Christmas Outdoors

We spent the day after Thanksgiving putting up our Christmas decorations outside!  Totally didn't plan on being able to do this so early on in the season.  I really thought Amelia would have arrived by now and we would be busy taking care of a newborn.  But we took advantage of the extra time with her in my belly and went ahead to decorate!

 Santa came to help decorate!  This Santa coat was from last year and really doesn't fit him at all, but I couldn't resist!

 He looks like a cute, chubby cheek, little elf! Love him!!!!

 Hanging the lights and garland on the balcony

 On our way to do the downstairs decorations

 A quick costume change and back to work! He thought he would spend the rest of our decorating time sweeping the sidewalks.

 Wrapping the pillars with lights (I'm now 2 days past my due date at this point)

 Sweeping the flower beds now...

 ...and the leaves

Hmmm....just realized I didn't get a picture of the finished product. I'll say it looks really beautiful! Stay tuned for a picture. :-)

Thanksgiving Week

We have so many things to be thankful for this year!  This little 22 month old guy, Jack,  is one of them! He keeps us busy and we are having so much fun with him!  Here are a few things that went on this past week.

 Taking a walk

 Exploring with Daddy

 Dragging a stick behind himself on our walk

 Falling asleep during lunch

 Eating 5 bowls full of GramPam's Taco soup

 I officially made it to my due date, November 21st with Amelia the day before Thanksgiving!

40 Weeks along!

 Making pies with Daddy

 Our family of 3 (almost 4) on Thanksgiving day.  At this point I was one day overdue with our baby girl.

 Our tired little turkey

 Playing on his radio flyer roller coaster!

 Opening his new book from the grandparents about new babies being born

 The boys

 Hanging out on the front porch swing

 More pie cooking (sorry, pics are a little out of order)

 Mr. Walch, the baker

 Where did my laundry helper go?

 There he is - in the bottom of the basket!

 Reading a thanksgiving book together

 Barrett and his Dad watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

 Parade watching and snuggle time with my little boy

 He sat  (and slept) through most of the parade and really enjoyed it!

 Santa!!!!!

 Taking Java for a piggy back ride

 Jack spent one morning with GramPam and Pa-Pa so Mommy and Daddy could take an unexpected extra date out to see a movie together.  This was one of the bonuses of Amelia deciding to not arrive on her due date....extra dates!

 Best buds - Jack and Java

 Playing with his manger scene

Sound asleep while reading a book.

 We had our thanksgiving dinner at my sister Tara's house this year.  We loaded up our red radio flyer wagon with pies and corn casserole and made the long journey to the next street over for dinner!  We had a fun time, but of course I didn't take one picture while there. Oops!

It was a fun week!

Facing Forward

We made the switch.  Jack is now sitting forward facing in the car.  He loves it!!!

 Strapped in and ready for his first ride!

(We were on our way to Church on Sunday morning)

 Enjoying looking out the car window! Its a view he has never experienced before!

He thinks it is awesome...until the sun is shining right in his eyes, then it isn't so much fun anymore.  Got the window shade today, so hopefully that will help out some.

That is one happy boy!

Christmas Fun Already

I'm the kind of girl that likes to start listening to Christmas music early!  I love everything about Christmas!  We got a bit of an early start this year.  No worries, I haven't started decorating the house yet, just getting some pre-Christmas things together... before our baby girl arrives.

Myself along with a group of girls from Church have gotten together to work on making ornaments to go along with a new Christmas advent devotional book we have all ordered to start doing with our families this Christmas.  Each person is designated one day/devotional for the month of December and we make an ornament to correspond with that days devotional.  So basically we each make the same ornament 25 times, trade them amongst us all, then we will each have 25 different ornaments, one to go with each day in December leading up to Christmas.

 It ended up being a family project.  I needed help with drilling holes in the wood so I could tie a ribbon on the ornament.  The boys were a great help with that!

 Working at Daddy's tool bench

 Jack is showing you the Shepherd ornament! Project complete!

 Another thing we did was put together our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.  Barrett and I have done this every year since we have gotten married.  All you do is get a shoe box, fill it with things for a boy or girl in another country that is growing up with basically nothing, then deliver it to Church where thousands of these boxes will be distributed to children in need in other countries.  It was special with Jack being a little older this year.  He could participate more - help with the shopping,  making Christmas cards to add to the boxes, and "helping" to fill up the boxes too!

 The crew filling up the boxes.

Love this tradition!