Breakfast With Santa

For the second year, my parents have invited us to the McKinney Country Club to have "Breakfast with Santa". Grace and Olivia get so excited for this, and know that they will get a little face-time with the Big Guy! This year we had a great breakfast and the girls got to do a few crafts, decorate cookies, get their face painted and of course the highlight of the morning - Santa!

Grandma helping the girls decorate their cookies.....yummm!

The girls were delighted to get to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas, they even had letters written so that they wouldn't forget anything!

Grace & Olivia with Santa.....

The Gingerbread House

Last night Robert and the girls put together a gingerbread house, leaving the decorating of the house until today when the house set a bit more. The girls were overjoyed to come home from school and have such a fun project! I think they loved decorating it as much as they loved eating the candy!! Grace was very particular, and wanted the candy a certain way while Olivia just wanted the house to have "candy all over it!"

Here is a picture of the best Gingerbread House ever! We didn't have any small marshmallows to use for snow so we used giant ones and are calling them snow mountains.

Our Advent

Each year during the holidays I find myself thinking of ways to make it more meaningful for my kids. When life was just Robert and I (pre-barbie life), we enjoyed Christmas parties, fun dinners, shopping for great gifts and planning some sort of trip to see family. We all know life with kids changes you! What I find now is that I am more thoughtful of my time, and of the activities that we do. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is so short, and can be so busy unless you put a filter on the plans you make and add to your calendar.

Last year, I tried to carve out time for special family dinners at night. I wanted to be sure that while life got busy for us, we were still connecting as a small family. Well, my other goal was to balance the amount of sugar cookies and sweets with some healthy dinners each night...ha!

This year I have been combing books, magazines and the Internet with ways we can cut back our spending, scale back on the amount of excess that goes on this time of year and be more thoughtful in the gifts we give to others and to each other. I found the greatest article in Wondertimes Magazine (my favorite!) about a way to create your own advent calendar at home instead of purchasing one. I set out to re-create the magazine version....



I rummaged through the wrapping paper box and found several small boxes and gift bags that I labeled with the days of December. I then went to my secret (not-so-secret) box of small (bribe) gifts that I keep hidden and found several small lip glosses, pencils, stickers and tattoos that the girls would love. I also folded notes to put in 13 of the bags describing a Christmas book that we would read that night, and hints on where I had hidden the book in the house.

I have made sure to explain what Advent means to the kids so that this isn't about getting a gift each day, but about the celebration of the season. I looked up this information as I prepared to tell them about Advent so that I had my facts straight. The word Advent means "coming" or "arrival." The focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his First Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King.

Grace and Olivia have loved opening their Advent Calendar each morning before the day starts. They talk about the fun books that we are reading, and of the treats in store for the next several days. It probably would have been easier to put the $3 Advent Calendar in the shopping cart while at Target a few weeks ago....but what fun we have had with our home-made version!

Thanksgiving Day....a week ago already!

I can't believe it's been a week since Thanksgiving! I had every intention of writing all about the great time we had...and then a day slipped by...and then another. Oh my! Thanksgiving week was amazing - my whole family was able to be together. Uncle Gary and Dad both cooked turkeys and everyone else chipped in to make something yummy. Poor Jenny brought rolls (among many other things) and as we cleaned up the table not a roll was eaten - we blame that to the many many other options at the table. ha ha. During the pie baking day at Jenny's house she made key-lime and apple pies while I made pumpkin cheesecake. Uncle Gary brought sweet potato pie which was much better than the pumpkin cheesecake! The day was filled with many thankful moments and blessings for each other and all of our family and friends that were not there.

A family photo to finish off the day. (well, that and some loud games where there was name calling and drinking but I won't show pictures of that!)