Christmas 2010

We have had such a nice Christmas this year, and we have all been quite spoiled! We started our Christmas celebration two weeks ago with a trip to see my family in South Carolina. We enjoyed our week there very much. We were able to see many people and spend a lot of time relaxing . I went to a cookie exchange with my sister and was able to see several friends from high school. I made more of the peppermint marshmallows, but this time, I dipped the tops in chocolate and sprinkled them with crushed candy canes. This is the container of cookies I brought home from the party. While we were in SC, we also got to have lunch with some dear friends, we got to attend the Christmas concert at my parents' church (and hear my dad's choir sing), and I got to go with my sister to pick up her wedding dress! We celebrated Christmas with my family on December 19th, our final night there.

Nora and her fiance, Topher

We came home on December 20th and had a few days to get settled back in and finish preparing for Christmas. We celebrated Christmas with Jim's side of the family on Christmas Eve and Jim's sister's house. Drew got lots of Buzz Lightyear presents!

Drew loves to play with his cousin, Danny, who is only two months older than Drew is.

One of Drew's favorite gifts was a pair of Buzz wings. He wore them all evening - even on the toilet!

We did some baking this week after we returned from our trip. I made four pans of cinnamon rolls for friends and neighbors.

Drew and I also made some sugar cookies.

Drew was in charge of rolling the tops of the cookies in the sugar.

We left some cookies and milk by the tree for Santa on Christmas Eve.

We did our own little family gift exchange on Christmas morning. Drew got lots of Thomas toys.

Jim's mom came over later in the morning, and we did one final gift exchange with her.

We have had a very full couple of weeks, but it has been lots of fun. We are truly blessed, and we are so grateful for our family and friends. We are also thankful for our Savior, who came to earth as a baby to live a perfect life and ultimately die on the cross to save us from our sins. We are so undeserving of His love and the gift of salvation, but we are so thankful that He chose to sacrifice Himself for us. I hope that you all have had a very merry Christmas!

Homemade Marshmallows and the Polar Express

We had a special movie night at our house last Friday. Since Drew loves trains, we had decided to buy him the Polar Express DVD and have a movie night one night before Christmas. In anticipation of our movie night, I baked some cookies and planned to make hot chocolate. Earlier in the week, I saw this homemade marshmallow tutorial and knew that I needed to try to make some to go with our hot chocolate. They were pretty easy, and very tasty! Here is my pan of marshmallows as they were setting up. Here is the bowl of finished marshmallows.

Drew was very excited when he unwrapped his Polar Express DVD.

Our treats on my fun dessert plates. I found these at my favorite thrift store a couple of years ago, and they are the same pattern as my dishes. I cut the marshmallows into smaller pieces for our hot chocolate.

We all enjoyed our treats as we watched the movie.

Drew really loved it, and he was especially excited when Santa came on.

This will probably become a new Christmas tradition at our house. It really was a lot of fun!

Some Scrapbook Pages (and a little news)

I have a few recent layouts to share. They are all made from sketches from Let's Scrap.
This first one is about our evening at Zoo Boo. I had fun making the little banner.
This layout uses some older photos from a banana box sale we went to in Greenville a year or so ago. These sales are so much fun, and I love that you can fill a box with so many great things for only $7! I always hope that a banana box sale is scheduled during our visits, and lately, there haven't been any. Maybe next time!

I took some cute pictures of Drew playing in the leaves, and I made this layout with a few of my favorites.

This last layout is about the Lion's game we went to in August. It is based on this week's sketch at Let's Scrap.

I got an exciting e-mail this past week! I had submitted a few pages to Scrapbook News and Review e-magazine a while ago, and I really didn't expect anything to happen. I had pretty much forgotten about sending them in, and then I got an e-mail saying that they were going to publish my pages in a special Christmas magazine. These are my first published pages, and I am pretty excited! The magazine with my pages will be published this Sunday evening, but you have to be a subscriber to see it. I know that most of my blog-followers are not scrapbookers, but I just had to share this fun news. :)

I also want to give a little update on Jim's job. He is still unemployed. We are really enjoying having him at home, but we will also be thrilled to have him go back to work. He met yesterday with his future boss to discuss specifics about his new position. He was told that when he goes back, he will be getting a promotion and a raise, so that was exciting to us. We are still just waiting for the contracts to be finalized. There is a small possibility that something could happen before Christmas, but things will probably not be settled until January. We would appreciate your continued prayers that everything will be wrapped up quickly!

A Visit With Santa

We met some friends at a little Christmas market on Friday night. It was quite cold! We enjoyed watching some ice sculptures being made. We waited in a long line to see Santa.

We took a few pictures on the cute little porch.

When we got into Santa's little house, Drew was afraid. He is never afraid of costumed characters, except for Santa! Jim tried to get Drew to sit in the little chair beside Santa.

Santa tried to bribe Drew with a candy cane.

Drew liked the candy cane, but he still wasn't sure about Santa.

In the end, Jim had to sit in the chair with Drew.

Drew did shake hands with Santa at the end.

All bundled up and ready to go.

We had a nice time, but we were glad to get back to our warm car!

Christmas Decorations

Our house is all ready for Christmas, and I have a few pictures of our decorations. Here is our tree. Our nativity scene was a gift from a college friend. Her grandfather made it.

I like to put up greenery and lights above our window in the living room.

Even the bathroom got a little decoration.

Drew has his own little tree on his dresser, and he loves for me to leave the lights on while he falls asleep each night.

Our Christmas countdown moose.

We've been getting a few snowflakes the past few days. Drew likes to watch the snow through the window.

Here is our basket of books. Drew is enjoying opening one each day.

His first one was "Dick and Jane's Christmas."

We have lots of other fun Christmas activities planned for this month, and I will share them throughout the month.

Thankful

I can't believe it is December 1 already! Today is a bit of a different day for our family, since Jim is at home and not at work. His job with American Golf officially ended yesterday, and we had anticipated that he would be starting with the new company today. Unfortunately, there have been some delays with the contract between the new managing company and the golf course owner, and until those details are worked out, Jim is unemployed. We are hoping that this will be worked out in the next few weeks, but it could possibly be longer. While we are a bit disappointed and unsure of what the next couple of months hold for our family, we are trusting God to provide for us and to do His will in Jim's job situation. We would appreciate your prayers that everything will get settled and that Jim can be back to work soon. In the meantime, we will be spending lots of time together as a family, and Jim is looking forward to getting some projects done around our house. We are so thankful that Jim has the promise of a job and that God is in control of this situation!
We had a great Thanksgiving last week. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at Jim's sister and brother-in-law's house. Drew was a great eater! He is becoming better and better about trying new foods, and we were thrilled about all the new things he ate on Thanksgiving day. He tried turkey, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli casserole, corn, and stuffing. He also enjoyed grapes, strawberries, cheese cubes, a juice box, and several chocolate chip cookies.

He had a great time playing with the cousins.

I thought I would also share some pictures of Drew's morning routine. When Drew gets up each morning, he heads straight to his train table. After playing for a few minutes, he usually starts to take the previous day's track apart, and then he asks me to build him a new one. (By the way, the Woody pajamas were a recent Marshall's purchase by Drew and Jim. They always bring home fun things when they go to that store! Drew loves these pajamas. They came in a set with a pair of Buzz Lightyear pajamas.)

I view the track building as a daily mental exercise as I work through a track using the pieces he has. :) This train table is probably Drew's most-loved and used toy, so I don't mind building his tracks each day.

We are looking forward to starting our Christmas book a day activity today, and next time I will show our Christmas decorations. We got them all up this past weekend.