Could today be the day?

Well, I am not sure...but I know that ANY day soon could be!! Here is a picture of me and baby Daniel on Christmas Eve...


I am having TONS of contractions today...so who knows maybe his appearance will be before the new year after all! We'll keep you posted...

A Dream Come True

Yesterday, I would have only thought it to be a dream. You know, I am positive that the person who wrote, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas", lived in a climate like the one here. I mean obviously he/she was not from the Dakota's like myself. And I as I said, yesterday it seemed to only be a dream with temperatures in the low 70's. It was an absolutely beautiful day that we spent at the little lake and park by our home.




But much to my surprise, last night before going to bed I checked the weather to see that we were in a "Winter Weather Advisery". The high being 40 overnight and steadily dropping during the day. By this morning it was upgraded to a "Winter Storm Warning" with 2-4 inches of accumulation expected. And sure enough just a couple of hours ago my kiddos dream came true. It started to snow. They have a white Christmas. I'm not sure if we will see this again, so you can be sure we are enjoying it now!



And what a great gift, to be reminded of the gift that Jesus is. The One who washed our sins as white as snow. Thank you Lord for being our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas to ya'll!!

Christmas Cookies

One tradition that we have around our home each year is to make and decorate sugar cookies! This is something that the kids love and look forward to. This year, Lizzy asked me if we could make gingerbread men, so we mixed up some of these cute little men as well.

Even though I DO NOT make my cookies from scratch and am totally NOT ashamed to admit it, it still takes a full day to complete this project. So, while the boys did their school work one morning last week, the girls and I rolled out our Pillsbury refridgerated cookie dough and started cutting out our Christmas shapes...



Abby had on all the necessary accessories for perfect cookies too! :-)


It took a couple of hours to roll, cut, mix-up the gingerbread cookies, and bake all of them. I didn't count, but I think we made around 70 cookies.

After an afternoon nap for the girls and some afternoon school lessons for the boys, the most anticipated part of the Christmas cookie adventure had arrived! It was time to decorate! There was frosting and sprinkles of all kinds, as well as M&M's and Dots. Plenty to make the eyes of any child wide with excitement!






There was plenty of taste testing too...


Abby definitely received the award for "Most Sprinkles Used". :-)


And here is the result of all of the effort...a counter full of treats to share with our friends and enjoy ourselves too!


More of our Christmas traditions to come...hopefully before Christmas! :-)

Build-A-Bear Party!

Last Friday, Lizzy had her 4 year old birthday party at Build A Bear. This was SO, SO fun! She used her own birthday money to buy each of her 5 friends that came a bear/animal of their very own. A pretty cool party favor, don't ya think? :-)

Here are some pictures of the fun that was had by all...

First, each of the girls picked out their cuddly creature of choice...


Next, they each "stuffed" their animals to just the right fullness...


Then it was time for a bath...


They all lined up after carefully dressing their new friends...


And finally an adorable group picture in front of Build A Bear!


After a fun time at the Build a Bear store, we headed upstairs to the foodcourt to have some butterfly cake and open presents...





What a fun, fun day with our friends! And we brought home a couple of new ones too! :-) Happy, happy birthday Lizzy!

It's beginning to look A LOT like Christmas!

We woke up early this morning to big white fluffy flakes falling from the sky. This was a welcome sight to my kiddos!! In fact, just the other day Drew said, "Mom I hope it snows at least once this year!" So, at 6:50am this morning my kids went outside to play in the snow! At first, they were dressed only in their PJ's...


They soon came in to gather more layers...


Then we headed from the backyard to the front and our neighbor boy joined us for awhile. The boys had a great snowball fight!



At 8:45am everyone had made their way back inside for some hot chocolate and breakfast.


What a FUN morning! As I type this it is 11:30 am and the snow has been gone for over an hour, but we sure enjoyed it while it was here.

With the snow outside and our Christmas tree up inside it IS feeling like Christmas! We are so excited to have our tree up once again. My parents brought this and our ornaments when they visited 2 weeks ago. For the last 2 years we have had small "Charlie Brown" trees as our apartment did not have room for anything larger. While we enjoyed this too, it really has been wonderful to have our ornaments and the "Big" tree back that the kids remember. Here it is all decorated...


I just LOVE this time of year!!

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord "Though your sins are like scarlet , they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson they shall be like wool." Isaiah 1:18