I always look forward to December. We have a few traditions we continue each year and we usually try a few new things too. We lighten the load on school work and put a lot of focus on Advent: time of waiting, a time of anticipation and preparation for the coming of Jesus.
Every year we love going to pick out our tree together. This is the one, Daddy!
We have created a Jesse tree of some sort for 4-5 years and it has been great. "A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Isaiah 11:1 The Jesse tree is used to represent the stories of people in Jesus' family tree. Each day you read scripture and the corresponding bible story and you reflect on what the Bible is trying to tell us. It begins with creation and leads up to Jesus' birth. After we read the Bible story each day, we hang a corresponding symbol or ornament on the Jesse tree that the kids create.
Our completed tree!
In addition to the Jesse Tree, we also did an Advent Countdown. We have done this once or twice in the past and the kids really like it. Each day there will be something for the kids to do. Here are some examples of some of the activities we did this year:
give your brother and sister two compliments today
write a soldier a letter
family Christmas movie night
donate items from your pantry to the local food bank
make homemade hot cocoa
bake cookies for the neighbors
donate 5 of your toys
leave a nice note for someone to find
read the M&M Christmas Story
The idea is to take the focus off of yourself and do for others. And for the days we were gone for Disney, I included ideas like: eat lunch with a Princess, ride a roller coaster, take a family Christmas selfie. We opened all these days when we got back home and there was no "catch-up" to do, which was nice.
Dipping pretzels with the kids. Mae LOVED this and she even had her own bowl! Dipping pretzels and making candy {divinity, pralines, peanut butter balls, fudge} is a memory I have as a child, so I love creating these memories with my children as well.
Watch us in action!
Building and decorating our Gingerbread House Village.
After we got home from the Christmas Eve service, the kids all lined up to open their first gift of the season. Each year they get to open one gift on Christmas Eve.
See what they opened up!
Daddy and the girls spreading out the Reindeer Food in the yard on Christmas Eve. We gave bags of Reindeer Food to each family at our Neighborhood Christmas Party.
The stockings are ready to go for the kiddos.
The presents are all wrapped and the kids are tucked into bed.
The kids woke up around 7:15 on Christmas morning and were ready to open gifts!
Watch the kids in action!
We have a tradition of having cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. My first memory of doing this is in Deer Park in 2008 when Jase was still a baby. These past two years we have stepped up our game and made them from scratch. We follow Pioneer Woman's recipe and they turn out delicious. There are quite a few steps involved, but they are so worth it. And it makes so much that we were able to bless a couple of neighbors with a pan of them.
Christmas Service with the crew!
This year Shawn requested Italian food on Christmas Day. We thought that Chicken Alfredo and garlic bread would be best for our family since they aren't big on red sauce. I have made it before and remember it being more involved, but it was relatively easy this time. Since Ree Drummond is so reliable, I went with Pioneer Woman for the recipe!! Love her!
Happy Birthday to Jesus! We make a cake every year on Christmas Eve to celebrate. We sang Happy Birthday after lunch on Christmas Day.
Playing the Wii on Christmas afternoon!
We had a fun December and many memories were made. I'm thankful for it and am looking forward to getting into the New Year and back into routine.
On Thursday, December 29th, we drove down to Waco, Texas to site see. I have been wanting to spend some time in this cute little town for a while now. We are big fans of the Fixer Upper show on HGTV that is based in Waco! My mom, Alisha and Michael decided to join us since they were headed back that way too.
First stop: Magnolia! And let me tell you it was packed! The people in the picture below are waiting in line to get in. Super cool place though, just tons of people so it is was hard to take your time and look at every little thing.
Again, Finn with the signs! Haha!
Nanny and her grandbabies!
After the Silos, we had traveled to Jake's Texas Tea House. They only serve lunch and they were packed as well. We definitely showed up at a high volume time and with a large table, we waited for quite a while. I will say that once we got seated and ordered, our food came out pretty quick and it was delicious! I loved the sweet tea! I shared a hamburger and fries with Finn and we didn't finish it. I also ordered their sweet potato fries...to die for!
My sweet Finn! Oh how I will miss not having a 4-year old around the house; such a sweet age!
After lunch we walked to Spice Village off of 3rd Street. They have tons of vendors under one roof. Michael and Allyson were walking partners! Sweet.
Here is our gang on the street!!
I found this ice cream sandwich food truck and we had to try them out! Pokey O's! Homemade cookies wrapped around ice cream, what's not to love?! They are in different locations throughout the day and you can locate where they are on their Instagram page. Anyway, heaven.
One last stop: Harp Design Co. Clint Harp from Fixer Upper has some mad carpentry skills, so Shawn wanted to check out his work in person!
What a fun day we had and I'm sure we only scratched the surface of this fun town! Waco, until we meet again!
