O Holy Night

There is a Christmas song that brings tears to my eyes everytime I hear it all year long. I can just picture that first Christmas - when God appeared... an overwhelming sense of new hope swept among those who saw... those who were weary rejoiced... when the Glory of God was so great, that you had no choice but to fall to your knees in worship.

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

This Christmas I have some dear friends hurting. One is celebrating Christmas for the first time without her mom. Another is celebrating Christmas while her dad, also, is in heaven. Another just found out her husband has cancer this week. Another has a mom battling cancer, still. So when I hear the line a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, I'm reminded that Christ did come to give hope and rest. This past year I've been blessed to have felt both, thanks to my Saviour. I pray those that are weary would feel the same hope and rest in Christ this season.

My to-do list is done...

This is the first year that Jake and I will be celebrating Christmas Day in our own home. We have always been with family and as much as we love being with family, we're also really excited to start our own Christmas traditions and to celebrate as a family of three. But with that comes the pressure of hosting your own celebration: what traditions to do, preparing the perfect meal, setting the mood, having the perfect Christmas outfits, buying the perfect gifts, getting great pictures, making Christmas cookies and goodies, playing Christmas music all with a big smile on your face. :)

But the truth is, in the midst of trying to "do it all" we often times forget what we're celebrating.

I've been reading through the old testament, and I have realized that over and over God's people would build an altar to help them remember in years to come what God did at that time/place. Or God would instruct His people to hold a Festival to remember in the years to come what God did. All for His glory - not theirs. It was to remember HIM. To praise HIM. To worship HIM.

And that's exactly what we hope to do as we celebrate and remember the day Christ came to earth. The long-awaited, prophesied, yearned for, Son of God.

When December first began, Jake and I asked ourselves if Christmas would be just as special to us if there weren't lights, music, movies, foods and gifts - is the fact that Jesus was born enough to make us excited about this time of year?

There are no biblical instructions on how to celebrate, how many gifts to give (or to give any at all), what meal to eat or how to decorate. So stressing over any of these things is pointless, and maybe even putting the focus more on ourselves than God.

So this year, the year I normally would stress over starting the "perfect" traditions for years to come, I'm not (at least that is my goal.) Christmas day will be special with or without a ham with all of the fixings. Our friends/family should know how much we love and appreciate them year round, with or without a Christmas card mailed on time and/or the perfect gift. Our home will celebrate and remember the day Christ came to earth with or without lights, candles, decorations and Christmas goodies. I want it to be a day filled with celebration and excitement, not stress because we want everything to be perfect.

So the to-do list is out the window, and we are anxiously, yet also reverently waiting ... the day we remember Jesus' birthday is almost here!!

Emelyn's New Bookcase

A few weeks ago Jake said he wanted to make something. Anything. So I casually mentioned a bookcase for Emelyn would be nice. Jake mentioned it to our friend, Tanner, and the two of them went to work planning. Little did we know that Tanner is brilliant with wood and has a woodshop full of the tools needed for this project. So the two of them went to work Saturday afternoon cutting out the pieces, then Jake came home to do the rest.

I forgot to take a before picture, so here's one board stained, and the rest unstained

 I took this picture through the window - it was 19 degrees outside!

 Someone wanted to help every step of the way.

 Yes, Jake even sewed the canvas!

We love it and I'm so impressed! Emelyn is so proud of her new bookcase and loves that they're at her level and facing her. Now I'm thinking of all kinds of projects for him to do next time he wants to make something!.

Orange Eater

I recently bought some oranges fully expecting that I'd be the only one eating them. Even when Emelyn insisted that she wanted a bite, I just knew she'd spit it out because of the odd texture (that white tough skin.) Much to my surprise, she not only ate the bite, but she also ate the entire orange and asked for another. She asks for one every morning now. The funniest part though (a little random) is that the first time she saw one she asked, "what is that?" After I told her it was an orange, she goes, "How funny! The orange is orange!"

Engineer in the making?

Emelyn has been in a stacking/tower phase lately - almost everything has to be stacked - even random things - she just walks around the house to find things to make a tower out of. Especially pennies for some reason.

December

Emelyn "holding" the ladder while daddy was in the attic getting Christmas lights down

 Helping decorate the tree. After each ornament, she would stand back and say "Oh, it's so wonderful!" or "How pretty!"

 going through the box of ornaments to decide which was next

 At the square last night looking at lights - and the camels. Emelyn's first question after finding out it was a camel was "What do camels say?" She's big into needing to know what things say.... like the snowmen on our tree (to which we decided they say "Brr! I'm cold!")

 My scarf turned into extra ear protection for Ems... we chose a cold windy night to go!

 Family picture

We are loving and cherishing this time of year. It seems busy, yes, but we try to keep it simple and flexible. We found a really good Jesse Tree Advent devotional book that we have enjoyed. There is a childrens and adult devotion for each day as it follows the lineage of (and need for) Christ. We've been trying to reiterate to Emelyn that Christmas was the day Jesus was born and that it's His birthday we are celebrating. Last night we had some girls over for supper and one of them asked her what Christmas is about and she goes "God came to earth!" As much as we'd love to take credit for that, I'm pretty sure I haven't said that to her - we always say Christ was born. Regardless of where she learned that statement, we cherished it. How I look forward to the day that she truly grasps and cherishes what that statement truly means!!

