Lights on at the Zoo and More Christmas Happenings

One of our favorite Christmas activities is Lights On at the zoo. It's so atmospheric with the lights and the fake snow.

They had some new lights we hadn't seen before. This zebra was really cool.

Dancing tree lights.

Now you see them...

...now you don't.

They always have a great Santa. Jalen wants Captain America and Max Steel. He is going to be happy Christmas morning. Baylie changes her mind every time she thinks about what she wants. I'm worried about how she'll feel come Christmas morning. This is the third year in a row that this is the case.

Our favorite thing about this night at the zoo is roasting marshmallows to make s'mores. The kids have become pretty expert at toasting their marshmallows. They hardly needed any help this year.

In other news - we continue to add homemade ornaments to our little tree. My sweet friend Erin gave me a recipe to make cinnamon ornaments. I loved these because not only were they easy, but they smell amazing. Our whole house has smelled like cinnamon ever since we made them.

David is completely disgusted over the fact that I keep making the Texas ornaments upside down because I can't remember what the state looks like. Whoops!

Krystal Kringle has been up to her usual pranks and thanks to Pinterest, she's discovered some new ones.

I learned that if you boil pecans, they are easier to crack, so I boiled all of our pecans. We had a huge box full and I think it ended up being about five huge pans that I boiled.

And last, but certainly not least, we put Baylie's hair in extensions for the holiday. Twelve hours and 92 braids worth of extensions! She is very happy as she loves having long hair. It makes her giddy. I like it because it will be a lot easier to maintain over the holiday, especially when we travel.

I love Christmas. We are trying very hard to establish family traditions around the holiday. Those are some of my favorite memories growing up and I want to create similar memories for my kids.

Note: I wish Santa would bring me a camera for Christmas. I hate taking cruddy pictures with my phone!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I love Christmas - everything about it. I especially love decorating. However, I have to confess that the past seven years have been a little depressing because our decorations have been in storage. Every year I miss them. My kids have never seen them. We have a few things and it's cheery, but I miss everything else. 

In storage, we have a huge tree skirt with penguins on it that my sister-in-law made me several years ago. Since we don't have that, we've been using a red bath towel. I finally decided this year to buy one. I was shocked to see how expensive they are, so I was very excited to find a $50 skirt on clearance for $13. It is beautiful and really well made. Best of all, it has a Texas theme. 

With everything else in storage are all our tree decorations. I've never been a fan of the glass balls and our decorations are mostly made of wood. We also have ornaments from our various travels around the globe. They're pretty cool. Without them, our tree was looking pretty sparse.

Last year I made some ornaments out of lemons that I really liked, but David didn't. This year I decided to make some different kinds. Our first ornaments were made from candy canes melted in cookie cutters.

I actually had a hard time finding metal cookie cutters. I had to go to three different stores to find a good variety. Baylie doesn't like peppermint, so we did some peppermint and some fruit flavored.

The ornaments were supposed to be made with round peppermint candies, but I couldn't find any. I thought the candy canes made really pretty patterns. I learned the hard way that it's best to just use large, simple cookie cutters. The other ones broke when I tried to pop them out of the cookie cutters.

The ones that didn't break were really pretty.

The kids strung popcorn. It was messy, but fun, and added a lot of spice to our tree. 

I strung cranberries and my fingertips are still sore from the needle. It looks pretty though.

We next made ornaments by blowing up balloons, wrapping them in twine and painting the twine with glitter glue. Once the glue was dry, we popped the balloons and were just left with the twine balls.

Next we're going to make some ornaments out of applesauce and cinnamon. I'm excited to try those. Our tree is looking much more full and cheery. I even broke down and bought some small glass balls.

Every year David and the kids make a gingerbread house. This year we chose the village so they could each make their own little house.

I'm trying to hold them off from eating them (gross) until a little closer to Christmas.

Every year I tell myself that I'll make the gingerbread, but I always end up buying one of those awful pre-made ones. The houses turned out cute - as always.

