Christmas recap

Fun times with the stuff in the box that held Caleb's present. :)

My grandma's house

Sideways paci. It's how I roll.
Stockings!
What Santa left for Caleb

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We baked lots of goodies, with Caleb "helping" (aka eating the decorations), we enjoyed Christmas Eve at my mom's house with my brother and his wife, and had a great Christmas Day at my grandmother's house (for the last time). This year was definitely more fun for Caleb than last year...by the end of the day on Christmas Day he had gotten the opening presents thing down!! Santa brought Caleb a ride-in fire truck that shoots real water, a kitty cat that meows (he LOVES cats), a CD player, and a nice kickball that the dogs hopefully can't destroy. He also received many other nice presents from everyone...he is one blessed little boy! I have been MOST excited about all his new books...we were growing weary of reading the same books over and over and over...Anyway, we started Christmas morning by reading the Christmas story from his little book, and singing happy birthday to Jesus. I hope to make that a family tradition, complete with birthday cake!

Having Christmas at my grandma's house was bittersweet. It was decorated like it always was, the food was delicious, it was wonderful to see so many family members there...the only thing missing was HER. I know she was there in spirit, but it was a little sad. Especially since this will be the last year it will be at her house. My dad was saying he had spent every Christmas there for the past 58 years...every year of his life...wow! And I realized the same has been true for me--pretty much every year for the past 30 years I've been there for Christmas Day. It was truly a wonderful day and we all left with great memories made.

Christmas preview

Bryan is working tonight, so I have time to update my blog, but I'm sleepy, so I'm just going to put a few of my favorite pics up from the day. I'll write a longer post later. It was a great Christmas!!

Christmastime fun

Here are a few pics of Christmastime fun we've been having around here!!

THIS is the after effects of Caleb's first candy cane, ever. QUITE the mess, but oh so fun. I'm still cleaning up candy cane residue off the cabinets. :)

Meeting Santa Cow at Chick-fil-a on Santa's Workshop night. Free kids meal, meeting Santa Cow, and older kids could make a toolbox. He loved him from far away, but was NOT sure about him up close. He was so cute waving to him and Elf Cow. Wouldn't sit in his lap by himself, though. No siree.

Mommy's sweet little elf at Southern Lights this past weekend. We had a lot of fun.

Watching the really neat trains at Southern Lights--sooooo much detail went into these displays. I think we're going to have a train lover on our hands!!

Sorry to be short and sweet but I'm fighting a cold and am about to fall over asleep. Enjoy!
Family shot at Southern Lights. LOVE LOVE LOVE that Caleb is waving. :)

Special ornaments and ramblings...

I got this idea for a post from Mandy, because I just loved it! These pics are totally out of order because I have yet to figure out how to make them go in the order I want, but that's ok!! Over the past few years, Bryan and I have made it a point to buy special ornaments that symbolize our year together. We try to remember to get ornaments at places we've visited that year, etc. I wanted to post a few of my favorites!

This was Caleb's First Christmas ornament. So sweet.

This was from the first year we were married. Love it!

This was from the year I was pregnant with Caleb. Didn't know he was a boy yet!

We bought this one on our honeymoon at Sandals in Jamaica.

Our first ornament as a family. :)

Cooper's first ornament
Bentley's first ornament

Our family ornament from this year--with a house, since we just bought our first home!!!

Caleb's ornament for this year

Saved the best for last...this ornament is the first thing I ever gave Bryan. We started dating at Christmastime and talked a LOT about foreign missions during our first dates together. It is something that is very much on our hearts. I found this and thought it was perfect--our earth, with Christian symbols surrounding it.

We've had so much fun decorating this year. We have lights outside AND inside for the first time. We bought super cute matching stockings embroidered with our names. We've gone to Southern Lights, which Caleb enjoyed immensely, especially the petting zoo and the model trains. We went to the Christmas parade and tree lighting downtown. We had hoped to go to my friend's church's live nativity, but I came down with a 24 hr bug that Bryan then caught, so that didn't happen. :( Next year for sure! This time of year is so magical, and having a little one who is old enough to be excited about the lights is very fun this year.

