Christmas Catch Up Part 1

We have had a great Christmas and hence the reason we haven't updated, we have been recovering from all of our festivities! The boys are at very fun ages and make Christmas a lot of fun. I found myself recalling a lot of my own Christmas memories and childhood traditions. Several times I turned to Inman and asked him about his Christmas memories too. Watching kids experience Christmas is so much fun!

One tradition my family had growing up was new Christmas PJs for Christmas Eve night. We have carried that tradition on and the boys had matching PJs. The picture above is them trying out their new Christmas towels that Santa brought.

The irony here is that Jacob was thrilled when I told him part of Christmas morning was getting to eat candy from your stocking. In this picture he is holding one of his favorite stocking stuffer which was a spiderman spin toothbrush! He asked one time, "now?" And then I had to cut him off several pieces later and when he continued over to finish Santa's cookies that were left over. Give him an inch and he will take a mile!

Jacob prepares for santa the night before by making cookies (yes, the ready to bake kind, we were short on time:) and throwing reindeer mix on the lawn that he made at school.

I will post a few more pics of Christmas day. We had a wonderful service on Christmas Eve and had the treat of Daddy singing! We have missed this since he became the senior pastor! We enjoyed getting to share the Christmas story with Jacob over the course of the Christmas season. It has been really special to see him start to process how Jesus came as a little baby.

We were thankful after a couple of weeks of back to back doctor visits, viruses and ear infections that everyone was "well" for Christmas day. At this age drippy noses seem to be par for the course and certainly did not keep Jacob down!

We are thankful for our family, friends and most of all the true Reason for the season!

Gingerbread House

These posted backwards but you can tell it quickly turned into icing eating along with decorating!

We were so happy to get to do this with Aunt Steph. I think the way Jacob put it was, "Momma you can go upstairs & we will do the houses down here."

A Few of My Favorite Things

How couldn't this be one of them?

Traditions..so far we have kept up doing the gingerbread thing. Last year a choo-choo, this year a house with aunt Steph (more pics to come, they need their very own post!)

I LOVE kids in Christmas PJs. The ones Logan has on were Jacob's and we have great memories of him in them, including our Christmas card that year.

Getting Christmas card...This is maybe 1/2 of them and it has been so fun to "catch up" with friends and family.

I am soaking in all of these favorite things & more. And yes, I have chosen to do just that & my blogging has put put on the back burner. I can always catch up but am taking it all in. If I don't post in the next couple of days, my prayer is that each of us will absorb the true meaning of the season. Merry Christmas!

What are you doing????

What have we been doing??? I had been pretty good at updating until the holiday chaos hit. We have been enjoying the Christmas season like finding houses like the one above (heather w: who says we don't decorate in the south?:), a great Atl tradition riding the pink pig.....

pictures to come from some of our other fun festivities: Christmas parties, preschool Christmas programs, hosting staff parties, throwing a holiday party at the elementary school near our church, more Christmas parties, somewhere in there we need to find a Santa lap to sit in, I hear Momma & Daddy get to go on a Christmas Canteen date this weekend and the fun goes on.

We have also been taking in LIFE around the holidays: viruses, fevers, 5 immunizations for Logan and the after effects, weren't we on a diet before the holidays?, mounds of laundry, wrapping, sending cards & not updating our blog.

Rest assured we are having a great time in ALL of the chaos and we will be posting more pics of most of it!

Snow in NOLA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw1-7vOWUxY

Snow in our previous town has been amazing to see in pictures! Jacob had a hard time understanding that it was snowing THERE and we were having a 68 degree day which was a first in a while!

Fun weekend

One of the most looked forward to weekends of the year......the GBCN girls weekend. We were only together 24 hours but it was great! One of the girls commented sat night, "we have been sitting here talking for 13 hours!" The big kids stayed at home but the little bitty ones, Logan & his girl Morgan got to come.

We helped Becca celebrate the upcoming arrival of Amelia due in January. Becca has helped us welcome 14 babies!

