Happy Birthday, Jesus!

“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.

So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” 

So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.

And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.”

Luke 2:1 – 20

Merry Christmas!

Our Family Christmas (Part 2)

Saturday morning we started the day with a big brunch.   Let me say, when you are planning a brunch you just can't wrong making a huge batch of Pioneer Woman's homemade cinnamon rolls.   Add to that hashbrown casserole, grits, sausage and cream cheese crescents, ham and cheese quiche... and we were a full family.

After breakfast my Daddy read the Christmas story (one of my favorite things ever) and then Little Guy surprised everybody by playing "Silent Night" on his guitar.   He has been taking lessons for the past nine weeks.    I was so proud of him for playing.

The rest of the day was spent watching football, playing games and decorating gingerbread houses.   It was a wonderful time with my sweet family.   I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

Our Family Christmas (Part 1)

We hosted family Christmas at our house this year.    We took a trip up to Canton to see the lights and enjoy beignets and hot chocolate.    Looking at lights is something we used to always do, but has become quite the challenge since our family has gotten so large.    We came up with the idea of getting a van so that we could all ride together.   It really was fun to all be able to ride together.

Here are some photos we took while walking around Canton.   The beautiful young woman in these photos is my niece.   Before you ask... yes, she is just that photogenic in every photo she takes.   Gorgeous isn't she?

Play Date with My Sweeties

Any time I get to have my sweet nieces over is my favorite day.     They came over right before Christmas and we had so much fun playing with my nativity set and baking cookies.   I hope they had as much fun as I did.

Merry Christmas

Happy Birthday, Jesus

 ¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while^[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.
 ⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
 ⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
 ¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
 ¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
   and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Luke 2: 1-14

Advent of Activities

I love Christmas.  It is a time to celebrate Jesus' birthday first and foremost.   I also love spending the month focusing on my boys and spending time as a family.

We have planned an entire countdown calendar of events for this month of Advent (in no special order!)

1 - Making gingerbread houses with our friends in Atlanta.
2 -Skating
3 - Christmas Lights in Canton 
4 - Seeing Peter and the Wolf performed by Czech Puppetry Guild
5 - Our church's Christmas program, "The Gift"
6 - Baking Christmas cookies with my sister's family on Christmas Eve
7 - Christmas caroling
8 - Reading our Advent book, Jotham's Journey, every night before bed
9 - Drinking lots of hot chocolate in front of the fireplace
10 - Having a camp out with s'mores and hot dogs in front of the Christmas tree
11 - Adopting a child from the Angel Tree
12 - Volunteering with Salvation Army Angel Tree
13 - Volunteering with the Christmas Village Cafe du Monde
14 - Watching "Elf"
15 - Buy/make the boys an ornament
16 - Invite college kids over for a Christmas pancake supper
17 - Reading all our old Christmas books from when the boys were little
18 - Buy hot chocolate/coffee for one of the Salvation Army bell ringers
19 - Leave a present in the mailbox for our letter carrier
20 - Give out candy canes with "Christmas notes" taped to them to anyone we see at drive-thru windows.
21 - Deliver special treats to my husband and all his staff at work
23 - Play lots of Christmas music



Christmas Eve - Take special treat to fire fighters down the street because it is no fun to be away from your family on Christmas Eve!
Christmas Day - Go to Christmas services and invite someone over to eat lunch with us who doesn't have family in town.

Trying to Get A Christmas Card Photo

The boys have reached the age where they are not fans of taking photos.     When I told them I really needed to get photos for our Christmas cards the looks on their faces were priceless.     After about five pictures they said, "Are we done yet?"   

The cards are done and at the printers.   I am hoping they will get back before we have to leave for Thanksgiving so I can get them addressed and all ready to send out.    Just one more thing checked off my "to do" list.

We Give Thanks

The social networks have been filled with people listing reasons they are thankful this month.   It is sweet to read the things that everyone is thankful for on their statuses.    However, in reality God desires for us to live a life of thanksgiving and gratitude every day.

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.    Hebrews 13:15

It is one of my greatest desires and challenges as a Mom.    The only way to teach my boys the attitude of gratitude is to live it myself.     When I see them being less than grateful for something I stop and wonder, "Are they getting that attitude from me?"     It keeps me on my knees.

