The Presidents' Daughters

Mark asks me, "Mom, who is the president of the United States?"

"Mr. Barack Obama."

He considers this for a moment, "Mama, does the president have any sons?"

"No, he has two daughters."

He is silent for a moment, "What about the president before him? Did he have any sons?"

"No, he had two daughters."

Mark sighs deeply, obviously disturbed about this lack of boys.

"What about the president before him?"

"No, he had one daughter."

Mark flops his head onto the counter. Without lifting it, he says, "Oh, brother...what about the president before him?"

Mama has been waiting for this one, "Yes! He had sons." Mark lifts his head as Mama continues, "and one of his sons became a president too."

Mark lifts up his head and looks at me with renewed hope. All he says is "Whew!"

I have a Veggie Tales plastic nativity set on my counter that my twins play with every day. Sometimes they leave the figures in very interesting positions.

I know other families who do this and you end up with little people and pretty ponies visiting baby Jesus…how sweet…

Things are a little different at my house. I found baby Jesus propped on the roof of the stable, three wise men lying down in front and everyone else behind the stable, except for one green army guy with a gun lying near the wise men. “Hey, Mark, what happened?”

I knew I was in for a story because he sat down, grabbed a wise man and started, “Well, mom…”

“You know how Herod wants Jesus dead? Well, he tricked these wise man into becoming his minions!

They came here to kill Jesus, but this army guy shot at them. Pshoo! Pshoo!

And he killed one, but the other two wise men got him…arr!!….

So everyone ran for cover screaming ahhhh!!

Except Joseph because he just had a dream about the whole thing and was already behind the stable. He just didn’t have time to warn them or maybe he forgot. Oops!

But Baby Jesus can’t run. And, because he’s really God, of course, and He’s got power. Woosh!! So his manger flew up into the air, waashoom!!

and he killed the other two wise guys with red-hot laser beams!” uh,,uh,,, and they fell down. Amen!, I mean, the end.”

This left me wondering what will happen tomorrow?

The Westphal Christmas Letter 2010 by Marcus and Lucas

Mom’s been kinda busy this year so we decided to write the Christmas letter. We turned 5 in February and Mom and Dad abandoned us for three days to fly to Dallas, Texas. Apparently, it was a research trip to the Retina Foundation of the Southwest and the docs got to look at mom’s eyes, but we think it was a vacation. They even sent postcards and went to the Sixth Floor, a museum all about JFK’s assassination. The museum is actually located on the same floor of the bldg. where Oswald fired his rifle. They also saw Phantom of the Opera. We are sure it was a vacation.

We also finished soccer in the spring. It was really fun to knock the other kids down so mom signed us up for swimming lessons instead this fall. We love to splash and move. Tim and Sarah did soccer this fall so we still got to go to their games and run around like maniacs. I think Mom and Dad only lost us twice. If you cry loud and pray to God, someone will help you find your parents. You can also make all the ladies smile if you tap their arm and say, “you’re so beautiful”.

Mom also got to be a pirate at night. She had to wear eye patches because she had cataract surgery. She said it was actually good news because her eye disease isn’t encroaching on her central vision yet, which is what they thought was happening at first. The good news is that now she can drive again. It was tough when we were stuck at home, but we did have some good people help us out with rides. One car even had a TV in it. We prayed for rides and got them. God’s so good to us.

Dad has been busy with his new job, and we “pray for sales” every day. It’s called ICR, and they repair electrical components and robots in all kinds of industries. So if you need a repair, call our Dad. Dad’s also doing school at Cornerstone College for something called a BA in Business Management, and he only has a few classes left. He was able to take a break for his new job and it’s been fun to wrestle him more. If we take turns, he doesn’t get a break, and we never get tired of playing with Dad.

Mom is our teacher. She does school every day with all four of us, but the good news is, that if the weather is nice, we get to take a “field trip.” We like phonics and numbers, and Tim likes science, and Sarah likes typing. We can’t read very much yet, but when we ask Sarah to read to us, she says yes. If we ask Tim, he says, “Ask Sarah.” Tim is nine, and Sarah is seven, and Mom didn’t really want her and Dad’s ages in the letter. Thanks for praying for our family as we keep following God’s path.