We missed Lori & Jenn so much but will see you soon:)

I love you girls!

Jacob had his choir program Sunday night. Good thing my friend Amy snapped this pic before the singing. Jacob may be an angel but he took those wings right off!

Our little angel isn't feeling good today but hoping we are on the mend soon to enjoy more Christmas fun!

AMEN

Enough Said!

GT

To say there were 3 happy boys in our house yesterday would be an understatement. Ok, so Logan doesn't know what is going on (he did wear GT apparel though) and Jacob had on the wrong team but was cheering GT. Yeah, our boys were happy! Go jackets!

Thankful

"How can we thank God enough for you in return for the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?" I Thes 3:9

"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever"

Ps 136:1

We have so much to be thankful for this year. What a blessing to get to pause for a day and remember everything we have to be thankful for. May you soak up His many blessings today and everyday!

School Thanksgiving Feast

What do you wear when you hear your brother is an indian for the day? The cowboy outfit you have been waiting to wear! Not quite pilgrims and indians but a good excuse to wear the cowboy outfit!

Jacob's preschool thanksgiving feast was last week. We got to see some of their daily routine. Before they go to lunch, the teacher holds up a sign of their name, they recognize their own name, go to the sign and point to each letter. They are all doing a great job. Jacob was the next to last child so by the time it was his turn, he walked up to the teacher and spouted off J-A-C-O-B!

This is the famous Charlotte (yellow head band), Jacob's little girlfriend

The pledge which we say ANY time we see an american flag

Trying New Things

Logan is loving his new exersaucer/bouncer that our good friends Cooper & Bella passed on to us. (Yes, THE Cooper! If you are around Jacob any amount of time, you have heard of Cooper, his best buddy.) Bella and Logan are exactly one year apart and Bella has moved on to bigger and better things and Logan is so happy she outgrew this! He really goes to town in this thing.

No matter how much fun you are having in your new toy, it is always nice to have big brother around though. 

Logan has also tried cereal this week. The first time we think he liked it, then he had a couple of days that he could take it or leave it, then a day where he was not interested at all, then today he seemed to like it. Even with this response, he already has responded better than Jacob. I remember thinking, "he has to learn to like this stuff! He can't nurse forever!" It took him weeks to even tolerate it. You can tell from one look @ Logan, he isn't missing any meals!:)

We are looking forward to this week. As any other week, we have so much to be thankful for but it is nice to have a time set aside to count our blessings. Coming soon....a new list of Jacobisms. He has had me rolling this past week. I try to write them down quick before I forget. And by the way if you run into him, he would like for you to call him Aiden and from his own mouth, "until at least next week.":) If only laughing burnt calories, I would be a skinny Minnie!

FRIENDS

This week when we went to B'ham we got to go to the children's museum. The boys were in heaven when they saw the special exhibit was an entire floor of trains! Leslie came over with her youngest, Jonathan and Abigail. We were all at seminary together and loved getting to see each other. I love that our kids got to play together.

Abigail

Caleb and Jacob really enjoyed racing cars and spend a lot of time with the cars!!!

Some down town, can you tell they are into their show?:)

Joshua doing a little light reading

Last weekend we got to get together with some of Inman's college buddies (we're all buddies now but GT was where it started) Again so fun to see our kids playing together!

When these characters get together, OH MY the stories we hear! There are a few oldie but goodie ones that we hear every time! Can you believe now they are daddies and the cuties above belong to them?!

Catch up

I have to catch up with the last couple of weeks. Last week we celebrated Mom's b-day.

Aunt Steph gets some cuddle time with her boys.

We had a great time having dinner and Dad's famous carrot cake. I even used all of my bonus WW points to enjoy some too! Grandmomma and Granddaddy gave mom a very special frame with pictures of her with each of her grandparents. Jacob got a kick out of seeing Mema when she was a baby with her grandparents! Happy birthday Mom!