I love creating memories with my kids. We're having a great December.

Christmas Cards

I always design a few different Christmas cards before deciding which one to send out. Here are this year's candidates.

The Windows of Heaven

David and I had an amazing experience happen to us today that I wanted to share. As I've mentioned in other posts, we are having financial difficulties right now. We have experienced numerous mini-miracles and have been extremely blessed by the kindness of others. What happened today was another example of this.

David handed a member of our bishopric, Brother Young, our tithing envelope today. While we have very little to live on, we pay 10% of our income in tithing with the confidence of knowing that Heavenly Father will bless us because of it and will take care of our needs. He always does. Sometimes it's a piano tuning job for David, sometimes it's extra income from a Saturday job, sometimes it is a bill that comes in lower than expected and often it is through the goodness of others.

As David handed Brother Young the tithing envelope, Brother Young handed David an envelope. It had my name on it, so David didn't open it and brought it home to me. (I had stayed home because Baylie was sick.) When I opened the envelope, I was shocked to find that it contained a money order for twice what we had just paid in tithing. I contacted Brother Young to find out who had done this for us, but he said it was an anonymous donation.

I am so humbled and grateful for each kindness that is offered to us. I am overwhelmed and can't really even wrap my mind around it. I hope that one day we are in a position to pay it forward to others who are in need.

A Mormon prophet, Spencer W. Kimball once said, “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.” Once again I am reminded of the goodness of God.

Kid's Play

This is Jalen's third season playing for the same soccer team. He has great coaches and has made good friends with his teammates. It is fun watching them play. His final game was postponed last week because it was in the 30's. Turns out the remake night was in the 30's as well. So, we cancelled the game and played at Chick-fil-a instead. It was a lot of fun.

This year instead of trophies they got medals. Jalen was thrilled about that. He has been sleeping with it and wearing it everywhere.

He was pretty happy about his kid's meal too.

Today we went to Baylie's school for a reader's theater. This was hanging outside of her classroom.

Jalen loves to visit Baylie at school.

Baylie had one of the main parts in the reader's theater. She was narrator #1 and the story was Pete the Cat. She was very nervous and excited, and she did a great job. She always reads with great emotion. I took a video, but can't figure out how to get it off my phone.

After the performance, we joined Baylie for Thanksgiving lunch. Jalen intentionally ruined the photo.

And this one too.

And this one.

And this one. Punk.

Today Baylie got a package from my old babysitter, Judianne. I had made a comment on facebook about Baylie always wanting to mail letters and me not having supplies or stamps for all she wanted to do. Judi sent Baylie TONS of paper, envelopes, markers, pens, etc. PLUS tons of stamps! Baylie was in heaven. She said she was "living the dream." She has already written three cards and is sleeping with the box by her bed.

Grateful

Last week I spoke in the sacrament meeting portion of our Sunday meetings. My assigned topic was Grateful in Any Circumstances by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. (You can read the original talk HERE.) It was such a blessing for me to study this talk and think about gratitude, especially since lately I have been focusing more on what I don't have instead of on what I do. One of my greatest blessings is that I am surrounded by family and friends that love me and do so many kind things for me and my family.

Recently, Baylie's elementary school had an art show. They framed a piece of art from each student and offered it for sale for $25. We just couldn't afford to buy Baylie's picture. She was sad about it and we felt badly as well, but there was just no way around it. So imagine my surprise when today one of Baylie's good friends, whose mother is a dear friend of mine, presented Baylie with her framed artwork. I cried. It was so thoughtful, selfless and completely unexpected. On the way home from church, Baylie said, "I am just exploding with joy!"

Here is the note Baylie received from her friend.

Baylie's work is entitled "Princess Perfect" and now hangs in a place of honor in our living room. I taped Isabella's note to the back of it so Baylie can always remember how she came to own this piece of art.

God is good. And so are most of His children.