Great ending to a good year

So I somehow didn't get many pictures of the last few days, besides of Julia's party, but we had a really nice week, with a very rare visit from Amanda and kids first, then my parents came and stayed a few days and we even got a few hours with my dad's sister Kathy. The kids had a great time with their Leighton cousins. There was a lot of coloring and writing, some cake decorating, a bit of outside play (see pictures on the dirt pile), a few games, and a lot of spinning around in the recliner:) Love watching them all play together.

With my parents, we also did a little game playing, had some visits with Matt's family, went to the library, ate, talked, and hung out with the kids. We also played basketball and helped Joshua (who is trying to catch up with his twin cousins) begin to ride his bike without training wheels. The kids love all the extra attention from their grandparents and we enjoy having a change of pace around here.

Tonight, we are not going out and partying through the New Year (shocking, right?), but tried to have a festive time with the kids. We had popcorn and sparkling juice while watching a movie I've been wanting to watch forever (Tangled). Julia made it through about half of it and was so funny about repeating the characters every now and then when I didnt' even think she was paying attention. The boys loved the movie and Matt even looked up from his exercise book more than a few times and watch. We taught the boys how to make a New Year's Eve toast and made them dance with us later. Of course Gray was pretty into it and Joshua refused, though once Matt and Gray were out of the room, he grabbed my hand for a quick dance:)

We have had a good 2011...I think. Sometimes it goes by so fast I don't even think about how it's going! But I do know we have been super blessed to have sold our house and built a new one, moved the gym to a bigger place and survived on its income, had pretty good health, made it through sending Joshua to kindergarten, had lots of time with our loving family, got to know friends better, enjoyed our children, and drew closer to God. I think that makes for a pretty good year! Happy New Year to you!

The Princess turns two!

Yay! Balloons from Daddy. We started the day with breakfast, sitting on the froggy potty, and a few presents. We brought a bunch of Julia's toys downstairs for the party entertainment. I realized that our traditional team competitions or obstacle courses probably wouldn't work for our guest of honor, so the party was not really eventful! But all the other kids seemed to have fun playing together upstairs.
Sweet girl! She loved the pretty flowers on her balloon!

Julia playing with one of her gifts.

I made this baby doll cake with the help of Amanda and Abby. It was a pound cake with marshmallow fondant. I'm still not into making cakes as complicated as I did when the boys were babies, but thought that it would suit Julia to make a cake that looked like her favorite blanket, with her favorite kind of toy on top holding a blanket just like her "nightnight."
Aw! These two are so cute. They got matching shirts for Christmas (referring to State's football wins over the Hated Heels) and called each other before the party to plan their outfit! Okay, so they didn't plan it, but still were very cute.
Julia loved her cake and this was the only picture I got before she snagged the baby!

She liked eating her cake as well:)

I think all the kids except the big guy and the little princess made it into this picture. Quite a crew!
Our little sweetie got lots of princess attire for her birthday...clothes, shoes, jewelry, etc!
She obviously loves anything pink--like this stuffed seahorse and the gift bag it came in:)

Mimi redid this special chair...or should I say throne!

The princess found it very suitable for ruling her kingdom!

One last outfit she had to try on! Thanks everyone for coming to the party and for showering Julia with love and presents! Sure do love my sweet baby girl!!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

We had a great day yesterday celebrating the birth of Jesus! Our time at church Christmas Eve and Christmas Day helped focus my mind on him and I am just so thankful for what he has been for me this year. Of course he has been the one who saved me for heaven and made a way for me to know God, but this year as I have grown to know him more, I am thankful that he has been my friend who knows me better than anyone and loves me more. He has been there to comfort me and give me perspective when I needed it. He has shown me how to better love and serve others. He has gently corrected me when I'm wrong and inspired me to change. He has made me feel cared for and given me hope for the future. Can't imagine what life would be like without him. Very happy birthday to you, Jesus!

Now a little about our day. We woke at our usual time and I started breakfast, then headed up to get the kids up. I was just reading them a story when Matt called me downstairs to draw my attention to the smoke pouring from the oven, as a result of the sausage ball grease spilling over the sides of the pan. Whoops. Corrected that and moved on with the morning!

It is a bit awkward trying to potty train on Christmas Day! Julia took her breakfast "potty side" and enjoyed every bit of it. She did manage to go potty several times, despite the unusualness of the day.

Matt: "These sausage balls are good. I had 10."

Joshua was the one who most anticipated the present and stocking opening and he had a lot of fun with it.

Gray loved these Star Wars characters in his stocking.

Julia was very happy with her new big girl underwear.

She put them on right away.

