Christmas Luncheon

On December 13, we went to a Christmas Luncheon at Vicki's house. She makes everything so special with food, carriage rides, and a special surprise visitor. Eli, Emma, and Edan were excited about going to their Aunt Vicki's house. They looked so cute!: While we were waiting on the special visitor, we waited outside to go on a carriage ride. This is us on the carriage:

After the ride, all the children were waiting on SANTA to arrive. We waited in Vicki's front lawn, here is Emma and Lilyana waiting patiently:

After waiting and waiting and waiting(Santa got lost) Santa FINALLY came! He drove up Vicki's long driveway in a convertible white car. All the children greeted him with hugs. Here is Emma giving Santa a big welcome hug:

All the children were SOOO excited that he finally came, they followed him in and offered him all kinds of sweet treats. He made his way into the living room with his elf. The elf called the kids up one by one, here is Eli, Emma, and Edan sitting on Santa's lap.:

This was such a fun day! After Santa talked with all the children he said his goodbyes. Emma decided at the last minute to give Santa one more gigantic hug and wished him a Merry Christmas! She was so sweet to him!

PRAISE HIM!

I stand amazed and humbled at the generosity of our friends and family during this trial our family has been going through the last 3 months. Now that we are coming out of it, I can reflect back and see how amazing God's power and timing is. We truly have been surrounded with love, not only by our Lord, but by our precious friends and loved ones. This week, Brent was offered a position at Omega, a subcontracting business for Y-12 in Oak Ridge. This job has been in the works for several weeks now, but it is finally a for sure thing! He accepted the position and his first day was Wednesday! Praise the Lord! I am not going to lie to you, these last few months have been very difficult and rocky at times, but only by God's grace have we been able to have His perfect peace and rest. We want to thank our LifeGroup again for the generous Christmas gift. Our party was the December 12th and our home mortgage came out the 15th. The amount our LifeGroup gave us was $20 dollars short of the what our mortgage is. It only reassured us again, that God knows all, He knew how much we needed and that is what we got. This was a prayer answered and God provided us with what we needed!! Thank you, Lord! We have had several people leave us cash, gift cards, taken us grocery shopping, sent us encouragement cards, countless meals paid for, given us food, formula, and diapers for the baby, but most importantly, prayed for us. I could go on and on about how God has used people and different situations to speak, minister, and provide for our family. Just this week, some of our precious friends brought us a Walmart gift card that was desperately needed for groceries. I can honestly say that even though this has been a trying time, we have drawn close to God and depended on him for EVERYTHING! This is where we should all be on a daily basis...God has a way of showing us that we need Him, not only for the big things, but also for small things. Again, during this Christmas season, we want to thank everyone for thier unfailing love, undeniable generosity, and unselfish giving. Oh, how Christ must be blessed!

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the LORD forever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength. Isaiah 26:3-4

Santa Baby

This is Edan's first Christmas so I had to get him a Santa suit! He looks so adorable in it! Eli and Emma think he is hilarious! Here he is in front of the Christmas tree:I think he is the cutest little Santa I have ever seen!!!

My Little Monkey...Sits Up!

Edan is sitting up! He still uses his hands for support, but he is getting the hang of it!He starts to get tired and lose his balance. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I couldn't catch him before he fell, well I guess I could have if I wasn't taking pictures! Anyway, he managed to get back on his tummy and before long he was happy Edan again!

Edan LOVES his Sissy!

Edan loves his big sister, Emma! She is so good to him. Whatever he is doing she wants to join in. If he is on him tummy, she wants to be on her tummy!: Emma even wants to be Edan' s sitting up "coach"! "I can teach him, Mommy" is what she says!:Emma is super sweet to her little brother. She adores him and I know he is crazy about her too!

It's Beginning to look alot like Christmas!

This year instead of having two different trees for Eli and Emma, we did a combined tree in the bonus room. This tree consists of handmade ornaments they have made over the years, their baby's first year ornaments, and a different array of red and green ornaments. This is Eli and Emma sorting out the ornaments for the tree:While they were sorting through the ornaments, Edan got a hold of the lights! He was fascinated by all the colors!Even though both the boys were sick(Edan had pink eye and an ear infection, and Eli had a fever and coughing)they were still excited about getting their tree together! Here is Eli putting an ornament on the tree:and Emma:and Edan:

He loved looking at the lights and all the pretty ornaments. This is him gazing into the tree!:

Eli, Emma, and Edan love their tree! We have it up on a trunk and in front of a window! This is the finished product!:

Fantasy of Trees

This was our 2nd annual trip to the Fantasy of Trees as a family. We went on Black Friday so it was really crowded. Eli and Emma were sooo excited because their school, Amherst Elementary, decorated a tree. Emma actually made one of the ornaments for the tree. This is her picking out "her ornament":

Eli and Emma were given $4.oo each to pick the activites that they wanted to do. They both picked the same things. They went to the Santa hat booth first:

Then they went to the Jingle Bell ornaments. This was cute because they could draw on the bell. It was messy because the pen was a sharpie!

While Eli and Emma were at the different booths Edan was getting some love from his Papaw!:
Edan loves his papaw sooo much! Since Eli and Emma did an ornament for their tree, I thought Edan could do one too! So here we go to the thumbprint ornament booth! This is Edan putting his thumbprint on a snowflake ornament:

His thumbprint looks like a big smear! Oh well, it will be a special ornament on their tree!

The most fun that Eli, Emma, and Edan had was on the carousel. They wanted to ride it over and over again! Edan and I rode on a bench. He liked it!

After we had fun on the carousel we took a tour around the gingerbread houses. They were truly amazing. Brent said we should try to do a fancy one this year instead of buying the boxed set. By the end of the night we were tired, but the boys wanted to go and see the train. Here is Randy, Eli, and Edan in the caboose of the train:

I love the Fantasy of Trees! It is a great way to get in the spirit of Christmas!