The Count Down's Getting Closer Every Day!

This is what I am thankful for! I am getting so very excited, and can't wait to meet our little man! -Lydia

Our Family's Christmas

In our home, we celebrate Christmas. I love the holiday, filled with cinnamon scents and egg nog flavors. Beautiful trees, all lit up. I love Santa, or at least Saint Nicholas, with his inspirational love of all humanity, I love, love, love Christmas. Stockings hanging happily on a mantle, stuffed with toys and nick-knacks and candies. Gifts piled under pine, beautifully wrapped in silvers and greens and reds. 

I love Christmas music. Caroling, or even listening to well beloved songs playing on the radio. Jingle bells, indeed. I love snuggling up with a hot mug of cocoa with marshmallows, while my feet are tucked away in warm fuzzy socks. I love being inside my cozy shoe-box home, and looking outside at snow covered hills and streets and being so happy that I have no reason what-so-ever to leave the comfort and warmth.

My husband is a scrooge. He doesn't believe in Santa, and thinks that we shouldn't tell the children lies... and Santa is a lie.

Sigh.

I fought this, I really did. Santa is an important part of Christmas for children, a part of Christmas that I never experienced during my youth. I have always wanted my children to have Santa... at least while they are little.

But as I was thinking about Christmas, I remembered the part of Christmas that I loved the most in what we did celebrate as I grew. I loved caroling and passing out plates of treats to neighbors. I loved the stories. The story of Nativity. The story of the candy maker and the legend of his Candy Cane. The story of the three trees. And there I paused, and I began to think about the story of the trees. Selah, indeed.

This is the spirit of giving I want to pass on to my children. I want them to know that even if they don't become all they want to be, their gift to their creator is to be exactly who HE wants them to be. I want them to know that in the tapestry of life, there is a plan for the thread that forms who they are. That thread is part of something beautiful.

And so, I gifted my husband by agreeing to follow when it comes to Christmas and Santa.

In closing, I am attaching the story of the Three Trees. This story, interlaced with Nativity, is what we will teach our children each year at Christmas. This story, I hope, touches you as it does me.

-Lydia Serafino-

'The Tale of Three Trees'

Three little trees stood high upon a mountain discussing their dreams for the future. The first little tree looked up at the dazzling night sky and said, "I want to carry the treasure of kings and queens. I want to be beautiful. I want to be filled with all the riches in the world."

The nearby stream caught the second little tree's eye. "I want to be a mighty sailing vessel," he said. "I want to sail in the roaring oceans, roam the high seas, and deliver kings and queens safely to their destinations."

The third little tree loved the mountaintop. "I want to stay right here and grow and grow and grow," she said. "I want the people that pass by to look at me touching heaven and think of God."

One day, many years later, three lumberjacks came to help the three trees with the next season of their lives.

The first tree, now beautiful, was cut down. "I will become the most beautiful treasure chest," he thought. "I will get to hold all of the world's riches."

The mighty second tree was cut down. "I will now sail the roaring oceans," thought the second tree. "I will be the mightiest of all sailing vessels."

The third tree, with her branches stretched toward heaven, was also cut down. Together with the other two trees, she was taken down the lovely hillside.

The first tree arrived at a carpenter's shop. The beautiful tree was aglow with excitement. But he wasn't made into a treasure chest. The skillful carpenter made the beautiful tree into an ordinary feeding trough.

The second tree was brought to a shipyard. The mighty second tree thought, "Now I will be the most vigorous of vessels." But the strong second tree was made into a simple little fishing boat.

The third tree was brought to a lumberyard. There she was made into beams and put aside. "Why did this happen?" thought the third tree. "All I ever wanted was to touch heaven."

As the weeks passed, their dreams began to fade from memory. However, one magical night brought the first tree's dream to life. A young mother put her newborn into the trough. "This manger is perfect," said the mother to her husband. And the first tree knew he was cradling the most important treasure ever.

One night the fishing boat was used by a tired traveler and his friends. They quickly fell asleep, and the small boat floated out to sea. The sea became rough, and a thunderstorm was brewing. This frightened the second tree. If only he were a mighty vessel and could withstand the force of the storm! The traveler was awakened by the storm, and he stretched out his arms and said, "Peace." The sea became calm and the thunderstorm vanished. It was then that the second tree realized he was carrying the Almighty King.

On a Friday morning, the third tree was taken by soldiers and carried through a hostile mob. She trembled with fear and distaste as a man's hands were nailed to her. But the following Sunday the sun rose. The earth was full of joy. She realized that everything had changed because of God's love.

The first tree was made beautiful.

The second tree was made mighty.

The third tree made people think of God.

I am Pro-Life

"I realized that the real way to reduce abortion rates, then, was to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. And the way to do that is with birth control, which reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies by allowing women to control when and if they become pregnant."

This is from an article called "How I Lost Faith in the Pro Life Movement". I agree that birth control to a certain extent stops unwanted pregnancy. As someone who has engaged in premarital sex, I will say this next comment is the truth from the bottom of my heart.

