We had a wonderful holiday! Here are some of my favorite photos!
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| Thanksgiving dinner at my house with James’ family |
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| Rilyn and Asher |
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| Uncle Ben with Busta (who ran into a table and busted his head) |
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| Rilyn and her beautiful Aunt Mandy, James’ sister |
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| Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house |
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| Asher and his cousin, Caden |
Rilyn decided she wanted us to do a family thanksgiving skit this year. So she and Ella got the props and costumes ready and Julie added her creative SNL twist and we performed it for our family yesterday.
Make sure to stick it out until the end, my favorite part is Rilyn’s nervous anticipation before the ‘grand finale’.
I took the kids for our annual fall foliage pictures today in Temple. Asher didn’t make it out because he was misbehaving earlier and had to take a nap at my mom’s house. 😦
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I’m feeling crafty, aren’t I? 🙂
Today, my good friend Angela dropped off some cloth napkins that I can borrow for Thanksgiving (see how it pays to blog about your ‘needs’?)
So, I thought for about 2 seconds that I could go to the store and bring all 3 kids with me to buy fancy napkin rings OR (this is when the sane side of me kicked in), I could make my own! I started searching on tipjunkie, (oh how I love thee), and found this! I tweaked the idea a little to fit my needs, (used dixie cups from the kids bathroom, cut out the top part to make a napkin ring), and voila!
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| The girls painted the dixie cups black and I sprayed them over with chalk board paint. |
The girls are on a Wikki Stix kick and have added to their artwork from Saturday. Two more cupboards were graced with some Thanksgiving creations!
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| This might be Squanto |
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| pilgrim |
I have been wrapped up in buying things for the Thanksgiving table lately, since for the first time in Austin, we are hosting Thanksgiving for James’ family. Gold chargers, brown table runner, off white table cloth, my off white china…I want to buy cloth napkins too, but then I would HAVE to buy napkin rings, right? 🙂 It has been really fun to ‘dress’ the table and I’m looking forward to the finished product on Thursday. One thing I knew we needed was place cards, and as much as I wanted to make fancy looking, ‘sophisticated’ ones that I see on so many of the craft blogs, I knew the girls would enjoy making them and it would add a personal touch to our table. So, out came the craft scissors, special gold pen, stickers, and buttons (that was Rilyn’s request). The girls were busy in their room for awhile. Ella got to make 6 and Rilyn 6. Ella came out with her 6 and here is an example of one:
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| Oma won’t mind her turkey standing up right? |
When I asked Ella why she taped the button on when they have glue in their room, she reminded me that she can’t use glue until December because she glued pink paper to her door a few weeks ago. Oh yeah, oops! I guess I have two rule-followers in the family, (well plus me, so three, and we are pretty certain Asher is NOT a rule-follower!)
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| Here is the evidence of that past event where Ella got on ‘glue restriction’
hot pink paper+glue stick+door=residue that won’t come off And I have no clue why she thought gluing paper to a door was okay. |
Rilyn made an another craft today with her Wikki Stix. She put this on our kitchen cupboard, isn’t is cute?
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| gobble gobble! |
Rilyn wanted me to get some feathers because she is planning on doing a Thanksgiving skit this year for our family when they come to visit. When I bought them for her though, somewhere plans changed in that creative mind of hers. Yesterday, Rilyn and Ella started bringing out their ‘friends’ after being in their room for awhile. I was informed that they were ‘decorating their room for Thanksgiving’ and everyone had to wear Indian hats.
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| I had the girls line up all the animals, figurines, toilet paper roll Indians, and even the giant Barbie head for a picture!
After I took the picture, Ella wanted to look in my camera to see which ones smiled! She said, “Barbie had a good smile.” 🙂 |
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| I’m going to have James build me a Jesse tree like thisone to put in our living room. |
Every year before Christmas, since having a family, I try to find more ways in which we can incorporate keeping Jesus at the center of our celebration. This year, God really spoke to me about the Jesse tree after seeing it online. I am studying Isaiah right now in Bible Study Fellowship and we literally just read and studied Isaiah 11:1, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” I love the explanation this one website says for the Jesse Tree.
“So what do we need to do to honor God on this day (Christmas) as well as the season? Why did we, and still to this day, need this child to be born? Why was it so important for God’s Word to become flesh? The answers to these questions are woven through the Old Testament in God’s promises, prophecies and miracles. Focusing on these and working on a better understanding will greatly enhance your Christmas season and hopefully help you to abandon some of the materialistic traditions that are dragging you down. Traditions like Advent wreaths and Advent calendars don’t necessarily focus on why the birth of Christ was, and still is, so important. The Jesse Tree is a way to help children and adults get a better understanding of what and why we are celebrating. Jesse was the father of King David. The idea of the Jesse Tree comes from Isaiah 11:1-9, where God promises a discouraged nation that the glory they remember from David’s time will come again. They will have another king from Jesse’s family, in whose reign the whole earth will know God. As a Christian, we see that promise fulfilled in Jesus, and so we use a Jesse Tree and decorate it with reminders of how God prepared the world for that kingdom.” http://www.jesse-tree.com
I found this website from the Reformed Church in America that has devotionals for every day this Advent season with scripture (they start November 28th) and how to make the symbols/ornaments for the tree, (and if you don’t feel like making the ornaments, you can download and print the symbols they have online for free!) Click here to see the symbols and scripture passages for each day. Click here to print the symbols out. Click here for devotions every day for the Jesse Tree.
I’m really excited to start this Christmas tradition with my family and will post the picture of our completed tree after Christmas! My goal is that each day we make the ornament together, (they post how to do that here), then read the short family devotion that goes with it.
I went along with Ella today on her field trip to the local fire station. Let’s just say that the firefighter who did most of the talking was not bad looking. I think Ella took notice and it seems to be evident in the pictures I took! 🙂
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| Her eyes are on lock down! |
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| Hanging on every word he says. |
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| He let them touch him. Ella was the first to run up. |
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| Do you mind if I just stare at you? |
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| And they called it puppy love… |
Seriously, though, she had fun learning about everything at the fire station. The real thrill was when they got a call and one of the fire engines had to pull out and put on their sirens!
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| You can see the kids thought the sirens were a little loud! |
Watching the fireman go down the pole was a treat too!
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| wheeeeeeee |
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| Ella and the preschool gang! |
the paquettes 