I got myself a foot massager as an early Christmas present.
Decorating the tree
These kids are just wonderful.
I love Christmastime with them.
the Grinch gets watched A LOT around here because Kolbe LOVES the old Grinch classic
Mystery friends sent this fun!
and my secret Santa at school was on the same wavelength.
That sidekick is so underrated, but he's like one of my favorite characters in this movie. Love his small but awesome role and the way he plays it.
Christmas dance fun at the girls' dance studio
working on her science project
Christmas fun in the old neighborhood
Sophie writing me great notes
The past couple years Kayla and her friends have organized a Secret Santa exchange and I have hosted a Christmas hangout to have fun and exchange their final Secret Santa gift.
It is always such a nice time. These girls are so great
Graham cracker creations
Christmas movie
These girls are just so beautiful and sweet
Christmas crafts
The other kiddos Christmas crafting
My new cup from the kiddos
my wonderful neighbor friends came and helped me hang pictures.
Turns out wine, snacks, and picture hanging are a fun combo.
Life cycle of a Poinsettia in my home.
Yes they are three different poinsettias but this is still the ultimate end for all of them, sadly.
Alive, partially alive-partially dead
dead.
BUT you guys, I do have a small poinsettia that IS still hanging on from Christmastime.
I can't tell you why (because I have no idea) my pictures don't always upload in chronological order, but I can tell you these are not quite in order of how they happened because these first pictures are from December 13. St. Lucia Day.
We have loved celebrating this feast in a semblance of how they celebrate in Sweden. The girls love switching off dressing up as St. Lucia each year and bringing the symbolic light of Christ to everyone to begin the day. This day is especially fun because Sophie is born on this feast so we begin with this celebration and then move into celebrating her birthday (which is of course in a separate post).
It was Ava's turn to wake everyone on St. Lucia day
Mary and Joseph are still traveling to Bethlehem.
Along the way, they stopped to color in one of our coloring books.
those mountains though
Advent program practice at Kolbe's school
and a luncheon for the staff. how sweet.
Jesus is Lord.
In every circumstance and fear, He is Lord.
Finished more of the Nativity set
Elise's class recited a poem at opening ceremony
Elise is silly to play game with
I began praying in early December about a word for 2022.
Joy kept coming to mind, but it was my word in 2017, so I kept asking God again because I figured I had to be hearing wrong. But the more I asked, the more I felt that was the word He was leading me to.
And as soon as I relented and said, "ok, God, I'm game for JOY round 2," I kept seeing it everywhere. This ornament fell out of who knows where because we keep our ornaments in the basement, but it ended up in the garage on the ground. JOY.
Kolbe's school had an Advent program that was just adorable.
These are some of the girls in his class all dress up.
Kolbe's class recited the verse from the Friendly Beasts book about the camel. "I," said the camel, yellow and black. "Over the desert, upon my back. I brought Him a gift in the wisemen's pack." "I," said the camel, yellow and black. Kolbe can still say it by the way AND as you can see from this picture he insisted on wearing this teddy bear costume and being a camel. We had ears for them all, but he wanted to be ALL IN as a camel.
I was so proud of him for this. He didn't care about anyone else's opinion, he just knew he wanted to dress as a camel and he did it 100%!
I got to help out with some of the kids' holiday parties at school.
This is Ava's class and I got to help out in Sophie's as well.
See? JOY!
We made a wrong turn to a friend's house and this is what awaited us in the cul-de-sac where we turned around. Jesus is in the details, friends.
I hosted a Christmas party for Kayla's buddies that was SO fun!
We watched White Christmas.
The kids and I wore matching pajamas. You guys I am not really a matching pajama kind of person and we have never done this as a family, but we did it because we were all for adding Christmas joy and fun to our year.
Jammies and cocoa.
Kayla and her buds made gingerbread houses
large amounts of frosting were used in the process.
HUGE amounts of laughter occurred.
Love his JOY!
the girls did not like these gum drops that came in the gingerbread house kit.
This note was put in the bowl of them which made me laugh pretty hard.
hanging out with friends!
Las Posadas party with our dear friends
Pinata!
I love this lady. She is a fierce friend and just the most beautiful and wonderful person you could ever know. I have been so so blessed by her friendship.
Yes, we think we are sooo funny.
time for some mother/daughter self-care.
Face masks and laughter
Chris' dad carves the kids ornaments each year and these were this year's!
Sweet Smoky
I wrote this next little segment on facebook, but it's my thoughts about this picture, so here it is. Real life.
"This is autoimmune disease.
