Had To Put My Big-Girl's On Tonight!

It's true, I had to put my big-girls on tonight.  It was about 6:00 and I had just sat down to a long-overdue manicure after my shop/wrap/clean/decorate/party/send cards/and shop-some-more-A-Thon over the past couple of weeks.  I was spent and I was sooo looking forward to just sitting there (in a trance-like-state) and having my pitiful nails done.

Well, sure enough, I'd no longer sat down and refused a glass of wine (not sure why), than my phone rings and it's Nolan.....at Denver International Airport....in a practical blizzard....BUMPED off his flight home because it was....you guessed it....OVERSOLD!!!!!!!!!  (He'd been snow-boarding with KIVU friends out there for a few days.)  Well, I asked him what they were gonna do about it, and he said there were no more flights out to Nashville and that they would have to put him on the same flight tomorrow night....DECEMBER 24th, putting him in the skies along side Santa!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Well that was entirely unacceptable, and somebody was gonna have some 'xplainin' to do, so I told him to put the gate-agent on the phone, and the following is how my conversation with the smart-aleck went:

Agent:  "Hellooooo??"  (In a very sarcastic, out-done, ready-for-a-fight tone of voice)

Me:  "Hi, I'm Nolan's mother (in my best Steel-Magnolia tone of voice) and I understand that you've bumped him off his flight that we paid full-fare for, and he showed up 2 hours early for.  Care to tell me why?"

Agent:  "The flight was oversold."  (In a condescending tone)

Me:  "Well, that's always nice.  I love it when this happens.  Especially to my kids.  On Christmas Eve Eve!  During a blizzard!"

Agent:  "I'm sorry Ms."  (Yes, the battle-axe called me 'Ms'!)

Me:  "Oh, I'm sorry too.  The fact that you oversold this flight is YOUR problem, not ours'."

Agent:  "Well, it's oversold and there's nothing I can do about it."

Me:  "Excuse me?!  So we pay full-fare for this ticket, my son shows up 2 hours early, and your greedy airline bumps him off his flight, while you usher all these ADULTS onto the plane, and expect me to accept that you can do nothing about it?  This is the worst business practice!  Overselling flights is greed-driven and  NOT RIGHT!  This is the worst way to treat your customers..."

Agent:  (Interrupting me in a very monotone, snide, hateful, seething voice) "Ms., statistically speaking, we have no-shows so-in-so percent of the time, and statistically speaking, yada yada yada, and statistically speaking, some other ridiculous bull-crap....")

Me:  (Interrupting the statistician) "Well, I know a thing or two about statistics myself, MS!  So just let me give you a couple that might interest you:

#1--Statistically speaking, 100% of people who mess with my kids find themselves seriously regretful after they do.

#2--Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve breakfast is going to be served at Nannie's house at 10 o'clock, sharp.  I expect 100%, statistically speaking, of my offspring to be buttering their biscuits as soon as grace is said at 10:01, and that would include that good-looking 16-year-old standin' there in front of you!!

#3--I need to get back to this manicure, so I suggest you pick up that speaker and start offering up some pretty sweet deals to those ADULTS you chose to put on that plane in the middle of this blizzard, or there's about a ZERO PROBABILITY, statistically speaking, that you'll be experiencing any 'peace on earth' this Christmas!"

Well, a few hours later, our Nolan is at home, and we're all enjoying his stories of snow-boarding and the agent at the counter after she hung up from "Mama!"  ;)

Nolan is 2nd from right 

Here's hoping you and yours' have a very blessed Christmas!  Make it a "10," statistically speaking.

Visit from Yum Yum

This afternoon, my friend Angela (who Macy Li calls Yum Yum) and her daughters Rachel and Kristen, came by for a little visit...Here they are having a tea party...

They brought her the cutest little medical kit, so a few procedures were in order...

It appeared that Kristen had a temperature...

And because Miss Bossy gets whatever she wants from YumYum, she wanted pig tails made with those "Silly Bands" that are actually little bracelets.  But, she wasn't content with only two...

Checkin' out her new "do"...

Pey-toven played us a few dance-tunes...

So they got their groove on...

...until Daddy cut in...

Uh Oh, Daddy gets a little wild...

He can't help it after 3 boys...

Saying "Bye Bye"

She's feelin' the love right here!

Precious...

Macy Li with her 100 year old great-grandmother!

Macy Li showed her every single Christmas card...

They're both completely enamored by the other one.  Macy Li seems to sense that Grandma is "special" because she treats her so tenderly.  It's cute.

Let It Snow!

Today, I found Macy Li digging into a bag of Rice Krispies that she'd gotten out of the pantry.  She was snacking and spilling them everywhere, as you'd expect.  Well apparently, she decided to get comfortable by taking off her shoes...only to put them right down inside her bag of cereal!  Once I saw that, of course I no longer wanted her eating them, but she wasn't about to surrender that bag over to me.  Needing to distract her from eating any more I said, "Hey Macy Li, make it snow with your Rice Krispies!"

What a joy!

Please Pray...

I want to share Lane Ann Miller's blog with you...Job 42:2 "Lord, I know you can do all things."


