Snapshots of Christmas

Our Christmas, mostly summed up in photos.

Martin and I both battled nasty colds.

Our Nativity scene. Usually missing Baby Jesus for any number of reasons. Favorites include Emma putting him in a diaper, blowing raspberries on his belly, and Will just carrying him around.

Gifts wrapped!

Some favorite ornaments...

Both kids love pressing the button so the Star Wars theme plays on the Millennium Falcon.

The Ravens, play-off bound again.

A Charleston, SC basket from last year's vacation.

Martin's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Grandpa's train around the tree.

 First stop Christmas morning, surprise balloons in Emma's room. We had fun playing together before heading downstairs.

Stockings (how many hundred hours of cross-stitching...)

Will learned to go down stairs!

Listening to the Star Wars ornament.

Posing

Will was a wrapping paper tearing pro this year.

"A new Jesus Bible!"

"vrrrrrrooooom"

 Listening to the Christmas story on the new Jesus Storybook Bible audiobook.

Special gift...

New trains!

Will's car ramp

We are so thankful for all the family we got to see this weekend...hope we didn't get any of you sick too! A wonderful Christmas!

Cutting down the tree

Last weekend we went back to Hickman's Christmas Tree farm to get our tree. We went with Grandma and used her van to bring the tree home. It certainly wasn't going to fit in the back of our Accord!

Our tree!

Watching Daddy get to work with the saw.

Since the tree was a little crooked at the bottom, we cut it up about a foot or so, but a branch made it difficult to go straight through!

Emma got to help Daddy saw through the last bit.

 Beautiful berries!

Heading back to the car with our tree!

We got it tied down tight,

and posed for a photo. Thanks for being our photographer, Grandma!

Our Advent Calendar

We wanted to start doing an advent calendar this year now that Emma is old enough to really understand what is going on at Christmas. There are so many options out there, but I really wanted to make something that would emphasize Jesus, be full of fun Christmas-y activities, and (of course) have sweet treats. 

I found a couple that I would love to buy, but I am content to check them out after Christmas to see if I can get them on sale. So this year we are using glass jars to hold each day's advent activities...and I love how it turned out!

Here's a look at all 25 jars:

The most important thing I wanted was to have a Scripture to read every day. We'll be reading the Christmas story from Luke, and working on memorizing several verses. I started with Emma just a few days ago and she nearly has Luke 2:11 memorized already! Now we have to play catch-up.

I found a bunch of ideas online, but in the end came up with most of my own Christmas activities.

 The top jar of popcorn is "make a popcorn garland".

I'm pretty sure we won't have enough snow to build a snowman in Delaware in December, so we'll make snowmen out of toothpicks and marshmallows!

Mmmmm...Peppermint sticks!

I used a glass marker to write the number for each day on the jars.

Emma has been asking several times a day for the last week if its time to start opening the jars. We can't wait to get started tomorrow!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We have been SO busy the last 2 weeks! It has been fun, but it was also nice to get back to our normal routine today. Here are just a few pictures from what we have been doing!

Emma loved playing with some special Christmas stickers

And we made a bunch of Christmas cookies. Emma loved to watch, and also got to help. She did a great job unwrapping all of the Hershey's kisses for our Peanut Blossoms!

Will is an adorable little boy, and is full of smiles for us all the time now! 

Emma had a blast unwrapping presents (I think we opened 7 different times!). This expression is for her own stick of chapstick, which is her reward for using the potty.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

Our Christmas morning at home together!

Emma loves snow this year! She was so scared last year, but loves her new snow boots and walking through the snow. 

Martin and I got to go out for dinner New Years Eve with Karene and Jeremy while the grandparents babysat for the 3 kiddos. We had a special dinner in downtown Baltimore and brought home cheesecake from Cheesecake factory so that we could watch the fireworks on TV instead of staying out! Joshua and Will posed for us before we headed out: