Daddy’s Christmas break is coming to a close. (Insert big, pouty, wailing cry here.) He had a short sale Monday on our way back from Nebraska, so I didn’t really count that one…and I shouldn’t really count tomorrow because we’re going with him…but still, my heart is mourning not having him around all day, every day. We were incredibly fortunate to have him home for 16 days! How awesome is that?! I am sooooo incredibly blessed by his job and his schedule and how much he loves doing what he does. There aren’t a lot of people out that there that can say that, ya know? So while we will miss the added help and his silly jokes and his playful spirit and his uncanny ability to do or fix ANYTHING, we shall hand the local sale barns back their “cute Wrex/Superman/sheriff.” I’m sure they miss him, too. 😉
In celebration of our last day together, we went to town and ate Chinese and played at the park before the cold sets in again.
He has my heart…Wheeeeeee!Who doesn’t love that face?!
Tonight, we’re cooking up some yummies to take to a special new mommy in Denver. My bestie had her baby 2 agonizingly long weeks ago and due to several unfortunate incidents I have yet to meet her and IT IS TIME.
You will be seeing LOTS more of this face soon…
So, if you don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s because I’m snuggling new babies and snuggling my man. I’ll be back soon enough…
I’m baaaaaaaaaaaack! Blogging during family time is just not ok. 😉 And I was really busy with two kids at my in-laws. Traveling with small children seems to require a lot of stuff, doesn’t it? I feel like we hauled half of the house to go three hours, yet RaRa has pack-n-plays, high chairs, etc. What did I pack?!?! Regardless, it was TOTALLY worth it! The kids were awesome (they’re the easy part) and we had such a good time making memories with the Phipps family. Here is the remainder of our Christmas celebration in pictures!
Grandkid breakfast on the bar – why not?!?Sawyer on her new bouncing horse? donkey? something…Giving sugars – how sweet are they?!Reading stories with PaPa…Wryder and Breckyn just hanging out…Sawyer decorating the tree in the sitting room…Can you tell she loves her Uncle Warner?!She got some McDonald’s food with a drive thru headset – she was having a ball!I love these three so very much! Waco is a WONDERFUL uncle!Breckyn sitting on her little seat we made for her…Uncle Waco and his beautiful nieces…
It was good to be with family, but oh so good to be home again. We get Wrexy all to ourselves for six more days! Can you say bliss?!!? SO EXCITED! I’m nursing a sore throat (and an overly tired body and mind) tonight but hope tomorrow brings full health – night night!
My “adopted mom” wrote this a couple of Christmases ago and it might just be my favorite thing she’s written…and I have a lot of favorites when it comes to her.
These words came pouring from her heart as a prayer one morning and it is goose-bump inducing beauty. PLEASE (yes, I’m begging!) take a minute to slow down and soak in the pieces of the Christmas scene. It will be well worth your time. ***click on the green link below***
Since Christmas Eve will end up being a little busy for us with church and all, we decided to let the kids open a fun little present tonight, on Christmas Eve’s eve. I put together a box with new pajamas, snuggly animals, popcorn, pop, cocoa and a little note saying that we were going to have pizza, pop and popcorn for supper while we watched a special Christmas movie!
Sawyer woke up with a fever this morning and hasn’t felt great today. Poor girl. I think the present made her feel a little better.
She was really excited about her new jammies and her teddy! She has a soft place for all things cozy and cuddly.
Brother looked pretty cute in his santa jammies, too. Who doesn’t love a little something on a baby’s tush!?
We had to take pictures in front of the tree, with our new animal friends, no less.
Daddy read one of Sawyer’s favorite Christmas books while I got the pizza ready and Wryder sort of paid attention.
One of Sawyer’s Boz movies had a preview for a movie called The Very First Noel. We are BIG Boz fans and it’s produced by the same company so I assumed it would be good, but I couldn’t find it anywhere! They aren’t producing them anymore and the only used ones I could find were $35. YIKES. Enter YouTube. We found it online and I am sooooo glad we did! If you have the chance to watch it, DO IT! It’s the Christmas story told from a wiseman’s perspective and is incredibly well done. Sawyer loved it, as did the rest of us.
I love having special time with my little family. My parents always did a good job of making Christmas memorable for us and I hope Sawyer and Wryder say the same about us one day.
I love receiving them and seeing everyone’s cute families and hearing the lastest and greatest in their lives. We have a lot of friends throughout the Midwest that we don’t get to see or talk to near enough, so when the cards start pouring in, it’s fun to reflect on where we’ve been with them and what they’re up to now.
