Merry Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas from the Lucas home to yours...may your season be filled with love, laughter and the gift of peace.

Emmanuel (God with us)

Conceived by the union of divine grace with our disgrace….
The Author enters His own story



What child is this, who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?..
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
Haste, haste to bring Him laud, The Babe, the Son of Mary!




The splendor of the King…clothed in majesty

I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth! Psalm 34:1


Merry Christmas!!!

Easter Celebrations!

Hallelujah!

Landon and Wilson were both baptized on Easter evening. Its too bad you can't hear me in this photo..all I could say was "Hallelujah, hallelujah" through some mushy, tear soaked expressions.

Its also too bad you could not see Wilson just prior to Landon being baptized as he was treading water just in front of her. He amused himself by grinning and splashing a bit while waiting for his turn. That's my boy. I would have been horrified if I had not watched Jerry Falwell's grandson splash around in the baptistry just a few years earlier...I suppose boys will be boys..even when we get to heaven. Thank you Pastor Mike for being such a patient man :-)


Easter Sunday

Ethan and Too Too clowning around just before they left town.

Question: What does your face look like after you realize that a bird has flown over your head and left you something on your Easter dress? Well, it should look something like Austyn's does in this photo (look closely at her neckline) :-) She was crying "fowl".

Nope. I had no idea he was man-handling a mandarin orange just as Landon was snapping a photo :-)

Boys... being boys, I guess *sigh*

Happy Easter!

He has risen, He has risen indeed!

Its the first day of a new beginning...

The Lucas family is praying that the new year brings about true joy, honor, wisdom and wellness for you and the ones you love.

2009

Wordless (Christmas Eve) Wednesday

Parades, Charades and a day of giving thanks.

Thankgiving day with all of the grandchildren was wonderfully noisy with the sounds of laughter and horse-play. We tried to remember to be thankful for the mayhem that was at times in full swing. Certainly, we were thankful to have each family present and at least one new face this year. We, as Americans are blessed beyond measure to have so much more than we could possibly need. I don't ever want to take basic freedoms for granted..they come at too high of a price.

Anna Claire, Austyn, Meme, Landon, Jake, Stephen, Katie, Wilson and, of course, Chaya snuck in.

Meme has more years of wisdom than all of the ages of the great grandchildren added together. That is amazing to me. We love you Meez.

I still cannot figure out how ALL of the men keep avoiding these photo-ops. Hmmmmm...perhaps they are being tipped off.

(Edited 12/10/08 to add: apparently when this was originally written, I, completely by accident, omitted my very handsome and wonderful nephew Ethan's name. So sorry, bros.)

Bertha, and all her peeps (sorry, family joke). This photo makes me think of Fried Green Tomatoes, Steele Magnolias or something along those lines. Anyone else thinkin' "The mean ol' Weezer..." or "Towanda!!" ?

After dinner dance competition begins...I feel certain dancing with the stars will be contacting one or more of these cousins. Stay tuned...

My cousin's son Jake introduced Wilson to Linkin Park (sp?) and the boys were working hard on the back porch to throw some finesse on the dance floor. Adorable, fer shizzle. No phone calls or letters please if that music is in poor taste...

_____________________________________________________

Thanksgiving parade: Eastern NC style

No day is complete without a shot with the cow. Chik-fil-a was certainly rockin' the hot chocolate on this freezin' cold morning (Ok, cold for NC. All you northerners would have been sportin' a wind breaker).


Stephen LOVED the firetrucks...they were loud enough to break the sound barrier at times. This one in particular can be spotted on any given weekday in a variety of fast food parking lots. One day I am going to ask them to let him climb aboard and watch him beam!!

Oorah! Semper Fidelis, Marines.

This is the face of misery when you just refused to put on anything but a t-shirt under your coat and now you are KICKING yourself in the 4 year old butt for being so hard-headed before you really ever knew what a parade was in the first place. LOL.

Broadway comes to the 'Hood

Places everyone!

The Camel and the Owl

Over the past few weeks our girls have worked very hard preparing for a neighborhood Christmas play. Tonight was opening night and my, what a fantastic performance! Each of the children represented some type of animal that was learning about the birth of a king who was sure to not reject anyone who came to him...even the stinky pig (Dickie did an amazing job with this role). The Christmas story was spoken so powerfully. Cute,cute. It sure helped to kick off the holiday season with the spreading of Christmas cheer. Bravo kiddos!

