Preparing and Waiting

Tomorrow is Christmas, the Birthday of our Lord and Savior.  For the past month we have been preparing and waiting for this day

Melanie has really enjoyed using this advent calendar in anticipation of Jesus' birthday.  She gets to take a piece out every day after breakfast and build the manger scene one day at a time.

Our Advent wreath looked kinda sad from the beginning -

Melanie liked playing with the candles before I put the wreath together and succeeded in breaking the rose colored candle.  Her response when I told her not to play with the candles?

"But I like it."

We eventually burned through the broken part, but that candle was an added reminder of patience during this time when all the stuff that just "has to be done!" can often take our focus off the true reason for the season.

We decorated the house, each of us adding our own touch.

Well, they are stockings after all...

The tree and hearth as I would like them to be seen...

... and how they really look most of the time thanks to a certain curious 10-month-old that lives here.

 

Here are a few shots of some of my favorite ornaments

Claire's 1st Christmas ornament

Melanie's 1st Christmas ornament

Matt's and my 1st Christmas together

We bought gifts and wrapped packages for our loved ones.

  And now we wait the last few hours until we can celebrate the best gift of all, the gift of God's love and forgiveness, the gift of Mary's "Yes", the gift of our salvation, Jesus Christ.

May your hearts and homes be filled with the true meaning of Christmas, these many years after Jesus first came into the world to save us from our sins.

"He owned no property, won no medals, never held any political office, commanded no army.

Yet no person in history has had such and influence on the human race.

Even the present year is dated from his birth."

 From our home to yours, may you have a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

One of the Best Toys EVER!

Empty wrapping paper tubes.

A thing of fascination for people of all ages for who knows how long.

They're irresistible.

They simply beg for you to do something with them!

"I see you mom!"

And do something with them we have.

After wrapping gifts we had several tubes left over, and Melanie had been playing with them.  Matt decided to get in on the fun.

Behold, the Wrapping Paper Tubes for Arms Monster!

(now gimme some candy! *)

Oh, the squeals of delight that ensued!

  Rrraaawwwrrrr!

 

Defend yourself Melanie!

 

Unfortunately, like all really cool toys do, the tubes eventually break.

And so a seasonal tradition comes to an end.

Until next year, enjoy your

- pirate looking glass

-megaphone

-telescope

-dueling swords

-monster arms

-walking stick

-bopping tube

while it lasts!

*bonus points if you caught the reference to this

Fun with Scarves

In going through our pictures from the last year for our Christmas card  I came across this series from last month and it made me grin.  Hope it brings a smile to your Friday :)

Layout Craziness

I just wanted to post a few pictures, and oh my!  I think I changed a setting when I updated some of the blog stuff the other day and it seems to have made uploading pictures both better and worse at the same time!  I may just need to get used to how this stuff works now, or maybe I can go back in and figure out how to go back to the settings I had before.  Anyway, the pictures are all over the place, so we'll see how this works out.

 Some outdoor fun jumping into a pile of leaves before it got so cold out.

Think our house is a bit dry?

The cake I made for our newest goddaughter's baptism



Claire has a newfound fascination with Melanie step stool.  Why do I get the feeling my oldest is training my youngest to be her partner in crime?  I fear I may be outnumbered in the very near future.



Melanie and her Great Grandma Greenlee reading stories together.  I realize all my Christmas presents may be returned because I'm posting this picture (Grandma DOES NOT like having her picture taken) I'm willing to risk it though because I think it's a sweet picture and I love that my kids get to have a relationship with so many of their "greats"



One of Melanie's new favorite things to say is "I do it I-self!".  In this example she put her boots on after her dad had changed her diaper.  The lei was just the finishing touch she was looking for, I'm sure.













The cookies I helped my cousins decorate for a cookie contest at school.  They did the bulk of the decorating, I just showed them how to do one and did most of the outlining b/c they don't think they're very good at it.  They turned out very cute, don'tcha think?  The trees are my personal favorite.

The cake I helped a friend decorate for her daughter's birthday.  She did the writing and some of the vines and leaves, I had the flowers and butterfly wings done ahead of time so once it was frosted smooth and I got the borders on we just had to piece it together and add the greenery and glitter.

Another self-portrait Matt took of him and the girls playing.  It makes me grin.

Hmmm.  Whatever change I made seems to have also taken away my spellcheck tab, so I apologize if I've made any errors.  I guess I will be figuring out how to switch back to my old settings after all...

Melanie's 2 1/2 year pictures and Christmas pictures

More pictures of the girls - imagine that!

I bought the photo CD this time, which was actually cheaper than getting all the prints we would need for Christmas cards and whatnot, and it came with the added bonus that we now own the rights to these pictures, so we can have them reprinted whenever and wherever we want, which is much cheaper than getting more prints from the studio. We may just go the CD route from now on!

I love how comfortable Melanie is getting with the photographer we always use at Penney's! It makes it so much easier to get cute pictures like this when she's already familiar with the person she's interacting with - no warm up time needed!

I'm really not color blind - I swear!
Claire's shoes, hair bow and ribbon on her dress match much better in person than they do in this picture. Fortunately people won't be seeing her in the bright light of camera flashes on Christmas day, so her outfit will look much better than it does here!

Hmmm... now that I have the pictures I guess I'd better get going on those Christmas cards :P