I like to send Christmas cards, too! Every year, we attempt to set a limit (those things aren’t cheap, especially once you add postage!) and every year we always order more! I think next year, I’m just going to order 250 and be done with it! Ha!
This year, we couldn’t decide on a favorite……so I printed five different versions. Ahem. You’ve seen all the pictures here and here, thanks to the lovely Stormie. Below are the five cards we sent out – which one is your favorite?
I loved this one…This one is cute of the rest of the fam…This one was Wrexy’s favorite…I ADORE this one! I just wish you could see Wryder’s face better…This is probably my favorite, though…This one didn’t make the cut, but it’s funny!
Tonight was such a good night, in my book. Sawyer has been dying to go look at Christmas lights so when everyone woke up from nap, we got Wryder fed, threw some cookies in the oven and headed to town!
Someone was quite proud of her sprinkling…Mom wasn’t paying attention on this one…
I’m not sure what spurred it on, but little miss was insistent upon cookies and hot chocolate while we went light looking…and that was right up everyone’s alley!
Her first hot chocolate!
Holyoke has quite a few houses with good lights so we paraded up and down the streets with our snacks, Sirius Christmas tunes and a light falling snow – could it get any better?!
We tried to go look at lights last year on Christmas night. We had had such a wonderful day celebrating with just the three of us and we decided that if we wanted to see lights, we better go that night before people started taking them down. So we loaded up and headed to town. It had snowed off and on for days and as we were driving into town, we met up with a black cow. Someone’s cattle had gotten out and were all over the road. Wrex slammed on the brakes as soon as he saw it but with oncoming traffic, we ended up not being able to go anywhere except right into the side of the cow.
Yikes.
It was incredibly scary for me. I don’t do well with surprises, especially unpleasant ones and hitting a cow is a pretty dangerous thing. We smacked it hard enough that it went 50 feet or so, the air bags popped out, ambulances were dispatched (the county rule if airbags pop)…it was not a fun experience. BUT…the Lord was so incredibly gracious and good to us. None of us had a scratch on us or were even sore the next day. Our neighbors (whom we love like family) left their family Christmas celebration and picked us up, drove Sawyer to the one house out here in the sticks that had lights and then took us to their house and fed us supper. Jesus in the flesh, those people.
Wrex’s truck was smoked; the radiator was almost in the cab. It was only a 2011 so it wasn’t totaled, but there was like $14,000 in damage.
Seriously, the Lord protected us well.
Very thankful tonight turned out differently. We made it home safely, ate some soup and then we all curled up to watch The Sound of Music.
These two…
We have MUCH to celebrate this Christmas. We have a Father that sent His Son to earth over 2,000 years ago so that we may live with Him eternally. We have a God that protects us and looks out for us and spares us. We have a warm house and food in our pantry and gifts under our tree. We have two healthy, compassionate children who love to spend time with us and whom we love to spend time with. We have daddy all to ourselves for 14 out of the next 16 days – a daddy who has a job that he loves and that loves him back.
We are a blessed people, no doubt about it. Praying your night has been as enjoyable as ours!
Sawyer is such an amazing little girl, if I do say so myself. She has such an inquisitive nature and has always been really interested in learning. On top of that, her memory is absolutely incredible. She’s been memorizing scripture ever since she was about 18 months old and she has well over 50 verses committed to memory right now. We are careful to foster these things in her and to fill her mind with things worth remembering – thus the Jesse Tree.
Our “tree” part isn’t so pretty. I’ll work on that for next year – ha! This was the we gotta get this ready to go by December version…
The Jesse Tree is our version of Christmas advent calendar. I love this season as much as anyone and while I’m completely game for baking cookies and making ornaments and having fun experiences, I also want her to really get WHO we’re celebrating and WHY. So, while we definitely do those things, we attempt make our main focus JESUS.
Each night, we take an ornament piece, a person in the lineage of Christ, and learn about them and how they are tied to, and point to, Jesus.
These are pretty easy to identify, yes?
Jesus was promised by God to His people long before He was born. In Isaiah, we read that Jesus would be a “shoot,” like a new sprout that grows on a bush or tree, from the family tree of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David, a great king of Israel, and Jesus was born 1,000 years after Him. The tree starts at creation and points to the coming of the Messiah with each story.
There’s a rich history on this board…
I feel like she learned quite a bit last year, but this year she has just amazed me with how much she’s taking away from every scripture. And? It’s good for her mom and dad, too. In a world that has watered down the true meaning of the mass of Christ, it’s so good to reset our focus on HIM.
