Holiday happenings

I just realized how long it has been since I last posted and so much has happened. We celebrated Claire's 2nd birthday on the 14th. It is hard to believe that she is already two. She is getting so big at 38 pounds and she can already say her ABC's and count to 13. She is busy and defiant at times, but I love this age and try to cherish every moment. She is finally understanding what to do when she receives a gift and has already learning to say "Tank-ooh" for her presents. Her birthday was a rather busy day as we also were blessed to see our older two perform in our church Christmas musical called "The Christmas County Spelling Bee". It was adorable and they have been working since October, so it was really well done. After church we were able to go out for lunch and the Applebee's staff sang to Claire for her birthday. Last week was full of parties and dinners. I spent Monday with my friend from college and her kids. We had a nice dinner and gift exchange. Tuesday was my bible study Christmas party and Wednesday I had my book club at a great restaurant called Mission Point. Thursday was crazy with Haylee and Kenna's school Christmas party, Claire's party at her daycare, and my yearly cookie/ornament exchange with my friends. The kids had an early start to vacation with a snow day on Friday and we all took a big deep breath and rested on Saturday. Sunday was Kevin's family party at our house which was actually very low key and relaxing. I still have to work during the break, but I got home a little early today and we baked and frosted our cookies for Santa. The holidays seem kinda crazy as I look back, but I really love the hustle and bustle. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last week or so. I seem to have taken a bunch with all that has been going on.

Candlelite

I really wish that I was able to take pictures of the candle lite dessert I attended last night at my church. It was just too dark to get any good pictures, but it was beautiful. Every year my church has a free event for ladies that involves women from our church signing up to do a table. They decorate beautiful table scapes and prepare a dessert for their own table of 8. There are themes and color schemes and the desserts are fabulous. There were several notable table scape ideas that I wanted to share. My favorite was the "Happy Birthday Jesus" theme complete with a birthday cake as the center piece, "Happy Birthday Jesus" crowns and stunning cupcakes for the dessert. I loved two of the tables with color schemes. One was blue and silver and the other was silver and white. There was an adorable gingerbread themed table as well. We enjoyed entertainment from a mother/daughter christian singing duo who were inspirational and spent some wonderful time in fellowship.

Traditions

Today, we continued a little tradition that we started last year and it seems to be something that everyone enjoys and we will continue as long as the kids are willing. We start out at the toy store where the children are to pick a Toys for Tots gift. We lecture and remind about the joys of giving and thinking outside of themselves at Christmas. They actually enjoy this part, but it is a bit difficult to then drop the gifts into a big cardboard box unwrapped and gone forever. After that we went to the mall to visit Santa. We were first in line and actually got to walk with Santa down to his big chair to sit on his lap.(This was a great Kodak moment for me) Claire would only get close to him if he wasn't paying attention to her, but this was more than I expected. The kids were able to then pick another gift at the Build-A-Bear store for an upcoming birthday party with the $5 off coupon that Santa gave us. (Yeah, budget mom!) We rode the Carousel and went out to lunch and we were all wiped out by the time we got home, (The late night surprise birthday party last night in Lansing that Kevin and I went to didn't help) so we all took naps while the snow piled up outside. The other fabulous tradition that we celebrated this week was truffle day. This is year number 5 and we made about 50 dozen truffles. Our flavors were mint, raspberry, coconut, butterscotch, hazelnut, and regular chocolate. The picture is of some of the great friends who attend every year after rolling some very messy truffles. YUM. I also included a picture of Haylee at her school holiday music concert. It was beautiful as always and Haylee did a wonderful job. Have a nice week celebrating your traditions.

Shopping

I know that many people dread Christmas shopping. The crowds, the over spending, and the traffic. I don't really mind these things. I love that I can shop without too much guilt during the holidays. I have always preferred to buy for others and get a thrill from their reaction. I am mostly done with my holiday purchases except for a few last minute gift cards, stocking stuffers, and wrapping paper. I am having lots of fun this year mixing my love of gift shopping with my love of a good bargain and coupons. I have 2 rebate prepaid cards burning a hole in my pocket for today's trip to the book store and I found the deal of the century this weekend. My big girls both want a digital camera for Christmas, but I don't feel that they are old enough for a good camera. They are not yet concerned about the quality of the pictures so I decided to find a small Disney camera that they could use without me worrying about them breaking. Walgreens had Disney Micropix cameras on sale for "Buy 1 at 19.99, get one free" This was already the best deal that I found, but it gets better. Kenna needed her asthma med refilled and the original prescription was at Meijer. I transferred the script to Walgreens and got a $25 gift card FREE. So I used it to pay for the cameras and had $5 left over for deodorant. I was so excited. Hope everyone has fun shopping this year.