Kalina's Winterguard photos

Here are a couple of links to pictures of Kalina performing. She looks so pretty and grown up!

Kalina at Blue Springs Feb 14, 2009

Kalina at Smithville March 21, 2009 #1

Kalina at Smithville March 21, 2009 #2

Warrensburg JV at Smithville

Warrensburg JV at Blue Springs

She's in Springfield today for the Guard Championship today. I hope the weather holds and they get home safely!

It's no big deal

I don't know how to convince my children that they are accomplishing great things. Kalina made the JV Winterguard team this year, is on the honor roll, won an essay contest about what the US Flag means to her and was inducted to the National Jr. Honor Society. When we tell her how proud we are of her, she responds with a look that could knock over a scarecrow. "It's no big deal, everybody does it." Really?! Everybody does it, or are we just lucky that her circle of friends are high achievers as well? I like to think the later!

The kids have grown, but...

Here's the latest picture that I have on my computer of the family. Odin keeps them all on the desktop, and I just haven't had the time or motivation to put them on my computer. They've grown a bit since then, but it's really only been a few months!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

so why is life so crazy? Shouldn't the "look" of Christmas follow the feel of Christmas? From programs to parties, it just seems like one thing after another. I am missing the days when I had no children in school and we baked every day between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had quite the variety and quantity of treats. I would freeze them and we would have cookies until Easter.
Times change and so do traditions. We are now speeding through life at such a frenzied pace that the baking is going to be done right before Christmas. I am also trying to keep hold my "to do" list and know that it doesn't all have to be done. I don't have to keep the house really clean, I do have to keep it clean enough so we don't get sick. The house doesn't have to be decorated perfectly, but the decorations need to have meaning.
I have found new meaning in my Christmas tree star this year. Our star is on it's last leg, but I think I am going to take some time this next year to try and fix it instead of getting a new one. This star is one of the first Christmas tree decorations Odin and I bought at a sale after our first Christmas together. This year, it is looking sad and crooked. No matter how many times we get up there and straighten it, it looks like it is going to fall off the tree any moment. I have given up on the idea of having a perfect star on my tree. Come to think of it, this star is representative of how I should live my life. I am far from perfect, and many times I am looking sad, frazzled, and in all honesty, probably a little crooked as well. I do my job and I do it well, just as that star is up there reminding us of Jesus' birth. After all, what is in our hearts, and how we express that in our daily life through words and actions, not what we look like doing it that is important.
Reading over this, I realize that the words sound a little awkward, but that's ok! Maybe I won't fix the star this year. Maybe the new tradition will be a crooked star.