We wish you a Merry Christmas..........

As we enter into this wonderful week............

To All of My Democrat Friends (all one or 2 of you),

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular

persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other contry nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical, ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

TO MY REPUBLICAN FRIENDS:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Truly, we do wish each of you a very Merry Christmas. For those of you traveling, we wish you safe travels, too. We will be staying home for Christmas, and look forward to welcoming my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, my brother and sister-in-law to Texas for the week.

This sounded like a good idea in September!

Go Me Go!!! On December 9th, I accomplished something I never thought I could do. I walked the 13.1 miles (half-marathon) at the Dallas White Rock Marathon. I finished the walk in 2 hours, 54 min, and 39 sec. It was a cold, wet, windy December day, but once we got going I warmed up quickly. There were many "fans" along the route cheering us on. Many of the on-lookers were holding up signs. My favorite signs were..."This sounded like a good idea in September," and "Toenails are overrated." Rick also took part in the marathon--his sixth. He ran the full 26.2 miles in 3 hours, 34 min, 57 sec. He did awesome!! The marathon benefited Texas Scottish Rite Hospital--which is an amazing place. Rick's already training for another marathon--the Cowtown--which will be in Feb. in Ft. Worth. I think I might be ready to give the White Rock another go next December.

I love my Daddy!!

When I sit down and think about the year 2007...many things come to mind, but one thing in particular stands out.

I will always remember April 5, 2007. It's one of those "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" moments for me.

I was strolling down the aisles of Wal-Mart when Piper announced she had to go potty. Of course, the bathroom was half a mile away....as is the case when any toddler has to go "REALLY BAD!!" My phone began ringing half way through our trek. I saw it was my mom, ignored the call, and continued burning a path to the bathroom. We got to the bathroom, my phone rang again. Once again, it was my mom. I silenced the ringer, sat Piper on the toilet, and listened to the messages my mom left. "Daddy's fallen....." my heart sank. I dialed her back as quickly as possible. While on the phone with her over the course of maybe 2 minutes....it went from, "I think the ambulance may come and check him out" to "Careflight (the medical helicopter) is landing at the end of the street to get daddy to the hospital before he loses any more blood."
I'm standing in Wal-Mart with 2 restless toddlers , I have a full cart of groceries, I'm 20 minutes away from my parents, and I had no idea what to do....I had no idea that when I woke up that morning that my life could change completely--Forever! My dad had tripped and hit his head on a church pew in the back hallway of their house. He split his head open from just above his eye to the top of his head...an 8 inch long, 1 1/2 wide gash. On his 4 minute helicopter ride, they had to revive him.
I rushed to the hospital. As I walked into the big white room in the ER, there was my daddy...my hero....lying there with blood everywhere, 10 kagillion stitches holding his head together. Watching him laying there was so difficult. Praise the Lord for his speedy recovery. (He was asking for his blackberry only hours after his "ordeal.")
That day changed my life. I've never loved my dad more than I did that day. Every memory, every loving thought, everything came back to me. So this year, more than anything, I'm grateful for my dad. I'm grateful that the Lord saw fit to keep him here for a little bit longer. I'm grateful that my children will get to have their grandpa around. I'm grateful that (Lord-willing) he'll be here for another Christmas. I'm grateful for my dad's full recovery. I'm grateful that my mom will have the love of her life to keep her company this Christmas. I'm grateful that I'll have more time to hug my dad, and tell him I love him. Merry Christmas, Daddy, I truly could've never asked for a better dad.

Jack asked....

Hudson, our oldest son, is in first grade. He's been bringing home long chapter books to read at night. I've finally realized that I can't sit next to him for an hour and a half to listen to every word, so on most nights I have him read aloud so that I can hear him while I'm working around the house.
Last night, Hudson was reading his book in the living room, and I was in the kitchen cleaning up supper dishes. I was half-listening to him--(and that's being gracious).....all of the sudden something he said caught my attention. Surely, Hudson couldn't have said what my ears thought they heard so I went back to doing my dishes. He continued reading...a few minutes later I heard it again. Those awful words COULD NOT be coming out of MY 6 year olds mouth. "Hudson!!!!," I began. "What did you just say???" "Nothing, mommy, I'm just reading." (Me...) "No, I heard what you called your brother....where did you hear those words?" Tears, drama, innocence...."mommy, I'm just reading." SO....I decided to sit next to him so that we could read together and so that I could monitor what was coming out of his mouth. Not two minutes after sitting down, I was shocked when I heard those words come out of his mouth again....and I was sitting there, 2 inches from him. My eyes quickly narrowed in on the page he was reading. Much to my suprise those awful words coming out of his mouth were "Jack asked."
Moral of the story......short of never buying a book for a 6 year old with the words "Jack asked", I will be careful not to jump to conclusions next time.
Poor Hudson. Maybe he'll forgive me for scoldinig him after a few years of therapy. He still has no idea why I was so upset with him. Sometimes I feel like such a "jack asked."

We got "elfed"....Merry Christmas.

O.K. so this will be a short post, but I hope it will keep you giggling until I have time to write again.

www.elfyourself.com/?id=9633039566 and www.elfyourself.com/?id=9635950786

Love you all!!

Oh Christmas tree, oh christmas tree....

There's something completely wrong about it being 85 degrees on November 13th!! Regardless, I have 37 days until Christmas and it's time to decorate. I refuse to let Christmas "sneak up" on me again this year.

I have always loved decorating for Christmas. I remember, as a child, helping my mom and dad decorate our tree, the house, the yard. Such wonderful, fond, memories. I want to create that feeling of happiness and warmth for our children.

As we pulled the many, many Christmas boxes out of the attic yesterday, I watched as the children excitedly pulled their ornaments and special Christmas items out of the boxes. It was a magical moment for me....just watching them. For once, I didn't care that they were "messing up my system." I didn't care that they were rummaging thru the boxes....I just didn't care. Watching the twinkle in their eyes, seeing the joy in their smiles...it made it all worthwhile.

We decorated the trees today...the magic continued. I let each child put their own ornaments on the tree.. I fought the strong urge to rearrange their ornaments in a more aesthetically pleasing way....I let them have fun. Just like my parents did with us. That poor angel of mine was probably never how my mom would've liked it, but she let me put it on top, nonetheless, each year without complaint.

I'm finally growing up, but I will always enjoy the magic of Christmas. Thank you Lord for sending us a Savior. Thank you for giving us Christmas. Not so that we could put up our trees, or so that we could give and receive gifts. But so that we could know the true magic of Christmas.....the true gift of Christmas, and pass that on to our children.

For those of you who will probably not be by the Ford household this Christmas-time, here are a few pictures. I miss all of you--especially at Christmas time!!

Land of the Dragons...

So, for those of you who have questioned...why is your blog mom of 4 dragons?....I'll tell you why. We live in a town known mainly for it's football program. Our mascot is the Dragons. Everything in this town is green with a dragon logo plastered on it.....everything. Every car (well at least 99%) has a Dragon sticker on it, and on Fridays (gamedays) most everyone wears green and black.

When we moved here, we promised NOT TO EVER get wrapped up in "dragon fever." Well, we've been here one year, and yes...we have a dragon sticker on our car, I'm naming my blog "momof4dragons, we wear dragon attire on game days, and of course, our boys played dragon football this past fall.

Hudson and Corbin played in their "Superbowl" game this past week, and won 16-6. Just had to post a few of the pictures....GO DRAGONS!!

Who is this girl's mother?

So last Sunday, I was frantically getting the children ready for church. I told Piper to go get her clothes on. Apparently, I wasn't specific enough as to which clothes she needed to put on. She came downstairs in this ensemble....I just had to share it with you all. For those of you who have known me for say, um...31 years, you will know exactly who Piper takes after.Needless to say, I was such a "mean mom," and didn't let her wear the "outfit" to church.

Halloween 2007

Why, oh why do I do this to myself every single year??? I take WAY too long dressing four (at times ungrateful) children in costumes that they will either freeze to death in (which doesn't happen often in TX) or that they will burn up in. Rick had to work this year, so I loaded up the kids to take them over to my parents house to trick-or-treat. As we get in the car, the complaining begins...."my costume itches," "I'm too hot,""I'm too cold."... why did I not turn the car around immediately, take the costumes off, and declare Halloween officially over? Because I'm a mom, that's why. We got to Grandpa and Grandma's house and it begins again...."I'm hungry,""I have to go potty,""Let's go trick-or-treating,""My costume still itches,""I'm going to get more candy than you." Again, why did I not turn the car around? Well, we finally get out of the house...on our way to another halloween adventure. After 3 houses, Corbin declares he's finished trick-or-treating. He doesn't like candy--so what's the joy of filling a pumpkin full of it? Now if they were handing out chips, popcorn, pretzels, etc. he'd have been all over the trick-or-treating thing. After much sweet talking, I finally got Corbin to join back in on the "fun." From there on out, that child kicked every tree, in every yard, on every street, in the whole neighborhood. No amount of scolding did any good....because of course he wanted to be told that he had to go sit in the car, and of course it made no difference to him if I took all of his candy away....so, like any mother-of-the-year would do I let him kick the small trees, the prickly trees, the enormous oak trees. If he wanted to bruise those precious, superman toes, I was going to let him.

I stood back near the street yelling "remember to say thank-you" while the children would run up to the doors. I finally made it up to one of the doors with the kids. I made it just in time to see Hudson throwing a bag of chocolate covered raisins back into a treat bowl telling the sweet, sweet woman, "don't you know those things are bad for your teeth?" As if the Snickers, Skittles, and Reeces Pieces were great for your teeth, Hudson??

Rick showed up 3/4 of the way through the experience and that was my biggest treat of the night. So...will I trick-or-treat again next year? Of course! Who wants to miss out on a night of itchy costumes, bad attitudes, sugar rushes, and tree kickin' fun?

Oh, and by the way, thanks 10 million times over mom and dad for biting your tounges and pretending to have fun. I couldn't have done it without you.