Gifts

Traditions are made to be broken, started, altered and passed down. And this Christmas was definitely hit on all of those this year. And all of my best plans for Christmas Eve, failed quickly, but taught me a really valuable life lesson.

Growing up, Christmas Eve was my favorite day of the year. It represented a time of anticipation and innocence. Normally, I give my staff at work the day off and I man the office, but this year, I took the day off and planned on grabbing wings and a cold beverage, grabbing a few last minute things for my wife’s stocking and as a family, going to church and then getting baking cookies and putting out luminaries and watching It’s A Wonderful Life. Each of these things, minus going for wings and beer, were things that I did as a kid growing up and something that have and still mean the most to me about Christmas. But this year, things didn’t really work out like I had expected or even thought that it would.

On Christmas Eve eve, my wife was at work and called to say that she was going to the local urgent care and that she was pretty sure that she had strep throat. Great! Two years in a row of her being sick, last year was pink eye. BUT, that wasn’t the real concern, the real concern was the boys and it was quickly appearing that they too were sick with strep and that this was becoming a tradition of them being sick at Christmas.

So, my plans for Christmas Eve went from going out and having some downtime, to taking the boys to the urgent care center, only to have it confirmed that they too had strep throat. The problem, Boy B HATES medicine and oh right, he didn’t just have strep, he also had Scarlet Fever. After getting home and trying for a few hours to get medicine into Boy B, it was quickly apparent that he wasn’t going to take it. After a quick call with a friend of mine that is a Doctor, he advised us to take him to the ER and that Scarlet Fever wasn’t something to mess around with.

So, there goes my lunch of wings and a beer, shopping, and now Christmas Eve service, because my wife and son headed straight to the ER for our first ever visit. The medical staff was awesome! They not only took care of him immediately, got a dose of medicine, they were able to break his fever. And not only did they take care of him, the ER Doctor, took his hand and lead him down the hall to a toy closet, were he could pick out any toy that he wanted! How awesome is that (this will be a future blog story about the toy closet)! So what toy did he pick out? A Star Wars Storm Trooper helmet, not because he loves Star Wars, but because his brother does and he knew that his brother would want to help him color it.

RELIEF! He was on the mends.  Peace and a deep sigh of relief for a moment.

After a few hours in the ER, my wife and son arrive back home and within 30 minutes of being back he ate more in just those few minutes than he had in the previous 24 hours. He was back to being a little boy, that was smiling and excited at the arrival of Santa coming in a few hours. So, in a few hours before their bed, we still had time to bake and decorate cookies, we watched the Charlie Brown and then we put out cookies and Reindeer food. And as we were putting out the food for the reindeer, I remembered the luminaries.

Luminaries for me growing up, were the start of Christmas. I didn’t always have the best Christmas mornings, often time there was uncertainty if this was my families last Christmas together or if there was going to be a lot of arguing? But luminaries represented calm and peace in a sometimes difficult time in my life. And as I got the luminaries together to put out in front of the house, I had the boys to come over and I told them how this was one of the many traditions that I wanted to pass down to them and they really seemed to love the way that the luminaries lite up the walk way out front as a way to give Santa a landing strip for their house.

After the boys settled down for the night and Santa had come and gone, I realized that I was still able to keep some of my traditions and even pass some down to the boys. I was able to run out for a few minutes and get candy for my wife’s stocking and found her a few other little gifts. I was able to watch our Christmas Eve church service online (Love technology and that our church really leverages it and a cool way to stream church services) and I was able to have a glass of wine while wrapping gifts and watching It’s A Wonderful Life. But most importantly, my kids were feeling better and they got to for the first time, help me put out luminaries and got to see their expressions as I talked about the candles and how peaceful it was before Santa came.

Traditions are important. Traditions are made to be broken, expanded upon, altered, started and most importantly, passed down.  I most certainly hope that the tradition of being sick at Christmas is broken, but I really look forward to seeing how next years traditions grow and stick with the boys.

 

 

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So this is a few days late, but WE DID IT! That’s right, we raised over $1,000 for Make a Wish Foundation and I’m totally blown away.

This year we chose the Make a Wish Foundation for Eastern North Carolina as our charity for the boys birthday and I set a goal of $1,000 and we did it! I can’t believe that our friends and family donated that much money. We had decided on this charity, because for a few days, Make a Wish makes a child be just that, a child.

So as I type this out, I still am just blown away that we were able to raise $1,000 and really, it is over that, as my wife and I decided to donate another $500 on top of that and even though what we raised will not alone grant one wish, combined with a few others, we will be able to help a child.  And my goal is that as the boys grow up, they will be continue this tradition and more importantly, take an active role in wanting to help others.

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Happy Birthday to me!

I usually don’t do or say anything about my birthday and I don’t for many reasons. I don’t like attention, I don’t like being front and center in my personal life, because with my professional life I have to.  Today is no difference, I walked in and went straight into my office and closed my door. I just didn’t want to deal with my birthday today and I’m not sure why?

Baby B decided that he wanted to say Happy Birthday to me around 2:30 this morning, not my ideal present. But, I did get a lot of time with him this morning and spend a lot of time playing with him and rarely do I get that. And as I get older birthdays, mean less and have taken on a different meaning. Growing up as a kid, it is all about the day and what we can get. Now, it is how little attention that I can put on me and how can I hide in the background for the day.

Today, I’ve been successful in laying low for my Birthday, but I’m ready to head home and grab the boys and cook. But as I told the boys, no gifts, just a hug and a kiss is all that I need, even though they really wanted to buy me a steam engine from Thomas.

So for now, I quietly celebrate my birthday.

 

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A few weeks ago, my wife discovered Flaxie Packs while at a Christmas fair. When she first told me, I wondered why she got them, but that night, I wanted to hug her.

Baby A has struggled with his sleep almost from Day 1. So, when my wife talked with the owners of Flaxie Packs and they mentioned that some use it for their kids to help them sleep, it was worth the money to try. Well, that first night, Baby A slept through the night for the first time in quite awhile.

He loved that it was warm and it immediately got him to settle down and start relaxing.  Every night now, before he goes to bed, he asks if we can warm his Flaxie Pack.  And as I type this post, my son is sound asleep, snuggled up with his Flaxie Pack.

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Father’s Day has an entirely new meaning and I hope that I can do this justice in what I’m trying to say.

Growing up as a kid, I always remember celebrating Father’s Day late, because my father was in the Army and wasn’t always home.  I understood as best as I could as a kid why he wasn’t there, but it always bothered me.

Last year, I had a work trip and had to be leave on Father’s Day before dinner. I got to spend the day with my boys and with my wife’s family, but most importantly, my boys.

This year, my wife had to work all weekend and I was with the boys all weekend. On Saturday, we went to the playground twice, ran errands, etc. But we were together.  I took them to lunch at the restaurant behind the house, we talked and laughed the entire time. We went to Target and they each got a toy for behaving so well for the week. I took them back to the playground for more running and they asked for Ice Cream and who doesn’t love Ice Cream? So we stopped at the grocery store and grabbed a pint of Ice Cream and cones, a steak for me and we were back home.

On Father’s Day, my wife was at home for maybe an hour after I got up and then she was off to work. The boys asked me to cook breakfast, especially bacon. So, I did just that. I do like I always do, I put on a movie and I started cooking sausage, bacon, eggs, and home fries. A little over the top with breakfast? Maybe, but it was good.  And then we went to my father in laws house for a cookout.

Was I disappointed that my Father’s Day was not one of grilling and/or smoking something outside? Missing out on watching the US Open? Sleeping in?

YES! Yes I was and honestly to a point, I still am. And maybe I have some unresolved issues with the importance of Father’s Day and always doing things for my Dad and he wasn’t there for Father’s Day?

But I have realized something, two days later. I got the best Father’s Day present while cooking. Baby A walked over to me, reached up and asked to hug me and as I bent down, he kissed me on the cheek and told me he loved me. A present that will last a lifetime and that will mean more than anything else. And after seeing what Baby A did, Baby B walked over and said “Kiss” and I leaned down and he gave me a kiss.

There is a part of me that feels cheated, but there is an even bigger part of me that is just so damn proud of those boys. I didn’t get any gifts. I didn’t get to sleep in. I didn’t get to watch golf. Instead, I got to be a Dad. I got to do something that my father rarely did, celebrate Father’s Day with my boys.

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If you don’t know who Adreian Payne is, then you are missing an AMAZING story. Here is a college kid, with a lot of potential and an even bigger heart.

Just take a moment and you’ll realize that in life, Adreian Payne isn’t just a talented basketball player, he is a good person that that is changing the life of this little girl.

