December Pics

Here’s what we’ve been up to this month:

Hanging out together while it’s been SO cold outside (like –25)

Making faces

She’s the queen of faces

Eating freezies…I always stock up for the winter when it’s the end of summer and the store is clearing them out for $0.25/bag.

First attempt at making gluten-free sugar cookies.  At first I didn’t think they had turned out, but after I put them in the freezer, they tasted good.

Kiera followed Jared up and down the driveway while he snowblowed, which I thought was super cute.

The group of girls that Kiera is in dance class with

…and with their teacher

Blake’s Sunday School class at the Christmas program

My girls in their pretty dresses…Haley doing her classic scrunchy face

The gingerbread house we made last week

The back of it before it all fell apart

Next year we’ll try the gingerbread train and maybe that will work better?!  At least we had fun! :)

The Life-Changing Christmas Story

I've been thinking a lot about the Christmas story lately. It's such a familiar one that I think I have it mostly memorized. Some things have struck me about it, though, and I've been seeing it in a new way. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which was a "nowhere" town. It wasn't a prominent place or a great city. He was born to Mary, who wasn't royalty or anyone "important." Jesus was born in a barn. A BARN! The Creator of the entire universe, who could have been born in the biggest palace, was born in a barn with animals that don't usually smell good. Who were the first people the angels announced Jesus' birth to? Again, they could have gone to the kings + queens and all of the most important rulers, but they announced Jesus' birth to the shepherds. Shepherds were "nobodies" in those days. Oh, and when Herod found out about Jesus and was threatened by this new "king," he ordered that all of the baby boys 2 years old and under be killed in that area. The killings in Connecticut recently were horrendous and heartbreaking and I can't imagine that multiplied by 100 or however many little boys were killed. Nobody had heard a word from the Lord for 400 years and that was broken by a baby's cry. Jesus came during a very, very dark time to bring LIGHT! He left perfect heaven for this sin-filled earth to save us! I can't even put into words how grateful I am as I sit here with tears streaming down my face. My digestion problems have recently flared up really badly and I can't eat any Christmas treats this week as I'm on a super strict diet again. I could feel sorry for myself, and there have been moments when I have, but I have WAY too much to be thankful for as I see what Jesus has done for me. The magnitude of it blows me away! Merry Christmas everyone and praise God for who He is and what He has done!

Blake’s Birthday Party

Ya, so I’m over a month late on this one.  Story of my life these days when it comes to blogging.  We had Blake’s party a few days before his actual birthday.  I switched most of the pink streamers to blue ones, but left a few of the pink ones since there were going to be some girls at his party.  Plus, it was just a lot of work to switch them.

One of his favorite gifts was the very noisy truck on the right.  I told my friend I’m going to get her back and I already have some plans for a gift I’m going to buy, ha ha!  I put some duct tape over the speaker, so the sound is more muffled now.  I’m very surprised they haven’t noticed yet!

I picked up the Thomas tablecloth in the States, which Blake really liked.

I made him a monkey cake since he is silly like a monkey.  I was going to make it a monkey pooping because Blake is pretty much obsessed with poop, but that was too difficult to do.

This was him on his actual birthday, Nov. 6.

I left out the one of him with his finger up his nose.  Definitely the clown of the family!

Advent

This is the 2nd year we’ve done something for Advent.  Last year, Kiera had the typical “tear a link off a paper chain every day,” but she didn’t really understand what it was all about.  This year, I decided I wanted to do something more purposeful.  When I heard that Kiera’s school has a box to collect food for people in need, I felt that God wanted us to give to that.  So, every day I send a food item along with Kiera and she knows that it “goes in the box for the poor people” as she says it.  Instead of having a calendar where she gets a chocolate every day (and there is nothing wrong with that), we give something every day.  I hesitated to share this because the Bible talks about giving in secret, but I prayed about it and I checked my heart’s motives and I simply felt that God wants me to encourage others to make the days leading up to Christmas meaningful, in whatever way He’s leading you and your family.  It’s not about me, it’s about Him.  Also, whoever receives the food won’t know it’s from us and that’s good!  One of my friends is doing the Focus On The Family advent thing and I looked at it yesterday and it’s great! 

Yesterday in the van, Kiera said, “I want a doll for Christmas.  Can I have a doll?”  It actually made me sad because it’s the first time that she has understood the whole “I get presents at Christmas and I want this or that.”  It’s not wrong to want things or give each other gifts, but I want to be so careful not to get caught up in the whole materialism in our culture, which is a constant battle.  Of course it’s fun to receive gifts and I very much enjoy the gift exchange we have every year with Jared’s family.  There is nothing wrong with that.  With some family members, their top love language is gifts, so it really makes them feel especially loved.  I feel very blessed, too, when I receive gifts given in love.  I really want to emphasize the giving part of it to my kids, so I told Kiera yesterday that it is better to give than to receive and I told her that when we give, we store up treasure in heaven.  Of course, she didn’t understand that, but I will keep talking about that and trying to explain it in a way that she will get it.

