Christmas Day

Since we couldn't stay out of our Christmas cookies to save a few for Santa, we had to squeeze a last minute Christmas Eve baking session in.


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The kids also made these little yummy snacks from a recipe (it's much to easy to call a recipe) from directions I found here.

Typically, anytime Fletch finds either of us cooking in the kitchen, he hurries off to the bathroom to drag the step stool to the kitchen counter so he can help. Oh the ladies will love him when he's of age! (just like I love his daddy ; )

After a beautiful Christmas Eve service at church, we went to our aunt and uncle's house for some festive family fun. Here is a picture of all the adorable and oh so excited kiddos!

{colton, fletch, faith, gracie, bailey, taylor and dakota}

These three very lucky kids of ours got to open up an early homemade gift from Grandma on Christmas Eve. Here is our stud muffin Fletch wearing his proudly.

Could the little ones possibly be any more sillier?!? Oh, I guess they were just way too excited for seriousness! Santa was coming in a matter of hours! (and yes, for those of you who were hanging on by the seat of your pants, Colton did decide he believes. They all received very personalized letters in the mail from Santa and that sealed the deal. Yes, my friends, Santa is very real. And no, I didn't ever have to lie about it again. Unless of course you're counting the fact that I forged a letter from "Santa". But we're not counting that are we ; )

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"yoo-hoo, Santa!!!..... come and get it!"

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Christmas morning left Fletch feeling all too excited that Santa brought him a monster truck like he'd put on his list.

Yea, I truly don't know how it happened, but he wound up with 7 of these bad boys. (in case you're counting there's eight. One he already had) And people often say the third child's deprived. Ha!

And C and G were also relieved to see that they made the cut as well. G got Ruthie, a friend for Kit (if you've never seen the movie or read the book I know, you're lost) and C got the drums that he has been wanting for probably years now. All I can say is WHAT WERE WE THINKING!?!?!? Or I'd better rephrase that, WHAT WAS SANTA THINKING!?!?!

We were so very spoiled on Christmas day because we never had to leave our house once! This was a gift to us in itself. They say a home is your nest, well we sure felt nice and cozy in our nest all day long! We were gifted with the presence of family from morning till night and it made for a perfect day! Although we certainly were missing many special people in our lives. Not only those who are no longer with us but the ones who decided to high tail it outta here and head to NC for Christmas. At least we got a very special phone call from them. After hearing that it had gotten down to 5 degrees there, it made us want to head back outdoors and enjoy the warmth. Now, the weather man could have turned it down a bit to say... ahh... maybe 70. That would have been nice.

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Anyway, here is my aunt Joyce who I use and abuse as my babysitter. Although I don't like calling her my babysitter because she does SO much more than that. She is worth more than her weight in gold to us times 10, at least.

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And here we have Fletcher and his Pop Pop. Well, he's my Pop Pop you know but I'm being nice enough to share him with my kids. Now that my Grammy is no longer here to keep him company, he will soon be moving in with my dad. We are SO very excited about this and so is he!

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This next picture is of Gracie, her Grandma her Great Grandma and her new baby Maria which was a gift from Grandma. I'll post more about chubby lots to love Maria soon because she's too darn cute not to! Maria makes my body image feel good when I'm around her. I can't stop squeezing her sweet thighs! I think Maria is here to stay, for good.

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I am loving this extremely simple way to make Gracie new hair pretties. All I do is buy some buttons with the loop thingy in the back, and use some E-6000 jewelry glue to attach the button to a bobby pin. Then tada, you have an extra cute and too simple not to make hair pretty. Ones with rhinestones seem to be my fashionistas favorite so far. Although she's loving this set that she received Christmas morn along with a black silk dress that I'm jealous of I gave her. Why does it seem that my daughter dresses much more stylish than I? I have yet to figure this out.

And yes, although it is true that my girl all of the age of 5 has a wardrobe I could only wish to have, but somehow that doesn't bother me too, too badly. At least I know one day I can borrow her clothes, right?

That's all for now! I hope you were extra specially blessed on this Christmas. I learned one hard lesson. Don't start preparing homemade gifts until the week before Christmas. It's just not gonna work. Even if you do think you are Superwoman (which I don't of course).

