Christmas Morning

Since we've had kids, we've made it a tradition to spend Christmas morning at home with just the 5 of us!  We love this time together (and love that our family knows it's a special time that won't last forever and encourages it!)  This year was awesome!  We've made it a tradition for the girls to get 3 gifts each under the tree from us.  We want to make sure that their focus isn't on the presents, but on Jesus.  They love giving to each other and us too.  They have such generous hearts!  Their reactions to their gifts, seeing each other open gifts, and their thankfulness is awesome!  I'm so thankful!

Love!

My sweets!

We started the morning with Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast.  Yum!  After breakfast we gathered on the couch to read the story of Jesus' birth!  Gracie Claire and Syd took turns reading!

After reading and more pictures (thankfully they've grown accustom to my picture taking obsession!) we finally passed out and opened gifts!  They're reactions were the best!

 They even stopped mid passing out gifts to pose for their mama!  My sweet girls!

Love, Love, Love!

So thankful!  We are so truly blessed!  2013 has been awesome!  I'm always excited to see what a new year brings, but remain thankful for all the Lord has done for us so far!  

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cookies With Gigi

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll know that it's a tradition for Gigi to come over to make Christmas cookies with the girls.  They always love that time with her and I love that it has become something that they ask to do every year!  You can read more about this tradition HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE!  This is the 7th year we've baked Christmas cookies with Gigi!  Love that!

Thank you Mom/Gigi for making this such a special time for the girls!  I know they'll never forget it!

I just had to finish this post with this.  After cookie baking time, this little miss went to bed with a stolen blue marker and decided to turn herself into a smurf.  SIGH...  All I could do was laugh! She makes sure that life is never boring!  Ha!

Family Christmas x 4

We are so blessed to be able to have all of our family nearby!  We had 4 different Christmas celebrations (not counting our own on Christmas morning) within 4 days.  We (as always) were completely blessed with everything given to us and just to be able to spend time with all of our family!

Our first celebration was with Paul's dad and Janice, otherwise known as PaPaw and Janny!  Santa comes to visit the family every year at PaPaw's and Janny's house, so it's always a fun time!

They were good girls this year!  ;)

Daddy and Mommy were on the nice list too!

Fun times with Santa!

On Monday night, we had Christmas with Paul's mom and Carl, otherwise known as Mimi and Papa! Mimi brought tons of yummy food and we had fun eating, opening gifts, and spending time together!

Mimi read the kids "The Night Before Christmas!"

Yep, you read that one right!  Mimi and Papa are so generously sending us to Disney!  We're so excited!  :)

Christmas Eve was pretty laid back.  We spent the morning at home and then went to my parent's house right before heading to the Christmas Eve service.  Gracie Claire said one of the best things ever right before we left for church.  She said, "I'm so excited for tonight for two reasons: 1) My favorite Christmas tradition is the candlelight service.  I love it! 2) There are 23 hours of commercial-free Christmas music on KLTY!" We cracked up!

Our candlelight service was, as always, a great time of celebrating the true meaning of Christmas!  I love that our girls love it!

After church, we headed to Paul's granny's house for our annual Christmas get together!  The family is growing and it's always fun to watch the little ones and Granny open their gifts!

There were 5 of the family that weren't even there, so this isn't even everyone! :)

We spent Christmas morning at home with just the 5 of us.  It was awesome and precious time that I love!  I'll be posting about that later!

After Christmas morning, we headed over to my parent's, otherwise known as BigPa and Gigi!  Caleb, Sandra, Sam, and Cassidy were already there and Gracie and Nkere made it back from his mom's just in time to have all of us together!  We had a great time eating, opening gifts, and laughing together!  Gracie Claire, Sam, and Syd all read a little bit of the Christmas story from the Bible and Molly and Cass prayed.  It was so sweet!

 Sweet Cousins

 So blessed!

BigPa and Gigi with their little ladies!

Even though it was SO busy, we had a blast spending time with each part of our family!  We are blessed beyond words and couldn't ask for more!  It was awesome!  I'm so, so thankful!

Swings & Parties

We had a wonderful Christmas, which I'll post about soon, but I wanted to get caught up on a few things that happened before Christmas!

 The girls' big gift for Christmas was a swing set!  They LOVED it!  One swing each = no arguments!

We gave it to them the week before Christmas since it was so nice outside!

We had a 1st grade team/friend party at my house right before we got out for Christmas break.  I love that I work with girls who are both awesome teachers AND my friends!  They totally rock!  We did a white elephant gift swap with "As Seen On TV" gifts.  3 of us bought those hair remover thingys.  Awesome.

I'm SO thankful I was able to spend a little time with my 2 school girls at their classroom Christmas parties!  Such a bonus to being a teacher where your kids go to school!  Loved it!

Stay tuned for Christmas posts friends...

