Christmas 2010....

Another Merry Christmas at our house again this year! We have several celebrations so it's always fun to get together with family and eat and open gifts and celebrate! One of the highlights for our family is the Christmas Eve service. It's become a tradition for us since Grace was just a toddler. To end the service they dim the lights so only the Christmas trees on the platform are lit and everyone lights a little candle they hold and we sing Silent Night....We let Grace hold her own candle this year and she was so happy about that! After service we usually drive around and see the light displays while we wait for our PIZZA order to be done! haha Mike's brother and aunt come with us and we go home and have pizza and watch It's a Wonderful Life on tv. We love those traditions!















Here I am excited about a gift Mike's aunt got me.....a baseball cap with the TARGET store symbol on it...For one I'm a baseball cap lover....I have one on almost daily in summer and I LOVE TARGET!! Mike's aunt works at Target so only employees can order them....as you can see I was very surprised and excited...even though it's blurry!

Grace still keeps Christmas magical for us....Not that we all weren't excited but there's just something about the "youngest" child's excitement that is contagious to the rest of us! Here she is holding ANOTHER horse to add to her growing collection! She collects Breyer horse sets and this was the Breast Cancer awareness horse...Pink and "glass" or so she says it's glass but it's really "fine plastic" ha She's always happy to get horse sets and always smiley on Christmas morning!! she's excited about any gift....even clothes!

"Mom all I want this year is a camera, really you don't have to get me anything else I just want my own camera!" Well how could we turn down that request! So here she is smiley and happy about her own new camera. We got her a pink case for it and she's done very well taking photos. We go on to my parents after we open our gifts at home and she did great taking photos herself! And we did get her other gifts, not just a camera...but she sure was happy....I waited to let her open that after several gifts which kind of made it funnier!

And my boy....I couldn't help this year thinking about Christmas' that are coming soon, in just the next two years and wondering if we'll be anxiously awaiting him to come home from college for Christmas....where did the time go and why is it now going faster than I want it to.....We saved KINECT until almost the end for him to open and as you can see he was VERY excited and a bit overwhelmed he got it.......The greatest story about this gift is I decided I wanted to clean out all our old games and gaming "stuff" before we got more stuff for Christmas and so we gathered a big bag of old games we no longer used and turned them into Gamestop with the intention of putting the money towards Kinect and guess what? we ended up paying.....$23 for it!! Wow...pays to clean up! We have all enjoyed Kinect this week, it's alot of fun and very physical!

So another Christmas has come and gone and it's New Years Eve....we're having a big family party tonight and we'll eat and play games and watch specials on tv. and eat some more! It's always a blast and our house is filled with laughter all night.......Hoping all of you had a wonderful Christmas and have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas Eve....

(Some very old photos of my babies...Pondering the season, thinking of days gone by, old memories and new.......but most of all the TRUE reason for this Season! be sure your speakers are on to enjoy this gorgeous version of Oh Holy Night by David Phelps!!!!!)

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

20 The Shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Luke 2:13-20

Frosty The Snowman Original

I love Vintage Christmas stuff and I stumbled upon this adorable rendition of Frosty! love it!!!!

My Daybook.......

Outside my window.......WHITE snow....and it's very very cold and windy! 15* cold and minus windchills! brrr

I am thinking......About going out tonight with friends to Olive Garden for dessert, mmm

I am thankful for......Two snowdays in row now, and the Cantata Sunday night was cancelled which left me in pj's that day as well! ha

From the learning rooms......We're doing a Jesse tree, most evenings that we're home, trying to remember the true reason for the season!

From the kitchen.....Holiday swirl snowball cookies, mmmm the start of Christmas baking!

I am wearing........Jeans, red turtleneck, and a white pull over fleece!

I am creating.......Still working at that special project!

I am going......to Kohl's and Target and then Olive Garden for dessert tonight!

I am reading......Cedar Cove Christmas, Debbie Macomber

I am hoping.....to get my Christmas project DONE tomorrow (and that there's school so I can haha) and all my wrapping done on Thursday and Friday!

I am hearing.......TOTAL QUIET minus the wind...all 3 kids are off to piano lessons. One with Mike and Jordan took Macy just now!

Around the house.......pretty tidy actually, kids were a big help over the snow days, as well as Mike! It feels so good when it's tidy, but it's not ever tidy very long! ha

A few plans for the week....besides what I listed, a church board Christmas party, kids are going on a Youth outing, Christmas party at my mom's and some MORE shopping is my guess! I'm 90% done though! whew....

