Our visit with Santa 2014

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful!  I loved having both of the kids at home for the week with no schedules and easy mornings :)

We went to a holiday open house in Alabaster the weekend before Thanksgiving and had a little visit with Santa!  This year was a welcomed easy, tear less process...let's just say A hasn't been to fond of Jolly Ol' St. Nick the past year or so ;)

The kiddos had their lists to reference to while discussing their gift ideas.  We did this last year with Mark and it seemed to make things easier and a little quicker.

Mark reassuring sister that Santa was nice!  He's a good brother.

Santa tried to get some of A's sugar but she looked at him like he was crazy...it was cute.  He gave her some love instead.  Daddy was proud of her!

We are enjoying the Christmas season so far and look forward to all the fun to come!  We have started our Advent countdown and I'll share about that later this week hopefully.  Let's get real, it will probably be next week ;)  Have a great week!  Merry Christmas!

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

Fall/Christmas family pictures!

 **Warning...picture overload ahead**

We had some of our very dear friends, Matthew and Jill come visit us this past weekend.  Matthew was so sweet to take some pictures of us.  I think we all had fun :)  Thanks to Jill for being our entertainment too!! haha.  We are so blessed to have yall in our lives.

These are by no means all of the pictures but these are some of my favorites, and yes there are a lot.  Hope you enjoy.  I did not post our Christmas card picture so that will be revealed later :)

Hope you are having a great week!