What will we be doing this weekend?

A - Joining four other families for a fun-filled evening of bowling.

B - Trying to keep one another up Hanging out together afterwards to welcome in the new year.

C - Celebrating our PA Dutch roots by making our traditional "good luck" meal of pork and sauerkraut.  (See, Ginger, maybe I really am Amish!)

D - Watching my Nittany Lions beat the Gators in the Outback Bowl.

E - Undressing the Christmas tree.  :-o

F - Catching up on naps!

G - Thinking of "my word" for 2011.

H - All of the above.

Lighting up the house!

I did some after Christmas shopping yesterday.  And I bought 4 candles.  That require batteries.

Yes, that's right.  And, they even smell.

This is my favorite one, because I love how it looks in the old glass canning jar.  I found the hook for it yesterday too.  No sale, since it wasn't Christmas-y, it just made me happy! :)  The red candle behind it is one of the battery operated ones too - it smells like pomegranate.  It's the simple things.

Wordless Wednesday: Pestering my brother's dog!

Christmas 2010

One of my favorite quotes I heard this Christmas holiday, "Great importance is placed on Jesus' birth, but dying was His main purpose in coming to earth!"  Our Advent activities, especially the reading of "Jotham's Journey," helped us to really look at why God came to earth as a baby and what that means for us.  I pray the things we learned during 2010's Advent will stay with us through 2011 and beyond!  I hope that you each had a wonderful time spent with loved ones! 

"Happy Birthday Jesus!"

Wordless Wednesday: All I Want for Christmas...

Jesse Tree Ornaments - last week of Advent

It was inevitable.  I knew with the business of the month and 2 birthdays thrown into the mix, that it was an ambitious project for me to complete all the ornaments.

However, it has not stopped us from our daily Advent activities.  We continue to read the Bible passage and deovational for the Jesse Tree activity even though we don't have the completed ornaments to hang on the tree.  The kids like looking at the incomplete ones and they offer suggestions on how I should finish it (color choices)!

So, without further wait, here are our final ornaments for the week. 

She's Six!

We celebrated Elle's 6th birthday last night!  Wow, she's 6!?!?!?!  And, she is getting more grown-up and wants to be called by her proper name, Noelle!  But I think it will wear off after Christmas, like the other years! ;)
She was very specific about her cake!  I love her spunk!  I found the little sleeping bag and suitcase for her groo.vy girl on eb.ay, but they didn't both fit on the cake as well as I had, um planned - but we improvised, and she loved it!!

She requested homemade pizza for dinner.  While she was away from the kitchen, the boys (well, mostly Quintin because Colin was busy snatching the cheese and mini pepperonis off the pizza) helped me make the pizza extra special!

See that smile?

Her first Amer.ican Girl doll, Kit.  Just this week, she was telling me she hoped she'd get Kit and a sleeping bag!  I hadn't remembered about the sleeping bag!  So I searched online and found a free pattern!  I had all the materials on hand and had it sewn together in under an hour!  I think it is so adorable and Kit seems to be enjoying it!

I just checked in on her, in bed, a few minutes ago and she's sound asleep!  We had a wonderful day celebrating our Christmas Noelle!

Wordless Wednesday: Snow!

Jesse Tree Ornaments

Well, it came as no surprise to me, and it probably won't surprise you either - but today we hit our first day of an incomplete ornament! LOL!!

Here's this week's Jesse Tree Ornaments.

The fox/sheep ornament has been one I've been dreading because of the curves around the sheep! 

I do want to say though, that this Jesse Tree has been an amazing learning experience for all of us.  We are really enjoying the stories and the other daily Advent activities.

I do have to put another plug in for the book, Jotham's Journey!  WOW!  What a cliff hanger each day - the kids want me to keep reading but it is teaching us patience to wait until the next day.  Quintin confessed to me this morning, that after reading yesterday, he looked ahead to today's story!  If you want a great Advent story to read with your children, pick up a copy of Jotham's Journey for next Christmas.  It has a reading for each day of Advent - so you may not want to try to read it this year, since we are halfway through Advent.  But it has been a story that our family is loving and I know they will talk about it in the months to come!

First Recital

Quintin has been taking piano lessons for almost a year and his first recital was this past Sunday.  He did fabulous.  While I videotaped the songs, I didn't snap any pictures of him playing, so I got one of him with the grand piano at the end!

Not a baby anymore!

