Elf Party, Take Three

We almost didn't do it, but we when some of our friends said they had never seen Elf, we had to host another Elf party last month!

I invited three families over and warned them that I likely would not go "all out" with decorations and games and such this year, but figured we would just eat a light supper with candy and watch the movie together.

My children protested.  They wanted decorations and games again.  So we all pitched in.

We hung paper chains, snowflakes, and signs bearing "Elf quotes" all over the house.  My favorite this year hung above the toilet:  "you sit on a throne of lies!"

Members of the Adkison, Kirkman, and Wood families gather around with our family to watch the movie while eating the traditional "Stinky Santa" (beef and cheese) sandwiches and candy from the basic food groups.

We played a lot of the same games we have played other years (click on those two links to see the past two Elf parties),  But this year we also added an obstacle course.

First participants put on the Santa hat, then they crawled around the candy canes, and had to put gumdrops on a toothpick which they held in their mouth. Next they crawled through a tunnel in the doorway between our living room and kitchen. . .

Once they were in the kitchen they hopped across the "crosswalk" on the floor into the dining room where they had to build a Lego creation according to the directions on a card.

As soon as they completed the Lego station they ran back into the kitchen where they sang "You'd better watch out, you'd better not cry, you'd better not pout I'm telling you why, Santa Clause is coming to town!" at the top of their lungs.  

It was hilarious to both play and watch, and we had two bracket of competition--one bracket for teens and adults, and the other bracket for those 12 and under.

It wouldn't be an Elf party without the classic Coke-chugging competition.  Here the four dads face off.  As I recall, Aaron won this round.  He was very competitive as he also placed in the top three in the obstacle course.

And here is a picture of the after-party party.  It turns out you shouldn't use cheap white Duct Tape to make a crosswalk on your kitchen linoleum. We tried Windex, goof-off, olive oil, and lemon essential oil to finally remove the sticky residue.

If we have another Elf party in the future (which I assume we will as they are always a resounding success, fun for all ages, and the kids especially love them), we will be using painter's tape for the crosswalk (which we might cover with white duct tape) but we will never again put duct tape on the linoleum!

On My Nightstand for February

I've been plugging right along with my list of books I want to read in 2015, and I'm hoping to cross off at least one more in February, or maybe two.  I'm not setting very high reading goals for February because. . .

insert happy dance here. . .

my hubby and I are going on the Love Like You Mean It cruise!  We will be gone for almost a week, and while I love my kiddos dearly, I am terribly excited to have some special time with my man.  Since he isn't nearly the reader I am, I doubt we will spend much time lounging on the deck of the ship with our noses in books (although that also sounds like a delightful vacation!).  I will probably still read on the plane as he tends to doze while flying, but that will likely be all the reading I will accomplish that week, and that is just fine with me.

So without further ado, here are the books I'm planning to read during the month of February:

• I Am Malala:  The Girl Who Stood up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

I have had this one on my list for quite some time and am determined to read it this month.  I selected it for my local discussion group to give myself some accountability and I am really looking forward to it.

• Tender Warrior: God's Intention for a Man by Stu Weber

I'm pre-reading this book for my 17-year-old son.  It came highly recommended by someone I trusted (I just can't remember who that was!), and I'm finally getting around to it.

• A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet by Sophie Hudson

This one was free for my Kindle, and I'm thinking it might be a fun, light read for the airplane.  If you have a great recommendation for another vacation book, I would love to pack another one along!




I'm not expecting to have lots of time to finish these, but I hope to start The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer in preparation for Carrie's Bookclub and I will be starting Great Expectations by Charles Dickens with Destry for his literature studies.

Checking Them Off the List

Remember my list of reading goals for 2015?  Well, I'm awarding myself the proverbial pat on the back because I am checking them off left and right this month!  (You'll notice, of course, that all these books in this post are fiction and relatively easy to read, even if one of them IS a classic!  But I'm going to hold onto the encouragement of being off to a good start this year.)


The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

I'm really mad at myself for reading this so quickly because now it's over.