The boys really enjoyed this castle and the knights that came with it. Got it all at a yard sale this summer for super cheap! Love yard sales when I can get to them!
We gave Julia this cradle that I got for Christmas when I was her age. She put her babies in there and then got in too! She also got a little car with fairies and some books.
The boys got the castle, some books, and bikes. We stuck with the three gift tradition, plus some stocking stuffers.
Matt got this coat, a book, and a tshirt, plus some stocking stuffers. I had fun buying stuff for him this year and he got me some nice things too. One big surprise was a storage bench. I had told him a few things that I would always like getting, one of which being storage boxes or baskets. Wasn't thinking of a whole storage system! I'll have to take a picture when we put it together.
The boys liked their bikes. Gray didn't have one and Joshua's was in need of a tire and too small. We're thinking they'll get a lot of use out of these on our culdesac.
We had to get to church, plus drop some food by Matt's parents' house and it was a bit of a rush trying to pack up all we needed for the whole day, but I managed to get the kids to sit still for a minute to get a picture by the tree. I took several, but believe it or not, this was the best shot.

We headed to church and enjoyed a small, casual service. The kids and I sat up front on a rug and everyone mostly did well. Julia liked watching some of the little girls up front and was pretty quiet, aside from that one time that Joshua tried to take her necklace and she screamed "No!" and smacked him in the head. Overall it was a great part of the day for me and I was so glad we went.
Almost all the cousins awaiting present opening after a nice lunch at Matt's parents' house. Julia ate early and took a nap.

Gray loved this cute NC State hat.

So did Joshua.

Both boys also got a transformer costume. This is Gray. They loved opening presents and then enjoyed playing outside on their bikes while the adult ladies watched The Help...or at least started it. The kids got a bit whiny and didn't like having to stay upstairs, so we ended up heading home halfway into it.

Julia got up from her nap and opened her presents after the rest of us. She liked her baby, stroller, and diaper bag with bottles. She always tests the bottles herself before giving them to the baby. What a good little mama!

We came home and put away gifts and played a little, then had a late supper. After the kids went to bed, I started thinking about our week ahead with family coming in for Julia's birthday...and I decided to go ahead and undecorate the house. I was just going to do a few things, then it was going so well that I did everything! Finished the night watching "Elf" with Matt. Thankful for a nice day and all that came with it. Now on to preparations for family visits, birthday parties, and more fun enjoying Joshua's week off of school. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Adam

This is our year to be with Matt's family on Christmas and their tradition is to get together on the night before Christmas Eve (or Christmas Adam, if you will. Will you? ha. Matt says this and makes me laugh. Okay, back to the story.) We arrived to find all our cousins in mustaches. I still haven't figured out why this was, but the kids loved wearing fake mustaches all night. Moving on...

We had some good hot dogs for dinner and Matt's mom gave each of us an ornament. The kids loved taking turns watching each person open one. Then with Sophie as the very capable director (with a bunch of crazy little ones to manage!), the adults were treated to the cousin rendition of the Christmas Story. I got it on video and will post the links when they finish uploading. It was so funny. I think my favorite part was Joseph's incredible excitement over...Jesus's birth, you guess? Nope. The gold that the wiseman dumped on him for the baby. So funny.

Part 1:

http://youtu.be/Kf6PCAU0b60

Part 2:

http://youtu.be/bGwfqFhB7yg

Part 3:

http://youtu.be/Gmfi-7SRCf0

We also had smores and hot chocolate and ended the night sitting around talking and receiving another Nanny gift: scarves. Joshua requested a white twirly scarf and he LOVES it. He checked his reflection several times before going out to play today and asked me if he looked good:)

Thanks, Nanny and Pa, for a fun evening!

Nothing Says Christmas Like

Bodily functions??

Well maybe not, but that has been the theme of my week!

First there is the return of Pogo. We have the dog fence set up -- this time it is a stubborn dog fence-- and he is terrified of it. So much so that he is pottying in the garage (grossness) and for the first half of the week I had to carry him out of the garage and spent lots of time outside pleading "Go pee pee, Pogo!". He thankfully is getting a little more comfortable as the week goes on.

Then there's also my boys' obsession with bodily functions. Gray is the worst and has made up all new renditions of popular Christmas carols, such as "Rocking around the Christmas potty" and "Jingle Poop." Nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit like, "Good tidings for Christmas and a pooping New Year".

And then I found myself suddenly in the midst of potty training Julia. I tried her one night just to see if she would go on the froggy potty and she did. I was surprised how easily it went and after thinking of how much less we had to travel this week and next week due to school break, I decided to go for it. And for the first half of each day, she has done really well! She doesn't ask to go or anything but will sit there when I tell her to. But then in the evenings, this need-to-pee-every-20-minutes comes over her and I am suddenly cleaning up puddles left and right!

So this year instead spending lots of meaningful time sitting at the feet of Jesus, so to speak, thinking about the wonder of God coming down to earth and praying for closeness to him, I am spending lots of time sitting at the feet of a sweet little girl, listening to her chatter away, reading her books, and praying for pee.

Potty training reminds me of nursing a baby. Your mind gets so preoccupied with keeping time.. How long since the last one, when is it time again, how is she doing in the meantime, etc. When it's going well, all is right with the world; when it's not, nothing could be more frustrating. You often have to remind yourself that this stage will pass--both the stressfulness of it and the joy.