Earlier in December we got tickets to see the Houston Rockets play the Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center on December 27th. Even though we live up north now, we are still supporting our Houston teams! We had no idea we'd have family up, but it worked out great! We took Alisha and Michael to the game and my mom held down the fort at home with the kids, what a blessing that was!
Me and my little Sis!
Me and the bae! Love this man!
On one of the breaks during the game, they had the cutest race at center court. Three babies lined up and raced {crawled} to their parent at the end of the mat.
With the Cotton Bowl right around the corner, Wisconsin and Western Michigan are already in town practicing. The teams also happened to be at the game that night and two members of each team came down to center court and had a dance off. It totally cracked me up!! I mainly recorded it for Jase to see their moves, but I thought I would share with you too! Enjoy!
Early in December I decided I wanted to have a Neighborhood Christmas Party. The plan was to keep it pretty simple: I would provide some finger foods, ask my friends to bring an appetizer or dessert, have a craft and play some games! And that's pretty much how it went. It was a such a fun night with our sweet friends. I am thankful for them.
I found this idea of wood chip ornaments and I wanted to recreate it. Shawn picked up some Christmas tree scraps and he cut them down using his miter saw and they came out so smooth! He has become quite handy lately! I baked them in the oven on the lowest setting for an hour, turning them over after 30 minutes. This dried them out and they were no longer sappy. After that it was a big assembly line. Shawn's mom helped me glue ribbon on the back and Shawn helped paint them white, red and black; we kept some natural looking too. Lastly, I painted a few for example purposes. I loved doing this and I think they turned out great! What an inexpensive project!
We had 4 families over and it was a full crew! We had yummy snacks, hot cocoa bar, played fun games and had many laughs.
Here are the games we played and some videos!
Suck it up: how many m&m's can you get on a plate in 1 minute using a straw?
Rudolph Nose: put Vaseline on your nose and then put the ribbon with a red pompom hot glued to it in your mouth and try to make Rudolph!
Cookie Face: get the Oreo from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands!
Do You Wanna Build a Snowman: split up in teams and decorate one of your team members as a snowman: completely wrapped in white (toilet paper or Crete paper), three buttons, carrot and scarf.
Santa Beard: Vaseline your face where a beard would be, race to a table with cotton balls on it and decorate your face without using your hands for 30 seconds. Fun to see who has the best Santa Beard.
The older kids
The younger kids
The Dads
Christmas Bingo: After all the excitement settled down, a few of us sat around the table and played Bingo. {Confession: I love Bingo! If I had more time, I totally would find a Bingo hall, take the kids and go play.} I downloaded these Bingo cards and printed them out at home. They are super cute, but the only thing is that there are only 4 different Bingo cards, so I printed out several extra, cut and pasted to make additional cards to play on. I think I ended up with 11 different cards. I also laminated them, so we are good to go for next year too! We played with Hersey Kisses as the bingo markers.
I bought $1 prizes, so most of the kids walked away with a prize or two, which they loved.
I love my sweet neighbors. We had a great time together. {Finn is the cute little snowman below!}
After we returned home from Disney, Shawn's family came up to visit with three of our nephews. It was a nice time with them and I know the cousins enjoyed playing together.
After Christmas Nanny, Aunt Alisha and her boyfriend, Michael, came up to say a couple of days. We had a great time with them!
About 7 months ago Shawn and I were talking about vacation and we both agreed that it would be super fun to visit Walt Disney World during Christmastime. So, we decided to book a trip and keep it as a surprise to the kids. We were scheduled to leave Sunday, December 11th, so we surprised them the day before.
You'll notice that they first open a card from Nanny and PawPaw. It contains Disney gift cards for each kid. You can tell that Jase is suspicious, but doesn't fully understand. Then I gave each child an autograph book that says December 2016 and Jase figures it out!! I love how excited he got!
Oh and another big surprise is that we decided to fly. This was all the kids first time on an airplane!
Grabbing lunch at the airport! FYI Finn has his own hand signals. He learned it from Jase and will not stop doing it! Ha!
The girls sat with me on the plane and the boys with Shawn. {Although Maebry did rotate back and forth between the both of us some.} They all did great on the plane, especially for their first time. I think the movies on the plane, snacks in their bags and new activities we packed for them helped too!
We made it!!
I hope to have time to blog it all in detail soon, but until then here are some pictures and a video. It was such a fun trip! We did SO much in 5-6 days, from meeting characters and getting autographs, riding attractions, eating at great restaurants, and watching live shows and fireworks.
Shawn and I are high school sweethearts. Married for 12 years with 4 beautiful children and reside in the great state of Texas. We are sinners who have been saved by grace, through faith in Christ Jesus. In our home we enjoy: laughing, praising and learning about God, watching sports, and homeschooling.
