A Big Christmas

Well, it has been a big Christmas here at the Swann home. We’ve had lots of fun. It has been nice for me to pretty much step away from a computer for a week.

TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS ROUTINE. Our schedule this year was pretty much the same as past years. I did not report this last time but Pauline had us all over to her house for lunch after church Sunday where we exchanged a few gifts. That night Kenny and Lori held their annual community Christmas party. Vicki was making Oreo truffles (recipe below) for this occasion as I was sending out the previous edition to this newsletter. That’s when I heard her start cackling from the kitchen. Vicki was at the point where she had rolled all the truffle centers into balls and was about to coat them with chocolate and almond bark when Nate came in. While this is a bit gross the truffles at this point could pass for small deer droppings which is probably what made Nate ask if Vicki was making poop.

Monday was a pretty slow day. Vicki and Jenna did a little shopping that afternoon and we went to the Christmas Eve service at church that evening.

The Christmas day excitement began around 7:00 at our house. We tore into our presents and the kids got a little time to play before we had to get ready to go to Mrs. Connie’s for breakfast. We enjoyed a great meal and visiting with cousins for a few hours. That night we had supper over at Aunt Mar’s house. The following day we went to Opry Mills mall where we met up with Jonathan and Sheila Leach and their girls and let the kids spend some of their Christmas money.

CHRISTMAS LOOT. The kids got a lot of neat stuff this year. The big ticket item was a basketball goal. I set it up over at Pauline’s since she has a concrete drive. Unfortunately, we haven’t had the best of weather for trying it out.

Earlier this year the kids had saved and purchased their own Nintendo Game Cube and there were a couple of presents under the tree related to their video game system. However, this did not deter Ben from asking for a Wii in his letter to Santa that was published in the Robertson County Times. For those of you who are out of the video gaming loop the Wii (pronounced ‘we’) is Nintendo’s successor to the Game Cube. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know this. Mom called up after seeing Ben’s letter in the paper and asked why Ben wanted a will for Christmas. Wii or no, the Game Cube is still popular with our brood and they take good care of it. The other day Nate spotted a kink in one of the cables and bent down to straighten it out. As he stood back up he explained to me the he needed to do this so the power wouldn’t go all twizzley.

LOSS OF WORDS. Ben is at that stage where he is growing so fast it is hard to keep him in pants. The good thing is that Pauline is handy with a needle and thread and can alter clothes. The other day Ben needed some pants and all his pants were dirty. That’s when Vicki remembered she had sent a pair over to her mom to be fixed up and she sent Nate over to get them. Pauline laughs as she tells it because Nate had a hard time thinking of how to ask for what he needed. He burst in the door, out of breath from running, and says, “I need...Benton’s...long sleeve pants!”

Happy New Year!

Joe

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OREO “POOP” TRUFFLES

Crush one package of Oreo cookies in a food processor.

Mix in one bar of softened cream cheese.

Add one teaspoon of vanilla.

Roll into balls. Refrigerate or freeze if desired before coating.

Coat with melted chocolate or almond bark.

Refrigerate when hardened.

Merry Christmas!

I knew it had been a while but I was surprised to see I am two weeks behind. School is out for the holidays and the kids are glad to be home. Nate, most of all, is glad to have his brother and best friend home to play with him all day. And so we find ourselves on the final approach to Christmas.

CHOIR MUSICAL. Last Saturday night and Sunday morning the church choir performed a Christmas musical titled Experience Something New This Christmas. The musical told the Christmas story from the point of view of the Biblical character Simeon.

Everyone did a superb job with their acting and singing—including the children’s choirs. The set looked great and all who were on stage were in First Century costume which made the performance all the more powerful. (I was the only one in the family in modern day dress.)

OTHER HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS. We have not had any lack of other Christmas activities in the last two weeks. Several Sunday school classes got together for a combined party last weekend. Rather than play “Dirty Santa” we auctioned off our Christmas gifts with play money. The first grade class had the PTO program this month so Ben was among those singing Christmas songs at school Tuesday before last. The Cub Scouts had their pack meeting/Christmas party Monday night. The Mother’s Day Out program had a Christmas program of their own Wednesday which Nate was part of. Vicki had a YMCA party, and my office had two events, a pot luck lunch last week and a breakfast Tuesday. Whew!