One of my family members said that they didn’t want us to buy them anything and to instead take the money we would spend on them and give it to someone in need.  I love that!  Every year, I look forward to getting the World Vision catalogue and picking a couple of things out of there.  I hope to get my kids involved this year and they can help pick something from there.  I want to bless our families this year but also bless people who can’t give back.  It feels so good and that is one way we can give gifts to Jesus!  I think of how God gave us His Son and how Jesus gave his life for us and my gifts feel so small, but I just want to do what God is calling me to do and I know that He can use any gift, big or small.  May we all be a blessing to those around us and glorify Jesus in all that we do!

Confession Session

Jared and I often joke about how he is a geek. He is obsessed with cell phones, particularly the iPhone and he regularly reads iMore, which is the #1 site for iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc. He also watches a Mobile Nations video every Monday which talks about what is going on in the cell phone world. Makes me laugh and shake my head! Confession: I am a geek, too! No, I'm not obsessed with my cell phone and I don't feel naked when I don't have it with me. I am a geek when it comes to my blog. I have regularly changed the html code to make the columns or header wider or narrower, depending on what layout I have. I regularly change the layout, which isn't hard to do. I also change the colors of my titles and links regularly, using a hex color code website. I find the color I want and then change the code on my blog. I also had to change the html code to put post dividers on my blog, which automatically show up in between each blog post. I also look for different blog backgrounds and put them onto private blogs that I have (I don't post on them), so that when I want to change the look of my blog, I just look at the other blogs I have and decide which background I want to switch to. I have kept all this a secret for years and decided it was time to confess! Feels good but also a bit embarrassing, ha ha! Are any of you secret geeks and brave enough to admit it? ;) I might make this confession session a regular thing, so watch out!

These Make Me Smile

Another successful, cavity-free trip to the dentist

Her first time in a forward-facing car seat, which was in September

She kept wanting to touch foreheads with my cousin.

She found something that Kiera had made with blue food coloring.

Food makes great hair gel!

She finally overcame her fear of our friend, Jermey, who she has refused to be near for a whole year!

I have a purple marshmallow this winter!

Blake shovelling leaves

Christmas Party

Since Jared got a new job in May, this past Saturday was our first time going to the Christmas party.  His boss always rents a room at a fancy steak restaurant.  So, I spent 2 hours triple barrelling my hair, put on the dress I wore as my sister’s matron of honor over 4 years ago and away we went.  We stopped at a couple of stores on our way there and it was kind of fun to have people turn and look at us.  I haven’t gotten that since I was pregnant!  Supper got started almost right after we got there and it was a 5 course dinner!  First there was cheese garlic bread and regular garlic bread.  I totally went for the cheesy one.  Round 2 was a choice of appetizer and Jared + I both chose baby back ribs.  Delicious!  Round 3 was soup or salad and we both chose caesar salad.  That was the only part that actually tasted a little bit funny.  Not sure why but it was different than other caesar salads I’ve had.  Round 4 was the main course and we both picked filet mignon.  That was my first time having that kind of steak and I have to say it was the best steak I’ve ever had.  I went for medium this time (I've often asked for medium well) and it was absolutely delicious!  Round 5 was either berry cheesecake or some sort of super rich chocolate ganache cake.  Jared picked the cheesecake, so I decided to try the chocolate.  It was WAY too rich.  I ate most of it because I felt bad leaving it on my plate, but I think I paid for that the next day, as my stomach felt off the whole day.  I couldn’t even eat any food at our Christmas gathering yesterday!  Oh well. 

After supper, they had an absolutely hilarious magician do a really great show!  His website is Anders Magic.  I was laughing the whole time!  He caught me texting and made me go up to the front, which was really embarrassing.  I had to pick an animal cracker from a box, not show him and then he would draw whichever animal was in my hand.  Jared told me later that all of his animals were the same and then after I would tell the audience what was in my hand, he would quickly add a couple of things to make it the right animal, which I didn’t realize.  I got to take home a picture of a giraffe, which my kids love! 

Tickets were pulled all evening for prizes that Jared’s boss bought, but our tickets didn’t get pulled.  There were a couple of $100 restaurant gift cards, a couple of $300 hotel gift cards, a $500 gift card for a mall, an iPad mini, some other really nice things and a couple of gag gifts.  At the end, every employee gets the same gift and we got a 2-night stay at a hotel with a water park in a city a few hours away!  We’re thinking of leaving Haley with someone, since she wouldn’t enjoy or appreciate it and taking Kiera + Blake for a week-end some time in the new year.  We were so blessed to have such a great evening and to be given a wonderful gift!

More Outdoor Fun

In August (yes, I’m posting about August again), my Mom and I took Kiera, Blake and Haley to this neat, new place for kids.  It has a splash park, too, which Kiera had fun in, but I didn’t get any pictures of that part.  Blake doesn’t like cold water.  We’ll try again next summer.  They both had fun playing and I like that it was so colorful.

We saw this while we were driving.  I think hot air balloons are really cool, but I might pee my pants if I actually went in one.

The only negative thing that I remember about that evening was that the picnic tables were near a garbage can and there were SO many wasps!  We had to eat pretty quickly.  I like finding new, fun and free places to take the kids!  I also like posting pictures of being outside in shorts and a t-shirt while currently it’s snowing outside, windy and just plain cold!