And I guess my focus on bodily functions is a little bit like Christmas after all. There's the fact that God, who made up the idea of humans, created us, and rules over us all, wanted to be with us so much that he came down and became a little baby, experiencing all those bodily functions that we do. And then there's Mary. If you have been around a newborn, you know that the first part of his life is all about bodily funstions and so she was certainly dealing with plenty of that on the first Christmas and I can only imagine what that was like without any modern conveniences or comforts!

Ok, maybe this connection is a bit of a stretch, but these days, I am doing all I can to not get absorbed into the mundaneness and frustration of potty training and be taken instead by the wonderfulness and amazement of what we are celebrating this week. Happy celebrating!

25 Days of Celebration

Despite the crazy busyness of moving the last week of November, we've managed to keep up our advent calendar tradition and do an activity each day to celebrate Jesus' birth. Some of the activities are more meaningful than others and I really want to add more service-type things, but this year was more about just having something fun to do. I don't have pictures of many of the activities, but here are a few:

The advent calendar that I made when Matt was deployed. Such a fun craft for me and the idea struck at a perfect time for me to work. I think this is year #3 of using it.

Close up of the pockets

This past weekend we got to have our annual cookie decorating get together with the Durham cousins.
The first year or maybe two, we let the kids help make the cookies and decorate them too. What a mess!
This year I made the cookies first, with a lot of help from my mom, and then Saturday we were all ready to let the kids add icing, candy, etc.
It was so calm and went really well. Joshua had a total mountain of candy on his cookie by the end, but he actually had the self-restraint to only eat the smaller cookie and then eat the big one little by little the next day.
Julia was not into decorating at all, but loved her plain cookie.
Gray got to choose one of his cookies to eat and he went for the big one. I am sad to say that I ate more cookies and sweets over the weekend than I can even count and I felt horrible! Definitely a weakness of mine if the stuff is around, even knowing how much better I feel without it.
Another tradition that we started just last year is our Jesse tree. The idea comes from the Bible saying that Jesus would come from the tree of Jesse, or something like that, and it reminds us of all that happened that led up to God sending Jesus to earth. I decided to use the Jesus Storybook Bible for this activity since it does a great job of going through Old Testament stories and pointing to Jesus' coming in each one. Jeannie and I made an ornament to go with each story, ending with the wise men visiting Jesus, which we read on Christmas Day (even though it happened awhile after Jesus was born, it just works out better that way). We've done pretty well keeping up with it this year and the kids all enjoy it--even Julia.
Sunday we read The Legend of the Candy Cane which elaborates on the story that's been passed down of how the candy cane came to the US and how the red and white and cane shape are all symbolic of Jesus' birth and life. After the book, Mama, Matt, and I hid a bunch of little candy canes around the house and let the kids find them. I think Joshua found 16 and Gray found 12. Julia was given one, which she partially ate. It was so funny to watch the boys miss the most obvious "hiding" places...like on a table in plain view. Afterwards, we were talking about sending the book and some candy canes with my mom so they could do the hunt with Amanda's kids. Gray immediately took three of his candy canes and gave them to Mimi for each of his cousins. We of course praised Gray for his generosity. Meanwhile, Joshua hoards his candy canes and even snags a big one from the box in the kitchen. When I suggested he also donate some of his to Mimi, his response was a bit less than generous. He resisted, then held up one finger to show how many he was willing to part with. This boy loves his stuff.
The boys weren't thrilled to pull out a paper that said "Christmas craft" so in the midst of a bunch of little house projects, I tried to come up with something that would remind us of Jesus and also be fun for the kids. We ended up with stickers, glitter, glue, pom-poms, paint pens, etc. and I think everyone had fun making this birthday banner.

Other activities we've enjoyed that aren't pictured here:

-Making Christmas ornaments with the Durham cousins. They turned out super cute, though the highlight of the morning for the boys was playing nerf guns and wii.

-Seeing the "dancing lights" (Mangum Family Christmas) in North Durham. You tune your radio to their station and watch this family's yard light up to the songs.

-Decorating the house and tree

-Popcorn and Christmas book night

-Making treats for wildlife to eat (and the boys ate a little too...peanut butter and popcorn stuck to ice cream cones. Bird seed, too, but hopefully they didn't eat that!)

-Christmas movies- The Veggietales spinoff of "It's a Wonderful Life" was a new one this year and we like it a lot.

-Jesus birthday party at church- This is an annual family event with a craft and potluck dinner and songs. The kids really enjoyed it.

-Upcoming Christmas "Adam" dinner with Matt's family

That's all I can think of now. I was definitely struck by an article my sister sent me that suggested how important parents' attitudes about Christmas are to our impressionable kids. I really want our children to remember this time of year not only as a time to celebrate Jesus (rather than us and our presents), but also as a fun time for our family--not stressful or overly busy. So that is a challenge for me...not just to do the stuff and check it off the list, but keep the right perspective too!