I am really proud of Graeme Simsion because he stayed true to his characters.  Don Tillman of The Rosie Effect was consistent with Don Tillman of The Rosie Project, and I enjoyed him every bit as much this time around.  The Rosie character fell a little bit flat, but I will also concede that marriage and pregnancy can calm even the wildest and most fun-loving of us. :)

The funniest scene to me was on the plane.  "There's a suspected terrorist on board. . .No cause for fear, it's me."  I laughed out loud, read on down the page, and had to go back and read it again and laugh some more.

In the end Tillman learns an important lesson.  "I had been granted an unexpected bonus that was destined to be temporary because of who I was.  Paradoxically, happiness had tested me.  But I had concluded that being myself, with all my intrinsic flaws, was more important than having the thing I wanted most" (331).

Yes indeed, Don Tillman, be yourself.  And I DO hope we'll get to meet again!

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

Outstanding! This book was interesting because our brains are so amazing and I think we can learn even more about them when they aren't working quite the way they are supposed to.  It was sobering because we all get so caught up in our day-to-day lives, taking people and skills for granted, thinking life is always going to be this way, but it made me stop and appreciate.  It was poignant because of the relationships that needed attention.

Most of all, I like the way Genova's books make us think about what makes me, ME!  When what I *do* changes, who am I?

I also really liked the journey her family took with her after her brain injury.  Favorite sentence:  "I smile, loving him for changing with me, for going where my Neglect has taken us, for getting the new me" (320).

Can't wait to read her next book!

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

I hadn't read this since high school, but loved reading it with Destry.  Such a great story and I loved all the parallels between the fish and the old man. I appreciate Hemingway's simple style, simple sentence structure (compared to someone like Dickens, especially!), yet such poetic prose.  Oh to be able to write like that!

Destry's New Skill

I'm behind with my posting as usual, but still want to record a few things.  Destry didn't have a very relaxing break from school over the Christmas season.

Our downstairs bathroom was kind of nasty as it was carpeted and the shower leaked which left the carpet constantly wet (I wish I had thought to take a "before" picture, but I didn't).   Getting tile on the floor has been on my list of goals since we moved into this house two years ago.

Alan hired/contracted Destry to do the job, so Destry was in charge of figuring out what would be needed, choosing the tile, and doing all the work.  Alan gave him a budget and watched youtube videos about how to lay tile, and then it was all on Destry.

Laying the tile was like putting together a puzzle, and Destry had to cut the tile to fit.  This wasn't always easy, especially around the toilet and in the shower, but it was "character building" (and we'll leave it at that!)  After it was all laid out, it was time to adhere it with mortor.

After sufficient time had passed, he had to grout in the cracks.  (I don't know what was up with the lighting, but the tile is more of the color pictured below in the finished pictures and not so brown as depicted above.  I had to include Destry's silly poses even if it doesn't represent the true color).

I was especially impressed with the ledge Destry built for the shower to prevent future leakage from the door.  He used concrete blocks to form the ledge and then tiled it.  It looks really nice now, and there is no water on the floor.

After he finished grouting between the cracks, he washed the floor and installed the transition strip between the tiled bathroom and carpeted laundry room.

I am very thankful for this much nicer bathroom (and look forward to friends coming to stay over and use it!)  Most of all, I am thankful for all the things Destry learned in completing this project.  He learned to research a project, budget supplies, purchase needed items, cut tile, and lay tile.  He also learned diligence in completing a task and perseverance when it's not easy.  How rewarding for him to see the fruit of his labor!

Black Baby White Hands

Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib by Jaiya John

While this book was not easy for me to read, it was excellent and I think anyone who loves a good book would appreciate this memoir of a Black man's experience growing up in a White family, even if said reader is not a White parent to Black children as I am.

The author is very introspective and philosophical (which I mostly appreciate, although sometimes I get a little weary of the navel-gazing) and his prose is poetic without being annoying.  I learned so much about racial identity and adoption identity by reading this book, and know I'll need to refer back to it repeatedly as I raise these children I've been blessed with.

• It was hard for me to read because he struggled so much and I hate the thought of my children having similar struggles.  I do think a lot of his struggle came from his inherent personality:  "I contained a genetic and spiritual predisposition to feel my emotions very deeply.  Those emotions would last for hours and days.  This shaped my moods, sensitivities, and responses to life.  I thrived on quiet and calm, and on large doses of reassurance and reflection.  Our house was usually filled with noise, chaos, tough-skinned emotional flow, and little pause or allowance for pensive silence.  The contrast affected my attachment in ways that would persist" (37).

• It was hard for me to read because, like his parents, there are so many things I didn't think about before adopting Black children.  "Theirs was an innocent simplicity.  They wanted more children, the consequences of that possibility were not a thing they were designed to dwell upon or hold up life for" (297).

• "I didn't find my reflection anywhere I looked" (39) hurt my heart as I have been trying to adjust our life so that my children have "mirrors" of Black-skinned faces around them on a frequent basis.  "The lack of secure and meaningful attachments to other African American people was a vacuum that bore a hole in the bottom of my self-esteem reserve" (50).  I cringed as he and his brother tried to figure out how to be acceptably Black people in the midst of Whiteness.  "He went hip, hard, and happy.  I went bent, burrowed, and benign.  We both lost ourselves along the way. . .Increasingly I smiled as a way of comforting others, letting them know I was friendly and not to be feared (105).

• As he described his developing radar for people's biases, I felt a nearly physical ache.  Some people, even extended family members, accepted him "in spite" of his Blackness--because he was different from "those other Blacks".  "My great grandfather saw no contradiction between his attitudes toward Blacks as a group and his feeling for Greg and me.  This was a perceptual dichotomy that would prove one of my central sources of wounding. . .This was simply the shaded love of people who spent their lives distant from people who looked like me.  Children can discern the subtle difference between embrace, ambivalence, tolerance, and disdain.  Incongruent emotion was a great bane to me in most of my relationships.  A person caring for me but feeling less than positive about a group of people that I held myself a part of never was good enough for me" (77).  He wanted to be loved and accepted for who he was--as a Black boy.  "More than unconditional love, or bountiful love, it was clean love that made the world of difference for me.  The vibes weren't polluted with a discomfort with my race, an avoidance of the idea of my race, or a strained tolerance or forgiveness for my race.  Crisp and clean, that's how I needed it" (53).  "Now, I knew that I had not been crying out for my Blackness to be ignored.  I just wished that it not be treated as such an alien, foreboding stain on my skin that it should not be mentioned.  I had stood in the intense glare of spotlight not because I was different, but because of how people reacted to my particular difference" (288).

His relationship with his adoptive mother was especially interesting to me.  It seems to me that he was really close to her, yet that very closeness led him to expect more from her which led to his ultimate disappointment in her ability to be what he needed.  Years later he was better able to understand her approach in his upbringing. "I treated all my kids the same.  When I heard those words a dawning light splashed all around in my mind. . .This was the explanation, finally, that allowed me to begin to understand why my parents had so overwhelmingly not addressed in tangible, audible ways the undeniable fact that Greg and I were Black, and that we were adopted.  Mom was saying that she had done her best to show that her love for us was equal to that of all her children.  And she had done it by relating to us as if the facts of our adoption and race didn't exist.  She had whitened them out" (296).

There were many, many other topics I benefited from in John sharing his story, even as they were uncomfortable and even a little scary for this adoptive mama.  He fleshed out the dangers of professing colorblindness.  He vividly painted the progression of White people's perceptions of him as a "cute little baby" to a "scary Black man."  He shared techniques his parents could have employed to make it easier for him to grow up in a White family.

Points of contention include his worldview, as he concluded that Christ is for White people and embraced an animalistic, Native American-type of religion which he wove throughout his narrative.  I also think he is incredibly self-absorbed.  I genuinely hope that we will be able to raise our children with more of an "upward and outward" focus which might circumvent some of his focus on how challenging life is when transracially adopted.