December. Full of stockings, Christmas lights, Christmas ornaments, hot chocolate, Christmas carols & time together. My little guys were just.so.excited this year. James was my decorator, singer & was hanging ornaments on my buffet in the dining room before the tree was even up! Hayden was my run-around-and-dance-happy-feet fella. ;-) My sweet Calvin was a non-crawler, to army-crawler, to full blown crawler by the end. The day he figured out that he could crawl to the tree and reach up for the ornaments was the day we took it down! haha.
James begged us for Christmas lights for his house, so we decided that would be our 'new purchase' for this year. He wasn't totally satisfied without lights on the whole house, but we enjoyed starting it out!
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| my big helper. notice the dog bowl OVERflowing. |
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| chair-fort for watching a movie |
We were excited to take our little guys to see Santa this year. We have watched the Polar Express & the boys took their bell to show santa. Just so sweet! We didn't write a letter or really put any more time in with Santa. I really want my boys to not miss out on the fun of seeing Santa or having stockings, but I don't want Santa to overshadow Christ's birth. and I don't want Santa to pass on to the the moral standard that you 'must be good to get gifts' when that's absolutely not the way Christ offers his gift. No one earns or deserves Christ, yet.he.came. So we shied away from making Santa a big deal, but we are grateful for living in a culture where Christmas traditions can include so many fun things for the kids to see & do.
Our major house-update for this winter was painting all of our trim white. We had original, real wood trim which was really great, but very mismatched. We had so many different colors in the wood from the moldings...to the doors... to the kitchen cabinets... it just wasn't our favorite thing. So we decided to go for the white, clean finish. It.is.great. I decided I would love to paint the door off our kitchen to our garage blue, but it was just too bright. We thought it over, and chose a darker shade from a the paint color card we used in our den for a more coordinated look. I love the door now!
I continued my tradition of handmade felt ornaments as gifts for family & one for ourselves as well. I hope that I can keep this tradition up, and one day, maybe I'll be really good at it. ;-)
We took the boys out to look at Christmas lights more than once & packed a sippy cup of hot chocolate to-go... it was one of the most fun things we did this year! besides the always fun sugar cookie making&decorating tradition...
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| my boys love hot-hot-hot, hot chocolate!! |
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| my boys creations to the left... |
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| all.my.guys. |
My little Santa baby.
We got to take a trip up to see our nieces the weekend before Christmas & had such a nice time together. It is always so much fun when we get to be together, and I can't believe how big all of the kiddos are getting. It seems a little crazy to me that my nieces are 6 and (almost) 8!?? What a blessing it is to have my brother's family just one step ahead of us on this path for raising kids.
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| all 5 of the Austin grandkids! |
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| how much fun is a car full of kiddos?? |
December started off a bit odd for us as Thanksgiving fell on the last weekend in November, and Matt had a business trip that took him away for the whole 1st week of December. The countdown seemed to go by so quickly, but it has been very nice to have a break from preschool these few weeks. I am such a creature of normalcy & long for it after the upheaval that accompanies holidays. I am guilty too often of struggling to enjoy the moments we are given, however they come. May that continue to be my endeavor, to see the Lord's good gifts all around me as I move through this life. To use the good gifts given uniquely to me to point others towards Him & what he has done. Oh how I fall short, but oh how He loves & forgives & redeems the time.
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