She is the wife to Tim Miller, who is the brother of 2 of my girlfriends (one of which is Suzanne...you know Suzanne, who just adopted Josie Love from Uganda...her blog is "Joining The Journey ")


Anyway, I have never met Tim or Lane Ann, until I read every single word from her entire blog tonight, when it was forwarded to me by another friend.  Lane Ann is in the midst of a battle for her life...You must go read their story and pray for these precious people and their four children.  I often wonder how I'd respond if I were to be given such devastating news.  Would I be strong?  Would I fall apart?  Would I walk in that moment-to-moment grace, and hope and faith that He calls me to?  Would I remember that my Foundation is solid and sure?  That my Hope is in Him alone?  That He is always Trustworthy, no matter what comes my way?  No matter what I must sacrifice?  Would I demonstrate God's grace to those watching?  Would my actions point to the Living Hope who is within me?  Would I wallow in self-pity, or be totally surrendered to whatever God had for me?


Well, these people are living every bit of that, and you have to go read for yourself.  And let's cover them in prayer.  I can assure you that this is one family whole-heartedly focused on the Christ of Christmas.


Thank you and bless you!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

Well obviously we've been pretty busy!  I'm becoming more lame at blogging by the day.  The thing is that I feel like blogging about life actually gets in the way of life itself sometimes, ya know?  Do any of y'all feel that way? It's just time-consuming, especially when all your photos are on random cameras that you can never find, not to mention the card-loader-thingy has grown legs and ran off and the computer battery dies and your teenagers have taken off your power-cord into the bottomless abyss of....well I don't even know.  And thus, the main reason why it's been a month since I've been to the blog-world.

Anyway, the kids are growing like weeds.  Football is over and basketball has begun.  Tyler has successfully completed his first semester of college and is home for the holidays. (And successfully drained his bank account as well!) The halls are decked.  Santa has been visited.  Parties have been had.  Cooking and baking has begun.  Gingerbread house decorated. Exams are coming next week.   Spent $751 at Costco today on crap food for the masses of teenagers I expect during the holidays.  Pey-toven had his first piano recital & rocked!    Nolan has decided that being Will Ferrell is more fun on the basketball court (church league) than playing like LeBron James.  Have you ever seen a 16-year-old boy turn a cartwheel in the middle of a game?  Or intentionally shoot at the wrong basket?  Or take out their cell-phone and call their mom before shooting a free-throw?  Well, we witnessed all that and more out of our 16-year-old today, and needless to say, we RAN out of that gym when the game was over before anyone saw that he belonged to us!  Believe it or not, they won, and more importantly to Nolan, EVERYbody was entertained, including the refs!!  I don't know how many technicals he got for his antics. That kid ain't right.  As for Macy Li, she's the boss of the family and the best word to describe her right now is loquacious!  She NEVER stops!  She's a mess a minute, but oh-so-much-fun!  I walked into the room where she was yesterday and she looked up and said, "Well hi, Angel!"

Maggie and Macy on a recent trip to visit them in Cincinnati

These girls were DANGEROUS in this Jeep!

TOLD you!  This is their road-kill!

Look, the Boss is in charge!  "Take me to the park!"

I love this because both feet are off the ground!  What joy!

A girl's gotta have her lipstick when she's swinging!

McKenna Grace showing off her "turkey" cupcake...

Okay, here they are about to visit with Santa.  Macy Li's yelling, "Hey Santa!  Look at me!  It's Macy Li!" over and over and over!

Well Santa apparently had been into some Vodka or something because he was anything BUT jolly!  Mama 'bout went fist to cuffs with the old fart guy.

 I felt the same way as Macy Li....get us the heck out of here!  Look at the old guy's face!  And to think that he still had a month to go at this point!  A new song called, " I Saw Mama SLAPPING Santa Claus!" comes to mind.

Santa's thinkin', "Snap this picture so I can get another sip of this Vodka!"  The boys are thinkin', "Snap this picture before Mama goes postal on this jerk!"

Poor Macy Li....I wish she'd have taken that little right foot straight to his jingle-bells and given him something to be grinchy about!!

So, the boys felt so sorry for her after the visit with Grumpy Claus that they even VOLUNTEERED to take her to 

the H1N1-Pit, I mean play-area, at the mall for a while.

They were willing to go, but they didn't say they had to like it!

Macy Li's new obsession:  "Boo-Eggs"

Macy and Maggie waiting in line at Opryland Hotel to see "ICE!"

Burrrr....

I don't know who had more fun on these ice-slides...Me or Macy!

Okay, so I shoved nudged her a little over-zealously!  

Chinese Eskimo!

Macy Li with Papa, who is WAY out of his comfort-zone...on a LOT of levels!!! hahaha!

Eskimos love penguins!

CLONES!!!  This is Peyton (wearing a pair of Dad's glasses to show how much they look alike) about to leave for the Junior Cotillion Holiday Dance...

Macy Li LOVES her Aunt Sissy!

Partners in crime...

Here is my almost-99 year old grandmother, Granny Jackson, who Macy Li calls Michael Jackson. Doesn't she look amazing?! 

My other grandmother is 100!!

Visiting Daddy at his office...

Some of his girls...

Love this!  Here's Macy Li attempting to HIDE her chocolate that she just snuck out of the bowl!  Little did she know that she left evidence right there on her front teeth!  Good thing she is her dentist's FAVORITE patient!

Will Ferrell at his best!

Nolan's cheerleaders ;)

Macy's priority was applying lipstick and taking everyone's phones during the game.
I'm trying to pretend I don't even know Nolan!

Breakfast with old friends this morning at Loveless Cafe again...

Macy Li loves her some butter!

This is Danielle, whose wedding Macy Li is going to be in, come May in Charleston, S.C. :)

We affectionately call her DanL

So, that about sums up our life for the last month.  Life is good.  We are BEYOND BLESSED!!!!

So thankful for our family!

Even more thankful to know the Savior of the World, Emmanuel, during this blessed season!!

Oh Come Let Us Adore Him, Christ the Lord!!