You can find quite a few different versions online if you want to do this at your own house – which I highly encourage. We got this pattern from a woman at our old church back in Denver and it has served us well so far.
I pray you keep your minds and eyes and ears and hearts attuned to One whom we celebrate this season..the shoot of Jesse, that bears new fruit…
Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in obeying the Lord. He will not judge by appearance nor make a decision based on hearsay. He will give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited. The earth will shake at the force of his word, and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked. He will wear righteousness like a belt and truth like an undergarment.
In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him, and the land where he lives will be a glorious place.
What kid doesn’t love to shake a snow globe?? I remember my grandma having some at her house when I was younger and I was enamored by them! We even got snow globe ornaments one year. Mine is hanging on our tree right now, though the liquid has long been gone.
Today, I let Sawyer make her own snow globe! It’s SUPER easy…
You’ll need:
a Christmasey trinket
silicon
mason jar with lid
water
glitter
We opted for a nutcracker and a pine tree…both of which were $0.75 at Joann’s during Thanksgiving.
LOVE the beard…
1.) Adhere your trinkets to the lid of the mason jar. We used silicone and let them dry about 24 hours. I’m sure any type of tough glue would work, but this is what I had on hand.
He’s stuck!
2.) Fill your jars with water and add glitter. We filled our up to the neck of the jar and added WAY too much glitter. I’m thinking a good tablespoon would’ve been more than fine, but hey – the more the merrier, right?!
Who doesn’t love glitter?
3.) Add your trinket and tighten the lid.
Gurgle gurgle
4.) Give it a good shake!
Adorbs, yes?
Sawyer had a ton of fun doing this! She did want to take them to the toy room to which I did say no…but she’s welcome to come shake them in the kitchen anytime she’d like!
So, you’ve already explored the tree but I thought I’d share the rest of the living room with you. It’s pretty eclectic but I dig it!
Sawyer loves books, just like her mom and dad, so we put all of the Christmas books in one place and read at least three a day!
A must have for this fam!
I got this super tiny nativity set when Wrex and I first got married and I love it! It’s just so sweet…and perfect for little hands to play with.
So cute, yes?
I got this fabulous piece of work from a dear, dear woman and it’s probably my favorite thing in my house right now. It’s DIVINE.
And it’s my favorite Christmas song – win win!
The triangle tree is our advent calendar of sorts called a Jesse tree, which I’ll do a separate post on at some point. It recaps Jesus’ lineage as a shoot of the tree of Jesse and continually points everything back to Him. Sawyer LOVES it, as do we!
The eclectic wall…
I love these cowboy santas – they are so very Wrex!
They look a little like Willie Nelson, yes?
My other favorite nativity is this one with the woodland bears. Baby Jesus is just so stinkin’ cute!
Someone can’t keep their hands off of this one either. 😉
These guys are quite handsome, too! I love the old fashioned colored lights and have several little jars of them.
I love the stick horse in Cowboy Santa’s sack…
All of this red and green and gold just delights me and brings great joy! It just feels so warm and inviting!
The view from the kitchen…
Can’t forget the stockings!! We don’t have a fireplace, but the stair banister works fabulously.
Maybe next year there will be five! **I am NOT pregnant at this time! See the comments section for updated information!** 😉
We made this star out of yardsticks and I love how it turned out, though I don’t feel like my photography skills do it any justice. :/
This guy might show up at a MOPS meeting this week, too…..
We can’t forget the felt tree! We made this last year so Sawyer could have her own tree to decorate over and over again – still a hit!
Wrex cut out the tree pattern. He’s a whiz with scissors! Me? Not so much…
My little house feels so cozy and warm with all of the lights and red, green and gold. For me, these things point me to Jesus – for He is why we do this at all…
I remember my grandma having a huge canister full of buttons that I would sort through and play with when I was younger. It was one of my favorite things to do at her house, as silly as that seems.
Wrex has bought most of these for me from auctions or thrifts. He’s cool like that.
For decor purposes only – do not eat 😉
Today, we put some to use on a fun, easy, Christmas craft! You’ll need…
tacky glue
a felt Christmas tree
buttons of your choice
I like Allene’s tacky glue for something like this.
Then, just get gluing!
The two-handed squeeze!Pick and choose…The finished product!Super cute, yes?!
When it’s 10 degrees outside and baby brother is asleep in the toy room, you’ve got to have lots to keep you busy indoors! Sawyer loved sorting through the buttons and picking out what to put where. I made two more trees that we’ll save to do on another day and then I’m going to figure out something fun to do with the trio.
Anybody else have a button collection!? Please share!
