love from family, part 1

Both my parents and Josh parents blessed us in huge ways by sending gifts and their love across the ocean to our family. Five boxes EACH of love, to be exact! [I think our postman really likes us, though!]

We planned webcams with both of our families to open presents this year, because as the girls get older, the can handle the webcam thing better. When they were younger, it was really just my parents watching me managing my chaotic life...now, they actually participate in the conversation and really enjoy it.

My oldest-younger sister Holly is in Hawaii - I know, the rough life she has, huh? - so was not able to make the web event. And my brother Dustin was snowed in his house thanks to that big fat blizzard in Oklahoma, but my parents and my sister Katie got to talk to the girls.

I especially loved watching Samantha open her gifts this year because she is so expressive. Emma tends to keep her emotions in until she knows exactly what's going on, but Samantha is so free with her feelings. I love how she is so excited about Emma's gift in this picture.
And she opened her own gifts with such flair!
She seriously cannot believe that she got Toy Story fruit snacks. It really doesn't take much to please her!
They were really just the stuffing on these cool boots:
(Every time I look at these boots, I think of that Seinfeld episode where Elaine had to write the catalog entry about the Himalayan walking boots - any seinfeld fans out there? Are you there??)

My dad has to be one of the greatest shoppers ever and always finds interesting things like the Himalayan walking boots and these cool princess sleeping bags and pillows:
And check out Emma's ferocity in opening this present - a trend I've noticed so far in all our present-opening-extravaganzas:
It was a huge Snow White pop-up tent!

What fun! Thanks so much, Mimi and G-Pa!!

Christmas Day

Welcome back to my blog, if I haven't freaked any of you out by our non-opening-presents-Christmas tradition!

Christmas morning started out for us with a fresh batch of Double Chocolate muffins, made while the girls were still sleeping:

As soon as those were scarfed down, we got about our first order of business: making our birthday cake for Jesus. Everyone - including daddy - was recruited to take part in the work.
Cooking with the girls is alwaysa messy, chaotic, and frenzied an adventure! But when Daddy's around, things don't get out of control quite so fast. They were excited to help, and wanted to make sure that the cake was perfect.

It was Daddy's idea to stir with fingers.
The plan was to make a Red Velvet Cake - I thought it provided great symbolism for the season - but there was a slight miscalculation with how much red food coloring I had left....so it turned out kind of murky brownish. Who needs a Kitchen Aid when you've got a nice, strong husband willing to help? =)
The cake mix called for mixing baking soda and vinegar together, which resulted in the cool fizzy, bubbly-ness. The girls also agreed that it was very cool.

While the cake was cooking, we worked on a manger scene foam craft - thanks to resourceful Amy who picked it up in America a few months ago!

Then when I cleaned the mound of dishes, Josh and the girls read more parts of the Christmas Story:

- and later on in the afternoon, some friends came over to celebrate with us as well.

When they arrived, it was time to decorate the cakes! [I say cakes because I made four individual heart cakes and then one large bundt cake.]

Becky was indeed working unto the Lord and not men as she diligently, painstakingly iced her cake:
Emma was not nearly so exact. I think at several points, the lid actually was taken off of the bottle of sprinkles. The result looked pretty much like the sprinkles threw up on her cake. But she's four. What can I expect?
Becky was aiming for a detailed design and kept at it:
Again, lots of mid-decorating nibbling going on:
I'm not sure what exactly is happening here - maybe Emma is asking for some tips?
Abby was all dressed in her finery and watched her big sisters with jealous eyes. She wanted in on that sprinkle fun!
I told the girls before we started - try to decorate your cake in a way that celebrates Jesus! [What exactly was I thinking when I uttered those words?]

After dinner, we lit all five of our Advent candles to celebrate and remember that the fulfillment of God's promise has come!

And we added our last three items to our Jesse Tree - all about Jesus. We celebrated Him as the Flower of Jesse, the Light of the World and the Prince of Peace. Joy to the World, indeed! The Lord has come!

These words from John Piper resonated with me this year:

"Christmas is first Christ, second Christ, third Christ, and again and again Christ!"

christmas eve - waiting for Jesus

One of our favorite family Christmas songs is O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Every verse is full of such rich imagery of Christian history and waiting for the fulfillment of God's promise of a Savior throughout the ages.

During the Christmas season, we try to sing it as often as possible - which usually isn't hard since everyone in the family likes it!

