Journey to Bethlehem Week 1

Because I know everyone is waiting on pins and needles, here is a recap of Mary and Joseph's travels through our house after spending day one on the kitchen table for our Bethlehem Breakfast.

Day 2:  On the fridge--and yes, I am embarrassed at the amount of junk on top of my fridge.  Don't judge me.

Day 3:  On the shelf in the kitchen

Day 4:  On B's one-year-old portrait

Day 5:  On C's one-year-old portrait (After they were on B's portrait, C was convinced they would be on hers the next morning.  The Hubs didn't want to let her down.  lol)

Day 6 and Day 7:  On the Hubs's fish--and we forgot to move them, so they spent 2 days there.

Day 8:  On the mantle

It is so much fun to see the kids' reactions when they find Mary and Joseph each morning.  I can't wait to see where they will show up next week.

Very Veggie Christmas Suprise

Considering how popular both Veggie Tales and Duck Dynasty are at our house, when I heard that the newest Veggie Tales release would have a new character (Silas the okra) voiced by Uncle Si Roberson, I knew we would have to have it.  I pre-ordered the DVD which came bundled with a CD of 25 Christmas songs for only about $12 from Big Idea.  It arrived weeks ago and has been tucked away at the top of my closet until just the right time.

 

 So while the kids were in the bath, I stuck both DVD and CD in a gift bag and had it ready for them to open after they got their jammies on.  They were pretty excited, and we really enjoyed watching it as a family last night.

I love adding in special little surprises to make the holiday season even more magical.  And if you have seen Merry Larry yet, you should check it out.  Uncle Si is a hoot, and the movie is a great reminder of what Christmas is all about and how we can give to others.

Morning with C

It is not often that I get to spend special time alone with just C, but today allowed for an exception.  She had her 30 month check up with her pediatrician.  So, B spend with the morning with Pop and JuJu while C and I headed about 45 minutes down the road to Dr. E's office.  Unfortunately, his office called me about 10 minutes after I left to tell me that Dr. E has the flu and is home sick.  But since I had some business to take care of while I was in the "big city,"  I went ahead and told them we would see one of the other doctors in the practice.  So we had a great checkup with Dr. H.  C weighs 30 lbs and is 38.25 inches tall--which on the percentile charts makes her "disgustingly tall and lean" and Dr. H put it.  lol  And even though she had been telling me that she did not want a checkup because it would hurt, she didn't whimper--not even when they pricked her finger to check her hemoglobin.  She earned a purple sucker on the way out the door, and we were headed out to run a couple of errands.

After finishing our errands, we stopped at the Chick-Fil-A for some nuggets and playtime on the indoor playground.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend a special day with my sweet girl.  One-on-one time with my kids is precious.

A Woman Possessed

I don't consider myself to be an obsessive person.  I am not obsessively neat.  I don't obsessively exercise (insert the Hubs's hysterical laughter here).  But when I lose something, I tend to get a bit obsessed with finding the lost item.  This was the case recently.

Sunday afternoon, B had dress rehearsal for the church Christmas program where he will be portraying the part of the cow.  And while I did not have his costume finished yet, I did have a set of cow ears that I had borrowed from another mom at the church.  I distinctly remembered seeing them on the kitchen counter Thursday morning and grabbing them and tossing them on the embarrassingly large pile of "junk to hide" on our bed before family arrived for Thanksgiving lunch.  But Sunday afternoon as B and I were walking out the door, I remembered that he needed his ears and could not find the darn things anywhere.  After a few minutes of searching with no luck, I took him on to practice sans ears feeling fairly confident that I would quickly locate them as soon as we got home after practice.  This was not the case.  I practically turned the house upside down looking for it.  I dug through piles of laundry, looked among the toys on the floor in the playroom, and sifted through each and every stack of paper in the house with no success.  I went to bed that night disgusted and annoyed just to wake up Monday morning still just as irritated that I could not get my hands on those ears.  THAT I HAD BORROWED!!!

Monday morning was when I actually started to feel myself coming unglued.  I took cushions off of the sofa, dug through every trash can in the house, and looked under every bed twice.  Then I resorted to actually digging through the hobo outside.  I am sure I looked like some type of drifter digging in the trash in my driveway looking for cow ears!

