Crying in The Car and Other Stories

I just couldn't decide what to write about today. It's been a pretty basic day without much exciting happening. When I asked the girls what I could write about I got four different responses. So I'm going to go with it and write about a little bit of everything today.

It was another happy mail day around here. There were letters (not bills or catalogs or credit card offers) in our mailbox AND there were two packages to be collected. One package was an enormous box containing Jared's bicycle that he shipped to Sicily and I'm pretty sure never used because he has a company car. So he boxed it up and mailed it back home.

Box number two was a Christmas gift from the Kennedys! Because I have no self control (remember yesterday's post?) I opened that package while sitting in the car in the parking lot of the post office. Inside I found Stories from Home 2017: an Advent Book and as soon as I read the title I started to weep. A little backstory here. Larisa is an amazing missionary mom - like daily letters to her missionaries amazing. Every Christmas that she has had a missionary serving she has compiled a book of twenty-four stories that family and friends have shared with her. They are then made into a book which is mailed to their missionary who has twenty-four stories to read in the days leading up to Christmas. Can you imagine being a missionary far from home and having a new story to look forward to each day? What a great gift! I'm embarrassed to admit that even though "send Larisa story for Johannah" was on my to-do list for weeks, the deadline for submissions came and went without a story from our family. I'm grateful that, despite my shortcomings as a friend, Larisa sent us a copy of the Advent Book. That kindness and the memories of our almost eighteen years of friendship were more than I could handle in the moment so I had myself a little cry.


One of the letters we received today was for Emily. She's been getting mail from colleges since she took the PSAT in 10th grade but as we've gotten closer to her senior year it's become an almost daily thing to find a postcard or letter from one school or another. Emily started applying to the colleges she's most interested in this fall and it's been a wild ride. Finding a envelope like this in the mail is certainly exciting!


Abigail suggested that I write about her preoccupation with how pretty she is. That sounds strange because it is strange. This beautiful girl of ours thinks it's hilarious to make half-serious jokes about how gorgeous she is. Anytime anyone mentions how pretty, attractive, lovely, appealing, etc. anything is Abigail pipes up with some version of, "Pretty like me" or "Not as gorgeous as I am." To be fair, Abby is a good looking kid. Good looking enough that she really doesn't need to point it out all the time!


Samantha's big performance is tomorrow! She's been going to play practice for what seems like forever and we're all looking forward to seeing the production. We've got snow forecasted overnight and we know that if it does snow school will probably be cancelled. No school means no play tomorrow evening. We weren't sure what to pray for tonight. I signed up to bring treats to sell during intermission and rather than wait and see what happens with the weather we made dozens of cute little shortbread cookies tonight. 


Natalie has big Christmas plans for her friends at school. Yesterday she came up with the idea of giving each of her friends a candy cane for Christmas. We were at the commissary and she had her wallet with her and inspiration struck. I'm not sure if it's because she's so kind or if it's because she likes spending money so much. I had a bad mom moment when she picked up four boxes of candy canes and I blurted out, "Do you even have forty-eight friends?" She wasn't fazed by my rudeness at all. She has spent much of her time the last two evenings drawing cards to go along with each candy cane. Natalie could have taken the easy way out and written a generic Merry Christmas on each one but instead she thought about each person and drew pictures for them on the cards, like this pineapple for Eva who has pineapples on her backpack. 


And there you have it, a little bit of everything from life at the Moran house today! 

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