Family Chain and Fatigue

Yesterday we put together Caleb's family chain. He got pretty bored with matching letters near the end, but did really good for most of it. Then we hung it up in his room. He's really proud of what he made.

Today we are watching a classic Christmas movie (he's choosing to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer again).

As for me, I'm just really tired lately. Ty slept in and Caleb was willing to play quietly on my bedroom floor, so I got to sleep in until 9 this morning. I really needed it after I was falling asleep while sitting up by 4pm yesterday.

15 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!

Attitude of Gratitude, Paper Garland and Activity Days

It's Attitude of Gratitude Day!

1) I'm grateful for John who has been cleaning the house the last 2 nights as I've been out. A lot tends to slip when I'm pregnant, especially at this point where the most normal things cause me lots of hip and back pain, so it's been wonderful the last 2 nights to come home to a house that's even cleaner than I left it. I love my husband:)

2) This past week I've found a renewed appreciation for the plan of salvation and the sealing covenant. I can't go into why because it's a rather personal family matter to be putting up on my blog (at least at this point), but I can tell you that I am SOOOO glad right now that I have a knowledge of these things and I'm so grateful for the peace that they bring. It is so obvious through these things just how much our Heavenly Father really does love us and want nothing but the best for us.

3) I'm grateful for how happy the Christmas season makes me every year. There's a feeling that comes this time of year that I can't compare to much of anything else. It's amazing, I love it and I look forward to it every year. I'm also glad that Caleb has started picking up on it too (Ty just thinks it's great because he loves the lights on trees and houses).

*****

So yesterday the boys and I read the Polar Express book, which Ty loved, and then we watched the movie, which Caleb loved. They also watched Frosty The Snowman, Frosty Returns and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (all 3 are classic Christmas movies). Today we are making paper garland to decorate their room with. Ty has red strips and each one has the name of a family member (the boys' brothers, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) on it. Caleb has the same in green. Ty will get to pick a strip out of his bag and Caleb will have to work on his letter recognition skills to find the name that matches from his bag. I'm excited that I found a way to work his "school" work into a craft. Hopefully he goes for it.

Also, I had Activity Days last night and it was the last night for one of my favourite girls. She earned her Faith in God award about a month ago, which made me really happy/proud. It has been wonderful to have her in Activity Days and I will miss her so much. She brought a cake to share with us and made me a wonderful card that I absolutely love. Now I don't have any girls moving up to Young Women until September.

Well, I should get going for now. 16 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS:)

Polar Express (Again) and the Party

The boys and I ended up not watching the movie yesterday because it was a really rotten day for me (it's just been a tough few days in general), so today we're going to watch the Polar Express movie AND read the Polar Express book. I'm sure they'll be more than fine with doing 2 things in one day.

Last night I had our RS Christmas party, which was awesome. A great dinner and the right mixture of fun and spiritual activities/thoughts. I was in charge of putting together one of the broccoli salads and I wasn't sure if I'd end up liking it because I normally don't do well with things that have a mayo base, but it was really good. I came home and found a nice clean house, too, which is always wonderful. Then, my wonderful husband, being the great man that he is, gave me a foot rub and after that he helped me put together all of my goodie bags for Activity Days so that I wouldn't have to do it by myself today. I am so blessed!

So anyway, that's what's going on at the moment. I'll be posting pretty much every day until Christmas just so that I can keep a log of our daily family activities that we're doing. Sorry if it's incredibly boring for you, but since I drop the ball every single time with a paper journal, I feel like I need to at least do something. Have a good one!

17 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!

Gifts To Jesus, Polar Express And More

Caleb decided that his gift to Jesus is going to be to start asking for permission to do/use things. Ty's is to stop hitting and kicking. I won't post John's just in case he doesn't want everyone and their dog to know. Mine is to get better about saying my prayers every night.

Today's activity is to watch Polar Express. Caleb has watched it a couple times already this year, but don't think that Ty has. Hopefully he'll enjoy it. Then I have to assemble a broccoli salad to bring to our ward's Relief Society Christmas Dinner tonight that requires Sunday dress so I will have to do my chiropractor appointment in Sunday dress. Should be interesting.

Caleb's big accomplishment right now is that he can play Mario Party on the Wii all by himself. This may not seem that big, but it's only been about 2 months since we allowed him to start trying to play the Wii at all. It's kind of nice for us because if he earns game time (being really good in the grocery store or something like that), we don't have to sit through a whole game with him because he loves to play a star battle game by himself now. We also bought him Mouse Trap on Friday and he loves to play that with me. It's probably a good thing that he has 2 more board games coming for Christmas:)

18 Days Until Christmas!!!

Christmas Wrapping, Christmas Party, Christmas Tree

On Friday night I wrapped all of the Christmas gifts that I'm responsible for wrapping. I've never had to sit for well over an hour on the floor trying to wrap Christmas presents with a pregnancy belly. It's interesting and not very comfortable. I'm very glad that I was motivated to do it all in one sitting so that I don't have to sit down to wrap more in the next few weeks.

This past Saturday was our ward Christmas party. We made brownies for it. Caleb had a hard time with it because he was very hungry (we ate about an hour or so later than he's used to eating supper at), but he was really excited to see Santa and was fine once he got some food. Ty wasn't a big fan of Santa, apparently, but I'm sure he'll do better next year.

Last night we put up our Christmas tree. Caleb was very happy and excited. He also left out his boot by the door for Saint Nicholas. Today we'll be starting our Daily December Activities. I wasn't going to start it until next year, but I felt really prompted to do it starting now until Christmas. I really only missed the first few days, so it's all good. Today we get to think of a gift that we want to give to Jesus this upcoming year, write it down and put it in our stockings (next year we'll have a separate stocking for the Savior).

Anyway, that's about all I have to write about for now. I hope you have a great week! 19 Days Until Christmas:)

Attitude of Gratitude

Wow! It's Thursday already. So, what am I grateful for this week?

1) I'm grateful that I had a fun Super Saturday activity to go to and got to make some really fun/cute stuff there. Yummy hot chocolate, an amazing burrito bar for lunch and awesome strawberry cheesecake for dessert. It was wonderful! I love Super Saturdays so much.

2) I'm grateful that John finally got to feel Brettley kick at 5 am this morning. He was very happy and has been waiting for a few weeks to be able to feel him, but Brett was in fine form and just kicking away in there like there was no tomorrow. *Ha ha, he just kicked me now, he must know that I'm writing about him* I've been through a pregnancy where no one was really excited when the baby started kicking, so it's nice to have someone to share it with and know that it makes them happy as well.

3) I'm grateful for Elder Gardner, a missionary serving in our ward at the moment, sharing a couple of Book of Mormon verses with us last night that totally reminded me that Heavenly Father allows us to go through trials and temptations so that we become stronger in our faith and closer to Heavenly Father. They also reminded me of my favourite Doctrine and Covenants scripture, D&C 6:34:
Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.

(If you're curious, the scriptures he read were Heleman 5:12 and Ether 2:24-25)

HELP!

I need some help from whoever is actually reading this. I'm trying to make a calendar for December for next year that will have a family activity every day (at least up until the 24th). These can be spiritually oriented, or just good clean fun. So what are some good (mostly indoor as we'll have a 9 month old) activities to do together as a family during December?

Of course one would be to put up and decorate the tree, another for us would be to watch The Forgotten Carols on DVD. I'm looking for stuff like that. So please send any and all ideas that you might have my way. Thanks:)