Merry Christmas

Our Christmas celebrations have come to an end. 

We spent a day celebrating with my parents and siblings.

Dinner was Mara's favorite - ribs.  We opened presents and spend some time playing with cousins.

Uncle's J's girlfriend had the boys interested in an Olaf book.

 We celebrated another day with Lance's parents and siblings.

 The day was complete with stockings, presents, and Christmas BINGO.

 We spent Christmas Eve as a family of 5.  We opened a couple presents before our church's candlelight service.  Mara picked our presents for each of us at AWANA, and she was just beside herself with excitement as each of us opened them up. 

And we celebrated Jesus' birthday with cake when we got home.

 And Christmas morning the kids woke to presents from Santa.  Mara did come bounding into our room at midnight wondering if Santa had come yet.  Apparently she didn't notice the presents under the tree, so she went right back to bed after I said I didn't think so.

 The only thing he REALLY seemed to want this year.  A blue tractor.  Blue and green are his favorite colors, and he has lots of green tractors.

 This one didn't really have anything on her list of wants this year.  Maybe because she's a giver.  And I really think she's completely satisfied with everything she has.  I know it won't always be like that, but I treasure that for now.  She was thrilled with her new trike though.  This one can definitely reach higher speeds than her smaller one!

 

I can remember in the past feeling really stressed to find the perfect presents, getting caught up in the craziness this time brings, and then feeling really let down and a bit depressed in the days and weeks following Christmas.  The whole Christmas craze thing just didn't fill the void in my heart.  Oh how thankful I am that my Savior fills that void now. 

This was been the best Christmas yet.  My faith walk has become much deeper and more meaningful.  Sharing the Christmas story all month long with my kiddos is very special to me.  I love to hear their thoughts about baby Jesus, the shepherds, Mary and Joseph, and the wise men. 

I have been reading about and studying Mary this Christmas season.  I can't imagine what went through her head after an angel appeared and gave her the news that God had singled her out to be the mother of Jesus. 

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered.  "May it be to me according to your word."  Luke 1:38

I've been trying to imagine how I would have reacted.  I would like to think I would have said the same thing Mary did.  But I probably would have been much more fearful and unsure.  What a great lesson to meditate on.  I know the power of God.  I know of His love.  I need to prayerfully consider the events in my life, so if there is something God wants for me, I can accept His plan. 

Her situation was obviously very unique.  But we all face unexpected events or surprising news.  I hope to cope in 2015 by completely trusting God.  Daily, hourly, and minute by minute.  I am constantly reminding myself that God is in complete control.  He knows what He's doing.  He will come through for me.  My life may not turn out how I expect, but it will turn out better than it ever could apart from God.

God is infinite.  He is outside of time.  But He stepped into time when He came to the earth contained within an infant.  Contained himself into human flesh and bone.  We have an infant at our house, and there are so many things she can't do yet.  The great I AM shrank into our flesh.  Mind blowing. 

Merry, merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Maisy - 4 months

4 months and changing every single day.  Doing my best to savor the infant stage in case this is our last baby.

She is eating about every 3-4 hours and her siblings love to feed her.  She has been sleeping 12-13 hours some nights, so I usually have to pump when I get up in the mornings.

She loves the high chair, exersaucer, Bumbo and play mat. 

 

I think she's going to end up with ab muscles like her sister.  One day I caught her just casually sitting up in her bouncy seat!  Another day she grabbed her tray on her high chair and pulled herself up from a reclined position.

And Grandpa is AMAZING at putting her to sleep.  He basically holds her and she just quietly falls asleep.  What?!

Ho Ho Ho

 

It's been a tradition the last couple of years to visit Santa at Bass Pro Shop.  You get a free picture and free kids meals.  Score.  Plus, you get a scheduled time and don't have to wait in line because it's usually a pretty popular place.  This year we didn't get there until evening, so there was about a 1.5 hour wait.  We decided to eat first, and it was our time to see Santa once we finished eating.  Mara and Micah weren't scared at all to stand by Santa.  Mara wasn't afraid to get up close and personal as you can see her hand resting on Santa's knee.  I couldn't hear all of their conversation, but apparently Mara didn't answer when Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas.  She was in a tizzy about it all the way home.  Once we got home, I finally figured out that she didn't think she would get anything from Santa because she didn't tell him anything.  Poor girl.  We wrote him a letter, so he would know what she wants. 