GOLLUM? We all went over to Pauline’s for lunch today. After eating we took care of our present exchange with her. Pauline included a small bag of quarters in her gifts to each of the kids. Nate opened his and was so thrilled he held the bag of coins to his chest and unabashedly shouted, “My precious! My precious money!” over and over again. We were all in shock for a moment before cracking up. I don’t know where it came from but it was a great impression of Tolkien’s character Sméagol from The Lord of the Rings coming from a four year old.

HEALING. I reported a month ago that Jake, our dog, was hit by a car breaking a leg and possible his pelvis. I am happy to report that he is recovering nicely and even felt good enough to shred our newspaper this morning. He still favors his back legs some but is right with any of us whenever we walk to Pauline’s house.

Jake is pretty vocal about his affection. Sometimes when I come out the door in the morning or come home from work he is so excited he barks. Then I bark back and we start this whole conversation. I have no idea what we talk about, but he seems to enjoy it and if I rub behind his ears so much the better.

Vicki is convinced he really spoke to her. She and Jenna were coming in from basketball practice last week and Jake was right there to greet them. Vicki bent down to talk to him in a voice sort of like one she’d use to talk to a baby. In her discourse she kept repeating the question, “Who’s the best do in the whole wide world?” She then said, “Say me!” Jake, who had remained silent up till now, immediately mimmicked her with and extended, “Meeee!” Vicki and Jenna were wide-eyed and tickled with the conversation.

A CHRISTMAS CARD MOMENT. We never could get this on the video camera but what the kids have done this year will live in our memory for years to come. Jenna has been taking piano lessons for about a year and a half now and her repertoire includes several Christmas carols and songs. What is so precious is that Jenna will be practicing (Up on the Housetop seems to be a favorite) and Ben or Nate will come over to the piano and begin to sing. It is both comical and sweet. Jenna can’t quite keep up with them as they sing but they all have a good time singing together anyway.

So with this picture in mind I will close hoping you have a very merry Christmas.

Joe

Two Answered Prayers!

We’ve had really pretty weather all last week. It’s just been cold, at least compared to the temperatures last weekend and this weekend. Ben has been fighting a cold all week.

TWO ANSWERED PRAYERS! God is good! Here are two things we have requested prayer for in the past that you now can join us in thanking Him for a positive answer. First, back in March we asked you to pray for Brent and Cindy Roycroft in the adoption of their son Ty. As of Monday the Roycrofts got the papers making the adoption final!

By the way, looking back I think I failed to report this: Brent used to be the Minister of Music at our church but he left for a similar position at Calvary Baptist Church in Murfreesboro. Their last day with us was actually the same day Mom was recognized for her retirement. Brent and Cindy, you have no idea how much we miss you!

The other answered prayer is Elizabeth Graves. This was the girl who had the brain hemorrhage back in early September. She and her mother, Michelle, have come home from rehab in Atlanta. She still has a lot of therapy in front of her, but it’s all stuff she can do at home now. Elizabeth even went back to East Robertson to visit her classmates Monday. Vicki saw her briefly and said she looked like she was doing really well.

BASKETBALL SEASON. Jenna and Ben are playing Upward Basketball again this year. Their first game isn’t until January but practice began last week. They both practice on Tuesday night: Ben at 7:00 and Jenna at 8:00. This is because Jenna has moved up to full court ball and it sure makes for a late evening for them.

SPELLING BEE. Jenna competed in her class spelling bee this year. The first and second place winners get to represent their class in the school-wide spelling bee on Thursday. She wound up being third in her class which makes her the alternate if one of the other two kids can’t compete. I think Jenna was disappointed she didn’t make first or second place. She made the comment that she hoped one of the other two kids get sick Thursday. Then feeling a bit guilty she quickly added, “but that they’ll be okay.”

WAKING UP A NIGHT OWL. Vicki is not a morning person. Saturday morning she planned to go to breakfast with several ladies from church so she asked me to make sure she was up by 6:40. By 6:42 I was really trying hard to wake her so she would not be late. I knew I finally had her attention when she exclaimed, “Quit shouting at me! I’m just now aware that I’m awake.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VICKI. Vicki celebrated her birthday today. Pauline had us all over for dinner yesterday and then we went out to eat tonight (between piano lessons and Cub Scouts). I think the best thing that happened to her today was right as the kids were going to bed. We had actually sent the boys to bed and Jenna was still up talking to Vicki. Right in the middle of their chit-chat she stopped and said to her mother, “I could just talk to you all night.” Vicki knew from the expression on Jenna’s face, the twinkle in her eyes and the tone of her voice that she meant every word.

