Happy Birthday, Jesus!

It gets harder and harder to try and get our extended families together for the holidays. So this year was a little different. We got together with Jared's family the weekend before Christmas and with my family the weekend after. So that left Christmas day for just the four of us. Jared and I have never had Christmas day to ourselves....ever. We have always been at one of our parents house or traveling on the day. So I was so excited and was looking forward to making a big meal and just relaxing with my family. It was so fun. We woke up and opened gifts, Jared read the Christmas story, had breakfast, and then the girls and I started in on making Jesus' birthday cake. That was too much fun! I then started on dinner...we had ham, broccoli rice casserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, marshmallow salad, and birthday cake. It was delicious and I felt very Susie homemaker! So thankful for Jesus and for his sacrifice. It was such a blessing to celebrate Him with my family. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

 

Our birthday party for Jesus was awesome. The girls picked out what type of cake. Claire was convinced that Jesus would love chocolate cake with chocolate icing and of course, sprinkles. And she would be right!!

(no matter how hard I tried to fix it the first two pics are out of order.uggg)

                                                                                                                                                                        

 

That's my girl!!

Happy Birthday Jesus! We're so glad it's Christmas...

Singing Happy Birthday!



Rhema Lights

We try to take the girls to see the lights at Rhema every year. This year was the best by far...it was in the 70's!! I wasn't freezing my buns off and wishing I had brought cash with me to buy hot chocolate. We walked a little longer and enjoyed it a little more. Thank the Lord for nice weather.

 



Christmas Ornaments and tree decorating.

I love Christmas! I love everything about it. I love the decorations, I love the music, I love the feel of Christmas. I love the real reason for Christmas, Jesus, and I love that we get to celebrate him.

I like to put decorations and the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving and I take them down the weekend after new years. I would leave them year round if I could.

This year I had the girls make ornaments for the tree. We did the snowmen out of their hand prints. So 2011 but so what, we are a little behind. We also made reindeer ornaments out of their fingerprints but they didn't turn out so well. The girls got to tell me how they wanted their snowmen decorated. I am too much of a control freak to let them color all willy nilly on their precious hand prints. I may have a problem. :)

We started a tradition where the girls get to pick an ornament to put on the tree. I actually let them pick, the control freak may guide them just a little, and then I date them and put their names on them. We started this when Claire was 1 because we were in an apartment her first Christmas and we didn't even have a tree. We do not have a first Christmas ornament for her and it just seemed silly to buy one after the fact. Anyway, here are the ones the girls picked this year.

Claire

Quinn





Hobby Lobby ran their Christmas trees on sale for 50% off. I decided the girls were going to get their very own trees and they can decorate them however they want. They are cute little 3 foot trees and they have a stand and everything. The girls loved the idea. Claire did her tree in purple and Quinn did hers in pink. How stinking cute!!So they decorated their trees while their control freak mama decorated the family tree. Win, Win!!

 

 

Merry Christmas!



Christmas with the Rileys

We had Christmas with my family on New Years Eve morning. It was the only day all the family could get together. Joshua was in Alabama and couldn't make it and he was dearly missed. Gift opening went by in such a fun whirlwind way. With 7 kids ready to open gifts it was exciting. So much so that I did not take one picture and no one else did either. That is not like me at all! The day was beautiful and the kids had the best time playing outside. Claire had a blast with Malachi playing in the dirt with shovels. We have got to fill the sandbox this summer because that girl loves to play in the dirt. We rang in the new year with my mom and dad and left the next morning. The girls were so sad to leave that they cried all the way out of the neighborhood. They wanted to stay with their cousins and play. The girls call their cousins their friends and I love that! We can't wait until we see them again.

Christmas with the Liesers

We spent Christmas day with Jared's family. The girls were so excited to play with their cousins and to open more presents. We arrived the night before everyone was coming so the girls had lots of time to see the gifts under the tree. By the time we opened gifts Claire knew whos went to whom. Once cousins started arriving she would take them to the tree and tell them which ones were there's. She was so excited once the last of the family had arrived, it was finally time to open presents. The adults had a good time that night snacking and playing Mexican Train dominoes. One of my favorite games. This night in particular because I was winning. ;)I was winning the entire game but ended up losing on the last round to Jared's brother by two points!!! I write this only because I am still a little bitter about it. Fun times!! We are blessed with such great families and I think this is why I love Christmas so much...family time.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

I am a little behind on posts. You know what that means, right? A slew of them all at one time. Sorry.