Thanks Cathy for working with the kids so very diligently and Leslie, thank you for opening your home each day.

He is risen..He is risen indeed!

Happy Easter!

..from our family to yours.

Christmas memories

Merry Christmas, son.

I have been asked several times how Christmas was for Stephen and our family. He seemed to really enjoy the fact that lots of people came to visit and brought him a present. It may take us a while to help him understand that all visitors do not come bearing gifts for the prince.

Here are some moments we managed to capture

Helping mommy put stamps on the envelopes. If your stamp was crooked on your Christmas card..now you know why. After he was done each time he would say "dood job!"

First, my cousin Wendy and her family came to visit and celebrate Christmas the weekend before. Before we moved away, we would all go to my aunt's house and get this brood together to celebrate before we all went our separate ways for Christmas day. There are now eight cousins and it makes for an interesting noise factor. The cousins all have a wonderful time together and can get quite silly as you can see. All three of my cousin's children were just taken with Stephen and coddled him the whole weekend. I told you.. I see rottenness in his future.

My sister and my nephew, Ethan were also here. They remained with us through Christmas day (along with Grammy and Papaw) and made our celebrations complete. Melissa was particularly thrilled when Stephen called her by name "Too Too".

Stephen, Anna Claire and Mung Mung (Chaya). He has grown to love our dog more than anyone and follows her throughout the house calling her name. She is quite tolerant, bless her.

Officially one of the crew. After a long day of visiting..everyone unwinds with a game of Mario Cart..Fortunately, we had already watched the Nativity Story before they crashed.

The Lucas family

The first time I saw this photo I suddenly understood why we have so much laundry at our house. Who knew there were so many of us?

More fun with Nuna and Katie.

The best thing about a big sister is that she can drive you around with her new set of wheels. Austyn has been begging for a scooter for three years. I did not cave, I was overruled (by Dick Van Dyke, of course)

One of Stephen's favorite presents: his Thomas the Tank engine train set. He does love some cars and trains. This was a huge hit and at any given moment throughout the day one can hear the sound of little battery operated trains running around and around the track. Jon says he knows what Stephen will buy with his gift cards this year: Batteries. :-)

All in all, he enjoyed Christmas and all of the excitement. I would love to be able to ask him what he was really thinking or feeling inside..or maybe not. I kept wondering if he had an idea what all the fuss was about since they do celebrate Christmas in Korea and at AMSA (from what they said). I believe he was a bit overwhelmed from all of the people and activity. He handled it well, but then took a five hour nap the day everyone left. Who wouldn't have?

One of my Christmas gifts was a tri-pod. Go figure. This shot of our family is a true reflection of the moment..Wilson with his peppermint stick and Ethan taking his hands down from the bunny ears he was making on Jon's head, and the girls were ill because they never ate anything but candy after breakfast *sigh* Merry Christmas, right?

Stephen had a hard time telling his Grammy and papaw bye-bye. He was very sad and appeared to be a bit confused. I think he really enjoyed having them around and was genuinely sad to see them leave. Once they were in the car and he waved them goodbye, he seemed to relax a little. I am sure he will be glad when everything is not a learning process or a struggle to understand what is happening.

If you were not here..we missed you. Please know that we look forward to celebrating with our loved ones who live away and just bringing Christmas cheer into the new year.

Counting our blessings this Christmas...

We had a mini photo shoot last night. It was a hoot to say the least. So many of you have complained about an update to the blog (you know who you are), that I thought I would just post some photos of what our life has been like.

Sometimes we are happy

Sometimes we chill

Sometimes we are covered in stickers

Sometimes we sit in solitude..just to regroup

Still, we all come together again in moments of bliss

and separate to regroup again and collect our thoughts...

Sometimes we are just happy to be..

.. silly and together.

and..we ALL have our moments that we aren't sure what we are.


Merry Christmas from the Lucas family

America! God shed His grace on thee...

Yesterday I was driving past the MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station) and the huge sign at the front posted "Pardon our noise...it's the sound of freedom". As I finished my drive I whispered a prayer for our mighty nation, its leaders and the men and women of this country who give their blood, sweat, tears and often their lives, so we can move about freely in this land that was born so many years ago out of the overflowing blessings of our God! Tomorrow, make a special effort to thank God and possibly someone else who put their life on the line, for this amazing blanket of freedom that we enjoy. Remember all that we stand for: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance" Psalm 33:12

God bless America, land that I love.
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home.

(Irvin Berlin 1918, revised 1938)