We've gotten most of our Christmas shopping for Caleb done, but haven't even BEGUN shopping for each other yet...sigh, it WILL get done!! I'm really trying to focus on keeping the MAIN THING the MAIN THING this year....and that MAIN THING is Christ, not commercialism, overspending, or Santa. I have struggled this year because I can very easily become discontent with what we have when I watch TV commercials for items we don't have or go to the mall and see things I want...this is great for the advertisers of these products, but I don't like what it does to my heart. I have to literally turn off the TV and get away from the mall to refocus on that Baby in the manger. HE is the greatest gift of all. And so many people have so little...never has that been nearer and dearer to my heart than this year, with the focus our church has put on the poor being so heavy this year, and we are trying to do what we feel God would be most pleased with when it comes to the Christmas season. To be in a place where we have to have FAITH that God is going to take care of us is scary yet exciting. And He will, He always has...in good times and in bad. Francis Chan, in his book "Crazy Love," talks about how so many times we live so comfortably that our lives wouldn't look any different if we stopped believing in God tomorrow...and that's a tragedy!! And a challenge. God didn't step out of heaven and take the form of a man, only to die a gruesome death on a cross for us to sit back comfortably in our nice houses and with our fancy toys, going to warm a pew for an hour on Sunday and live the "American dream"...that is called lukewarm Christianity...and honestly, American Christianity. Chan goes as far as to say that lukewarm Christians will not be in heaven, based on the verse where Jesus says he will "spit the lukewarm out of His mouth"...doesn't sound very welcoming, does it?? If you read what Jesus said at all, you see that He calls His disciples to give up EVERYTHING...mother, father, homes, jobs, comfort, etc. to follow Him. And He goes and reaches out to the people no one else in society wants to touch. And the religious people of his day hated him, because he didn't do things 'their' way! I am praying for God to change my heart and change me into someone who follows Christ with that kind of "crazy" passion...and this is difficult because it is SO very easy to go about my life in a self-centered fashion, where I do nothing that requires a step of faith or any discomfort whatsoever. Lukewarmedness. God is moving in my heart, and Bryan's...and although things already haven't worked out in some areas like we had prayed, we know that God is concerned with our hearts...if they are seeking Him and His ways. We know He will bless our efforts and our desire to honor Him. We've got a long ways to go, but I see His hand already, and it is exciting.

Phew, sorry to ramble!! Lots on my mind here lately, lots going on in our church and our lives and we are so blessed to say we know God is with us all the way. He is our shield and rampart, our best friend, our King, our Savior. My heart is just bursting with love for Him this Christmas. :)

Milestones and such

Caleb is growing and changing every day, and I keep forgetting to blog about the cute new things he is saying and doing!

He will now say "buh-byyyyyye"...sooo cute I can't hardly stand it!

He also says "uh-oh!"

He has learned to walk backwards, crawl backwards (hilarious), spin around in circles, and "dance". He does this super funny thing where he looks like an Irish step dancer...we call it his "happy feet".

He recognizes mama and dada in pictures and will point us out and kiss the pictures.
Melts my heart every time.

He helps clean up when we're picking up his room or playroom.

He likes to "help" me sweep the kitchen.

He has certain books that he wants read to him over and over and over. Right now it is "Mary Had a Little Lamb", "Arthur Goes to School" (a lift the flap book--his FAVORITE kinds of books), "Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings", "Playful Pets" and others I can't remember at the moment! If it has flaps or different textures, he loves it.

He can follow along when someone is leading hand motions during a song (like at storytime). If I sing it at home, he can do the motions along with me. Our current fav is "1-2-3-4-5 fingertips".

He knows most of his body parts...when asked, he can point to whatever you ask him to point to. The cutest is when you ask him where his tongue is...he sticks it out, but it's to the side and twisted.

He actually is enjoying the church nursery now...this is HUGE, because he used to have gigantic fits every single weekend. It makes it much easier for me to enjoy the service when I know he isn't hysterical upstairs!

This is SO bad, but when you tell him "no", he wags his finger at you and says "ba-ba-ba" (as in, bad bad bad). He totally got this from us getting on the dogs...and it's so cute, but sooooo frustrating, because he doesn't "get" that we're not happy with HIM. Lord help us when it comes to this whole discipline thing!!

We took him to see Santa today at Lexington Green--it was such a great experience. This Santa was so great, laid back, noone was there except us, and we got a great pic. They let Caleb "get used" to the environment, Santa, etc. before they plopped him on his lap, and I think that was HUGE. I was looking at the difference between last years and this years pictures and WOW. He is sooo big. Where did my little baby go?? He was only 5 months old last year...now he's a full fledged toddler. Sigh.

That's all for now...he's growing like a weed and I just loooooove seeing the little boy he is becoming. What a blessing!!!