Merry Christmas and Stuff

I have several little things to blog about, but I'm just stopping by to post this year's Christmas card.  I love how it turned out.  I'm also just wanting to say that during this time of year, when it's so easy to get caught up in all of the get togethers (we have 4 days in a row of family gatherings coming up...which I love) getting/receiving gifts, and running here or there, I hope we make sure that we remember what we're celebrating here.  We aren't celebrating our families, the material things we give/receive, Santa, or any of it.  We're celebrating HIM.  HE is the reason we celebrate this time of year.  I feel like every year our world moves further and further away from that and it makes me feel like a "BAH HUMBUG!"  I just want to take what this world has turned this time of year into and stuff it somewhere.  No, I'm not saying that all of it is bad.  I love giving my girls and people I love gifts.  I love decorating the tree and looking at Christmas lights.  I love seeing my family.  But...I want the girls growing up knowing and celebrating the real reason for Christmas.  That's up to me and Paul.  When they grow up, I want them to celebrate Christmas because it's about Jesus.  Not because of all of the other stuff.  That is all.  This has been a giant soapbox on my heart this year.  Thank you for reading.  ;)

I'll leave you with this:

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6



Our Spelling Queen

Gracie Claire participated in her first ever Spelling Bee yesterday at school.  The kids had to take a spelling test and the top ten spellers in their grade level were chosen.  Gracie Claire was one of 10 3rd graders (out of over 100) who earned a spot in the spelling bee!  Proud mama right here!  3rd, 4th, and 5th graders participated and (I think) their were about 30 spellers.  Gracie Claire tends to put lots of pressure on herself.  I don't know where she gets it?  ;)  She studied at home and at school and we told her what a great accomplishment it was to have just made it to the spelling bee.  I admit it...I might have been more nervous than she was.  OK, I'll admit this too.  I might have cried every time she came to the microphone to spell.  What can I say?!  I'm an overly emotional proud mommy!

 Our pretty speller, right before the spelling went down.

 She was so excited that Daddy was able to go in to work a little late so he could be there to cheer her on.  Sydster was so proud of her big sister and loved that she was able to be there too!

 I'm a proud Mama!

Gracie Claire was the 1st speller.  Having a last name that starts with A has it's perks.  She made it to round 4 before she misspelled a word!  I am SO proud of her!  She was so confident when she stepped up to the microphone.  She spoke loudly and was so clear.  When she came off of the stage, the amount of friends that gave her a high-five made me cry again.  I know...you're surprised.  She is so loved by so many and it made me realize what an impact she already has on people.  When she got to Mrs. Cunningham (her fab teacher) she cried.  Meredith brought her to us and we got to love on her and tell her how extremely proud we are of her.  She worked her booty off!  She has decided that she is going to boycott the word that she misspelled.  HA!   

These girls make me a proud mama and teacher.  (I had these 2 when they were 1st graders!)  I love that GC has such fantastic friends!  They supported each other and were a success!  Love them!

Well, I will now end this proud mommy post.  Don't worry...there will be, at least, a billion more to come!

Cookies For Santa? Nah...

For us!!  The girlies and I spent our last ice day morning baking Christmas cookies together.  I found an easy recipe on Pinterest and whipped up some YUMMY cookies and icing.  They were seriously so good! 

Using the cookie cutters is one of their fave things!  A little cookie cutter tousle may have happened!

 The baked cookies ready to be decorated!

 They LOVED decorating with the icing and sprinkles...and licking their fingers!

Ready to eat!

 Cuties and Their Cookies

I LOVED the ice days with my girlies.  Wouldn't trade any of the time we spent together for anything.  1 more week of school until Christmas break!!

Ice Days Galore!

We (meaning the ladies and myself...Paul ventured out to work this morning) are spending our 2nd official day off from school doing a little laundry, watching "White Christmas", and playing Mario.  I've also gotten (I think) all of the girls' Christmas shopping done.  I have completely LOVED these days stuck at home.  I saw someone post on FB about taking it as the chance to just be still.  We don't get those opportunities much in our busy lives, so I love when we're forced to take them.  It has been awesome.  No cabin fever here!  I've, of course, taken lots of pictures.  Here we go!

 A fact you might not know about my hubs:  He loves to cook and bake!  Bonus for me!  I don't mind doing it, but I'm just fine letting him do it if he wants to!  Love him!

 Lots of comfort food goin' down this weekend!  We had chicken and rice in the crock pot, tomato soup and grilled cheese, cookies, banana bread, and sausage and eggs for breakfast.  HOLLAH!

 This cute little bug below, along with her sisters, have LOVED going outside to play on the ice. 

 I stayed inside, for the most part, and attempted things like this...

I'm missing one edge piece.  This completely throws me off of my game.  I can only obsess about the missing piece!  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to finish or scrap the whole thing!

 LOVE...

 I finally decided to get my slipping and sliding on.  I couldn't be left out!  :)

 GC and Daddy built a pretty awesome little igloo!

The girls in full on gamer mode...

Our street is still solid ice as of this morning.  Interesting...

Who knows what will happen tomorrow!?

Happy Icemageddon 2013 friends!!!!