The way to stop unwanted pregnancies is to stop having premarital sex. Sex does NOT equal love, and not only are you risking a baby which you can then chose to let live or kill (if your birth control fails), you are risking your health -  physically (via STDS), emotionally (the scars from past lovers cut deep), and spiritually (Proverbs 6:32 - He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.).

I would give *anything* for my husband to be the only man I ever gave myself to. I believe that sex outside of the context of marriage as fulfilling and something worth pursuing is the lie of the Devil. Yes, I went there.

As for the remainder of the article... the author of this article states "I no longer believe that abortion is murder because I no longer hold that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a “person.”" As a mother who lost two children in my first trimester, one at 6 weeks and one at 3 weeks. I never saw my children. My body absorbed the tissue. But please explain to me the void in my heart at the lack of life within me, explain why I woke up screaming at night for my babies if they weren't people. Please explain my broken heart, and the box that holds mementos from my lost pregnancies, because I don't have a tombstone to commemorate my children's brief but treasured lives?

I have had sex outside of marriage. I have taken Plan-B. I am a sinner saved by Grace. I am a Christian. I am a mother of 3, and maybe more because my body cannot carry babies without extra vitamins and nutrients to stabilize the humans in me, and only 1 so far is still with me, and he is unborn. He is my son. That is why I am pro-Life.

-Lydia Joy-

Halloween 2012

So this is our first Halloween that we are (officially) celebrating. Last year we handed out candy that had bible verses on the wrapper (a tradition that will most likely carry through), but that was "witnessing" verses "celebrating".

I have no problem with Halloween. I grew up in a home where we didn't celebrate it, and when I was probably 10 or 11 I started snagging a pair of my mom's scrubs to "sneak out" and go trick-or-treating. When my nephew Chandler had his first Halloween he was so cute! I can't remember his costume 10 years later, but I remember my sisters and I taking him trick-or-treating in Nana's neighborhood... there was so much laughter and love surrounding him. That was when I knew I wanted to celebrate Halloween with my kids when I grew up.

And then I grew up. And got married. And my husband didn't want to celebrate Halloween. I was devastated. And slightly annoyed. Now, like I said, I love Halloween. But I hate hate hate horror movies. I have never been able to stomach them, including the old cheesy ones. My sister once said "picture the guy behind the camera when you can't handle what's on the screen." I did, and it didn't help. So in order to keep me from getting terrified into nightmares, Abraham agreed that there would be no horror movies in our house. He enjoys horror movies.

Well this year rolls around, and I am pregnant. I wanted to do a costume with baby-doll parts tearing their way out of my shirt, but that grossed Abraham out... as a pro-lifer, he is very against macabre meets pregnancy... so I 86'd that idea and began looking for another one... I thought maybe mother earth so I started looking for a shirt that had a planet on the belly, and I'd wear a peasant/belly dancing skirt... kind of a flow-y happy perspective of mother earth, and the earth is my womb. Shockingly, all the earth/world/globe shirts I found had the earth in the middle of the chest verses IDK rounded on the perfect circle that is my midsection. I thought that was stupid, so I started going through comic maternity tee-shirts to try to find something that was equally great... or at least pretty darn close... that's when I found the escape velocity shirt. It was so nerdy it was perfect! With all the dorks and geeks and nerds in my life, I was sure to get a few good giggles out of it.

Of course, I then had to translate this into a costume and came up with... Chalkboard! Boom! A costume I've never seen, and heck... it seems pretty creative to me... so I went with it.

And then there was the road block of my anti-Halloween Grinch of a husband. I asked him for the billionth time if we could celebrate Halloween. I'm sure he was certain I'd say no immediately because he replied with "If we can watch horror movies the week before and after Halloween, then why not? Now, Halloween is the start of holiday season so once it's over, I'm on to Thanksgiving... So I countered with "the week before Halloween PLUS you can take our family to one age appropriate horror movie in Theaters during that week... and only so long as there is no satanic rituals/demonic possessions in the movies (zombies, werewolves, ghouls and goblins, vampires, boogie man, serial killers etc. are all okay... just no "Paranormal Activity" "666" "The Possesion" type movies). We had a deal. :)

I ordered the shirt, plus a Melissa & Doug eraser/chalk bundle from Amazon.com and my costume idea was born. When my stuff came in the mail, I tried on the shirt and I absolutely loved it. I actually wore the shirt to my OB-GYN appointment, and my doctor took one look at the shirt and busted out laughing. WIN. Now all I had to do was wait to wear the shirt again until Halloween. Longest. Week. Ever. Just saying, I'm not a patient person. Somehow, I'm sure by the Grace of God, I made it. (I totally almost caved yesterday!)

I love my costume, and can't wait to rock it out tonight while handing out candy. And next year, I look forward to a cute little super-hero or zoo animal or something equally adorable to take out trick-or-treating...
Happy Halloween!

(I'll get some more photos up later today.)

-Lydia Joy-