A Great Christmas Idea

Blake and I are going to be at our house this year on Christmas day with our kids (something that has never happened before!). We are sad to not be with family in Oklahoma and to not be down with my family sooner, but we are really excited to start some traditions of our own and be able to celebrate this day with our little family! I have been thinking a lot about traditions and what kind of things we want to incorporate into our family during the Christmas season. We have been reading Advent passages (not 100% faithfully mind you!) to prepare our hearts for the true meaning of this season, when Jesus "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:6-7).

I have loved reading what other people do during the Christmas season with their families and have tried to find ideas that will point us back to Jesus. I want to share a very simple, but I think very effective idea to get our hearts and minds in the right place.

"I thought of you..."

On Christmas mornings ever since my now six foot tall sons (3) were little, we GIVE our gifts. The pile by each person has the gifts they are giving, not getting, and "I thought you could use this Dad" or "I thought of you the minute I saw it" can be heard instead of "it's MY turn".

This was on one of the GirlTalk blog posts (one of my favorite websites) about Christmas traditions. Check out the full post here.

What a great way to turn the attention from what I am getting to what I am giving! I am looking forward to starting this with our family this year, and praying that this little practice will assist my little ones to be more mindful of giving than receiving.

The Past Three Months....

Well, three months have passed since my last post. I thought I would get back into this with some highlights and pictures of what has been going on with our little family in the past few months!

I had the wonderful opportunity to get away with some college girlfriends one weekend in October. This was the first time in 2 years that I went away without my kids! It was a big deal! I was a big mess of emotions: excited, nervous, guilty, sad, happy! It was crazy! On the way down the a song played and contained this line, "I miss everything about you." I had to change the channel! I was getting a little emotional thinking about my kids! Such a mom! : ) Blake had a wonderful weekend with the kids (his very first time with them by himself for an extended amount of time!). He informed me that he made it church on time with the kids (a feat we rarely accomplish with two parents home, hmm....maybe that says something about me...!) and he even put a bow in Karis' hair! Wow! I was totally impressed, and informed him I would plan another weekend getaway since he is daddy extraordinaire! While I was away he even got out and about and took the kids to a pumpkin patch! As much fun as I had with my girlfriends, I was a little jealous that I missed this moment with my family. Here is a picture of the fun they had...


Next we come to Halloween. We had a fun get together with our small group from church, where we encouraged everyone to dress up! Karis and Owen were adorable as a bunny rabbit and a monkey! (Yay for hand-me-down costumes!)



We spent Thanksgiving down at my mom's house, and had a mini family photo shoot. Here are some shots from that day...






And now for the current update. Blake finished up his semester at school almost a week ago. It has been so nice to not have the stress of tests and assignments on his mind. He has one class this spring (a pass/fail course, so shouldn't be to difficult at all!), and then, HE WILL GRADUATE!!!! I can't believe are coming into the last semester of his seminary career! It's exciting! But, we don't know what we will do post graduation yet. Lots of prayer is going on for sure!

One last picture from our small group Christmas party last week. Get excited for Christmas friends! Jesus came! His birth, death, and resurrection gives us hope! Praise the Lord!

Merry Christmas!
(almost!)

My First Yard Sale

So, I've never done a yard sale as a married woman. Actually, I've only ever contributed things to yard sales that my mom had and did all the work for. This was quite an experience let me tell you! Number one thing I learned, advertisement is KEY! We didn't advertise until yesterday, ok let's be honest, it was last night before we put the signs up! Mistake number one folks! You have got to get the word out much sooner. That's one of those things that I knew but just didn't get around to doing. We also wanted to put an ad on Craig's list to promote it, but didn't get around to doing that either. People talk about the early birds that will come to yard sales and we were expecting to have lots of people when we got going. But the first hour only 2 people came! Those 2 people came at around 7:45! It was slow! Got to advertise!

Second thing I learned, don't plan a yard sale when you have something going on the night before. I had a Pampered Chef party for a lady last night and didn't get home until almost 10. I then had to finish up some things for the yard sale. I didn't get in the bed until 1 am, and the alarm went off at 5:45 am. This was the first time in a long while that I actually had felt like I had just laid down to go to sleep and then it was time to get up again. I will plan out my events a little better next time!

I think I made a whopping $11 this morning, which will buy my movie ticket when I go out later this afternoon for girly movie time! (Going to see You Again, and very excited!) Oh well, you live and learn, and then try again!

One really really cute story to share about Karis at the yard sale....

Karis stayed out and played while I was doing the yard selling today. She had so much fun and was checking out everything that my neighbor and I were offering. After a while a group of people came out to look at things. Karis followed a man up to our table and started showing him things! She would point to an item and say, "look," then move to another item, pat it and say, "It's nice," then she headed to our diaper genie, pointed and said, "pretty!" She was trying to sell our stuff! It was priceless! She offered us some comic relief on the sad yard sale day!

