Love

I love it when my siblings send an ornament with a story or scripture.  As I pull out my ornament and hang it up I get to have a little spiritual moment.  My kids are getting old enough I can pause and teach them the meaning of some of these ornaments.  

This ornament,  I'm sure not made by my sister but given by her is one such ornament. 

As I look at my tree, as I said before,  I am filled with love and joy for my family. But as this ornament reminds me, that the tree represents the love of God. He offers the fruit of His tree so that we can be filled with His love and joy. 

Christmas in a Nutshell

I had a dream the other night that I went on another date with a past boyfriend that I haven't seen since we broke up. I wanted things to work out so bad but at the same time I had sooo many red flags telling me that I was not going to be happy with  him. Anyway, in this dream I forgave him and went to something that felt like a ward party but it was McDonald's  (which was supposed to be novelty). During our dinner two flighty girls who lived by him came up and sat at the table and they had a flirty-ditzy annoying conversation.  After a few minutes I got up had a few awesome parting words and I woke up. I woke up so thankful for my awesome husband.  The night before the dream, I had sat admiring him as he held our sweet babe in the light of the Christmas tree. It was one of those moments that your heart swells with gratitude, joy and with a prayer that it will last.

The beautiful thing is that even though things do change and there are difficulties in life we do get to hang on forever. The beauty of the season is in our Savior. That He lived. He died. AND lives again. And we can be together with Him and our families as we covenant to live like him.

Christmas in a Nutshell

(From brother#2 it's Christ in a walnut shell. Cute.)

O Christmas tree!

I'm sitting here listening to Christmas music, admiring my Christmas tree. I love my Christmas tree.

My tree is filled with ornaments have been made/given by my siblings. Every year at least a few of us have exchanged ornaments. Some of these ornaments have stories or reasons why I love them. I know that I have to be realistic and admit that with three little ones some of these ornaments may not get to last forever. So I thought I should document these ornaments so I can always remember them and continue to feel joy in my family and in Christmas.
So over the next few weeks I may be posting a few of my favorites.

Today's ornament was one of the first exchanged. It brings me so much joy everytime I look at it.

Isn't he so cute? My brother sent this. I think it came as a great surprise to me to that my brother was so crafty. It was during his divorce, so I knew it came 100% from him. I just feel like there is so much love in this ornament.  It's the happiest elf I have ever seen.

This girl

Ever since boo was little,  good byes have never been a big deal. I barely could get a wave or a verbal good bye from her when I dropped her off at preschool.  I always half-wished I got more as I watched other kids hug and kiss their moms  goodbye. But I also knew it just wasn't who Boo was. She has always been so excited for school and being around friends that the temporary separation wasn't a big deal.
But lately when i've dropping her off at school, I get a hug, a kiss and/or blown kiss with an "I love you mom". Ahhhhh. It tickles my heart.
I've also started to say a little prayer for her most days as I watch her walk into school. I like that special little prayer just for her. I hope I can keep that up.

Spooktacular

Since Halloween fell on a Saturday, and apparently not tired of party planning yet, I thought we had to make Halloween a little more exciting. Halloween is not my favorite holiday but there are so many fun things to do. I decided to through together a little party, not really little but not big enough to invite all that I wanted to. I think those who came had fun but i think I learned a few things:
1. Make it longer, it was too short for me to sit and talk to anyone.
2. Either make it all at activities and not a meal, or start off with the meal so that i can enjoy the party.
3. do it on the years that we aren't doing a birthday party for Boo
4. just keep having fun. We are creating memories for our kids. I stopped for a minute one day why I care about that and why that is important. We want them to remember childhood as a happy time. we want them to remember our love for them and that we have fun together. And it is our memories that will bring a smile and warmth in our hearts when life gets hard our sad.
Anyway here's the party

Fairy god mother and Doc McStuffins

 My neighbor brought this craft and it was perfect, the kids LOVED it.

 The food table beginning to get full of all the yummy treats people brought

  Wrap your daddy up like a mummy:

 Donuts on a string

 so fun, so messy

 We also had other games they could play at their leisure: Spider tag (basically line tag),  black cat alley but it was really a spiderweb obstacle course that ran between our fence and behind the shed and trampoline, we had the jumping spider nest (trampoline), Witches hat ring toss, and bat flying races. 

 Ready to trick or treat:

 well Documented to help out those memory keeping skills. :)

Tea Party

I had fun putting together this party. I went a little crazy but had fun. Part of the fun in the party planning is doing it as simply and cheaply as I can but keeping it pretty awesome. The hard part of doing it cheaply means that I have to take more time creating and baking instead of buying it all put together for me. Say the pinata. I could easily bought a pinata. but it is incredibly cheap to make just takes time.

Or the paper banner and pinwheel decorations. Takes time but so cheap. The other part of keeping it cheap is that even 25 cents adds up pretty fast.

The tissue paper flowers were used for decorations and we used them for their fancy headbands they wore for the tea party.

I have no idea I spent or how many hours I put into putting this party together for my dear Boo. But I loved doing it for her and she loved it. Now, I am anxiously awaiting to have another tea party. And I really really want another petit four....plenty of work but so so yummy.

 We played musical chairs and sugar cube drop relay game (no pic of that one though)

 The lovely ladies:

This picture makes me happy, Boo's face makes it all worth the work!

Love this girl!

Squishy

So obviously I have a post baby body and I am totally okay with it. I'm okay with little miss calling my tummy squishy all the time ( don't love her pushing on it however. ) I know my body has paid a price for my sweet babes and that's okay.  I will exercise and feel good about my body.

But when you go in for the post-baby check and your doctor checks your tummy and states " you have a lot of loose skin. You're going to need a tummy tuck.".

Say what?!! Who says that, especially so soon. I wasn't concerned.  And in fact i'm pretty sure it's normal.

I'm glad i'm happy enough with my body and confident that I can exercise and know my body will be fine in a few months (or many months). Otherwise that could have really hit my self esteem.  Goodness. Her statement comes to mind often but I just roll my eyes and laugh it off.

All worth it. If my squishy tummy doesn't go away. I hope I can wear it like a badge of honor, being a mother of my 3 wonderful girls.