MERRY CHRISTMAS

Our best wishes to you and your family this holiday season. May the blessings pour upon you as you await to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior on--Christmas Day!! Or in our case, we start our celebration on Christmas Eve.

It was tradition for me, growing up, to have a big to-do on Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day we just got to sleep in late. My mom would start cooking early in the day, so that we could enjoy yummy "panes con pavo" for dinner. I remember it smelled so good in the house, and I wouldn't eat much of anything all day waiting for our meal, so that I could truly indulge and savor every bite. After dinner, we would either stay in and be together as a family, or we would head out to friend's homes who were having a Christmas party. I've always enjoyed being in the company of friends, but there was always, and still is a certain feeling of intimacy and closeness to being alone, as a family, on Christmas Eve. My favorite Christmases growing up, were the ones when we didn't have to be anywhere, we could just stay in and enjoy the evening, before heading to bed. I remember my parents would wake us up at midnight, so that we could see what "el niño Dios" or baby Jesus had brought for us. That was always so much fun--I don't remember ever having trouble getting up after being in deep slumber--or maybe I never did fall asleep and lay awake waiting for mom and dad to come in my room. As we got older, we got to actually stay up late and wait for midnight. The rule was that we couldn't open any gifts before midnight, we had "technically" wait for Christmas Day to begin!!! That's what I remember doing growing up...

Now that I'm older, and have a family of my own, I get excited around the holidays, because it's time for OUR family traditions. We don't live close to family, so that makes it more important for us to make our own Christmas traditions. I'll share with you just a few :

• We go see Christmas lights at Rhema, a local church that puts out an unbelievable display of lights every year
• This year we went to the Christmas Train. It's in Dry Gulch OK, and it was pretty neat. You ride on the train, listening to the narrated story of Jesus' birth, and watching the amazing paintings that are set out on the train route.
• This year we also got dressed up to get a christmas family portrait done. With a photographer in house, it's much more convenient to get this task accomplished, although by NO means easier :).
• We don't travel for Christmas, but rather stay home and enjoy being together.
• We eat a home cooked meal, before heading out to the candle light service at church.
• We bake a chocolate on chocolate birthday cake for Jesus. This year, Kateli has really gotten into the excitement of baking and celebrating Jesus' birthday.
• We put the kids down for bed at their normal bedtime (maybe a bit later than usual sometimes)
• In the past, Dan and I stay up, and we each get to open a gift on Christmas Eve, at MIDNIGHT (to follow in MY tradition) before heading to bed--we'll see how it works out this year :)
• On Christmas morning, it's all about the kids opening their gifts after sitting down around the tree listening to daddy read the story of Jesus's birth from the bible
• The rest of Christmas day is just enjoying our gifts and rejoicing in the good news!!

May this Christmas be filled with joy for you and your loved ones!!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Thou hast a wondrous message.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!
Thou hast a wondrous message.
Thou dost proclaim the Saviour's birth.
Good will to men and peace on earth.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!
Thou hast a wondrous message

Here is a picture of our Christmas tree in all its splendor. Each year, I realize how much I love Christmastime. I love christmas music, I love to give and see smiles on faces. I love that it's a celebration of our Savior's birth!! I love to see Kateli's face light up with cheer as she announces that "Jesus birthday is coming up, mommy!" I am looking forward to baking a birthday cake for Jesus' birthday this year. I'm looking forward to it, because I'll have my best chef side kick with me. I know that Kateli is going to enjoy baking the cake!! I could go on and on...and on and on but I'll save you from my rambles and quit now!!

I pray that you are getting into the spirit of Christmas and enjoying each day with family and friends. As you can KIND of see in the picture above, we have lots of gifts under our tree already. That's because for the first time ever, I've done all my christmas shopping and wrapping well before the last minute. They are not all for us, mind you. No, we have to ship a few and pass out another few around town.

