Christmas!

I came across these thoughts a few days ago:
There's always a tension in my heart this time of year. I bet you feel it, too.

As a believer in Christ, I want to honor him and his birth and what it means to the world.

I want to be mindful of how we give into the culture around us in this season of excess.

I don't want to let the busy{ness} & the commercialism of Christmas overwhelm our hearts & minds.

But, I also really, really, really don't want to ever become the Christian that is miserable to be around.

...the one who judges that we give gifts to our kids.

...the one who is mortified that I have two Christmas trees up.

...the one who thinks hosting ornament parties is a little bit ridiculous.

At Between You and Me!  Tara put into sweet, eloquent words what has been swirling around in my head for over a month.  I try to avoid excess and to not make more than we need, but sometimes, like Christmas, I get a bit excited.  I got all excited about putting up Christmas tree(s).  Then, I freaked about taking the focus away from Christ and almost took two of them down.  Then, David encouraged me to leave them up.  After all, these trees are part of how we celebrate.  Next, I freaked that DM had too many gifts.  (Which, mind you, is still many less than most children who live in our parts, but obviously, many more than the Guatemalan orphans.)  And of course, David reminded me that we had planned out the holidays.   DM really only had what we had originally planned to get her, and her few gifts are part of our celebration. 

At the end of the season, my prayer is that DM remembers we had a huge birthday party for Jesus and celebrated (and had a blast!) with our favorite family and friends!

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Our Christmas celebration continued with the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa for the week.  Our first outing was to a beautifil Christmas Eve Service.  DM got to come to "big church" and sing along.  The songs were a bit different from the versions she knew, but she seemed to enjoy, nonetheless.  Christmas Eve photos really weren't her thing, but that is okay. 

Sometimes if you're too worried about getting the "perfect" picture, you miss the entire moment that could have been engrained in your memory forever.
 

 

Our Christmas cookie making spanned a few days.  This was not because they were particularly yummy or beautiful.  Rather, we seemed to struggle to find time from playing and singing "Happy Birthday Jesus" to finish them.

 So, so tired! 



From Our Home to Yours, Merry Christmas!

Celebrating!

We kicked off our week before Christmas with Sunday at Mimi and Papa's house.  DM was clearly beyond thrilled with her gifts!

 The week continued with activities (chaos that induces exhaustion, which induces sickness) at school.
DM's class party was so much fun.  We had Christmas stories, crafts and fun food.

 As is typical, DM was the last at the table eating.  She can savor sweets and junkfood like no other!

 She made us this sweet little "Mistletoes" canvas!

After the party it was Christmas concert time.  This was DM's group's first time participating in the festivities!  Wow!  I am amazed by her teachers and their ability to organize and coordinate 90 little angels!  Of course DM immediately assumed her "not so sure" (thumb planted in mouth) pose, but at least it wasn't another "Santa" type breakdown!

 Much of the concert she actually spent turned around backwards watching the guitar player behind her!

" Mommy, Daddy, are you out there?" 

They were so, so precious!

Santa, Really, We Love You, But Just From Afar!

Year #1 visiting Santa:

(Since year #1 was so bad, we took year #2 off!)

Year #3 visiting Santa!

Not much change!

Really, Christmas Is Coming!

Today, we made our trip to ride the Pink Pig with Mimi, Amie and Ro!  I am not fond of crowds and can only tolerate this holiday outing if we go extra early.  For the second year in a row, I've talked this traveling crew in to meeting us at Lenox at 9:30 am!  They are troopers. 

Speaking of troopers, the Pink Pig below is the one I remember.  It was quite scary.  Those windows had wire on them, as if that wire was going to keep us alive if that Pig fell off its track to the street below!  Many do not like the "current" Pink Pig, but for safety's sake, I think it is a winner!

 

 

Such a big girl eating with the adults!  We even had a surprise visit from Cousin Brett, who happen to be in the area!
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Home for a bit for nap time and out the door for our Christmas party with "friends"! 
Crafts galore!

 Sprinkle and Twinkle came to visit!  These sweet "Elves" are high school students at DM's school. 
Awesome entrepreneurial spirit!

We may have received the best Christmas gift EVER today!  Mimi gave DM a nativity scene that she can play with.  I don't know about you, but while our nativity scene growing up was beautiful, it was very breakable.  Now, if Jesus is supposed to be with us every step of the way, what sense does it make to have SO many representations of Him be so delicate and breakable?  (Especially for a youngin'?)  None!  DM loved played with her new nativity scene and taking care of Baby Jesus.  Not sure why she prefers that Baby Jesus be between the wise men or why everyone needs to be in a line, but we're taking small steps around here!

Christmas Is Coming!

Oh, how the holidays are taking us by swarm!  We work so hard not to say we are "So busy" or our schedule is "Jam packed!"  These are choices aren't they?  Mid-November to present seems like such a blur.  At least once a year, I seem to consistently forget my camera, and I must have unconsciously chosen this time period to do so.  We spent treasured time with the Peeples family on Thanksgiving.  Sweet Brother shared his photos HERE. 

D and I went to the UGA vs. GT game, complete with lunch/brunch before hand with sweet friends.  (Again, camera is on hiatus so no pics!)  Christmas decorating began.  Our favorite Auntie E came to town.  (Thank you Jesus!)  Auntie E can show more grace and love than anyone I've ever met.  We had just enough time for a good run and lunch before she had to hop back on a plane. 

Concentrating on tree decorating!

 I made my (what feels like) annual voyage to Austin for work.  I've made this trip every December since we've moved back to Georgia.  Austin is beautiful at Christmas time.  My co-workers are amazing, but I am a homebody.  I want to be at home loving on D and DM.  I want to see our Christmas tree, not one professionally decorated in an amazing, historic hotel.  And to pile poop on, we elected to go with a "When she seems ready" policy on potty training.  When did she seem ready?  Umm, that would be the week before I left for Austin.  Yep, D was in charge of fresh, clean pants the first week DM wore her big girl pants.  (Insert heartbroken here!)  But I am so proud of this pottying duo!

Picking out our big girl pants!

Our First Hair Cut

After putting off getting DM a hair cut for months, we had to do something.  I didn't want to go to a kiddo salon.  Her school does cuts, but I didn't want to miss her first hair cut.  I discovered a few weeks ago that her teacher could also cut hair.  Taadaah!  I had a plan.  We invited Ms. B over to cut her hair at our house.  Then, we had a friend want to join, so we moved our hair cutting party to his house because Ms. B lived closer to him. DM was so quiet the entire time, but she never cried.  I was so thrilled to have Ms. B cut her hair!

 Unfortunately, I apparently started talking and didn't get a picture of the final product, but DM's hair is looking MUCH better and adding layers definitely helped the curls.

The Most Precious Thanksgiving Dinner!

This is what happens when we put six families with six toddlers and four infants together for one Thanksgiving meal!  We had the MP families over for our Pre-Thanksgiving potluck.  It was so much fun but so much chaos!

 These two tried hard to be really good; they were like little ladies!

 This table only sat still for dessert, and with fun cupcakes like these, how could they not sit still to gobble them down?

The little ones slept right through it all!

We couldn't be more thankful for this group. Part of me wanting to move back to Atlanta was to be around more diverse families for DM, and this group has brought us just that and more love than we could ever ask for!

DM's First Game!

A few weeks ago, we started toying with the idea of taking DM to Athens for a game.  Then, we all got sick and put the idea on hold.  But I think David had already gotten so excited about the idea that we were going, no matter how sick any of us were.  In the spirit of being last minute about our decision to go, we didn't have DM a ticket and elected to just get one for her on the bridge prior to the game.  David walked around for a bit waiting on the prices to come down.  We decided to increase what we were willing to spend, as we knew pre-nap time was dwindling.  David walked away again on his ticket venture and came back with a lady to introduce to us.  As it turned out, as David went to offer her money to buy the ticket, he told her it was going to be for his daughter's first UGA game, and she told him he could have the ticket.  She just asked that we pay it forward one day.  What a blessing!

Waiting on Dad to catch up to us from going to park the car!

 Even though we were crazy late and would end up missing the Dog Walk, we stopped for a picture on the bench where David proposed to me.

 We finally found Mimi and Papa, who had been one of points of focus on the drive to keep the trip moving forward!  (Going to Athens w/ a kiddo in tow is a whole different drive from going without kiddo!)

 Not that focusing on smiling for the camera is ever DM's thing but it really wasn't this day.  She was quite amazed by the airplanes flying over and the students right in front of us with their bellies painted red and black spelling out GEORGIA!

 There was a lot to watch!

 But even with all to soak in, we could only last so long!  We headed out just before the end of the first half!

 We stopped to let DM pick the berries off the nandina on north campus while I attempted (and failed) to get some decent pictures.

 And we paused for more photo attempts by the Arch. 

 Goodbye Athens!  See you soon!

And we had no idea when we left Athens how much exciting football was left to come that we could watch from our cozy pillow fort at home!