Happy New Year to All....

Well we have survived another Christmas. Which is truly amazing when you think of all the people that have died over the holiday. First my uncle Tom on Sunday the 20th. Then Reggie White Christmas night. Not to mention a couple of patients from work. I was reading our local paper and there was a bunch of obituaries this last week, too! That is what I mean when I say surviving the season.
I felt it nesscessary to torture my children on Christmas Eve. (That is what the 'T' in Mother stands for you know.) So we spent a couple of hours at Shopko ringing bells for the Salvation Army. Did I forget to mention the temperature was maybe 1 degree. Yep that''s it One digit. Cold, very very cold. You would think we would be lucky since we were between the doors... Not so much.
My sister Sara came with us that day which helped out perfectly since they have 2 entrances and I am only one adult. So we divided up the kids and she went to one entrance with Reece and I was at the other with Brock. He really didn't believe it was torture. He was so funny. Whenever someone came in Brock would give them a sad puppy look and stare them down. We actually saw someone that he did that to go out the other door. I can't blame them but they would have rather walked out in the cold then walk past us again? Wow.... What power. After that I told Brock to not do that anymore. He was very good at saying ' happy holidays' or 'merry Christmas' to people after they dropped in the change. Sara and Reece were down at the other end singing christmas carols, when Reece decided to leave, so she stopped just as someone came to put money in the pot. They were feeling let down and said 'what? no music for me?'.
I had a malfunctioning door to contend with. It really was in my favor. At this entrance there was 3 self push doors and 1 automatic door for in. For the people going out there was 2 automatic doors. Well the 1 automatic door for in was not working correctly in the the second hour. It really was for my favor. If they didn't want to make eye contact with me they were forced to do so. Since the door wouldn't open automatically. I would just smile and say it has a mind of it's own today. I like to believe this was God's way of saying to them 'Please help out my people'. Someone returning to work at Shopko notice it and fixed the door in the open position. Yeah, HEAT!
We switched kids at the halfway point and I got a chance to truly torture Reece. He wanted to sit down. Nope, not a chance. He wanted a gumball or toy from a vending machine near us. I told him he needed to show me he deserved it by ringing the bell and standing next to me nicely. Well it worked. He did very well. We didn't have a watch so toward the end we played a game of 'How many minutes do you think we have left?' to help past the time.
Which worked quite well.
Then I continued my torture and took the kids to church. They didn't feel it was torture. They were a excited cause they got to play with fire. They gave the kids a candle and we all stood up and sang 'Silent Night'.
As we left Brock said " That was fun, Mom. Can we do that again?"
Darn. I guess you can't win them all.
Go Packers!
God Bless to All.... :]