Each night as we gather as a family for our family prayer time we have made it a goal to focus on the things God has blessed us with.     We have been writing those things on strips of paper and putting them in our thankful jar.    This is what our jar kind of looked like.... before I accidentally broke it.    I was cleaning and knocked it on the floor.   Cleaning -- it just leads to no good!   *smile*  

I borrowed this picture so you could see what I mean.   Our thankful jar was much like this one.

Anyway, with the strips we have been collecting we will make a garland for the boys' Christmas trees.    I love the thought of them being able to look at their tree and see a list of answered prayers and blessings that the Lord has given us this year.    

I hope that this will help all of us remember the real reason for the season and continually cultivate an attitude of gratitude.    God has blessed us so abundantly and is faithful to us every day.     I never want to fail to thank  Him for those blessings!

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.    Colossians 3:17

Homemade Christmas

**spoiler alert... If you are in our family you will be seeing "gifts" in this post!**

Like so many, our finances are very tight this year.       Hubs' job has taken some major hits.    However, as always, God is so good to us.       The boys and I have always enjoyed doing crafts together and being able to make crafts for our family is even more fun.    

While we were cleaning out for our garage sale I found a stash of ornaments I bought last year to try to decorate for our family for this year.      We have had a blast painting and decorating ornaments for our family.

an iPod snowman for my iPod crazy Big Guy

a chef ornament for my cooking crazy Little Guy

a baseball cap wearing snowman for my sweet little nephew, L

(Yes.  It drives me crazy that there is a brush bristle in the paint,

but it is dry now so I can't do anything about it!)

Just one of the snowgirls I painted for my twin nieces.

Speaking of my nieces and nephew.   Earlier this summer, I was browsing the clearance section of Michaels.

Clearance sections... be still my heart.   They had animal alphabet cards.    One of the sets looked like this.   I loved the fact that the animals were unusual instead of your usual d is for dog.

They said they were for scrapbooking, but I immediately had an idea.    Why not make books for my sweet babies?    A little laminating, some binder rings and some ribbon and here is what I will be giving my sweeties  Christmas...

 

I hope they enjoy them as much as I do.     I wish I had had something like this for Big Guy and Little Guy when we were little.    I think it would have been fun to have books like these to tuck into their car seat or the diaper bag.

Merry Christmas

A Baby Changes Everything

Our Gingerbread Dream Houses

Making gingerbread houses is one of our favorite things during the Christmas season.   This year our friends were here from Atlanta and they got to make one too.    They had never made gingerbread houses before, but they said they would definitely be making them again!   

Because we use our houses as part of our Christmas display, we hot glue them together so that they will be sturdy.    Don't worry.... there is PLENTY of candy to eat.

After the houses are assembled, the kids went to work.     All four kids had their own approach and their own ideas.    Personalities were definitely apparent!

After several hours of icing, decorating and creating, they finally proclaimed their houses finished.   

Our friends loved making these gingerbread houses, but they were REALLY excited when we told them about our New Year's Eve tradition with the gingerbread houses.       We stuff them full of fireworks and blow them up!      

I am not sure if it was all the sugar they had eaten or just the thought of using explosives to destroy something... but all the kids were giddy at the promise of New Year's Eve!!

Christmas with a Capital "C"

Behind The Angel Tree

Our family has made The Angel Tree part of our Christmas tradition for several years; however, this is the first year that we have had the opportunity to be a part of volunteering behind the scenes.

All I can say is.... WOW! The Angel Tree Toy Distribution Center works with an efficiency that would impress Santa and his elves. Organization and efficiency is the name of the game when you are trying to make sure that 14,040 children receive gifts for Christmas.

Your first stop is the check in table where you sign in as a volunteer. If you are a first timer, you receive a tour through the process. Otherwise, you go get started.

First stop.... pick up a family sheet with the name of "angels" on it. Each family has a code assigned to it.

Two.... Go to the section of the building with presents bought by community members and see if there is a bag with that code on it meaning that the child was adopted. If you find a bag, go to a station and open it to see what was purchased. If there is no bag, go to the shopping area to shop for the child.

Three... the family sheet tells you the child's requests. This helps you fill their requests. Because many families have more than one child it is important to make sure that the children get equal amounts. It is your job to see that this happens. The "store" allows you to shop to help even out gifts.

Four.... once you have rebagged, relabeled and tagged all the gifts, you put the bags back into the distribution slots and refile the family sheet with the word "complete" written across the sheet.

Did you know that Mississippi was named the most giving state last week? Standing in that distribution center last week I could see why.