15 month check

well, he was 15 months on November 12, but we had to postpone his 15month well child check up because...well, he was just not WELL!!! So, we went in to see the doctor this week to get Joshua's 15month check up done. Turns out the little guy is doing very well, he is growing, eating, running around and talking a whole lot. I was happy to hear that he is once again back up in the weight percentile curve--he had dropped to the 25% ile at 12 months, so the doctor made it a point to tell me that he was once again up on the curve (I don't know exactly his percentile now, but I know it has to be higher than 25%). Joshua is now weighing 22lbs 4ozs and measuring 31 inches in height. Hard to believe that he is only about an inch away from hitting his head on the corner of our dining room table--so we need to start emphasizing "cuidado/careful" to him when he's crawling or walking under the table!!

I mentioned that the little guy is talking--he truly is, he is picking up the words...amazing!! Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking when the doctor asked me how many words Joshua spoke. I quickly answered, "oh, probably about 4" and then I proceeded to say the words out loud--I was impressed to know that he has more than FOUR words in his vocabulary, he speaks 8 words now!!! He says "ma-ma, da-da, cho (chucho/dog), push, luz, ball, pancake and baby"

What a blessing that little guy is to our family. Just looking at his little face makes my heart smile. I love him to pieces. His sister and daddy love him to pieces too. And you know what else?? While he can't say "I love you" quite yet, his actions and his demeanor shows each one of us how much he loves us, especially his big sister. There is a special connection between the two that is so hard to put into words. Kateli adores her little brother, takes such good care of him, and watches out for him like a hawk--and Joshua responds to her. Sure, they don't always agree on who has what toy at what time of day, and they tend to argue (or scream at each other) a lot during the day, but they also play well together. Just to give you a little glimpse into how these two operate, let me share with you what happened this morning. I loaded the kids in the van, because we were heading out to one of my bible studies. I actually was heading out with 3 kiddos--Kateli, Joshua and baby Max who is 2 1/2 mos old (we watched Max today, as his mommy had to finish up some work stuff) Anyway, so on the drive to church I wondered how I was going to manage unloading 3 kiddos 3 years and under, and get my two kids to their respective class at church. When I got to church, I decided to unload Katherine and baby Max first. I asked Katherine to stand with Max inside the church while I got Joshua out of the car--and she did. When I came back in carrying Joshua, Kateli was standing in the same spot I had left her, watching Max intently. I put Joshua down to walk, and picked up the carrier. Immediately Kateli approached Joshua and grabbed his hand. She lead him by the hand all the way down to his classroom. She walked at his pace, and said "let's go Joshua" as they walked--they giggle all the way!! What a sweet and tender memory; just thinking about it makes me smile.

I have to also share with you what Joshua thought about our Christmas tree when we put it up. I was a bit nervous about putting it up, as he is just at that age where I knew the ornaments would be coming off the tree incessantly. But I braved it, and put it up anyway. The tree went up a few days ago, and Joshua was intrigued the most when the lights went up. As I was in the process of checking the light strings before putting them on the tree, Joshua came and sat next to me. He said "luz" and pointed at the strings of light, and then did the funniest thing. He blew on them, he blew on the lights as if to blow them out!! It was so so so cute!!! The next morning, when the kids got up they got up to see the Christmas tree completely lit and decorated--guess what Joshua did?? He went straight for the ball, shiny ornaments. He'd pull them off, say "ball" and then chuck it across the room. For a day or so, I was constantly saying, "no, no sir, these don't come off the tree" and now he hardly comes close to the tree. He did shatter two ornaments though...but that may have been my fault, I think I set him up for failure. I was trying to capture images of the kids in front of the christmas tree and put him down with a few ornaments in front of him. I was able to capture one cute picture of him before he smashed two together and shattered them. You've seen the picture, it's on the blog.

Anway, I think this tells you just a little bit more about our little man who is growing up much to fast for my liking. Each day is more fun than the last. Our house is full of laughter, and the pitter patter of little feet.

Practicing for our xmas tree pic