When I started this blog, Colin was a month old! 

Tuesday, we celebrated his 4th birthday!  :)

Wordless Wednesday

2nd Week of Advent - Jesse Tree Ornaments

Wordless Wednesday

(note: this was very hard for me to let them play with the pieces.  But it came down to wanting their memories of Christmas to be happy and not of a grouchy mommy who loved her decorations more than them.  It is HARD!  If it wasn't for the nativity being set on a high shelf where they can't touch it the remainder of the month, I may have set it up after they were in bed!)

Decorations!

We were decorating the tree last night when Colin asked where his pirate ship with the animals was.

A Season of Advent

Advent is waiting. Waiting with anticipation for a coming King. 

December can be one of the most hurried and rushed months of the year.  With two of our three children's birthdays in December, we don't want it to feel rushed.  We want our children to look with anticipation towards December 25.  Not for presents, but for Christ. 

This post is sharing some of the things our family is doing this year, to create an atmosphere of anticipating Christ and celebrating Christmas, His Coming.

This year, for the first time, we are having a Jesse Tree.  The reference to "Jesse Tree" is found in the eleventh chapter of the book of Isaiah. 

1 Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him — a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

The Jesse Tree is an Advent adventure to experience the stories of the Old Testament that tell of Christ's coming.  We read and wait, as those in the OT waited for their Savior.

I wanted rustic ornaments and a rustic tree.  I set out Sunday afternoon, with my daughter and scavenged for limbs around our house and in the woods.  I'm quite pleased with what we created.

And our first week's ornaments.

I hope to get a post out later this week showing how I made the ornaments.  (I added the numbers on to the picture with photo editing software.)

Starting on the first day of Advent, we also began reading the story Jotham's Journey.  We've heard many good things about this book.  We've also heard there is some violence, so be sure to read ahead.

And beginning on December 1, we'll put our Advent Nativity together and also read the 24 chapter book, The Jesse Tree.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
There is a beautiful devotional at A Holy Experience.  I'm not reading this particular one with the kids, but it is one I plan to read after I do their devotion with them.  If you are interested in doing your own Jesse Tree, there are ornaments to print at the end of the free ebook.  You may need to enter your email address to sign up to receive the updated posts from A Holy Experience.  It is only when you receive the updates via email or a blog reader (google reader, etc) that you will see the link.  Directions are on the site.

Are you doing anything to celebrate the season of Advent? 

Thanksgiving Week Recap!

On Sunday, we hosted my family for Thanksgiving!  A lot of work, but it made the 3 days following (and the days leading up to Thanksgiving Day) very relaxing and restful!  And, for Thanksgiving day, we were with T's side of the family - which was also restful as I wasn't the one preparing the food!

***

Back in June, I decided to start running/exercising and to change our eating habits.  In the process, I became a stronger runner and started losing weight.

Q's piano teacher (and very good friend) told me about a 5k run on Thanksgiving morning - Sticks and Biscuits 5k, a fundraiser for a local hockey rink/team.  This became my motivation to get up in the early morning hours and continue running/exercising.  (I didn't run every morning, but alternated with workout DVDs)

Yesterday morning Q's piano teacher picked me up and we drove to the hockey rink.  In the cold rain/sleet, we ran the 5k.  Now, I've run 5ks and 5 mile races before children - but this was my first road race in about 7 years! I forgot how much of rush they give me - even when sleet is pelting your ears and face!

My goal was to finish under 30 minutes.  But guess what?  I forgot to look at the race clock when I crossed the finish line.  I got home feeling pretty sure I was under 29 minutes.  I got on the computer and found out T's cousin's wife (who had been there cheering on many of her family members and watching her own son race) had snapped two pictures of me.

I'm pretty in pink!  I was a sprinter on the track team in high school and LOVE to sprint to the finish line - all the while passing people in the process!!!   Its fun to give it that final kick ... and then collapse! ;)

And the second picture she snapped?

So thankful she was there to snap this one!

Before stepping into a much anticipated hot shower, I stepped on the scale and found that I had officially hit the 30 lb mark!  I had been holding my weight steady for the past 2 months and really wanted to lose that last 1.5 lbs to hit 30 - and yesterday it happened!!

I don't expect that you ran a 5k for Thanksgiving, but I hope that you had a wonderful day!  And yes, I realize I'm one of the few that think running is FUN!!

Now, where's that apple cake!?!?  ;-D