A little milk, a little dancing, & a little leaping

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land,a land flowing with milk and honey Exodus 3:8

Eight Maids of Milking came with a $25 dollar gift card to Bruster's and Two Cartons of our favorite Chocolate Milk. This is quite a treat. I haven't bought the chocolate milk in a long time. Before Brock died it was a regular in our fridge. He loved this milk! He would always ask me for it by chanting "chochit milk, chochit milk." With out his asking, I haven't remembered to pick it up. We also used to buy it at Publix. Now most of my grocery shopping is done at Wal-Mart. Publix is one of those place that I have found so hard to go back to shopping in since every aisle and every turn reminds me of Brock. I still prefer Publix and I do go in there; just not as often as I did when I had a helper in the buggy.

Nine Ladies Dancing arrived this morning. The 12 Days of Christmas actually have Christian symbolism, so I am learning. The nine ladies dancing represent ladies dancing over the 9 fruits of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Inside the box was a really cute lady's dancing shoe ornament and a gift certificate for one hour of Dance Lessons for Drew and Me in our home. I laughed and joked it would take all the fruits of the Spirit for us to make it through those lessons without getting aggravated with one another. My college friends are laughing by now. Drew and I took weeks of dance lessons before our wedding day. We were good, or so we thought. We had our first dance all planned out. Then on our wedding night, 16 beats into the song, we almost had our first fight as a married couple. The good thing is we decided to keep the marriage and ditch the formal dancing. We just went back to doing Drew's impression of Fonzie's dance - the old hold me close and sway. Seriously, we were actually excited to have the dance lesson gift certificate. We both love to dance. It will be great to get to do it in our home. No pressure from all the mirrors in the studios.

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!(Psalm 30:11-12)


The lords o leaping arrived tonight. The 10 stands for the 10 commandments. The basket was filled with all sorts of sweet treats. Drew and I were excited about the Zots. Do you remember how good those things were?
With it was a letter that reminded us of all the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:1-17. Attached to each candy bag was a Roman Numeral. The letter instructed us to try and memorize the commandment as we were enjoying that treat. When I was reading this out loud and got to that part the kids all guessed it was from a friend of ours that is a teacher.

There was also this P.S. attached to the letter:
The significance of candy would be that it might, very likely, cause young men to leap...like frogs. All the candy was green with a frog in the center of the basket(fake of course). It told them that intense sugar rush could cause random acts of noise and loss of self-control! If you feel that obeying #5 - which is Honor your father and mother - becomes difficult, discontinue intake at once.
Isn't that so clever!?!

"Be glad in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven." Luke 6:23

Oh how we long for Heaven!! These gifts have been so good at giving us something to smile about. We spent Saturday at the mall. I realized that I had not been in the mall since last year at this time with Brock. Each year all my family comes up from south Georgia to go shopping for what we call "Daddy Curt's Special" We have been doing this tradition since I was a little girl. We all get to pick out something special that my Dad loves to buy for us. Drew pointed out as we were loaded down with packages, that for us, it was the first time in 13 years that we did not have a stroller on this shopping trip. We "sort of" made it through our yearly photo with Santa. When we got in the car to come home, I told Drew I felt a good cry coming on. He said, "Yeah, me too." Days like today are exhausting. I'm not talking physically but emotionally. I say it feels like all day long I am blocking darts from going too deep in my heart. We all missed Brock today, and the memories were on all of our minds. It seemed like he was around every corner, at every passing glance and fleeting moment.

As we were driving out of the parking deck Mason said, "I can't believe Christmas is almost here."
I said, "Why do you say that Mason?"
He said, "Because ever since Brock died it feels like every day is so long....it feels like each day has 48 hours so I can't believe it is now Christmas."

Please pray for us today, as usually after we have a big day of memories like yesterday, we find the next day extremely hard. Thanks for loving us!