Christmas in Detroit

What a group! I love my family! It was our turn to travel to Detroit to celebrate Christmas. This was the 1st time this year that most all of us were together. We celebrated Christmas, my cousin Alex's 9th Birthday, and my Grandma's 75th Birthday. There were 7 kids running around and they did great! I was praying that they would get along and they did! It was a relaxing weekend but it went by too quickly! My aunt made a REALLY good pork roast as well as some other delicious food. These are some of the things I cherish, family, laughter, togetherness, and yummy food!








Eliza was very excited to get her own set of Polly Pockets. It's funny how we adjust what we give our 2nd and 3rd child. I never would have given Adrianna those when she was 3! Now since Adrianna has them and Eliza plays with them we have given her some too. She LOVES them!








Adrianna got her own set too. Here's hoping they won't fight over them now! Yeah right.....:)









This is my cousin Bryan's little girl. So I guess she is my 1st cousin once removed! She is almost 2 and so sweet!
She LOVES books and if you didn't know better, you would think she was reading! She looks at every page and word and studies it very thoroughly. The girls loved playing with her too!







Sweet little Rachel oblivious to the festivities!
She is just so squeezable!









All the adults exchange names for gifts. It is supposed to be a secret but for some reason, who has who always gets leaked out!:) The kids did a really great job of being thankful!






Caleb LOVES opening gifts! He loved banging on the box and saying "pretty".







We had a contest to see who could wear the craziest or most creative socks. Colin's were so cute but I can never understand how anyone can wear the kind where each toe has it's own spot. That would bug me to know end! He kept his on for a little while and then HAD to take them off. I don't blame him!




My dad won! He taped candy canes to his socks. Very innovative I must say! It's no surprise he was creative because that is one of his gifts! He won a HUGE box of microwave popcorn. Very cool prize!




Every time Shawn gets the camera I always find wacky pictures he has taken. They are usually of him making incredibly weird faces!








For the past 3 years we have done a cookie exchange with all the girls in the family. We each make 5 dozen cookies and then we each get 5 dozen in return. It is nice to be able to add some more variety to our trays we hand out !



I love my Grandpa's love for life! He is so funny and he always makes us laugh. He LOVES being the center of attention!










I know I am going to cherish this photo forever! My grandpa and my sweet boy!










I was just thinking how thankful I am to have a family to celebrate with. You hear of so many people in this world who long for that. God's blessings are abundant!

Snow Fun!

Starting to look like Christmas!

Opening up our 2009 ornaments. I decided to give them to the kids early so we can actually enjoy them on the tree!









Since Shawn and I love the show "Smallville", we had to get our little superbaby a Superman ornament!











Santa Baby!










Shawn and I have been wanting to do Advent with the kids for a few years. This year we decided to do it! This is our wreath that was made by Shawn's dad. I am so excited to have that fresh pine smell in our house since we can't get a real tree! I added the ribbon and beads and we have been enjoying the daily reminder to have Hope and Peace. We usually spend only about 5 minutes each night after dinner talking about it. We read a verse and try and think of practical ways to live out hope and peace to others. We have had some great discussions and I hope that this family devotional time will continue!

Tree Trimming

Our annual Tree trimming usually happens on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We always listen to Michael W. Smith's "Christmastime" CD and have pizza when we are done.
This year Shawn decided to put the tree together on his own and it took him only about 20 minutes as compared to an hour when the kids help. And they usually only like putting on 1 or 2 branches anyway!

I usually put on the lights and I have been able to cut my time down to about an hour instead of 3! It amazes me how all the lights worked last year, you take them off the tree, put them in a tub, and then when you get them out the following year, half of them don't work! I had 5 strands of dead lights. So...I walked over to CVS and they didn't have any more white lights. So...I came home and decided to drive to Walgreens. Fortunately they had Buy 1 get 1. Meanwhile, as I am trying to find enough lights for the half decorated tree, Shawn has been trying to put up icicles lights on the a-frame of our house. He got halfway done and realized that the ladder wasn't long enough so he took them down. This was about a 2 hour process!
I finally get the lights I need and finish decorating the tree. I went downstairs to get a bag of decorations and what do I find? Three more boxes of lights! Guess I didn't need that trip to Walgreens afterall! GRRRRR.....

Caleb picked a great time to start crawling! He of course went right for the tree and kept saying "bebe", his word for pretty. I love that little finger that points to everything and says either "Wow" or "Bebe"!








I bought the girls some ornaments that had candy in them and they loved it! This is the only ornament they can take on and off the tree, which of course is a BIG novelty!










This is Caleb's new way of communicating....making this face and saying "Ohhhhhh". This usually happens when he doesn't like something, he is hurt, or he wants mommy! Precious isn't it?!:)






Shawn has been wanting a Star for the top of our tree for a while so this year he got one!










I was very surprised how much the girls wanted to help decorate the tree. Last year they put on about 10 ornaments each and they were done. This year they helped with the entire thing! So much difference a year makes!

