Christmas Day

Nate woke us up about 7:30 this morning.  He was surprisingly calm and said he was hungry.  He usually doesn't eat a lot of breakfast so I was surprised food was on his mind on Christmas morning.  We are doing things a little different this Christmas and we prepared Nate the night before that we would not be opening presents first.  First, we would do our last Jesse Tree devotional and give gifts to Jesus.  It is his birthday after all. 



How do you give gifts to Jesus?  The other day I was reading a blog post by Ann Voskamp called 10 Ways to Celebrate Christmas Morning. Number three on the list is "Gifts for the Birthday Child."  They choose things from the Compassion International Catalog (Samaratin's Purse has one also).  Why do they do this on Christmas morning?  Because in Matthew chapter 25, Jesus says when you give gifts to the least of these, you give gifts to me (Jesus).  That resonated so much with me!  Doing things for the "least of these" is something Christians should be doing on a regular basis, not just at Christmas, but it was really exciting to know that we can give gifts to Jesus on the day we celebrate His birth.  By giving gifts to those in need, we are not only blessing them but we are giving gifts to Jesus!  I have heard this verse many times, but this was the first time I had heard it associated with Christmas.  So, after our Jesse tree devotional, the three of us gathered around the computer and picked out gifts for Jesus.  We actually let Nate choose three gifts and he chose, chickens, a soccer ball and garden seeds.  We also prayed for the children/families that would receive these gifts and prayed that they would have the best gift of all - a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Now it was time for gifts.  We decided ahead of time (and prepared Nate) that he would just be getting gifts out of his stocking and opening one gift before church. I will admit I was a little nervous that he would do a lot of whining and complaining about waiting - waiting to open gifts and waiting to open the rest of his gifts after church.  Surprisingly, he didn't mind at all and had a great attitude.

Carefully using the scissors on his Swiss Army knife.

The quit taking my picture smile.



After a wonderful time of family worship, we finished our gift giving.  I will admit that a few days ago I wasn't excited about going to church on Christmas day. I wanted us to be lazy and stay in our PJs all day.  I thought why can't we just have family worship at home?  Well,  about Thursday I began to get so excited about celebrating the birth of our Saviour with our church family.  I could not wait to sing and worship God for His greatest gift to us.  Thank you, God, for changing my selfish and lazy heart!

This was Nate's favorite gift.

We had a restful and leisure afternoon.  Later that evening we celebrated Christmas with Darren's family.  We had a wonderful meal together and exchanged gifts.  It didn't take Nate long to crash after this long and eventful day.  He's not asleep in this picture, but very tired. 

Darren, Nate and I received many great gifts today.  But, none of them even come close to comparing to the gift God gave us when he gave us Jesus.  I hope you know Him and experience the peace and hope that only He can give!  Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We always spend Christmas Eve with my family.  We celebrate Christmas and my sister's birthday (her birthday is Dec. 23).  Many, many years ago my grandmother started having steak and shrimp for Jill's birthday.  My mother has continued that tradition and that's what we have for dinner every Christmas Eve.
I like to get a family picture at Thanksgiving or Christmas. The weather didn't cooperate at Thanksgiving, so before dinner we had to have our annual family photo shoot. It was a great afternoon for pictures and everyone cooperated pretty well.

After dinner, Ashlyn always reads the story of Christ's birth from Luke 2.  This year my mom had a different plan.  Before the Christmas story, we had to sing The Twelve Days of Christmas.  Each person had one or two days they had to sing when the time came.  It was a lot of fun and very comical.  Nate's part was the first day - partridge in a pear tree.  He did a great job but his partridge was in a "bear" tree. 

After the Christmas story we had a great time opening gifts. 

Nate loves my dad, Pops.  They are best buddies.  Nate loves to sit in his boat and play in his tackle box.  My dad always sends him home with fishing worms.  Nate has quite a collection now so my dad thought he needed a tackle box for Christmas.  If you look closely, you'll see a little red box.  Pops also gave him his very first knife.  It's a Swiss Army and Darren and I will, of course, only allow him to use it with supervision.  Darren's dad gave him a BB gun last year, so I guess it was time for him to have a knife.

More worms for his collection.  Looks like he and Darren and Pops will be doing lots of fishing this spring.