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Truly a 4 letter word that I can no longer wait to never use again. As I blogged about a few weeks ago, you can ready about it here, my wife and I started using the Dave Ramsey budgeting tool and honestly, I took a stab in the dark on a few things, i.e. Gas and Food, but I have to stay for our 1st month, I was able to notice a few trends:

1) I wasn’t that far off with my guess for Gas. I budgeted $400 and we spent $425.
2) I budgeted $500 for groceries and we spent $550.

Not bad, right? I had over budgeted on a few things, i.e. I built in $100 for Doctor visits, but we didn’t use that, so we were still within budget. But what really came from this budget, was a sense of responsibility and more importantly, encouragement, because not only did we stay within our budget, 3 other things came from our 1st month of budgeting:

1) We gave more in January than we did last year to charity.
2) We did not eat out as much, because we did over spend in our grocery spend, we were able to cook more and take more for our lunches, which also reduced our eating out and saved us $25 from what I had budgeted.
3) We paid an additional $250 last month towards paying off our debt.

DEBT is a really bad word and one that I would encourage everyone to focus on getting out of and never using the word again. I’ve had numerous conversations with a close friend that is in the Financial industry regarding the Dave Ramsey plan at the end of the day, I asked him one question and it was one that he couldn’t answer and here it is: “If I am able to get out of debt in 2 years, does it matter if I follow the principles of Dave Ramsey or someone else?” And he simply smiled and said no. My point is, I like Dave Ramsey’s plan, it makes sense to me and is giving me and my family a path to follow to get out of debt. We didn’t get in debt overnight and we had a lot of fun getting in debt, but it is going to take sacrifices to change those habits and get out of debt.

My wife and I have had a lot of conversations lately around debt, but more importantly our future and out future looks a lot more clearer and brighter knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

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Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Matthew 19:21

I was reminded this week of this Bible verse and it really hit me out of the blue.  This past Wednesday morning in our weekly office meeting it was discussed our normal holiday tradition of adopting a community family. As the specifics of the family were read aloud, i.e. ages and what they wanted, I kept thinking about all the things that I have and how much I take for granted, especially when the father of the family was asking for a used coat, because it was getting ready to turn colder. And as the office quietly discussed what everyone wanted to do, this verse popped into my head and said that I would go this weekend and purchase enough canned goods, pasta, etc to last them several weeks. Sure, there are others that could have done it, there are others that do not have children that have more expendable income than we do, but I can’t take these things with me when I die.  And there is just something magical about giving to others.

“Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ”
Acts 3:6

My job as a father is to set an example for my boys and if I can do that, then that is worth more than anything in this world.  So I recounted this story to my mother yesterday on the phone on my commute home and the other end of the phone was really quiet and I heard my mother sniffle and she just said that she was proud of me. My mother has taught school for 45 years and she told me how she had often purchased coats for some of her students or shoes for students and that they would just happen to end up on their desk and would ever know where they came from.

My mother showed me that giving to others, was the greatest gift that you could give and it meant even more, if it was done without recognition.  So today, I ask, what are you doing to help others in need? I can skip Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts this week and pay for a lot of canned good items for a family in need and what is really more important, another cup of coffee or providing a meal for a hungry family?  What is holding you back from giving to others? And it doesn’t have to be a lot, $1.00 can buy 2 canned goods, but it is something that I encourage everyone to start doing more spontaneous giving.

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A little tip for when traveling, use Gift Cards. I am a big fan of trying local restaurants when traveling, but if you have a lot of gift cards, why not save a little money?On our last trip, we were able to eat out 4 times using gift cards, which meant that we saved almost $120, if not more.  So using the gift cards not only saves money, but it is a very thrifty way to travel and save money.

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Now that the first round of Christmas has come and gone (my parents are divorced, so we get 3 Christmas’s), we have already put the new toys out for the boys and have started taking some of the ones that they do not play with anymore and gotten ready for Goodwill. Yes, it is a good tax write off, but it is more importantly, a chance to help a child that might be a little less fortunate to get some good toys at a reasonable price.

I really want to raise the boys that as they get new toys, that they will take their old toys and give them to someone else. I want them to start at an early age to be humble. To understand how fortunate they are and how not all kids are that fortunate.
So, as we prepare for Rounds 2 and 3 of Christmas this week, there will be a lot of little boys and girls in our area that will be able to benefit from my kids toys. And as the boys grow up, they will go with me as we take the toys to Goodwill, so that they can get an idea of what giving back is really all about.

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