Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I hope yours was full of blessings. My husband's parents were here for the week, and it was great. I am so glad they had some time to bond with M. We made a lot of good memories - swimming at the pool, going to the bounce house and talking about trucks ("guck" in toddler-ease) constantly.

D's Mom shared several of her Christmas cookie recipes with me - but my artistic skills are definitely lacking!

 Usually we are out of town on Christmas. So this was the first year we got to attend our church's Christmas Eve service. We went to the Children's Mass, which was adorable (lots of little angels and shepherds!) and packed. It was a beautiful service, then we came home and stuffed ourselves on a delicious ham.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Christmas morning M woke up to a brand new Cozy Coupe truck, which blew his mind. We had fun relishing the day and playing with lots of new trucks and airplanes. Let the joy of Christmas continue in this happy season!

Amazed by the capabilities of his little truck! 

Quick Takes on a Snowy Friday

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Do you do Quick Takes? I have no idea what I'm doing, and not even sure if I have 7 things to write about, so I appreciate your understanding for this first effort! What we've been up to since my last post: wrapping and mailing Christmas presents, attending D's work Christmas party, playing outside, and reading a bunch! I took M to see Santa at the fire station - he was amazed by the fire trucks and terrified of Santa. It is super nice that the fire dept lets you stop by to see Santa/fire trucks in exchange for food donations.

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It is snowing! It started earlier this morning during Moms Group, and is still going strong. In fact, it is coming down really heavy as I type! I can't wait for M to wake up from his nap because...

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We are going to take him outside to try out his new skis! Yep, toddler skis!! They are his Christmas gift from us, but we decided that if we got any snow before Christmas we would let him try it out. =) I'll be sure to take some pics!

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I'm feeling very thankful for my Church and the wonderful folks that we are meeting there. I am really enjoying making some new friends through the Young Adult and Family Fellowship and Moms Group.

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I had intended to make a Jesse Tree this year out of felt and have M color the ornaments to put on the tree. I've never done this before so I thought this could be a good "trial run" year before M gets older and realizes how bad I am at crafts. Well, my little tree looked so awful, and not at all like a tree that I basically gave up on the project altogether before we even attempted to color any ornaments (which my printer wouldn't print anyway, a whole different problem, argh!). But I've been pleased that the crafts that we've been doing at the Kroc Center have emphasized Jesus and the celebration of his birth (rather than just Santa), so I think that makes up for my own personal terrible craftiness!

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Grandparents are awesome! D's parents arrive on Sunday and will stay with us until Friday. Then we will drive to meet my parents and sibs in Montana for a week! I can't wait to see them all and so thankful that they are all willing to travel to our neck of the woods!

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We have had a nice, quiet Advent. It has been a blessing, and given me time to pray and read some Scripture (when I am not moping about my lack of craft skills!). We have been lighting our Advent wreath before dinner almost every night. It is exciting to see it start to resonate with M because when we put him in his chair he starts point at the candles and signing please. He loves hearing us sing a carol and proclaims a loud "AMEN!" at the end.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

What do you have going on? I hope you are enjoying a beautiful Advent!

Thanksgiving Recap!

Happy First Week of Advent, y'all!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving, although I missed my family terribly!  I have such good memories of spending all Thanksgiving day cooking and prepping with my mom, sisters and grandmother.  It is just not the same when you are doing the cooking yourself.  Next year, we'll have to convince everyone to travel to us!

We hosted two other families, ending up with 7 adults and 7 kids ages 6 and under!  It was a crazy, fun chaos.  Little M was so excited when the doorbell rang, but then he quickly became overwhelmed by all of the bigger kids playing with his toys.  He eventually settled down and got right into the mix.

I made the turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, company corn, mac & cheese and an apple pie.  First time making my gravy and apple pie crust from scratch and both turned out well so I was very pleased.  We also had stuffing, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, homemade rolls, pecan pie and Mississippi mud cake.  My mom friends are also from the South, so we had a little bit of a Southern theme going on! =)

Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention that M & I did a 5k Turkey Trot that was an utter disaster.  Poor M was yelling and crying just about the whole way.  He did fine for the first mile, but then just got more and more upset.  Of course when he really started falling apart, I was thinking that we were closer to the turn around point than the finish line.  So, I thought it made more sense to keep going until the turn-around rather than just turn around earlier.  It was cold out (28 degrees), but I don't think he was crying because of the cold because I reached into the stroller and was holding his hand to help calm him down and it felt warm.  In fact, the hand holding was the only thing that really calmed him down but it made for some awkward jogging/stroller pushing!

Nevertheless we finished the entire race and I let him out of the stroller as soon as we stepped off of the trail.  He made a beeline for some dump trucks parked at a nearby construction site.  I think he really was hollering because I didn't let him out earlier to go look at those.  We were certainly a sight, and so I was too embarrassed to ask anyone to take a picture of us, haha!

Tonight we lit our first Advent candle at home and sang an off-key verse of O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  M loved it and was totally fascinated by the candle lighting, so that made it a lot of fun.  I am looking forward to building our family Advent traditions, and would love to hear any suggestions for celebrating this special season!

Do you have any Advent traditions?  Please share!  Have a great week!

Just about the only pic we have from Thanksgiving - making apple pie for my beloved!