Finally, we ended the night with Happy Birthday to Jill.  Ashlyn likes to make Jill's birthday cake from scratch.  She also wanted to try using fondant icing for the first time.  I volunteered to help her with the cake.  I have never worked with fondant and thought it would be fun.  She got here around noon on Friday and didn't leave until around 4:30.  Almost that entire time we were working on the cake - either baking it, making icing, frosting, working with the fondant, decorating, etc.  It was a comedy of errors.  Almost everything that could go wrong went wrong, but we laughed our way through it and ended up with a pretty cute cake.  For the record, it wasn't supposed to be orange.  That was just one of the many bumps in our cake making road. :)

Merry Christmas!

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

From our family to yours,
Merry Christmas!

Jesse Tree

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

 from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him -

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might,

the Spirit of the knowledge

 and fear of the Lord.  Isaiah 11: 1-2

I first heard of a Jesse Tree last Christmas.  We are trying to make Christmas more about Jesus and less about secular traditions.  I knew this would be a great new Christ-centered tradition for our family.   

We decided to use Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree Advent Family Devotional.  It's absolutely free and absolutely wonderful.  Darren and I have enjoyed it as much or more than Nate.  It's a 25 day devotional covering significant events in scripture that point to the coming of Christ.

                          

The ornament templates are free with the devotional.  Nate's had a great time making them. 

I must confess that making these is Nate's first time to use scissors at home, even though he got them in his Easter basket last spring. 

He has to hold his tongue just right to cut correctly...

and glue correctly. :)

The finished product, with a little help from mom.

I will be honest and say that moving away from secular traditions is hard since our culture, even our Christian culture, is saturated in them.  I will also be honest and say that doing a daily family devotional was hard this time of year.  We started out great and did our devotional every night after dinner.  Then, all of the Christmas programs, parties, etc. started and we missed some days.  Playing catch-up was also hard, so our Jesse tree is missing a few ornaments. 

God is changing our hearts in so many ways and we are making small steps to honor Him in everything we do - during the Christmas season and every day.  We obviously don't do this perfectly, just like our imperfect Jesse tree with its missing ornaments.  We are praying that God will continue to change our hearts and teach us how to love Him with all of or heart, soul and mind.  We are praying that God will give us wisdom to know how to honor Him in our Christmas traditions.     

Preschool Christmas Program

Last Thursday evening was Nate's preschool Christmas program.  He was a shepherd.  We didn't know he was a shepherd until we saw it in the program.  My cousin Haley's son, Dax,  was a shepherd also.  Dax told her that Nate was a shepherd and I insisted that he wasn't because I had not received any information about it and Nate had not mentioned anything about being a shepherd either.  Well, Dax was right. 

Once I realized he was indeed a shepherd I had to go back to where the children were waiting and get some pictures.  We also had the first "why didn't you tell us..." conversation.  We weren't expecting those to start this soon.  (For the record, I was supposed to receive a note stating that Nate would be a shepherd, but I didn't.)  This is Nate and a friend from his class, Keegan.

 Dax is the shepherd right beside Nate.

You may not have noticed, but Nate got a short haircut several weeks ago.  I loved his long hair, but it wasn't as curly anymore and was starting to look like a mess most of the time.  We love his new do, but it did take a few days to adjust to how grown up he looks.   



Christmas Cookies

Last week Nate and I made Christmas cookies.  We made our own sugar cookie recipe.  We left some dough plain and then colored some dough green and some red. 

Yes, Nate is wearing Halloween pajamas while making Christmas cookies. :)

We also made some white, red and green glaze (icing) for the cookies...and added sprinkles, or course.  Can you say sugar shock?

                          

Do you see the sprinkles all of the counter?  They were all over the floor too.  It was definitely a messy activity, but lots of fun.

                                         

Tree Farm

This year we decided to cut our Christmas tree at a tree farm instead of buying a pre cut tree.  Cutting a fresh tree was a tradition for my family growing up.  It seems like there were lots of tree farms back then and now they are few and far between.  We had a fun morning and maybe cutting a fresh tree will become our family tradition. 

 

 And speaking of trees, here's Nate with the little Christmas tree in his room.

