Glow.

Love the peaceful glow of a Christmas tree... 

all pictures are straight out of the camera, no editing.

Unfortunately the boys wouldn't sit still long enough to get a good pic of them with the tree... 

Hopefully by next year I'll have a better lens that allows me to use a higher ISO and lower f/stop.

I took our tree down today, so I'm glad I took these last night.

Beautiful Christmas tree... see you next year. 

Christmas.

I am not having the same "whew, we made it through another Christmas" emotions that a lot of other people seem to be having.  Instead, I feel like I'm mourning the loss of a good friend.  I'm SAD Christmas is over and the countdown is on for next year's celebrations.

Life is so much different with kids, and the excitement of holidays is no different.  Christmas had a totally different feeling this year... Jaxon played a huge role in this, but I was filled with such anticipation for the day.  Each morning before even asking for some juice, he asked me to turn the Christmas tree on.  Each day we talked about Jesus' birthday and we talked about opening presents.  And every night, the countdown to Christmas day drew closer.

We are so thankful to be living close enough to our families this year that we were able to celebrate with both of them.  I already recapped our weekend with my family... but I'll gladly say it again, we had a great time.  I love love love every face in these pictures.

Since we knew we'd be gone over the actual Christmas day, we celebrated a few days early with our boys.  "Christmas Eve" we wanted to go see Santa, but after hearing about the 2 hour wait, we saw him from afar instead.  We came home, read the story of Jesus' birth, and opened 1 gift... jammies and a Christmas book.

Our "Christmas morning" was an early one for myself... I was SO stinkin' excited, I was wide awake at 5am.  Are you kidding me?!  I was practically pacing our hallway waiting for the boys to wake up, and when they did, we were ready for them.  A train table (thank you, Craigslist) filled with new trains and tracks awaited Jaxon, and many smaller toys for Cohen.

We hoped to do stockings before the gifts, knowing full-well that if Jaxon saw his train table, nothing else would matter.  He took a peek at his stocking and right away saw the train table.  I will never ever forget that look on his face... thank the Lord we have it on video as well, in case I do.

After the train table, we somehow convinced him to come see what Santa had brought.  Jaxon was hardly interested, but the complete opposite for Cohen.

My husband... oh, my sweet sweet husband... surprised me with a Pandora bracelet.  I have been asking for one for the last couple years, and eventually stopped asking for one because I assumed it would never happen.  A nudge from my friend Andrea probably didn't hurt anything either... ha!

We took a present break, and paused to eat some homemade cinnamon rolls... my yearly Christmas tradition with my boys.  Seriously delicious.

Finally, we opened the remainder of the gifts.  I got the majority of them from Zulily when they ran a Melissa & Doug sale... over $100 worth of quality toys for less than $40.  Unfortunately by this point, Cohen was ready for his morning nap so he was a blubbering mess through the majority of it, and I forgot to take pictures.  But... here are our remains.

Later that day, we headed to Tyler's family's house to spend Christmas weekend with them.  Such an amazing 4 days full of relaxation, games, laughs, delicious cupcakes, afternoon naps, amazing meals, and plenty of gifts to make a person feel abundantly blessed.

All in all, an amazing and perfect Christmas season.

Merry Christmas.

Wonderful Counselor.

Lord of life, Lord of all.

He is the prince of peace...

Mighty God...

Holy One...

Emmanuel.  God with us.

Happy Birthday, Jesus.

Merry Christmas, friends.

The big guy.

There's so many decisions to be made as a parent.  So many, that you don't even realize it until you're in the thick of it and then have to decide which road to take.  Some days, all you can do is close your eyes and pray that what you're doing won't ruin your kids for life.

Parenting is so much more than it appears.

Here's another blog about the role of Santa in a Christian home.  I know, it's all over the blog world, and a discussion that my husband and I have yearly.  Where does Santa belong in our Christmas traditions, if anywhere?  Should we even go down that road with our kids?  What does it look like for our family?

Recently I read a blog where a lady said she believes she is an atheist today because of Santa Clause.  She said she can vividly remember the day when she found out he was not real, and from that moment forward, could not listen or believe another thing out of her parents mouths in regards to what to believe in.  Maybe it's an extreme case, but it's one that has really struck a chord with me.

Growing up, we talked about Santa at Christmas time.  He brought us our stockings each year... yet I never remember "believing" in him hard core.  I never had the "WHAT?! SANTA ISN'T REAL?! moment.  In all of my memories, he was a fictional character.  It was just for fun that we talked about him.  The same goes for my husband, all of his memories as a child of Santa were make-believe.

Ideally, we'd love for it to be the same in our home with our boys.  The big guy that brings gifts to every child in one night and comes down the chimney to eat our cookies is not real, but in some odd way I feel like he can be.  The same way that we tell our boys that they are superhero's, and girls that they are princess'... it's part of the magic of an imagination, and child-like faith.

Blair said it perfectly this morning.  While Jesus' birth will ALWAYS be the forefront of our celebrations and Santa will never be the reason we celebrate, I think somehow we can find a balance between the "fun" of it, but yet the seriousness of the birth of our Savior and WHY we do it.

I heard it perfectly said recently... a Christmas with Santa does not mean a Christmas without Christ.

I'd seriously love to hear your thoughts... how does your family celebrate? How do you find a good balance?  If you have grown adult children, how did you handle this when they were kids?  Or if you're not a parent yet, how do you anticipate handling this when the time comes?

Celebration.

Well, just as expected I was able to snap out of the funk I was stuck in for a little over a week upon arriving at my parents house.  You see, my Mom doesn't give herself enough credit... she is an amazing decorator.  I don't know what it is, but something about being back "home" and seeing the lights on their house, the town village, snowmen everywhere, and the beautiful tree... it just screams Christmas.

We had a great weekend together full of lots of laughs, homemade cinnamon rolls (a tradition of mine that I wanted to "spread" this year), game after game after game including some outdoor kickball, and of course a delicious dinner followed by the reading of scripture and gifts.  My brother's gift to my Mom was restoring their old wedding video from 1981 on a 8mm, so we were able to sit around and watch it late Saturday night.  How fun it was to see my Mom as a bride and my Dad as a groom.

One of the ways I'm different from my siblings is my time clock and how I'm up early and not a fan of staying up late.  After about 10pm, I either turn into a zombie, a giggle-queen, or a total crank... then in the morning I'm typically the first awake, which annoys my siblings to bits and pieces when I'm so bubbly as they roll out of bed at 9am.  All of this to say, visits to my parents house always equal hardly any sleep for myself, but it's always worth it.

Sunday morning after playing keyboard at church, we hit the road and headed back home.  We had our big fancy hot date that night to Trans Siberian Orchestra... and again, it did not disappoint.  Dinner with great friends followed by an AMAZING concert that had us speechless is a sure way to help anyone feel refreshed.  It's been way too long since Tyler and I have been on a date, and it was so fun getting super dressed up and having a night free of toddler breakdowns, poopy diapers, and early bedtimes.

I hope you all had a great weekend and are getting ready for a fun week with family, traditions, and celebrations.