As we stood at our stations, we were surrounded by other volunteers. Some were homeschool families like us. Some were Ridgeland Police officers on their lunch break. Some were Belhaven basketball players. All of us were there hoping to make Christmas better for some children.

Volunteering behind The Angel Tree... it is definitely going to be a new tradition at our house!

I Wish You Jesus

More Than Anything...

http://www.thechristofchristmas.com/

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100 Days to Christmas.... YIKES!

Can you believe it? Today is 100 days to Christmas! That could freak you out, but DON'T let it. Seriously.

I LOVE Christmas. However, I don't love it when things get all hectic and crazy. Generally I try to get all of my Christmas shopping and Christmas cards done before Thanksgiving arrives. That helps, but it doesn't take away all the stress.

I stumbled across a wonderful website last year that I fell in love it and this year I wanted to share it with you!

It is appropriately named after today - "100 Days To Christmas"


Every day the website gives you all types of ways to plan and prepare for Christmas: party planning, meal planning, gift giving ideas, and even little words of inspiration and encouragement!


It may be a little too early for you to think about planning for Christmas, but whenever you decide to start I pray that you will always keep Christ the center of your celebration.

"Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart,
you won't find it under a tree."

Holiday Hangover

I don't know about you, but I am still picking up wrapping paper and finding random boxes and bows under chairs. Even so, Christmas week seemed to just fly by! I hate, hate, hate shopping after Thanksgiving and I did more of it this year than ever before. It kind of saps the spirit out of me when I have to shop after Thanksgiving. It makes me feel really bad for people who have to work retail.

Some of our highlights:
* My sweet niece, Jo, came over to stay with the guys while I went out one day and they had the best time baking and decorating cookies.

* The boys were so excited about Christmas morning that that Little Guy came and got in the bed with us at 3:00 a.m. I asked him to try to go back to sleep, but he wormed and squirmed and there was really no sleep to be had. When he saw Big Guy turn on the living room light at 5:00 a.m., he was out of our bed like Dash (from the Incredibles movie). Christmas morning had started!

* Little Guy was beyond thrilled with receiving his telescope although he has been frustrated with the clouds in the sky since then.

* My guys are just like every kid. They are complete opposites. We were sitting around talking about the presents and Little Guy said, "This present will help me with my hand/eye coordination. This present will help me with my science class. This present will help me with my hand dexterity." Big Guy grinned and took one look at his Guitar Hero and said, "This gift will help me become a ROCK STAR!" Ha! Ha!

* When I was opening my presents, I had a package in my hand and Little Guy moved behind a chair and covered his ears. I asked what as wrong and he said, "Nothing, Mom, I just know when you open that package you are going to scream!" I couldn't scream because I almost cried. They bought me the Willow Tree nativity set to add to my collection. I love it!

* Late last Monday night hubs was cruising channels and couldn't find anything to watch on television so Tuesday morning I went and rented the first season of the series "24". We have never watched it, my sister and BIL love it. On Tuesday night we stayed up until 2:00 in the morning watching the first DVD. Tonight we will watch the last episodes of the first season. We are soooo hooked!

Lowlight of the holiday..
* On Christmas Eve, I was trying to do a few things on my computer when all of a sudden I got the blue screen of death! I packed up my computer and took it to my computer guy. I barely got it to him before he closed for the holidays. Now I am without a computer until after he gets back January 5th. And even then we will have to see how long it takes him to repair it. So for now I will be making updates and checking blogs as I have a chance to have access to hubs' computer.

Merry Christmas!

(Above is our Christmas card from this year....
Merry Christmas to all of you from our family!)

Christmas is only hours away. I feel sort of out of sorts this year because our typical routine has been rearranged. (Remember, I am the "routine" person.) Normally we would have spent all last weekend at my Mom and Dad's house having our family Christmas, but with the twins arrival we decided to wait until the weekend after to have our family Christmas. Hub's family has gone to South Carolina. So I am making a grocery list and starting to cook for our Christmas meal. Hubs has requested sausage balls. Little Guy wants hash brown casserole. Big Guy wants our traditional overnight coffee cake.

I finally finished all the Christmas cards. I love the Christmas cards every year. I not only design ours, but I design cards for quite a few friends as well. One special card I designed this year also doubled as a birth announcement too.

What a difference a year makes! This is the card I made for them last year....

I always enjoy making a card that my Mom can send out with all her "grands" on it:

I posted my Christmas morning coffee cake recipe here! I hope you enjoy.

Merry Christmas!