be good. And, when I say, "all of his money," that is a big deal. He earns money by collecting bottles to recycle and saves and saves until he has enough money to buy some new lego set or something. This time, he has set his biggest goal yet and is saving for Disneyland passes...and not just one, but two. We told him that if he wants a pass, he has to save enough for two passes - one for him, and one for someone who can take him. Recycling is a great way for him to earn money for those things, but it is certainly not a job that allows him to get rich quick. He currently has $105 saved toward the passes, and that has taken him months. And he still has a long way to go.

So, all that to say, the fact that he wanted to spend all of his money on me, money which he has worked for and earned himself and is saving for something specific, was such an unselfish act that it blew me away. The kid is amazing, and I needed this individual time with him to be reminded of that.

Our night went like this. We first stopped at the coffee shop so that he could buy me my coffee; from there to Rubios for dinner; and then from dinner to bowling, which he loved. When we left there, he said, "We're still on our date, right?" I told him that we were and he said, "Good, because next I think we should go home and drink hot chocolate and play some games so that our date won't be over yet." So that's what we did. He must have thanked me ten times for taking him bowling and told me another ten times how much he liked being out with just me. I kid you not, the words even came out of his mouth at the end of the night (this will be a run-on sentence because I am quoting him!), "One of my favorite things about tonight was buying you the coffee because you were so excited when you found out I was spending my own money on it, and so it made me really happy because you were so happy." 

I want to try to keep replaying tonight in my head. Tomorrow, when he can't control the volume of his voice, and when he gets upset because Addi's not playing the game the right way, and when he breaks down about something not going the way he wants it to go, I want to remember that those flaws are not who he is. Who he is is a kind-hearted, generous, unbelievably amazing boy, and I am so blessed to be his mom.

Christmas Program Preview

Jake and Addi have already been practicing for an upcoming Christmas program. You might want to purchase your tickets in advance because, given what you are about to see, I'm thinking that this show is going to sell out quickly. Here is a sneak peak of what is to come...

I'm thinking of entering them in some sort of talent competition. They're obviously naturals. What do you think?  Or, given the sign language skill we saw on the third song, I should maybe encourage them to volunteer to do the sign language for the hearing impaired at church or something.  Let's put these God-given abilities to use!