A picture for sharing.......The BEST daddy EVAH who will brave the cold to give joy to a girl who wanted to go out and play in the snow on Sunday and no one would go with her!! She would play outside for hours if she could!! her eyelashes were frozen after she came in and we laughed about her red nose! Have a good week everyone and go here to make up your own Daybook!

Jesse tree....

Last year I remember reading a friend's blog about making a Jesse Tree. So..this year I was thinking about some advent activities we could do with the kids that would celebrate the true reason for the season.....so the Jesse tree was the choice this year!

A Jesse tree marks the family tree or the bible characters that lead up to Jesus being born, starting with Adam and Eve and so on.......I have to say in just the week that we've been doing it I've learned little tidbits here and there. So on a daily basis there is a bible character, for instance on day one it was Adam. There's an ornament you color of Adam and a bible reading for that character and then you hang it on your tree. We made our tree out of colored paper but you can use any tree you'd like.

We chose a website that was geared for younger kids since Grace is the youngest....but there are some with more in depth readings that you could certainly use.

It was alot of fun creating our tree and we decided to hang it on the back of the kitchen door......it doesn't take much time, holds even the youngest child's attention. You could certainly create your own ornaments and make it a real project!

We have had a lot of very sad events in our church family over the last few weeks, the death of a friend's teen aged daughter and the loss of a newborn baby for another and others who have lost their parent recently.....so we decided to incorporate family prayer after we do this and pray specifically "for" others that might be hurting over the holidays this year!

The nice thing about this is I think even Jordan enjoys getting in touch with his inner "child" haha and it just draws our attention away from the "commercial" of life........We love everything that has to do with Christmas, all the tv. specials, and the movies and the baking and shopping but it's so important to pull your kids back to what we're "really" celebrating!!! and this is a fun way to do that!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU.....it's not too late to start your Jesse Tree...we didn't make ours until we would have been on day 6!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas....and I LOVE it!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas around here and I LOVE IT! it's my time of year....I LOVE to decorate and I love getting people special gifts! We have five trees in the house..yes I realize for "some" people that might be excessive or make you shake your head....but I tell ya, there's JOY in every room! haha This tree above is in our downstairs living room where we hang out almost all evenings together....our fireplace is down there and I hope my kids all have that memory of curling up listening to a crackling fire and watching Christmas movies!

Today we had a program at church called Camp Christmas. It's a time where you can drop your child off at church from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. They feed them lunch and they have blow ups to jump in and a couple from a nearby city comes to speak and put on a FUN FUN FUN program for the kids. Grace got to participate this year and Jordan and Macy were helpers. Mike and I had a great time taking our time shopping and had a great lunch out together. Since Jordan drives we didn't have to worry about getting back to get the girls so that was nice too! We are 90% done with our shopping I would say........wrapping? now that's another story!

This is our upstairs mantle, it's a bit dark but it's light blues and silver and white...this is the mantle we face when we're snuggled up on the couch reading Christmas stories or doing an advent activity. Last year during an advent activity we lit candles and sat in the dark with just the trees and mantle on and sang Silent Night...it made me so tearful and thankful for a family that spends time together!

This tree is across from the mantle above and next to the piano where I love to sit and listen to the kids practice their piano....Jordan is playing out of a Ronnie Freeman piano book right now and it's so beautiful to listen too.......

This is the girl's "pink" tree in their room.....They love to lay in bed at night with that on and they have the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack as their bedtime music...(don't be alarmed we do unplug it when they're asleep! ha) Jordan has a tree in his room as well.....but he couldn't plug it in for me to take a photo because his XBOX was plugged in at the time...ha Jordan isn't as enchanted to have a tree in his room as he used to be (*smile*) but I still made him clean his room well and put it up......I imagine before I know it, I'll be sending it with him to his college dorm when he visits for Thanksgiving (*gulp*) .......AND he'll remember all those years I made him put it up won't he?? hahaha

SO there ya go........a snippet of what's happening around here in the delights of night in our house! Maybe I'll do a post on all the SNOWMEN I've collected through the years, next!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE.......I hope you're enjoying every minute of December and the great times it can bring!!

This little tree is called a pencil tree, and it stands......in our kitchen! "I know I know...."