The Christmas Season

We love celebrating Christmas all month long!  We did our Advent calendar a bit different this year.  We had a manger sticker chart to put stickers on to countdown to Christmas.  Every morning I prepared a box for each of the kids to open with a part of the Christmas story to read and learn about through scripture, illustrations, crafts and manipulatives.  They also got to open a present each day which was a new Christmas book.  I shouldn't say new.  I bought a few new ones this year and wrapped up all of our old ones also.  They were new to them because I don't keep them out all year. 

 

painting Christmas cards for their grandparents

 

We made some oily gifts for their teachers and leaders.

And we didn't forget to make something special to eat for our neighbors.

When I was teaching, we always made cinnamon applesauce ornaments, so we decided to make a batch this year.

Christmas candy looks a bit different at our house this year, but we made it work.  Chocolate fudge, chocolate covered pretzels, frosted sugar cookies, peanut butter balls, and cinnamon and sugar nuts. 

 

And even some time for some fizzing candy cane action!

 

Christmas Crafts

The difference in our kids' personalities still amazes me.  I never realized two kids from the same family could be quite so different - even with the same parenting.  And I'm sure some things could just be the developmental stages they're in. 

 This girl is busy.  All.the.time.  And she needs to be kept busy.  All.the.time.  Which means she is constantly following me around.  I do my best at giving her things to do, but this requires quite a bit of planning time for me.  So that doesn't always happen.  I started compiling Christmas crafts in November, so she's been pretty busy this holiday season.  She would have made 50 of these twiggy stars if I would have collected enough sticks in the fall.

And this guy would have made 50 fences, race tracks, animals pens, letters, etc. if I would have had more sticks.  See what I mean about the difference in our kiddos?  He didn't want anything to do with the hot glue fun or ribbon.  But he LOVES sticks.  Definitely both creative in their own ways!

Cotton balls and googly eye sheep?  YES!  This was our advent calendar activity one morning.

I love his face.  He just wasn't too sure about pulling apart cotton balls and getting glue on his fingers.  He's all about getting dirty in the mud but not a fan of getting sticky making cutesy crafts.  We kinda forced him into this one.  He didn't object too much, but he wore this face the entire time. 

Playing in the Rain

Not bad for December....

Definitely much easier to whip out an umbrella than winter gear!  We'll take it.

Wrapping

These two have been wanting to help with every task of Christmas preparations this year.

It takes a bit longer to wrap presents with two helpers, and I have to shut off my perfectionism during the process.  But it's worth it.  Micah was excited about all of the presents we were giving to others....except the Pete the Cat books.  We have a couple, but he thought we shouldn't be giving ones to others that we don't have.  "But I don't have this one!" he kept saying.  We had a discussion about how our cousins will love reading these books, too.  And then he decided he'd have to ask Santa for a couple more Pete the Cat books.  Great idea.  Pretty sure they're already packed in his sleigh!

Jolly Holiday Lights

Lance planned a fun evening for us last weekend.  We went out to dinner and headed to Jolly Holiday Lights.  He even made they're favorite honey popcorn for the ride!

Cousins

Our kids were having cousin withdrawal.  But thankfully my sister needed to drop her boys off for a couple hours one afternoon. 

 These two just stared at each other.  Too cute.  Mr. K LOVES his mommy, so I never get to love on him when she's around.  He was my best friend after she left!

Oh how I love that our kids get to grow up with their cousins.  If only we were a wee bit closer.  But happy we live close enough to get our fix every couple of weeks!

Cold Days

Freezing temperatures call for desperate measures.  Yes, it was FREEZING out one afternoon, but we bundled up anyway.  This was a day when we spent longer bundling up than we did outside.  10 minutes of running around did us all some good. 

  I won't name names, but one of my girls HAS to get her wiggles out...or it gets really ugly.  So this winter may be very ugly some days.  I have a list of a couple of places we can head out to when we need to burn some energy.  One morning we headed to jump out our wiggles.  Everyone napped afterwards and we had a great evening.

 We don't usually jump on beds at our house, but we just got a new memory foam bed and it's hard as a board.  What better way to break it in!

Our inflatable trampoline got a hole in it, so we're hoping Santa brings a new trampoline!