Elf adventures 2013

Peter Pan came to visit us again this year!  Next year, we will have a girl elf as well per Alyssah's request ;)

 These are some highlights of his visit with us during this Christmas season!

Our Advent Calendar

This year we started a new tradition.  Now that the kids are older, it's so fun to do activities with them and start fun traditions that I hope we continue to do for years to come!  This one was super easy and inexpensive to make.  The hard part was remembering to do the activity or craft for the day ;)

So our Advent activities went like this:
1. Create a paper chain for decorating
2. Decorate the tree and house
3. Color a picture of the nativity
4. Decorate the kids bedroom
5. Read a Christmas book
6. Do puzzles and make mistletoe
7. Watch Elf and make popcorn
8. Make a snowman ornament
9. Write a list of things you appreciate about each member of the family
10. Make hot chocolate and do a Christmas trivia game
11. Make Christmas cards for our neighbors
12. Have a candlelit dinner
13. Look at the stars
14. Go see Santa
15. Make pancakes for breakfast
16. Watch Veggie Tales: The Star of Christmas and make popcorn
17. Drive around and look at Christmas lights
18. Play Go Fish and make hot chocolate
19. Make and wrap teacher's gifts
20. Camp out by the Christmas tree
21. Watch Veggies Tales: St. Nicholas Story
22. Bake cookies for neighbors
23. Bake a Happy Birthday Jesus cake
24. Read the Christmas Story in Luke/ Go to our Christmas Eve candlelight service
25. Watch The Grinch and make popcorn

We did about 98% of everything which I felt very good about!  I think it made our Christmas season so special.  Can't wait for next year!
Hope yall had a wonderful Christmas with your families celebrating the birth of our Savior!

"For a child is born to us, a son is given to us.  The government will rest on his shoulders.  And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."  Isaiah 9:6

Christmas happenings!

We have had so much fun celebrating the Christmas season so far in our home.  We have started a few new traditions too!

We did our very first advent calendar, and I am proud to say that we have done pretty much every activity, one per day.  Some days we have done two to catch up, but they have gotten done ;)  The kids have loved doing this, and I think it has helped keep our focus on Jesus' birth and others.  We are heavily emphasizing the importance of others at Christmas and not just caring about us and what we get.  We still do Santa, but we are trying our hardest to keep Jesus the center of the season and His gift of coming to earth to save us.  Christmas has become even more special to me this year!

We also had our first set of Advent candles this year.  I went with non-traditional colors, mainly because when I went to buy them the other colors were gone.  Maybe everyone else had the same idea ;)  I hope so at least!  The meaning behind each one is the same regardless so I just went with the red and did white for the Christ candle.  They represent expectation, hope, joy, purity, and the Christ candle is for the Light of the World.  The first one is lit the first Sunday, the second Sunday the first and second are lit, and so forth.  On Christmas they are all lit, including the Christ candle.  I love this simple act, and I think it is so special.  It's also a beautiful reminder of God's love for us!

Outside decorations :)

We did an Auburn themed tree this year.  It seemed appropriate given the season Auburn has had.  We are so proud of our team and coach.  War Eagle!

One of our Advent calendar activities was to make Christmas cards for our neighbors. We are going to pass them out this week with some yummy treats!  The kids loved doing these, and I think they are so sweet.  I hope they enjoy them.  We did four boys and four girls :)

Rudolph aka Mark after school!  He was singing the song all night!

We hope you and your family are enjoying this season and are basking in the love and promises that God has for you!  Merry Christmas to YOU!

"When they saw the star, they were filled with JOY!"

Matthew 2:10

AU/AL game weekend

We have certainly enjoyed the awesome football season we ended up having ;)  These are a few from the Auburn/Alabama game and the morning after!  War Eagle!!!

Thanksgiving 2013

Thankful for so many things this year....especially the privilege of being their Mommy!  I have a husband that adores me, wonderful family and friends, an awesome church family and small group, and a job that is especially fun this year ;)  I'm such a lucky lady!  Here is our Thanksgiving in pictures...

my turkeys :)

Not the best but it will do!

cousins :)

My parents with their grandbabies :)

BLESSED and SO THANKFUL!

(We had dinner with my in-laws but I didn't take any pictures... :( )

Thankful tree 2013

"Give thanks to Him and praise His name!"

Psalm 100:4

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with our families!  I will post pictures from Thanksgiving day in a separate post but I wanted to share our Thanksgiving tradition.  I blogged about doing this last year, but my kiddos and I had a lot of fun doing our thankful tree again this year.

The kids picked all the things/people, etc that we put on the leaves.  Of course, we could have had this tree full of leaves but we only did one per day ;)

 We are thankful for:

-God

-Jesus

-Holy Spirit

-Mommy

-Daddy

-Mark

-Alyssah

-Lola

-Nana and Paw-Paw

-the Creighton family

-school

-Mrs. Jackson (Mark's teacher)

-Church of the Highlands

-family

-friends

-leaves (this one made me smile)

-Mimzy and Big Daddy

-Blake and Grace

-Joo and Matt-Matt

-Jess

-GG (my heart turns to mush when my sweet boy thinks about my sweet Maw-Maw who is with Jesus)

-our hearts

-our home

-our van

-clothes

-AU football

-the Bible and Bible stories

-Tucker

-the pumpkin patch

-Ms. T (Lyssah's teacher)