Christmas & New Years

Christmas was so much fun this year as Joshua and Jenna really began to understand the meaning of Christmas and enjoyed opening their presents. We went to Christmas Eve service at our church where the kids were with us in "big church". It was really nice too - we sang old and new Christmas songs and told the story of Jesus' birth out of the book of Luke. At the end we also turned all the lights off and had a candelight singing of Silent Night to remind us to bring our lights into the world around us and to contunue to spread the joy.

We stayed home for New Years - seems like each year its a little harder to go out somewhere having a lot of friends with older kids, or no kids. Last year the kids had RSV, so we were house bound, and thankfully this year everyone was healthy. It was just REALLY cold and windy outside, so we stayed in. Maybe next year.....

Christmas Traditions...

I've always wondered what I would want to do with the kids as they get older as far as starting Christmas traditions... Growing up I remember always going to my grandma's house, or to my auntie's house for Christmas day celebrations. I remember opening presents with my mom on Christmas eve and spending the day in our jammies and baking while listening to Christmas music. I also remember going to look at Christmas lights on Thoroughbred street with my mom on Christmas eve eve. Christmas is my favorite holiday, and its always hard to be so far away from the family when you've grown up with such awesome traditions.

But then that means time to start some new traditions with our growing family...

We started some cool things last year, and this year we've decided to really put some thought into making traditions meaningful and memorable. Here's some things we've decided to do with our kids during this wonderful season:

• Make snowman shaped pancakes on Christmas morning with blueberry "buttons" and eyes
• See Christmas Lights on Christmas eve on our way home from church
• Make sugar cookies cut out in Christmas shapes on Christmas eve
• Read the Christmas Story out of Luke 2 on Christmas morning
• Make a birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas day
• Open our presents Christmas morning after breakfast

And of course Jason and I will be watching our two favorite Christmas movies on Christmas eve and Christmas night after the kids go to bed: "A Christmas Story" and "Home Alone"

I'll post pictures and tell all after Christmas...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!

Jenna's Two

This past week was Jenna's second birthday....Hard to believe that I have a three-year old, a two-year old and an eight-month old. Where has the time gone?! I know now the pricelessness of each little moment, laugh, giggle, and smile. They are so important to me and I treasure them so much.

We celebrated Jenna's birthday this weekend with a princess party. I'll post some of those pics later - I have to edit them first. :) To celebrate as a family though, we made her favorite dinner (but we had it as a side dish) - mac and cheese. We sang Happy Birthday, and of course we let her open her present from us. She really likes Ariel and Cinderella, so we got her an Ariel doll that can also go in the water with her. She loves it and takes it everywhere.

Jessica was so nice and took some pictures of Jenna when we took the grandkids picture for Sherrie's mom. They turned out SO good! The one at the top is my favorite. Here's a glance at some of my other favorites she took:

Snow Day

Yesterday we had our first snow day of the season. Texas gets snow - just not usually where we are. We are about an hour north of Houston, and it gets cold here in the winter, but never usually snow. We have El Nino to thank this year for our likely white Christmas. Yesterday was the earliest recordable amount of snowfall in the area on record, making it a high possiblity of a white Christmas, or at least another snow fall before 2009 is over. Some places experienced 4 inches! We had encough to make everything beautiful and it stuck for a little while. The next morning was GORGEOUS outside! School got out at half day, and when we got home, I let Josh play outside for a little as the girls fell asleep on the way home. Here's a video of what we did:

Here's a few pictures from the next day: