Quick takes

1. I just realized I didn't post any pictures of Advent week 3 on here, so how's this...

2. Jonathan got home at about 11pm last night from a five day trip to a cabin in the mountains of Alabama with a great family that we've known for over 13 years. He had a lot of fun.

3. Doesn't Jonathan look exceptionally old in that picture? You know what? He is pretty old. In fact he is on a date right now. I know dating is a touchy subject, for some people, but I'm good with it. It is a Friday afternoon, they are at a geriatric mall seeing a Disney movie and I think it's the cutest thing. This morning Madi said to Jonathan, you should maybe buy her movie ticket, his response was "Well, duh!" I'm very proud of my boy! 4. Looks like we've got a Jonathan theme going here. He got the results of his second round of SATs today. He went up considerably. It isn't at the Bright Futures 75% mark yet, but it's definitely within reach. For a kid who has limited (read: no) classroom experience this is really great. Proud again! 5. I'm not ready to attempt to write anything about the Sandy Hook tragedy, I may never be. 6. Jake and Madi and some friends sang at a nursing home yesterday.

7. St Patrick's had a St Nicholas breakfast at the beginning of the month which included collecting and wrapping presents for needy families in our parish, collecting and making food baskets for tons of people in need, and collecting and assembling homeless bags to pass out as needed in the community. The bags have granola bars and water bottles in them as well as information about where to find help and our church's free Christmas dinner open to everyone. We've had the opportunity to pass out three bags this week. It's great to have these bags ready in the car instead of our typical seeing someone in need and frantically searching under the seats to see if we can find anything resembling food or drink. They have also come in handy when I picked Madi up from her class on our way to Orlando and forgot to bring her breakfast. They can easily be replenished. There was some entertainment including Jake and Madi and some of that video may someday make it's way on here. St Nicholas was even there.

I think I'm a binge blogger, when I was at #3 or 4 I didn't think I had anything else to say, now I've met my standard seven and have all kinds of thoughts. Like I'm heading downstairs in a few minutes to make my new favorite treat dirty snowballs (crushed oreos mixed with cream cheese and dipped in white chocolate). Or about all the events and pictures that I'm behind on documenting. Or about how the world didn't end today (even though I keep thinking about how it ended for all those victims and their families last week). Or about how I'm glad that it is finally chilly here again. Or about all of the good, bad, and ugly thoughts that swim around in my mind all day and show up all convoluted in my dreams at night. Or about how much I love my children. Or about how I've seen more than one comment about people fearing for their kids safety that ends like this "I mean what are we supposed to do HOME SCHOOL?" In the comments I'm talking about it definitely comes out like it's a dirty word, also it is written as two words because it hasn't found it's way into their normal vocabulary. I have soo many thoughts on this, but there is no way I'm ready to articulate them, so they'll just have to keep swimming in there a little while longer. In the meantime I'm off to crush some oreos. After hitting publish I did the typical quick peak on facebook before heading for the oreos and saw this.

While I'm under no dilusion that I said anything similar to this in my post, this is what I meant to say.