I was starting to lose hope.  Where could they possibly be??  During my mad, crazed searching, the kids had managed to take every box from their toy shelf and dump all of their toys all over the floor in the playroom.  So I took a break from my frantic, frenzied treasure hunt to clean up toys before naptime.  When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a pair of cow ears in a pile of toys.  I literally started screaming and dancing around the house.  I am pretty sure the kids thought I had lost my mind--if they didn't already think that.

I have no idea how the ears got there, and I don't really care.  I just know that they are now safely sitting on the printer in my bedroom waiting to don the head of the cutest little cow to ever grace the stage of a Christmas program.  And I am pretty glad that I have been able to sleep easy since finding them.

Christmas Keepsake Ornament Tradition

If you couldn't tell already, I have a lot of Christmas traditions.  One of those traditions is that I get each of my kids an ornament each year for Christmas that represents something from that year of their life.  It could be that they had a "first" that year or had a special event or a particular habit or liking.  This year B got a baseball Mickey ornament since this was his first year playing tee-ball and he took his first trip to Disney.  C picked a Pooh and Piglet ornament while we were at Disney World to serve as her ornament for this year.

B's special ornament last year says "I love fishing with my Dad" since he went fishing and caught his first fish with the Hubs during the summer of last year.  When he was three, his ornament was a cheeseburger, which may seem odd, but the boy loves a burger and that year was 'the year of the cheeseburger' as far as his diet was concerned.  (He has since declared a disdain for cheese and will only eat a HAMburger these days, but I digress.)  When he was two, I found this great Bob the Tomato ornament to represent his Veggie Tales birthday party and total love for all things Veggie Tales.  And we he was one-year-old, I got him an airplane ornament because he flew on an airplane for the first time that year.

C's ornament from last year can be seen in the picture above with B's airplane  At some point last year, her Daddy started calling her "Bear" as a nickname that stuck.  It seemed only fitting to get her a bear ornament with a pink scarf since "mink" is her favorite color.

Both kids got at least one ornament as a shower gift before they were born--B actually got four.  I guess it a first child thing.  Those ornaments serve as their ornament of significance for their first Christmases.  C's is hanging on the tree in the living room, but all of B's hang at the top of the blue tree in the kitchen.

 

Picking out their special ornament each year is something I really love and probably totally over-think.  But B really enjoyed hearing about how special each of his ornaments was this year.  I just love Christmas traditions.

Jesse Tree

For the past couple of years, I have done a daily advent item with the kids.  This year I am trying something new--a Jesse Tree.  The name comes from Isaiah 11:1 which talks about a shoot from the stump a Jesse, i.e., Jesus.  I found the ornament images and Scripture references here on the Reformed Church of America website.  Disclaimer:  I am not a member of the RCA nor do I know much about them or their beliefs.  But I did like the idea of showing my children how the Bible goes from Adam and Eve to Jesus which is exactly what a Jesse Tree does.  I am using their Scriptures, but will probably alter some of the discussion, question, and prayer examples that they give for each day to make it fit our family.  And I would encourage you to do the same.

So last night marked the beginning of Advent, thus we started with Day 1 of our Jesse Tree ornaments--the stump of Jesse.  We read the Scripture, discussed what it meant, and B hung the ornament on the tree in our bedroom which I sparsely decorated in a few gold ornaments in order to leave room for 25 Jesse Tree ornaments.

 

I am really looking forward to the next few days and listening to what the kids say about it.

UPDATE:  Here is how it looked at the end.  I loved all the sweet Bible-related ornaments, and the kids LOVED doing out Jesse Tree activity every night!  And yes, it is in a different room than where it started.  We did a fruit basket turn over among the bedrooms, so the playroom became the new master bedroom.  And yes, I have hated those window treatments from the moment we moved in.  I wish I had a good reason for why the hideous things are still in my house, but sadly, I don't.  And there are 3 windows in that room.  *sigh*

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house.  So come on in and enjoy the holiday decor.

 

 

 

This blue tree has a framed picture of the kids from each Christmas of their lives in their Christmas pj's.

Each of my sweet babies on their first Christmas

Merry Christmas, y'all!