Picture Update

Week in Review

One cold morning this week, Emelyn requested we make peanut butter cookies to take to daddy's office (I'm pretty sure a certain guy in our family put the bug in her ear that morning since we've never made PB cookies before.) A blurry picture from my phone of an excited Emelyn:

 A little sugar spilled on the counter and she licked it up - it was hilarious!

She's also been very big into her babies this week. She feeds them their bottles (literally, sitting in her rocking chair holding a bottle to their mouths for 10 minutes as she talks them.) Then she has to burp them (usually asks me to put the burp cloth on her shoulder to help out.) And not long after, the baby is "stinky" and we have to change its diaper.

 All done with the bottle and ready to burp.

Finally, she's been wanting to wear her apron instead of bib lately to eat. She says bibs are for babies. :)



In other news, Jake had lab work done and his hemoglobin is 14... That's right, he's officially normal! (Well you know... :)

And we also told our agency Tuesday that we're ready to consider adopting again. I think we've sort of been holding out to see if Charlie comes back, and Thanksgiving will be 6 weeks. We're not in any hurry, but at the same time, want to be available if a child is needing a home and are excited to see what God has in store for our family.

Visitors from afar

Thursday morning we were excited about a visit from our friends Emma & Lily (and Matt) who were in the States from England. The girls had so much fun together... they acted like sisters... shared their toys, giggled together, walked their babies, and even feuded a little. :) Here they are "spelling" everyone's names. So cute.

 Our sweet friend Carolyn came over to visit with us too... she commented on how much they looked alike and we had to agree! Of course it's next to impossible to take a picture of them both looking at the camera at the same time... especially with smiles.

 Coloring pictures before lunch...

What a fun morning!

Family Pictures

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had family pics scheduled for Halloween night, mainly to take Emelyn's 2 year pictures.

These are the kinds of expressions captured:

You can see all of our pictures HERE.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/aquarelita/sets/72157625237106077/with/5166155960/

A big thank you, again, to our friend Bertha for taking our family pictures! If anyone is looking for a photographer she comes highly recommended, and is one of the least expensive photographers we've found - even much cheaper than going through Portrait Innovations or Sears/JcPenney. And you get the CD with all of the pictures to print/publish as you want.



A hug from mom (and Valerie!)

A week ago, I was talking with my mom on the phone, and when she asked how we were doing I broke down. I told her that earlier that week we were asked if we wanted to consider adopting one of two babies that were due around Thanksgiving that needed a home. And it was at that point that I realized how very much I missed Charlie. The week after he left, I spent my time doing everything I had hoped to do before he came... finished cleaning the house, bought more diapers, cooked and froze meals, painted his room, washed everything in sight. And in the weeks that followed, I realized he wasn't coming back. The ache in my heart became real. And so did the ugliness and selfishness... here were two babies that needed homes and I didn't want them. I only wanted Charlie. I hated that I wanted him so much when he wasn't ours to have; I hated that I didn't want two children that needed homes.

All that said, fast forward one week to this past Friday. As I was putting supper in the oven, there was a knock on the door. I opened it up to see my mom and sister. My mom gave me a hug and when I asked what they were doing here (9 hours from home!) she said "I thought you might need a hug." 

Emelyn loved getting to spend some time with Aunt Valerie and Grandma too. :)

Reading books with Valerie (and Emelyn's cousin that's due in early March!)

 Dressing up in Valerie's boots

 Sadly, those were the only two pics we took all weekend, until we were eating our last meal before they left when I took this one with my phone:

Thanks for the hugs, laughing and crying with us at pictures and videos of Charlie and spending a weekend relaxing (and shopping!) with us.

Pumpkin Cookies

I'm not the canning type... I appreciate the love/desire of canning/preserving, but it's just not on my priority list... probably because finding good deals on food/toiletries IS fun to me. In my mind, why spend hours canning applesauce when I can get unsweetened applesauce for less than 10 cents per cup?

All that said, with fall here, and a little girl that is super curious and enjoys hanging out with her mom, we decided to make pumpkin puree out of the pumpkins we bought at the pumpkin patch. We had one jackolantern pumpkin and one pie pumpkin, and the first thing I realized when looking into how to cook it is that you are only suppose to cook/use pie pumpkins. Oops. Oh well! We did it anyways!

The remains after cleaning out the pumpkin...

And 4 hours later, we had 10 cups of pumpkin puree to freeze. (Yes, you do the math... not really worth the effort when you can buy the nice cans of Libby's pure pumpkin for $1!)

 We also roasted the seeds (Emelyn's most requested snack lately...)

 And then we made some pumpkin cookies (and yes, she's still in her pjs at 11am!)

 They were super yummy... and actually healthier for you that most pumpkin bread/muffin recipes I found, even with the icing. Out of the 49 the recipe made, we only have 3 left. Between friends, neighbors, coworkers and us, they didn't last long!