GROWING PAINS. I’ve had to make a change. If you are really observant you have already noticed a new URL to our family web site above. Why? In a word: dial-up. I was really happy with what I had done and the site was getting close to what I had envisioned. However, behind the scenes the site was already over 200 pages and when you change links on one page that has a huge ripple effect. Making small changes sometimes meant uploading dozens of pages to keep from breaking links and the integrity of the site. Doing that on a 48 Kb connection from home is awful and taking the site on my laptop to somewhere with a faster connection is getting old. And all this isn’t even thinking about the more public side of the Cygnus Chronicles site and what I want to do with it.

Following the example of two friends of ours I created an account on Blogger and set up a blog of our own. This will be the new home for our family site. You can find it at swannfamilynews.blogspot.com. It isn’t exactly what I had in mind but I can log in, paste in a new post and log out within a couple of minutes.

Our pictures are the next project to tackle. These will have to be uploaded away from home of course. Again, following the advice of friends, I have created an account on Shutterfly. I don’t have anything up yet but when I do you can find the images at swannfamilypictures.shutterfly.com (there is a link to this from our blog).

I’ll save the upcoming change of email address for another time and stop here before I confuse anyone any further.

Joe

Rolling into December

You know, a week can get away from you before you turn around good, especially this time of year. I don’t think we’ve had but two evenings at home since I last wrote. If we can just survive three more weeks until school is out I think we’ll be able to make it the rest of the way through the holiday season.

On a sort of sad note, one thing that has been on my mind lately is that today marks the 40th anniversary of Dad’s death.

A GREAT THANKSGIVING. We had a really nice Thanksgiving. Will, Darice and their kids came on Thursday after spending the first part of the week in Mississippi visiting other relatives. Pauline and Vicki had all the food prepared and we all (Mom and Aunt Mar included) sat down to a wonderful meal around 6:00.

The visit was pretty typical, their boys slept at our house so all the adults (except me) could play some late night Scrabble. Friday the kids spent a lot of time playing the Game Cube and Vicki and Darice went Christmas shopping. The only damper on the whole visit was that Pauline began feeling ill Friday afternoon and Vicki took her to the hospital. By the next day she was feeling better though.Then the Jones family left and we got down to the business of decorating for Christmas. The whole visit was just so fast!

Saturday night the Yerglers stopped by for a quick visit on their way back home from spending Thanksgiving with family in Michigan.

SCOUTING. I have mentioned before that Ben has become a Cub Scout. His den meets weekly and the whole pack meets at the end of every month. He was awarded his Bobcat patch at the October pack meeting. This last pack meeting he received several beads that show his progress toward his Tiger patch. We haven’t been to the Scout store to buy his uniform yet so he has been wearing my old one, which looks band new. You can tell the style has changed a bit but it fits and gets the job done for now. It has been neat to see him wear it and participate in the Scouting activities.

CHRISTMAS PARADE. Cross Plains had their annual Christmas Parade yesterday. Since Ben is a Scout we were part of the parade this year. All the Tiger Cubs piled into my truck and chunked candy at the poor innocent spectators. We ran out of candy WAY before we got to the end of the route. I had to laugh about using my truck. I bought it exactly 13 years ago today and it now has 176,000 miles on it (and sporting a band new alternator under the hood!). They put us right behind the antique cars, so I guess I made a good segue between the old and the new.

I have joked a little about the Cross Plains parade in years past. I can’t do that this year. It was a nice long parade for a small town and I was surprised at the number of people who had turned out to see it. I think the parade was actually longer than Cross Plains itself! It has grown a lot from its humble beginnings.

CHRISTMAS SHORTS. One thing that has monopolized our schedule this week has been the Children’s Choir musical titled Christmas Shorts. We spent last Sunday afternoon helping to put up the set on the stage at church and they had rehearsals Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. They had performances last night and this morning. I must say all the kids did really well. I was impressed will all the talent we have.

I was also a very proud father. Jenna was selected to sing with a small group of girls for one song, sang a solo part on another song, and played the character “Burna Wick.” Ben was a “Gift Rapper.” He rapped a few lines and sang when the whole choir was singing. There was also three or four numbers that involved the Preschool Choir so Nate was on stage some too. Did I say I was a proud daddy?

Vicki was one of the stage managers. Backstage can be crazy when your getting 28 kids into three costume changes and cueing them for stage entrances. (Thankfully the preschoolers sat on the front pews.) She had a blast. Everyone is looking forward to the next musical while the lady who directed this one and the previous one is just glad the show is over.

Joe