We had such a wonderful Christmas season this year and with two little ones it was so much fun! Here is our Christmas in Tulsa. As I mentioned before, Claire asked for lots and lots of presents and Quinn asked for cookies and cake. They were very excited to wake up and find all of those things. Reminder from my last post: the girls did have lots and lots of presents but I wrapped everything that could be wrapped so it looked like they received a lot. Claire woke up about 6:30 but Quinn was still sleeping so we let her crawl in bed with us. She woke up again at 7:15 and Quinn was still sleeping. It was torture on Claire to have to stay in our room until Quinn woke up. Ok, maybe it was more torture on me. To be honest Claire didn't even remember about the presents under the tree until we told her. Jared wouldn't let me wake up Quinn so we FINALLY got to go look under the tree once Quinn woke up at 8:00. The look on the girls' faces was priceless. Claire started looking for her name right away and was tossing Quinn's her way. Claire was done opening before Quinn was. They seemed to really like all of their presents. Made me feel good!

Claire has been asking us what time it is for a long time so she got her first watch with her favorite Tinkerbell on it.

Quinn is going to be so mad at me one day when she sees the pictures I post of her but I just LOVE her bed head!!!

Relaxing after all the hard work of opening presents.

It has been a tradition to read the Christmas story every Christmas morning. We had been talking to the girls about it being Jesus' birthday and that is why we celebrate Christmas, we have not mentioned anything about Santa bringing gifts. The girls are not quite at the age where we needed to worry about it. We will see what next year brings.

So, since Quinn asked for cake I made a birthday cake for Jesus. It was so cute because we sang happy Birthday to Jesus and blew out candles. It was fun. After cake we loaded up to drive to Enid to have Christmas with the Liesers. Blog to follow.

Merry Christmas from the girls!

The girls have been singing Christmas songs since Thanksgiving so I thought it would be fitting to record them singing them. Claire is singing what she knows of the chorus to Jesus is Alive by Josh Wilson and Quinn is singing Jingle Bells. Merry Christmas to you from Claire and Quinn!

I Love Christmas!

Tonight is our Christmas Eve. We will not be at our home on actual Christmas day so tomorrow is our Christmas day. The girls are pretty excited to open presents with toys in them (Claire) and also get cookies and cake (Quinn) in the morning. We put them to bed and have not heard a peep. I figure they will sleep like normal. Me, on the other hand, will have a hard time sleeping because I am so excited! I love this time of year and with kids it just makes it so much more fun. I can't wait to see their faces when they see gifts under the tree. Quinn has been saying she wants cake and cookies for Christmas so she will be ecstatic to know we are having birthday cake for Jesus AND I am pretty sure Santa will leave her some cookies in her stocking. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! Claire will be happy opening lots of presents. I basically individually wrapped everything just so she can have things to open. I can't wait to see her face when she opens a pair of tights and then batteries. Hehe! So when you see pictures of Christmas day don't be thinking we are bringing in the big bucks and spent a ton on gifts, though I would like to, it is just that everything that could be wrapped was. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

We have had a tradition since Claire was born to buy new pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve. The girls picked theirs out this year and totally not on purpose they match each other. That secretly made me happy so I didn't try to change either one of their minds to get something different. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

Ok, I think you get the point, I really do love Christmas and not just because of presents and cookies and cake. I love family, being together, the lights, the food, the music, and I love the reason we have Christmas...Jesus. Happy Birthday Jesus!

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

The girls in their Christmas Pajamas

Aaron the Allergic Shepherd

Claire was in her very first musical at church this morning. For the last 6 or so weeks she has been going to "choir practice" ,as she called it, to learn her 3 songs that she and the rest of the 3 and 4 year olds would be singing. They were sheep! The cutest little sheep you have ever seen!! She has been singing the songs at home constantly (Claire sings Christmas). She is quite the performer at home and I was not quite sure if she would still be that way in front of all those people. She did great! The kids didn't practice with their sheep ears on or with a microphone in front of them during practice so it was cute to watch them play with them. At one point we thought Claire was going to grab the mic down, she reached for it. Claire took it upon herself to sing a one word solo. If you listen on the video (below) she sings the word round before everyone else. Love it!!! I am so proud and I know that it was just a short little musical at our church but I have loved singing my whole life and I love being on a stage so it made me very proud to see her up there. It made me happy to know that she enjoyed herself and had fun!

I tried to take pictures and have a video of one of their songs. They are all pretty blurry, we sat up higher and I had to zoom in a lot. You will at least get an idea.

You will have to turn the volume up. They are singing Silent Night acapella and it is not very loud.

Christmas Parade

This year we went to the Christmas Parade at Tulsa Hills. This was our first night time parade. Luckily the weather worked out and the wind wasn't blowing (shocking) so it was a very pleasant time.

Ornaments

Since Claire's 2nd Christmas, she would have just turned 1, I have let her pick out her own Christmas tree ornament. Last year she helped Quinn. This year we let the girls pick out a Kairos 10 ornament at church. By buying the ornament we helped purchase a mosquito net for a family in Ghana. It is such a wonderful ministry and what a great way to teach our children about helping others. The girls were so excited to put them on the tree. I love this tradition we have started and can't wait until the tree is full of fun ornaments that show the girls' personalities and what they liked at that time.

Mama's little helpers.