Celebrations

One of the things that reminds me of my childhood is watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV. Someday I'm going to go there! Anyway, I was able to watch it this year with the girls and Caleb while Shawn was at a gig. Adrianna showed the most interest in it and even then I had to keep pointing out how cool it was! I think they did really like the big balloons, especially Buzz Lightyear, Dora, Abby Cadabby, and Sponge Bob. After Shawn got home we headed to my parents house in Zeeland for our feast. It was a great day of relaxing, watching football, playing games, making turkey rice krispies, and talking together. We were even able to write on some cards things we are thankful for and things we are thankful for about the other people in our family. It will be encouraging to read those when I'm feeling down!
Aren't those place cards cute!;)

Caleb was NOT impressed with the bird! All 22 pounds of him.
Oh wait, they both weigh the same!!!










2 Cute little Turkey's!;)












On the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day, we head up to Shawn's parents house in Pierson. I think on of the most favorite parts on the day was watching Caleb dance with this silly singing turkey!
Oh yeah, and get out ALL the newspapers from the shelf!









My other most favorite part of the day was making smores! Who would have thought that we could have done that in November! Winter coats and all!






Eliza apparently likes marshmallows! She would have eaten the whole bag if I wouldn't have found her!











Sweet girl so willing to help and be the "big sister"!










It has been an AMAZING Thanksgiving season of growth, reflection, and blessings.
I am just thankful for this journey that I am on with my Jesus and that He loves me enough to teach me something every day of my life! Sometimes it is painful, sometimes it is joyful but it is great! I just have to sit back, look at the life God has given me, and feel completely overwhelmed and blessed. There are just too many things to name! Wow..Our God is awesome!

A Month of Thanksgiving

As always, before any Holiday, I really do some soul-searching to figure out how we want to celebrate. I always ask myself, "What do I want to teach my kids about this particular Holiday? What do I want them to learn? How can I get it into their little hearts?". About a month before Thanksgiving we decided to make a paper chain leading up to the actual day. On each link we wrote down things we were thankful for. When we ripped off that link, we were then reminded of those things we thought of and then we prayed and thanked God for them. I was trying to think of something we could do with the link after we ripped it off. Hmmm....the first thing that popped into my head was to make each link into a feather and attach it to a turkey. So..that's what we did! I didn't really have time to come up with anything else! This also gave us a visual thing to look at each day and be reminded to have a thankful heart.












"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful....singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God...giving thanks through Him to God the Father." Col. 3:15-17


After we decided to do the chain link, I thought that maybe it was a little too self-focused. Here we are thinking of all the ways "we" should be thankful and not necessarily thinking of others. Don't get me wrong, we should be thinking of things we are thankful for in order to cultivate a continuous thankful heart, I just think there is more to it! So then we decided to make a Thankfulness calendar. On each day we thought of a person or couple in our lives that we could focus on that day by either praying for them, sending them a note, calling them, or getting them a small gift. The idea was to get the focus off of ourselves and think of others intentionally! The girls had a lot of fun waking up each morning and asking who the "special" person was for the day. It also got me thinking of others more and trying to figure out what we could do to make them feel special. This also gave us some more intentional reasons to keep building relationships with our neighbors!

"I will give thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to Thee...And give thanks to Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth." Psalm 138:1-2

We also read a little bit about the Pilgrims and their journey to freedom in America. The main thing we mentioned to the girls is that they wanted to worship the Lord without any one telling them they couldn't or telling them a certain way to do it. We pointed out that we have abundant blessings like food, a house, clothes, toys, and all our needs met when others around the world and even in our country do not.
Our church, which is AMAZING by the way, handed out a simple meal in a bag. It was a missions focused Sunday and instead of just telling us that we should try and cut back for one of the meals before Thanksgiving, they actually gave it to us! It was rice and beans in a bag with 4 little pieces of dried banana. They encouraged us to also drink water for that meal and whatever money we saved doing that could be given to missions. We did that Thanksgiving Eve and it went really well. The girls actually liked it and didn't complain too much! It was very filling but it also gave us a visual and practical way to see that we can eat simply and survive. We can eat this way more often in order to save money and give some of our abundance away to those that need it more.
Just a side note, I love how the leaders of our church not only challenge us to walk deeper in our relationship with Christ, but they model it also!

"O Lord, Thou are my God; I will exalt Thee, I will give thanks to Thy name; For thou hast worked wonders, plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness." Isaiah 25:1

As I looked back on our month of Thankfulness it felt very full. Full of goodness and blessings. Full of celebration and love. For a few brief moments I wondered if it was all necessary. I didn't want to get caught up in having to do something. I didn't want it to be ritualistic. I wanted it to be authentic. While I may not have taught my kids to "always" have a thankful heart, I hope we have planted a seed towards it. I guess that is what we are called to do right?:) It is always a great reminder to me to be thinking of others, to be thankful in EVERYTHING. To be humbled by how God takes care of us in every way imaginable. It is something I will keep working on!

Happy Birthday Pa!

Shawn's dad celebrated a birthday this past Monday. I'll refrain from telling his age!:) Sheryl made a pumpkin pie completely from scratch..I'm impressed! It was a great time!