Christmas so far

Week 1 of Christmas vacation has been glorious! Lots of good family time, hanging out with friends, sewing, cooking and nap taking! Can I get an Amen?!





We've had lots of good time with our cuddle bug who loves to be in the middle of whatever is going on!y

I made some quilted Christmas coasters for my mom with the leftover Christmas fabric from the bows I made for our tree last year. They turned out pretty cute. And I found some chocolate wine to go with them.... I don't know if it is any good, but it sounds good! I'm in the process of now making Christmas placemats with the fabric I bought to make them 2 years ago.



We did Christmas early with my mom because she is traveling to PA to be with my sister and bro-in-law for Christmas this year. H sure had a lot of fun opening his presents!









We took H and his friend E from church to Jumping Monkeys this week to play on all of the inflatable toys. It was a lot of fun! We were both sore afterwards from the obstacle course - totally getting old....









H's favorite parts of the outing were the ball pit and dancing with E and Santa Claus before we left. It was so much fun. Both kiddos were in tears when we had to leave. Enjoy the dancing video below and Merry Christmas!!

We made it!

I've been waiting for this day for several weeks now, and it is finally here! I'm off work for 2 weeks and 1 day and I have no school for almost a month. I've been waiting to update the blog, and sleep in, and take a nap, and catch up on my sewing projects, and I have lots of activities planned for H and I! We are all desperately in need of a break!

Here are some pics of us getting ready for Christmas







H had a lot of fun helping us decorate the tree this year. It has been fun to see him get excited about Christmas and understand a little more about it. He's had several opportunities to meet Santa and until recently it did not go well. He recognizes Santa and points him out anytime he sees him on TV or in decorations, but at Jeff's Dad's Christmas party Santa showed up and gave each child there a present. For the first time H actually sat on his lap and after he opened his present he went back and told Santa, "Tank You" - it was adorable!



H's daycare had a Christmas pageant this year and H's class was supposed to shake bells and sing jingle bells. We've been practicing jingle bells for weeks now and H's teacher tells me that he is always the loudest singer, so I was hoping to capture him singing sweetly... instead....



Here he is before the song started and before he spotted us in the crowd, and after...



He spent the entire song wresting with the teacher to run away and crying. Poor kid, maybe next year.

Jeff and I got a group together from our church this year to go to a local homeless shelter and host a Christmas party. I didn't get any pictures of it, but we had such a good time singing Christmas Carols, sharing the hope of Jesus, and passing out presents to the residents. While we were there one of the residents had a gift he wanted to give us and he sang, O Holy Night, and he had the most incredible voice - it was truly a gift to worship with him. As we were leaving Jeff & I were talking to a man who told us that another homeless person had just been shot and killed at a bus station just a few blocks away and he was telling us his story of how he ended up in the shelter and how grateful he was to be there. It is always so humbling to hear the stories of others and such a blessing to see how God chooses to provide for them and the joy and hope they have in spite of really difficult circumstances. It was so much better than a white elephant gift exchange and I think we started a new tradition at our church!

We went to Jeff's company Christmas party last night and took a picture together before we went. Sadly, we realized the last picture we took of the two of us was our anniversary last year. oops



Merry Christmas Friends! Wishing you a season full of Joy in Jesus and opportunities to share his glory and greatness!

Thankful

This is a little late, but I figure belated gratefulness is better than no gratefulness at all right? We have SO much to be thankful for this year. It is amazing how much has changed over the last year. In the last year we both started new jobs, H got into the daycare we'd been on the waiting list for, bought our first house, got a new (used) car (did I blog about my new minivan?), I started grad school, we started a small group at our church, Jeff was ordained a deacon at that church, our baby turned 2 and we had enough vacation time to visit our friends and family a few times.
We hosted our first Thanksgiving at our house and minus the fried turkey juice in Jeff's eye and me dropping an entire pie all over the floor, it was a pretty good day! I was reading the other day about how God loves to give good gifts to his children and as a parent I totally get that. I am constantly buying H random stuff just because I know it will make him happy and how much more does the Father know how to give good gifts to His children? Not that the year has been without its challenges and hard times, but I'm so grateful for the ways that I feel like so many things we have been praying for and waiting for have come to fruition over this past year. God is good indeed, in spite of our circumstances, in spite of our feelings even, God is so good to us.
Here's what's been going on since I last blogged.


Family picture fail from when Papa Bill visited for H's 2nd birthday. H has the greatest grandparents ever, seriously!



We went to a wedding of some good friends in Waco. It was so fun to get to spend time with so many of our friends and we feel so lucky to have such an incredible group of people who we totally love.


Elyse and I celebrated our 28th birthday on the day before our actual birthday (Thanksgiving) and H totally thought the party was all about him.




It was so wonderful to have Elyse & Stephen down for Thanksgiving. H totally adores his Eese & Seeven. Aaaaaand you might notice that Elyse is carrying her own bundle of joy that will arrive in March! Yay!!!!


Christmas should be a blast this year as H is totally into the Christmas spirit this year. It has been fun to see him get all excited and to talk with him more about why we celebrate Christmas. He has his own nativity set and likes to take turns putting the animals and "Bebe Cheesus" on the roof.

Turning 2

Turning 2 is so much fun! I know not because I remember, but because when Elyse & I turned 2 my parents rented a video camera to take a video of our birthday party and when we were growing up we used to watch that video all the time (being that it was the only video of us in existence). I planned a special choo-choo birthday for H since trains are his favorite toy in the world right now (other than lamby of course. It was such a fun party and we had so many friends and family come celebrate with us - we are truly blessed! Here are some pics of the event


















Here's all the present action. Man, did this kid get some cool stuff! I still remember that awesome cabbage patch piano we got for our 2nd birthday!







Happy 2nd Birthday sweet H, you are so loved!

Halloweening

We successfully got H to wear his Halloween costume before school (he took it off as I was collecting our things to walk out the door) and then we put it back on for the Noah's Ark Party at church. He didn't wear the Mickey Mouse ears long... but I wasn't really counting on that.


Here are the ears before Halloween




Mickey Mouse and Bama (what H calls both of Jeff's parents. Pronounced Bamaw)


H even got to ride on a pony!

Enjoy the video below of H enjoying the petting zoo.

Pumpkin patch

I still don't have pictures of our house all put together, but I have pictures of my adorable almost 2 year old playing in our house... so, that will have to do for now. I would write more of an update, but it goes something like this:

H is potty training, he is doing awesome!
work, school, homework, repeat. I survived my first round of tests (not without some tears and talk of dropping out)
H is using sentences and starting to sing songs and "read" his books with us (he knows at least the last word on every page)
Can't believe his 2nd birthday is almost here....then again, it feels like he's been with us forever. He blesses us so much everyday and we feel so lucky to have such a great kid!

So, on to the pictures. We went to the pumpkin patch this weekend. H was supposed to be wearing his Halloween costume like he was in our pictures last year. However, we had a screaming wrestling match to get him into his Mickey Mouse outfit... guess who won?











We decided to paint our pumpkins instead of carving them since the ones we carved last year were all moldy and disgusting by the next week!





Somehow we digressed into pedicures...



Here are some cute pictures of our big boy from the last month (in which I have been terrible at updating the blog)

Here's H helping do the dishes one night. He is becoming quite the helper. He loves to be the in the middle of whatever we are doing... ALL the time =)


Going down the big twirly slide at what will be his future elementary school. He is fearless. He slid right down this all by himself and then went another 20 times.