Our Thoughtful Boy

This morning Darren and Nate went Christmas shopping.  They have been talking about this shopping trip and what they are getting me for several days.  Surprisingly, Nate is doing a great job of keeping my gifts a secret.  Tonight Darren told me that on their way to the store (Wal-Mart) this morning they were listing what they were getting me and Nate said "How about we get a baby to go in mom's belly?"  Darren said he was very serious about it. 
We have been praying for a baby for a long time and it just made my heart melt knowing he was so thoughtful and compassionate.

Giving Thanks Day 30

I really hate that I'm late on my last giving thanks post.  Would it be bad if I said I was thankful that my 30 days of thanks blogging is over?  I'm totally kidding.  God has changed my heart so much in the area of gratefulness, but I definitely do not always take the time to share the things I'm thankful for - big or small.  That's what this 30 days of thanks was for me, being intentional about sharing God's blessings because we have so much to be thankful for!

Last night Darren was out of town.  I'm thankful for cell phones and texting so we could communicate while he was away.  We also got some AWESOME news yesterday regarding our insurance.  Starting in January, our costs will be reduced significantly.  The insurance isn't changing, the company is just paying more on family coverage.  This could not have come at a better time for us with an adoption in our (hopefully near) future.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!

Giving Thanks Day 29 - Divine Acts of Kindness

I had today's post all figured out until a couple of hours ago.  I'll start with my original post because you'll see that it's pretty important also (not the stuff part, but the love and time part).  I am extremely thankful for my parents and the time Nate and I spent with them this morning.  Mother wanted to buy Nate some new cowboy boots.  We had a fun morning together - breakfast at Cracker Barrel, boot store, and Bass Pro Shop.  Nate loves them so much and they are really awesome grandparents. 

A couple of hours ago, a sweet couple from church gave us a generous donation to our adoption!  Words seriously cannot express how grateful we are to God for their kindness and generosity.  I read a lot of adoption blogs (and have actual friends that have experienced this) and have read about these "random" acts of kindness - people giving a family money to help with their adoption expenses, not in exchange for a good or service, but because God put that family on their heart and they wanted to help.  They aren't random acts of kindness at all, they are actually divine acts of kindness.  We experienced one of those divine acts of kindness tonight.  Thank you kind couple from church and thank you God!

Giving Thanks Day 28

I am thankful for our little fall garden.  It's nice to walk out the door and pick fresh lettuce. 

Giving Thanks Day 27

I am thankful for the sweet baby love I got at church this morning.  Thank you Dawn and Brian for sharing baby Kaylee with me for a little while.  How sweet to hold a new born baby...

Disney - Part 4

Our final day at Disney was spent at Animal Kingdom.  This was probably my second favorite park, Magic Kingdom was my very favorite.  There was rain in the forecast for the first time and it did rain a little but thankfully not until the very end of the day.

We started our day with the safari.  It was kind of cool that morning and very overcast so the animals were moving around a good bit.  I absolutely LOVE the idea of going on a real African safari, so this was very fun for me.  We got to see elephants, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, a lion and lioness, water buffalo, and lots of other antelope like animals VERY close up - all from an open air truck.  Most of the animals were roaming free.  It was great.

After our safari we had some breakfast and then headed over to see the live Lion King show.  I've seen the Broadway Series Lion King twice, so my expectations were very high.  The show was great, but very different.

Animal Kingdom is kind of similar to a zoo because there are lots of opportunities to walk around and look at animals - not just the safari.  We went to one part that had a petting zoo.  Nate got to pet a snake and lots of other "ordinary" animals.  Do you even pet snakes?  I think he probably just touched the snake.  I touched it too by the way, but Darren didn't.  He said he would just take the picture. :)

We had lunch at the Tusker House restaurant.  It was located in the Africa part of Animal Kingdom.  It was buffet style and had a lot of African food.  I will eat just about anything and like lots of different types of food, but African (or at least the Animal Kingdom's version of African food) is not my favorite.  Thankfully, they had some American meat and mashed potatoes. These guys were the entertainment at Tusker House.   

After lunch we enjoyed one last parade. 

That afternoon we had VIP tickets to the Finding Nemo show.  We were chosen for VIP tickets at random so it was a nice surprise.  This show was lots of fun.  It was an abbreviated version of the movie.

We finished up the day at Dinoland.  It was raining a little so they rode this about three times in a row because there was literally no waiting.

We had a wonderful week and are looking forward to going back as a family of four...or more! :)