I pushed myself as a young adult/wife/mom thinking I had to do all and it kicked my butt.
And I keep trying because how can I give up on my family now when we’re all hurting so much? How can I not be there for them when they need Mommy?
Autoimmune doesn’t care about my family.
It sees me trying to do more and be more and it kicks my butt more.
I am exhausted.
I am tired of hiding my exhaustion because people don’t understand and think I am making it up.
I laid down today because I literally just could not. Our sweet puppy came to check on me and apparently my kiddo took pictures that I found on my phone later.
I'm constantly learning that I have to rest more. Friends, we need more rest than we think we do."
My kids are not perfect.
Their pain has made them lash out more lately and I've seen some ugly.
But the pain also makes it possible for them to grow in compassion, and this is a beautiful depiction of the compassionate heart of my beautiful kids. They were worried that Mary and Joseph and Jesus were cold, so they made him a fire.
Walks with Smoky at Chatfield.
This is one of my happy places.
Mary and Joseph helped us get our Christmas cards out.
more rest and relaxation and outside time
good for the soul
Looking out the window waiting for the peeps to come home from school!
We Christmas carol in our neighborhood every year.
It's always a blast. We have the best neighbors.
They sing with us, they give us cookies, we chat, and connect with each other.
Kayla really wanted to try to make popcorn strings this year for the squirrels (and to decorate our back tree), so guess what we did??
You better believe we made popcorn strings
We celebrated Uncle Nick's birthday
He is 30-3
and we have a very limited supply of candles, but are 100% creative and fun.
CAKE!
Silliness
more CAKE!
Happy birthday, Nick! you are the best and appreciate you. Thank you for being you.
Sweet gifts from my very dear friend, Megan.
and they invited me for a day of fun on a Saturday that I was alone.
I got to watch my godson play hockey
I got to hang with one of my best friends in the world
She's the Anne to my Diana.
And then they invited me to make Krumkake.
They even used gluten free flour just for me.
and they were really really good
As you can see, we are all experts
He's showing me his amazing rubics cube skills (I have no skills in this area)
What a sunrise!!
Good morning, Jesus!
sunsets
God, you are so so good
Ava's godparents gifted her a princess tea party for her birthday and we finally got to go!
She took her sweet friend and me and we had a blast.
crafting time
making wands
with Anna and Elsa
sweet treats
Happy birthday tea party!
This collage was made for our Christmas card. It was pretty tough for me this year to decide what to do. I love Christmas cards. So, I sent some out. Merry Christmas from the kiddos and I. We have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in our hearts!
playing in the snow at his preschool
The teachers at Kolbe's school shoveling the walkway to the school entrance. You go, girls!
We discovered this COOL Christmas lights house. It's a pirate ship!
You can just sit in your car and watch the lights show and coordinated Christmas songs, but the owner of the house also lets you come up on the ship and "fire" the cannons and steer the boat and stuff. It's awesome! We stopped by a few times this Christmas season.
As you can plainly see, we did not enjoy this house's awesome Christmas light display at all. ;)
We have an In-n-Out in Colorado near us now.
Just don't even tell me you don't get it and you don't like it. I don't care.
I love it, I love the secret menu, and it makes me think of being home in CA, so your arguments will never convince me I don't love it. It's tasty, fresh, nostalgic, and wonderful.
preschool fun
my kids are amazing. I talk to them often about speaking God's truth over themselves. I have been known to write some Bible verses on mirrors in our home.
One day I walked into my bathroom to this. Bible verses EVERYWHERE. Affirmations and love.
My kid are so sweet and tender.
more Christmas light looking!
I love that sometimes he still falls asleep on me.
relaxation and reading.
Mary and Joseph found some of our fav Christmas books.
Hot cocoa nights
tree decorating!
They insisted on putting ornaments all over our front tree too
Egg nog + tree decorating = tradition
neighborhood Christmas crafting fun!
Elise grabbed my camera to take pictures of herself and others
Then she gave the camera to someone else.
I'm going with Kolbe because this picture of my friend Amy is totally his style.
Movie night at our kids' school.
The Polar Express
and pizza
Mary and Joseph just doing some light spiritual reading.
I'm currently not really a fan of Starbuck's, but their holiday cups do make me feel festive and happy. I'll give them that.
yay, oils.
Also don't care if you don't love them.
I do.
Sophie getting a character award at school.
Justice.
Joseph pampering Mary a bit. I bet she really appreciated getting her nails painted since she obviously is at that stage where she can't reach her toes....or even see them.
