Crazy start to Christmas!

We have done a lot to bring ourselves into the Christmas spirit so far this month!

This past weekend, we treated Emma to a live play of The Velveteen Rabbit. It was not what we were expecting, but we had a good time doing the activities before the play :)

We were also able to visit and have dinner with some college friends that we have not seen since last New Year! We had a good time catching up with Nick and Lindsay! :)

On Sunday, we visited a new church that we really enjoyed that shared a message that hit us both square in the heart. It was great!

Sunday evening, we took Emma to Young's for dinner and then to Cedarville University for a Christmas concert. She loved the chapel and hearing all about how Mommy and Daddy met! I don't think she really enjoyed the music very much (it was kind of slow going), but she said she had a great time anyway :)  It was fun being on campus again!

Our weekend was also tough, though. My 3-month old niece, the one I have been blessed to be able to watch each week, picked up a pretty bad stomach bug and was, and still is, in the Children's hospital. It has been a very nerve-wracking weekend and it is still going. Poor baby girl is struggling to fight this. Your prayers would be MUCH appreciated!  We love this little girl and the blessing she has already been to our life and it has been one of the most emotional weekends ever!

December.... sweet Christmas time

Happy December!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I seriously cannot find one picture from Thanksgiving day! Our original plans of having Thanksgiving in Michigan with my Dad did not work out, so we had a nice Thanksgiving at home with my brother and sister-in-law and my new niece! 

The spirit of Mom came out in me and I wanted to cook every possible Thanksgiving recipe ever created. So, we had all of the traditional foods and some that just sounded good. All of the food turned out very good and we were all stuffed after a long day of cooking! A new idea that Chris had was to create a conversation jar for the table. So, after our meal, we each took turns taking a question from the jar and then we each answered it. It was a great idea! Emma loved it so much, that every day since Thanksgiving, she asks us questions just like the game we played. :)

The next day, we set out to start decorating for Christmas. We put all of the fall things away and put up our main Christmas tree. We spent the rest of the weekend decorating! We went ALL. OUT. this year. Every item of decoration is up and every room has a little Christmas in it.  We lit a fire in the fireplace and enjoyed decorating and turning the house into the North Pole ;)  

Have I said before how much I love Christmas?? :)

    

I am looking forward to this Christmas and to the New Year that will follow. We have had a lot of huge changes this year and I am ready to wind down for the year and start fresh.

Speaking of starting fresh!  We are now officially babysitting my niece and I love it!!  Trying to do our normal things with another baby in the house has been a little challenging, but it has been a blast! I LOVE this baby and Emma loves helping. She is super sweet with baby girl and loves having her cousin around during the day. God has really blessed this and I am encouraged by how much we are all enjoying it :)

How can you not love this?