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!

More Maternity Pictures

Today we took some more maternity pictures (at 38.5 weeks), but this time with the big brother Jack!  He was not overly excited to have to take pictures versus just being able to play while outside (but what else can you expect from a busy 22 month old little boy.)

 Our Family

2+2=4

 And here are some cute pictures of the big brother!

Amelia's due date is 10 days away!  We are so ready for her to join our family.  I am feeling great right now! I almost wish I was feeling something so I could at least feel like she was close to coming, but I don't yet. But either way it could be any day...especially considering that Jack was already here by this point, joining us 11 days early.  Until she gets here we will just enjoy these calmer days and nights with the ability to sleep straight through the night (not counting the many trips to the bathroom), but we are so ready and excited for that wonderful day when we get to meet our baby girl face to face!!!!

Maternity Pictures with Amelia

These were taken when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Amelia Joy!

 

Unfortunately Jack was taking a nap when we were having our pictures taken.  I'm hoping that we will get a chance to have some taken with him before Amelia arrives.  Stay tuned!

Thank you Hannah for taking such great pictures for us!

Halloween 2012

 Once again this year we kept with the tradition and had chili cheese hot dogs for dinner on Halloween.

 Jack sure enjoyed his hotdog!

 

 

Next, Jack got all dressed up in his lion costume.  If you ask him what a lion says, he will roar for you...but in a whisper. Such a sweet and gentle lion!

 

 We went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.  When given the opportunity to pick out what candy he wanted, he most often would choose a lollipop or smarties.  In this picture it looks like he actually was happy and walked from door to door.  That wasn't really the case though.  He was pretty grumpy for most of the evening and wanted to be carried around.  Maybe next year he will be more into it.

 It was pretty funny.  He wanted to hold each piece of candy in his hand that he got instead of putting it in his bucket.  It took a few houses for him to realize that it just wasn't possible to hold all that candy.  Such a hard concept for such a little guy that just loves candy so much.

 This year I dressed up as a lady with a baby in her tummy.  Okay, I guess I am a lady with a baby in my tummy, but here you can see the little one with my skeleton shirt.

37 Weeks Pregnant

 As we were walking door to door we eventually came to the park with the swings.  Jack decided this was a better idea then getting candy.  He just wanted to take a candy break and go for a ride in the swing.

 Our Family - Halloween 2012

Notice we no longer have our little lion, but a skeleton. It was a warm night and it just got too hot in that costume.  Good thing we had a back-up!

 Jack's bucket of candy (that mommy and daddy have really been enjoying!)

Jack and Daddy checking out all the yummy treats!