Almost Christmas

Well, we've just added the 22nd candy cane on our Advent calendar. It's crazy to think that there are only 3 more to go! Christmas time just speeds by much too quickly! I'm just amazed our tree is still looking lovely. Last year it died within the first week of having it so I think we're doing pretty good this year.

My to-do list is growing faster than it is shrinking but I guess that's just the nature of Christmas time. For us procrastinators anyway. Too much to do in too little time!

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Another thing that is consuming my mind lately is my dear son Colton who is way too smart for his young age. He has been striking me with some very unexpected questions lately and I'm realizing that we are entering a new phase in parenting that I must prepare myself for.

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Some of his latest questions have been "Mom, do a man and wife have to be married to have a baby?"

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He has always been told that God brings two people together, they fall in love, marry and eventually if it's part of God's plan, He blesses them with children. That's it. We've never had to go deeply into it. He understood it and truly, that is exactly the way God designed it be. But we all know that there is a whole other world out there and he is beginning to see it and question it.

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The other surprise question that popped up yesterday out of nowhere was (Colton) "Mom, can I go on the computer?". (me) "No honey, not right now." (C) "But Mom, it's really important!". (me) "what's so important?" (C) "I need to look up... is Santa Claus real." (me)... complete udder silence, heart pounding, tongue tied but I finally manage to get out "oh honey, that's silly, we don't need to look that up." (C) "yea, I know he's real, because you would never lie to me."

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Ahhh!!! Why, why, why did this have to come up just 4 short days from Christmas!

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So I did something that I don't feel is purely right but I quickly changed the subject to "hey honey, why don't we go make some Christmas cookies for your coaches!" This was followed by a very excited "yay!" from a little boy who is trying hard to hang onto his belief.

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I justified my action by thinking that this was not the time for the truth to be revealed as Gracie was also in the room. If I was to talk to him about this, I'd do it in private.

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I have always told myself when my kids come to me with this question, I'd give them the truth. I would not lie to them about it. So the fact that he didn't come and directly ask me "mom, is Santa real?" made me wonder if this qualified for me giving the truth or not. But the part that got me was the "you'd never lie to me" part. I plainly just don't like that part.
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I'm just trying to hang onto this last year of Santa fun but in the meantime, we are doing what we do every year. Talk very little about Santa and a whole LOT about Jesus. After all, Jesus is the reason!

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But... we did go see the big guy in the red suit. Colton said "I feel kinda weird about sitting on his lap". Gracie said "Do I have to tell him what I want for Christmas?" And Fletch just said "I don't wanna sit Santa's lap." Remember last year? Here's a reminder...

But then... Fletch saw the light up balls that Santa was passing out to the obedient boys and girls who obliged to their parents desire for this photo shoot. And so it was...

He even told Santa that he wanted a skateboard, drums, monster trucks and apples! I could tell he was a little nervous but he handled it like a champ!

And yes, Gracie did go ahead anyway and tell dear old Santa just what she'd love to see under our Christmas tree.

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So here we are, counting down the days, trying to plan out meals and finish up last minute wrapping, crafting, and shopping, but mostly just truly enjoying the many gifts we've been given in Christ. Doesn't it feel great to get to celebrate His birth? We certainly don't have to, we GET to! I get chills just thinking of it all!

Merry Christmas to you all, my dear friends and family!

Glimpses part 2

Christmas has got to be my favorite time of the year for arts and crafts. Sparkly Christmas trees overloaded with sequin ornaments, glittery snowmen, Santas with cotton ball beards, homemade ornaments and on and on. So messy but so, so much fun!

Joseph's coat sewn by C & G on our Jesse Tree

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I organized a field trip at a new cookie shop which was SWEET!

Fletcher is finally starting to sit still long enough to enjoy looking at books while we are busy with school. Oh how happy this makes me!

This cute little man is still making his daily appearance somewhere in our home. This time we found him in our tree.

Thanks to a lesson from Kim while in Gainesville, we've been having loads of fun making snowflakes. One morning Gracie waited patiently by my bedside with paper, scissors and tape in hand ready to make more snowflakes. Thanks Kim ; )

Sugar Cookie time!!!

We exchanged gifts early with B & K and Ava and Kaya since they will be up north for Christmas this year. They got this really cool game from them that we are excited to play. We love us a good family game that we all can play together ; )

Look out, here I come!

We hope you are enjoying the holiday season!