Wildlights 2013

Well, we may not have a white Christmas, but we had a white Wildlights. We braved the cold and enjoyed the snow when we took our annual family outing to see the lights at the zoo. Our trip started out spectacularly because Degen was very excited about all the lights. At one point, he turned to us and raised up his arms shouting, "It's a winter wonder(l)and!" Then he danced and did a pirouette! It was just perfect and his enthusiasm made the experience a great one. Unfortunately... it all ended too soon. After a busy day of climbing, gymnastics and tennis, Degen's excitement wore off and he got tired and frustrated, which led to yelling & tears. Oh man! Not the way we wanted to end the evening, though he perked up with a little dinner in his belly. 

We had a little visit with Santa and both kids were nervous, which was cute. They kept looking over to me: "was I good?" "what did I want again?" 

Love this pic of my snow-angels!

Scuba Santa!

Darren took the kids on the carousel! They love the carousel!

We stopped in the barn to pet a few goats. This angora goat was my favorite! So cute!

Our last stop of the night was the train. It was a chilly ride, made a bit warmer with some hot chocolate from home. 

Love this pic of these two!

The above photo is Degen saying, "No more pictures!!!" 

Christmas Cookies 2013

We are busy-busy as always, but I found a cozy afternoon to bake several batches of Christmas goodies! The kids were most excited to decorate sugar cookies. I was a bit of a lazy-mom and decided just to do one kind of cut-out: snowmen. The kids were good sports about only having one kind of cookie to decorate and made a whole batch of super-cute (&delicious) snowmen! 

I always let each kid pick out a cookie to eat after all the work was done. This was the yummiest part of their day! 

A few of our sweet snowmen!

Advent

I wanted to do advent with the kids this year, but I changed it up a bit to help make it easier for them to understand the symbolism... and easier on me as I did not have any purple candles. A traditional wreath uses only purple, pink and white candles. I made these simple advent wreaths using plastic lids, paper and a standard pack of birthday candles. Each Sunday (& Christmas Eve) we light a candle and hear a part of the nativity story.

Here our the advent stories that go with each candle:

Week 1- The Prophecy Candle

A yellow candle representing those who saw light in the darkness. 

We read "Peace Will Come," the story of the prophet Micah in Micah 4-5 from the Read & Learn Bible.

Week 2- The Love Candle

A pink candle for the heart of Mary and her love for Jesus.

We read "A Message for Mary" Luke 1:26-55

Week 3- The Shepherd's Candle

A green candle for the fields where the shepherds kept watch. 

We read "The Shepherds" Luke 2:8-20

Week 4- The Angel's Candle

A blue candle for the sky where the angels & star appeared.

We read "Wise Men From the East" Matthew 2:1-12 

(I deviated a little on this one because we already read about the angel visiting Mary and the angels visiting the shepherds, so the focus is on the sky and the star of Bethlehem.)

Christmas Eve- The Christ Candle

A white candle for Jesus' purity.

We read "Jesus is Born" Matthew 1:18-25/Luke 2:1-7

Deck the Halls

The day after Thanksgiving, we bring up our boxes (& boxes... how did we end up with so many?!) of Christmas decorations and set about making the house festive. The kids were super-duper excited to decorate this year, especially the tree. 

I love the photo above because it is the tree as decorated by the kids without help or direction from us, which means that all the ornaments are right at hand level, mostly in one spot at the front of the tree. We stepped in to lend hand, of course, and the tree filled up fast with all our decorations from childhood and little hands and vacations and family memories. I love our tree because it truly represents our family!

A big year as it was Degen's first year to put the star on top of the tree... and this decision did not come without a few tears on Kyrie's part. We ended up compromising by letting her choose a special ornament to place near the top of the tree. 

Our beautiful Nativity!

Our beautiful family!

Our beautiful tree!