30 years of Christmas Candy!

My mom, Lori, and her best friend from high school, Laurie, have been making Christmas candy together for the last 30 years! They trade off houses, eat lunch together and make candy. (There used to be cheesy shirts involved, but they've left that tradition behind) Our family LOVES the candy! She always asks for our orders the night before, Brian and Josh can't answer quick enough. We stopped by to say hello and of course my kids wanted in on the action! They were gracious enough and we left pretty quickly.

I have to say that I am really amazed that they have done this every year for 30 years. As I raise my 3 little ones, seems like that would be quite difficult to fit that in. (Did I mention that Laurie has 1 boy and twin daughters?) What an amazing demonstration of faithful friends!

Haynes Music School Performance

Haynes had his performance for Music School on Tuesday. We had a slight issue getting ready because he DID NOT like his costume...I have to admit we winced a little when we were told he was a "doll." We finally got him in the car with the compromise of red rain boots! This was our first JOYFUL picture of the morning:-) In the end he did a GREAT job, quite the performer as you would imagine!

Haynes shaking his tambourine...He's Raggidy Andy:-)

Sadie is Haynes sweet friend...

he's been carrying her Christmas card around for a few days

saying this is "MY FRIEND Sadie!"

Biggest Fans...

Port chose to miss school because he wanted to see Haynes

Preslee came and brought Haynes a sport's balloon

Uncle Josh and Aunt Jenny came to watch

Haynes popping out of the box! He did awesome!

Angel Tree

Each year we adopt an Angel from the angel tree for each of our kids. This year when I happened to find an Angel by the name of Dale and knew he was ours. (Port refers to himself as Dale often!) We adopted 2 boys and a little girl. We've been praying for them over the last week and Monday night for family night we went Christmas shopping for them. I must say that this is the first year that Port is really enjoying this, so it was a lot more fun. Leaving Target on Monday night was quite a memory:-) We had our car full of toys, finals bags for our students, and some tired kids! Today I took the kids to drop off the toys and it was so great to hear the kids pray over the toys on the way to the Salvation Army. The best part is that Port loves little Dale so much that he still carries around his little Dale angel.

We pray abundant blessings over Dale, Quinten, and Montana. May you experience God in a powerful way this year! Merry Christmas!

Visiting the North Pole

Santa telling the Christmas Story

Ella being shy...her new thing

Riding the train

I have been feeling the tension of Santa lately, and really wanting my kids to celebrate Jesus this season. We were driving to the North Pole on Friday and I just started asking the kids about Christmas and why we celebrate. I just reaffirmed that we love doing fun traditions but Jesus is really our focus. We decided to spend the rest of our drive thanking Jesus for different things. I started off by just thanking Jesus for my great kids, a wonderful husband, and then Port stopped me. He said, "Mom, I want to go first. Jesus I am so thankful that you were born so that you could die for my sins. I'm thankful that you live in my heart and that we get to celebrate you this year. I love you Jesus because you are SO good!" Needless to say, I am a puddle in the front seat truly praising Jesus that my 4 year old gets it! Not because of anything we have done but because of how good He is!!

*if you are interested in going to see a Santa...we LOVE going to North Pole City. Santa tells the story of Christmas and emphasizes that there would be no Santa without Jesus! He is great!

Happy Birthday Braxton and Sutton!

We went to The Great Wolf Lodge a few weeks ago to celebrate Braxton and Sutton's 5th birthday. It was a fast, fun, filled weekend with our family. I actually didn't get many pictures of the boys swimming because they didn't ever sit down! There's nothing these kids enjoy more than spending time with their cousins!

Braxton and Sutton we love you and are so thankful for you! God has great plans for you and we can't wait to see what He has for you in this next year. We pray blessings over you today!

Happy Birthday!

Love You Girls!

Kristin, Shannon, Meredith, Laura

These are my AMAZING d-group leaders...minus Whitney:-(

We have come to the end of our semester and so I had the girls over to celebrate on Monday night. These girls each disciple 3-4 other girls and individually meet with me. They are so faithful and impacting the Greek system in a powerful way. I love you girls with all my heart and I'm thankful for your passion for Jesus.

Baking with Mommy

Brownie Bites made by Mommy and Kids

Loved eating the spoon...you can see he even got it on his shoulder?!?

We love baking together!

Ella enjoyed playing in the kitchen with us!

My boys are quite the bakers, it could be because they do it a lot between me and my mom. They can crack eggs and measure ingredients...to an extent:-) We decided to make some treats for some of our students who are going through finals this week. I was pretty impressed at how great they turned out! Next up...Sugar Cookies!