Five Days and Counting...

....till Christmas of course.

Merry Christmas

Grace's Singing Debut

This last Sunday Grace sang "Away in a Manger" and "Praise Him, Praise Him, All You Little Children." She didn't actually sing, but she did all the motions. I was/am one proud mama.

And for your viewing pleasure:

7 & 8 Months

I'm a bit behind on the monthly updates; which, I figure, is totally fine since in blogging land, monthly updates about your kids are not as interesting as other topics.

Owen's 7 Month Picture (isn't he cute?) -

Not sure how much he weighs since it had been a month since his check-up, but I'll just say:

Really Heavy

• Got his first tooth around November 3rd, and his second one came through on 11-11-11.
• Got his first haircut
• Is busy following his sister all over the house
• Still working on sleeping through the night. He's a lot better then a month ago, but things like teething and colds keep things interesting.

8 Months -

Still not sure how much he weighs, but it's even more... I'm fairly certain he only has a few pounds to go to catch up with his sister.

• His favorite toys are the broom and a styrofoam sword. We play "cut-cut" with the sword: A game where he cuts mommy or daddy and we pretend to die. He thinks it's hilarious and I'll do just about anything to hear his laugh.
• He would not sit still for this picture, but he doesn't really sit still for anything. I gave him Christmas lights thinking that would help. It didn't. But I'm a pretty gifted photographer, so I snapped this bad-boy and called it good. ;)
• He loves his blanky.
• He chews with his hands. This one is hard to explain. You really can't get the full effect unless you see it. But in an attempt to explain: He squeezes his little fists, which actually look like the sign for milk, for those of you who know some sign language, as if doing this will make the food go down faster. Trust me on this, it's cute.

Jingle On My Knee

I caught Grace singing this beautiful song in the car the other day and I had to share: "Jingle bell, jingle bells, jingle on my knee..." Too cute.

She is also learning the motions to "Away in the Manger" at Sunday school. I might make her do it for me every day. Although, being two, she doesn't always comply.

And on a completely unrelated to Christmas note... Joe was shopping with Grace today when she informed him that all the milk was gone. Perplexed, he turned around and found her pointing to the jugs filled with distilled water. Yes, Grace it does appear that all the milk is gone. Love you girl!

Christmas is Coming

I have such good memories of our advent calendar as a child. Our countdown was a green cloth calendar with pockets and a little mouse that helped you keep track of the days. My mom would fill each spot with a small candy or piece of gum (if I remember right, gum was Andrea's favorite). My sister and I would look forward to each new day and the candy that awaited us.
This year I decided, with a little help from Pintrest, to make an advent calendar for my family. It was quite the undertaking; mostly because I waited until November 29th to start the project. Needless to say, I stayed up way to late one night, sewing my little fingers off. The end product was well worth the effort.

Here I tried to capter myself slaving away at the sewing machine, but couldn't quite get the right angle. ;) So I took a picture of my sewing machine instead.

Here is one of the little bags after the sewing and ironing process was finished. I discovered he burlap is really hard to iron, but not impossible.

I decided to hand paint all the numbers to complete my rustic look.

Here is the finished product hanging in our dining room window.

Here is another one in the daylight. It was hard to get a good picture at night with all the glare.

... and a couple more close ups with all the goodies inside.

After filling my bags with goodies I also included a different activity for each day. There were some great ideas out there in interweb-land, but I had to pick and choose to make our activities two year old friendly. I imagine adding more and different activities each year as my kids get older. Here is a list of what I used:

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life or Elf, make spiced cider.

Make Christmas Cookies for friends.

Send Christmas Cards to Costco

Read a new Christmas book

Make a Christmas craft

Make Thick Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows

Have a picnic in the living room – eat ham sandwiches and watch a Christmas movie

Put up a ribbon sash for Christmas cards

Give neighbors a present

Put up a wreath

Make a Gingerbread house

Make a popcorn garland

Make hot chocolate and read a Christmas book

Sing (or listen) to favorite Christmas songs

Drive around to see neighborhood lights

Read Christmas story from the Bible

Make a family traditional dessert

Eat out at a festive restaurant

Build a fire and tell stories of childhood Christmas

Have a candlelit dinner by the Christmas tree

Make sugar cookies

Have a full traditional breakfast while listening to Christmas music

Find snow to play in

Go to the Festival of Lights Parade: Keizer – 7:00 pm

Go to Target and pick out a new family ornament

Write a letter to Santa

Pick out our Christmas tree

Learn about holidays in another culture

Go see Santa

So far the countdown has been a hit. Every morning after breakfast we open another bag, enjoy the treat, and plan that day's activity. In fact, I think it's time to open another bag...

My Handsome Little O' Man

First Haircut

Before:

 

After:

God's Provision

I alluded to a bittersweet blessing a couple posts back and by no means meant to be cryptic. It's not my style to be secretive, but the reason I didn't reveal what was going on was because Joe had not yet told his students what was happening.
 
Our blessing was a new job for Joe. It was bittersweet because it meant leaving a great school and great students, but it was also an answer to prayer. For the past three years we have been monthly dipping into our savings just to survive. It's humbling to know that every month's paycheck is still hundreds of dollars short of your absolute necessities. I cannot tell you about many times we were blessed beyond our expectations in how God provided for our needs. While I would never choose to be in the situation we were in, I learned so much through it. Above all, again and again, we were shown just how good God is, and that when He promises He will provide, He will. But all that to say, after much prayer, we knew we needed to start pursuing other job opportunities.

This pursuit might mean having to move out of state to find a teaching job or having to work somewhere outside of the field of education. I was willing to move, but I love our church and we have an amazing small group we attend, and I hated the thought of leaving. I prayed and told God I was willing to leave, but if possible, could we please stay in Salem? Then one Wednesday night, two months into the school year, Joe got a phone call from a friend from church who told us there was a job opening at an online school, but it closed in three hours. So Joe jumped on the computer and finished his application just in time. It was a shot in the dark, but what's one more job application? The next day, Thursday, he got a call and did an interview over the phone. He was then asked to come in for a face-to-face interview on Tuesday. The interview went great, but the new school would have to wait a minimum of two weeks before Joe could start, so that his current school could find a replacement for him. Because of this, we were unsure whether they would want to hire him. However, later that night he got a call: they wanted to hire Joe and were willing to wait the two weeks. Since it was an online school, he would be working from home, and there would be about a $10,000 a year "raise." Joe's current school was amazing and agreed that it was a God thing, and not only let Joe leave, but sent him off with many well wishes. We couldn't have asked for a better reaction.

It has been three weeks now and things are going great. Joe is still working at catching up with all the grading he inherited coming in halfway through the semester, but so far he loves his new job. I am loving that he gets to eat lunch with us, and most days is off work before 4:00. He is loving that he gets to sleep in later and has a much lighter workload.


And because what's a post without some pictures: