a good number

I'm weird about numbers. You've probably figured that out.

Today is Day #
I've always liked the number 25. It's my birthdate, of course, and it's the date of Christmas. It's the same date as my mom's birthday. It's an odd number, which is a strike against it, but it's a nice round number, and it's a square of another nice round number.

Don't worry. I'm done now.

Believe it or not, I guessed this one too!

Okay, I didn't guess it specifically, but I guessed the general category.

And this is my game and my birthday, so it counts.

Yes, I do a very good impression of a 4-year-old. I have good material from which to study.

So this present was soft, but way too big to be a shirt. I could also tell there was a rod of some sort the whole length of the present.

I guessed a wall hanging.

My friends know me even better than that!



It's a VeggieTales advent calendar! I love advent calendars!

I'm all about celebrating anything and everything possible. (You may have noticed.) But for me, part of that celebrating is the anticipation. I count down to everything. I always have. Usually it was counting down until a school vacation, or even the entire school year.

We've had an advent calendar for three years now, I think. It's a Christmas tree from Starbucks, and it has numbered boxes that hold candy, and when you turn the box around after that day has passed, a Christmas scene begins to emerge.

When I was growing up, we had an advent calendar similar to the VeggieTales one - a Christmas scene, and there was a little mouse that you moved from day to day.

When I get ambitious and have more time, I'm going to experiment with small wood crafts. I have a great idea for a three dimensional wooden Christmas tree on a pedestal. The pedestal will have numbered drawers containing an ornament to be placed on the tree each day. It's going to be very cool.

The three older kids were outside when I opened my present, so I took it outside to show them. The girls were swinging, and Jared was sitting on the porch swing with his bowl of frosted mini wheats (from breakfast, no milk) in his lap. I showed the girls, who oohed and aahed appropriately and then I heard this:

Jared: "Mama!" (in his particular form of 2-year-old insistence)

I showed him the advent calendar.

He looks at it for a second.

Jared: "Wow! Oh!"

In Jared's limited vocabulary, that is high praise, indeed.