Any tips you have for yard selling? I would love to hear them for future reference! Ok, time for a nap for this tired household!

Karis and the Moon

Karis is adorable. I love the way she is learning things and communicating them to us! Tonight on the way home from being in downtown Raleigh, she looked out the window, and with great enthusiasm, said "Look at the moon! It's a circle! Oh my goodness! It's so pretty!" Every time she would catch a glimpse of it she would tell us to "look at the moon!" It was so great!

We have begun going through the catechism for young children at this website here.
We ask her, "Karis, who made you?" and she has two regular responses. It's either Karis or Grand-Daddy! After we say no and point up she says "God." We ask her "What else did God make?" And doing a fun little hand motion she says "everything!" It's so neat to watch her learn things and see her growing in the knowledge of the Truth! I'm praying that we will be faithful to teach our little ones about the great God that made the pretty circle moon and everything else!

September Already???

I cannot believe August came and went, and I didn't post one single thing! Wow! Well, I have some fun stuff to share about the kids so I thought I would put a little something on here today. (Don't have too much time though, we have a Labor Day cookout to get to shortly!)

My little Karis is talking so much and is learning more words and phrases. Her favorite phrase right now is "Where is ___" So it may be where is daddy, where is Owen, where is mommy, etc. She asks multiple times in the day "Where is Camden?" "Where is Co-Co?" "Where is La-La?" Camden and Co-Co are her cousins, and La-La is my sister (Cam and Co-Co's mom). I don't know if she's actually asking for her Aunt Lala, or she thinks that my mom's name is Lala. When she sees a picture of my mom she says, "Ahh!! Lala!" So, I think she's a little confused. She's constantly asking for people or things. I heard her ask today, "Where is milk?" She's a funny little girl!

She's also started a funny thing in the mornings. I usually leave the kids in their cribs for a little while in the mornings before I go down and get them. Karis' new thing to do (which I hear on the monitor) is ask, "where is mommy?" and then she proceeds to yell at the top of her lungs, "Mooooooommmmmmmyyyyyyy!!!" It's quite hilarious!

Owen is finally sleeping through the night (a day I was beginning to wonder if it would ever come!) and is such a sweet little baby! I so enjoy seeing his little face light up when he smiles and hearing his little laugh that his sister gets out of him! He loves Karis and I can't wait to see them play more together. He is still not crawling or pulling up or anything, but he can roll around like a pro!

Blake is back to school and working, so we are still adjusting to the new schedule. It has been a really fun summer and I'm sad to see it go. But, I am quite ready for the change in the seasons and all the wonderful things that come with the fall!

Family picture at the beach

Cow Appreciation Day 2010

July 9 is Cow Appreciation Day. This is not one of those days that most people have written down on their calendars and look forward to all year long. But now, I will be looking forward to 2011's celebration of our bovine friends! Chick-fil-a (definitely my go to/favorite fast food restaurant) has a generous way of celebrating this wonderful day of the year. If you dress up like a cow (attempt a head to toe costume) you get a free meal! It is awesome! I'll take free chick-fil-a however I can get it, so you best believe I was dressed up like a cow! Not only myself, but Blake and the kids too! We all received free meals! Well, we didn't cash in on Owen's, but we probably could have. We joined our friends Cory and Autumn and their little girl and had a wonderful meal, made even better by the fact that it was free! : )

Here are a few pictures of my sweet little calves.....

Not sure why this picture is so small. I made the onsie for him. I think this is my favorite picture of him thus far in his little life! He was so stinkin cute tonight! : )

I think Karis looks more like a cross between a cat and a cow. I didn't know how else to do the ears, but they definitely look cat-like to me!

It was such a fun night with the family and our friends! I am seriously looking forward to next year! : ) Here is to Cow Appreciation Day!

My little Talkers

Karis is now officially two years old! That is just crazy to me! With her growing up comes some fun new things, and one thing is her talking more and more! She has said some funny things in the past few days, and this is one I just have to share!

Karis has a new phrase that she is saying a lot. If she is playing with Owen and he happens to grab her hair or in any other way accidentally hurt her she makes a grimacing face and says, "Oww! Ee it me." (He hit me) We have no clue where she got this from! We are trying to teach her that Owen is not hitting her and that he doesn't mean to hurt her. We are also trying not to laugh when she says this too! It is funny, but definitely don't want to encourage a habit or tattle-telling! I've actually heard her say this when she bumps into inanimate objects as well! She's crazy!

Owen is almost 6 months old now! (How crazy is that!) He is starting to get a lot more vocal too! Pretty sure he said "da-da" this week, though it was in midst of babbling! He says "ba-ba" and "da-da" now. He is getting so big, and so cute!

My kids, man do I love them!