Our family also has a few unusual Christmas traditions, the most significant one is that we don't do the big present-opening-extravaganza until New Year's Day. Several years ago - after we'd already moved overseas - Josh and I were at a spot where we able to start making our own family traditions. We thought long and hard about how we wanted our family to celebrate Christmas. We both come from strong Christian homes who upheld the importance of Jesus' birth throughout the season, but we both also look back on our childhood and remember thinking - when will church get out so we can just open up our presents???

Let me also clarify: Josh and I are both fans of the present-opening-extravaganza. We love giving gifts, wrapping gifts, watching our kids open gifts, the whole shebang.

So we were at a crossroads and decided that for several reasons, we'd save the actual day of Christmas and reserve it for Christ alone. Presents and all the joy those bring can wait a few days, until New Year's Day. Instead, we'd spend Christmas Day looking for ways to remember Christ's birth and honor Him.

We've yet to spend a Christmas in America since starting this tradition, but so far it has worked well and has met our goals - to truly honor Christ on Christmas.

So this year for Christmas Eve, we turned all the lights out except for the tree and gathered around the couch.

We lit the fourth of five Advent candles (not exactly in the right order, but hey...that's what we did) and talked about what it must have been like to wait for so long for God to fulfill His promise of a Savior.
Each of our girls got to light one of the candles. (After receiving a stern lecture on fire safety, of course.)
They were calmed and extra attentive in the gentle light. I found that their spirits were easily teachable and quick to focus.
Then we reviewed all the ornaments we had hung on our Jesse Tree since the start of December. [We use a Jesse Tree to trace God's promise of a Redeemer from the beginning of time and His faithfulness to keep His promises over time. This year we hung our ornaments on a garland hung over a doorway due to lack of an extra tree...]

We start with creation, and every day we add a new item: Adam and Eve, the serpent and the fall of man...
...Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...
...Joseph, Moses and the giving of the Law, Rahab, Samuel, and Jesse...
...David, Solomon, John the Baptist...
We added Joseph and Mary on this night as we told the Christmas Story.
And even though we were still "waiting", we waited with a full and joyful heart...knowing that a Savior was being sent, a flower from the branch of Jesse!

Come, Lord Jesus!

making holiday cookies

So here's the thing: if you want to make christmas M&M cookies, you can't just run down to walmart and buy the economy bag of red, green and white M&M's.

In fact, there are no economy bags of M&M's here at all.

To make our M&M christmas cookies, I had to buy 20 regular-sized packages (to equal 2 cups) and risk breaking some child labor laws to get the necessary colors:

After a little playing (and who knows how much eating?) we ended up with a nice bowl of red and green M&M's to adorn our cookies.
Big families = more workers.

peer pressure

Gingerbread houses. 

I'm pretty sure I said I'd  I'd never do it again.

Then I posted the pictures as further reminder of why I will never do it again.  

And this year, I've been swayed by peer pressure and I did it again.  

But I did make a few changes to make Gingerbread 2.0 a little more manageable.

Change #1 - made much smaller houses.

Change #2 - used the real recipe for Royal icing, instead of that freaky concoction I made last year.

Change #3 - only went to one store to buy the house decorations.  Whatever they had is what I bought.  None of this running all around town business for me.  

So here's how it all ended up -

The decorations I found were pretty good, plus I had the cute red, green and white stars left over from a package my parents sent me last year recently.

I'm crowning 2010 as the year of bounty, because I'll be gradually using up my stockpile of American goods, since we'll be headed back to the US in the fall.  Why hold back when I can refill soon?  The girls were excited to use the sprinkles.

We waited until Abby was asleep, because things are much more peaceful then.  The icing worked great and things stuck exactly where they were supposed to stick.  
There was lots of hard work involved, in between huge fistfuls of candy being stuffed into mouths.  (On a side note, I'm amazed at how much older my girls look compared to the pictures from last year's gingerbread houses!  I know it's been a whole year, but samantha especially looks totally different!)
By the time each girl had decorated their roof, their motivation, interest and icing were all getting depleted, so we decided not to push the issue.  Josh put the finishing touches on each house with our family name. 
They were each proud of their own unique house.
They wondered when I was going to stop taking pictures. 
They started getting tired of posing for me. 
But I told them I HAD to show everyone their cute houses.  They agreed.
Last side, I promise.  Then it will all be over.  

This time around wasn't nearly so bad.  I might - just maybe - even do it again.