Follow-Ups

Updates have been requested. So, in a Tucked-In nutshell...

• Our Veteran's Day visits were great. With two vets on our street and a surprisingly sunny day, we hit the sidewalk mid-morning. We baked cookies, packaged them in boxes, and affixed handwritten notes to the tops. One note had the four-year old words (scribed verbatim by Mama): "Thank you for shooting guns a long time ago. I wish I could come in and see your dog." No joke. Thankfully, our adopted veteran didn't have his reading glasses so he couldn't read the note until after we had left. But he made Sugs' day by inviting us in to visit with their dog, Charlie. When I finally pulled my children back out of their now finger-smudged house, Sugs ceremoniously bid farewell: "G'bye, Charlie. G'bye Veteran."

• Our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes looked so unoriginal when all was said and done. A bit mangled after all the time the kids carried them around WalMart, shoving toys in to see if they would fit or not. But I'm not sure there could be more heart in a box than these. The Little Man even started calling his recipient Jack. When Grandpa Joel teasingly asked if the shoebox was for him, the Little Man said, "Nope, it's for Jack." Grandpa approached Sugs with the same question, to which she wrinkled her nose in perfect disapproval: "It's not for you, Grandpa. It's for my friend, a brown girl."

Our two favorite elements to the shoeboxes this year were the coloring pages full of facts and questions to share with our recipients. And the potential to track our shoeboxes as they travel this holiday season. We've prayed for them now, that the children would be perfectly matched to their boxes and upon opening them, that they will sense our love for both them and Christ.

• We celebrate Halloween. I read many interesting debates about whether or not it is a good holiday to celebrate. We chose to keep it simple and not make the issue too complex. I didn't lose a bit of sleep over the entire thing...except for the costume construction which had me up way too late one night. The Rapunzel wig was one-fourth of the price for a retail wig, but by the end of the night, I think I would have paid double just to rid myself of the project.

Kit Kittredge, Davey Crockett, and Rapunzel

• Hawaii. What's there to say?

Resting Here,
Karen