Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight...

My prayer is that you have a fabulous Christmas whether you are near or far, that you embrace the love for you from this family and hold tight to the best gift you have ever received...the birth of Christ. We may not know His exact birthday but on Dec 25 we can celebrate with other Christians...the birth of Jesus. I marvel in my how much God loves us and on this day I hope His love touches your heart. Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread Houses with Friends

We had special day with friends making little gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. It was perfect size and fun for them. We are really into crafts!

Family Night

I LOVE Family Night! Spending time together is the greatest gift from God and I love it when we take advantage of our time. We spent the evening making homemade pizza, a gingerbread house and playing games. More than anything we made memories and that is most important thing I want children to have when they become adults. The value of family and memories to warm their hearts on cold days. To my family I love you- thank you for being so loving. You are special to me.

Caroling with our Life Group

Tuesday night we hosted our life group for caroling and hot chocolate. We had a wonderful time and we loved having over. We went caroling on our block and had many people come out of their homes to listen. It was great fun! Today a neighbor brought us a tray of treats as a thank you. What a blessing to touch a family.

Heartbroken

Oh my, last night we went to see E's friends in a Christmas program and the little boys were darling cute! Just precious. Santa came to visit at the end of the night and that was fun...until...he was calling the children from the preschool up one by one and the sibling, too. It was a very cute thing. Each kid had a present in Santa's bag and they called them up to sit in his lap and tell them what they wanted for Christmas. Very sweet and fun! Not so great for my girls. They did not have a present in the bag and their names were not going to be called so L & I decided to head home before it got too hard for the girls. TOO LATE! That did not go over well. S the 2 year old moved on pretty quickly; however, my 4 year old took it personally! Tears running down her face. "Why didn't Santa have a present for me, why didn't Santa know I was coming, why? Why?" Poor thing was brokenhearted and thought she had been a bad girl. I tried to explain Santa was visiting only the preschool kids and .... Nothing worked. In this moment I wanted to tell her the truth about Santa, something I have been struggling with all year. But, the best thing happened. Finally, I got through to her. After she said, "Why didn't Santa know I was coming?" about 10 times. I told her, "Because he is not GOD! Santa does not know everything like GOD does and is not everywhere like GOD is." She didn't say another word about it. WOW- thank you Holy Spirit for sending me the right words because my heart was breaking for her and all for what. Hard night for MOM.

Cuteness going on in our home!

Every night we sing two songs to each girl before they go to bed and every night we ask them "what songs would you like me to sing tonight?" And every night each girl chooses the same song: E chooses "I am a CH" and "You Are My Sunshine" and S chooses "Jonah & the Whale" and "Three Little Fishy." Some nights one girl will help me put the other one to bed and sing the sings they picked. S has been helping me put E to bed lately and she is learning "I AM A CH." In case you don't know the song basically spells out CHRISTIAN...I AM A C, I AM A C-H, I AM A
C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N...today at lunch S looked at Daddy and said, " Daddy, I am Christian!" Oh my too precious. That opened the door for a lovely conversation about why we are called Christians and how we believe in Jesus. Loving it! I am so grateful that all of our praying, teaching, church going and just everyday moral & Godly teaching is coming through the HEART! (Not to say we or they are perfect...believe me much work still to be done! However, today we will treasure the moment!)

My House Decorated for Christmas

Our house looks so beautiful. Of course, I want more but for this year I am very content. I made garlands for the inside and they turned out great. I was very happy with the way they look. The outside of the house is lit up with lights! It looks so festive and the kids loved it. E constantly says, " Santa will think our house is the most beautiful of all and he will love it!" Too cute. Every time we come home at night S has to go to the front of the yard and look at the lights. We are excited and very ready for Christmas, our favorite time of the year. Next week we lots of festive things happening: Caroling with the life group, dinner with Landon's colleagues, Christmas Eve Church services, dinner with family and then off course the big event! We hope to go sledding, too. Lots of fun for making our season special.

LET IT SNOW! LET IT SNOW!

We had a wonderful day of snow!

Kid's Christmas

The Lord blessed us with a special day yesterday. We had a Kids Christmas! The girl's had some of their buddies over to make sugar cookies and open gifts. We were presently surprised with snowfall! Not only did they enjoy baking, rolling, cutting, sprinkling, frosting & eating the cookies...we bundled them up to play outside in the snow. We ate pizza and just enjoyed each other's company. The only bummer was Tyler was sick; and he and Sarah were unable to join us.

A Wonderful Weekend!

I had the best weekend! Friday night hubby and I had a double date! Wow an evening with friends and no kids- that hasn't happened in a long time. It was way too much fun. First we went to Sadie's for dinner. The best Northern New Mexican food we have had! It was incredible: so that when I woke-up on Saturday it was on my rear end!

Saturday morning E had her first ballet performance/competition. She did such a fantastic job. I was so proud of her I cried through the whole thing. A weeping mother. All parents were concerned about stage freight and not one girl had it. She walked out on stage waved to the whole audience (about 500 people) and turned to me and blew me a kiss. It was just precious. At the end she received a medal and a trophy- HER FIRST! I cried again! She was so proud of herself. Hubby was at a basketball game and was unable to join us but he watched it on the video later. His team only lost by 8 and was a head at half- big success for them! That was very exciting.

Saturday night I went over to a baked holiday goodies with girlfriends. We had a blast!

Sunday we spent the day finishing up the holiday goodies and my girls helped. We made chocolate covered peanut butter balls. Oh my delicious, cheap and easy! It makes 100 of them. The girls learned how to roll them into balls. E got really good at it and S enjoyed smooshing it in her hand. Too fun! We made fudge and used small cookie cutters and cut out the fudge. TOO CUTE! I put sprinkles on some of them too- that was fun!

I was am very proud of myself with my holiday cooking over the years I really started to enjoy cooking. This year I decided to make things I have never made. Best part is they turned out great!

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend. Time with the hubby, time with the friends and memories with the children. Thank you LORD for all my blessings! I hope you are enjoying the season with friends and loved ones; it is my prayer that you are cherishing these times!

Mommy Date

I had a special morning with the girls yesterday. I took them to the mall to ride the carousel, train, walk around the Disney Store and they even gave Santa hugs again! I let them choose lunch and so we headed to Chic-fil-a. We had lunch, they played in the play area and ate ice cream. A special day for us girls! Making memories is so wonderful!

River of Lights

For family night we went to the River of Lights at the Botonical Garden. It was so beautiful and very cold! We had a great time. E loved listening to the carolers and S loved running around free.

I'm lovin' it...

I have been waiting for the day when my Texas words (if you will) will come out of my children's mouth. They were born in Washington state and they didn't hear: y'all, fixin' and coke. They heard you guys, getting ready and pop. So when my E turned to me the other day and matter of fact said, "Mom, I am fixin' to..." My heart jumped! How precious! Sounds silly I know but these words are a part of me and when I moved to WA I was made fun of for saying them. I want to pass them on no matter where we live!

Happy Birthday Hubby...34!

This is my hubby's favorite time of year: basketball season, birthday and Christmas! What more can you want! College basketball on TV, his own team that comes with practice and games, presents, a day in your honor and family time!

Happy 34th Birthday, babe!

Tis the season...

We are getting ready for Christmas. I wanted keepsakes from the kids. Michael's sells this little kits for hand print ornaments. So I had the girls each put their hand print in the plaster and they turned out so cute.

The outside of the house is coming along thanks to my hubby. He is finishing the project this weekend so I am sure I will capture the outside soon.