Christmas pics

The kids love having their eggnog in goblets!

Putting on a horse show.

Playing with homemade playdoh.

Guys wrestling time.

I love my roaster! I got it on sale at Walmart for $22 last year- it's perfect for meatballs and such for big gatherings or for a couple chickens or in this case, a turkey- and the oven is free for the green bean casserole, rolls, and sweet potatoes while it finishes cooking. Awesome.

I gave them the play doh in their stockings.

Katy reading Nancy Drew. I read all of the original mysteries when I was her age in 3 months... I think there's 54. I bet she'll beat me.

Our traditional Christmas Day treat... braid bread (it has a pecan caramel filling on the inside and browned butter frosting on top). We look forward to it all year!

Bekah got hairbands in her stocking!

Hannah organizing her stocking contents.

Bekah is full of smiles!!!

You've gotta see this...

I have loved Carol of the bells ever since singing it in my high school choir... and Nate and the kids loved this.
You'll have to hit the pause button on the music box (located in the upper right hand corner of the blog).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F44d2IzCrKo

More Advent fun...

Well, it's already Christmas Eve... time goes by so fast! We are cozy warm in our house with plenty of hot cocoa, chai, and mocha mix available for once the kids come in from sledding- enjoying the snow before the weather gets ugly again. Nate made an executive decision after everything happened with the van that we were not going to have everyone here for Christmas because we were all sick (and some of us are still recovering...) and we were going to have to spend all of our extra time looking for a van instead of finishing the dining room (so we wouldn't have enough space for everyone to eat). We were disappointed, because we had been looking forward to having everyone over- but he was right- the dining room is still in the exact same state of affairs as the day we left for Thanksgiving, because he has been so busy between church needs and the van search. So we are very thankful that he has been able to have today and hopefully tomorrow to spend with us. We are also glad we weren't planning on having everyone down because of all of the ice and more to come... the roads are bad here, and we're supposed to be getting even more ice tonight and tomorrow. So, at least we don't have to worry about the Lansing and Royal Oak Harlans traveling down here through that. But, we miss all of you and can't wait to see you at Liam's birthday party!

We did get a 2004 12 passenger E-350 super duty van. Praise God! It is wonderful and meets all of our needs. Nate is so excited about it being so big and tough, too... no more wimpy minivan! :)

We've done lots more reading, making different types of ornaments, baking, and delivering of homemade goodies these past two weeks. It has been wonderful to simplify things- I am not stressed about getting everything done, and the kids have been saying that this is the best Christmas ever. We have been reflecting on the most precious gift of all- Christ- for the entire month, instead of rushing around to get things done and giving thanks for Him as an afterthought. We have spent our precious time together as a family... well spent time, indeed. Singing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel " and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and hearing our children singing loud and clear is something I'll hold dear to my heart forever. Thank you, Lord for blessing us with our children! And may all of you be blessed this season! Merry Christmas to all of you!

Snow time!

We finally received our long awaited snow- and it was perfect snowman making snow! Hooray! As our good friend Lauren said, "you can walk through the snow and a snowman forms in the snow that's kicked up." You can't get much easier than that!

Christmastime...

We have tried to change our focus for Christmas this year. Not just because we've had to spend extra on gas for our car search and a rental car recently, but we had planned it months ago. We knew we wanted the children to remember the things we did as a family for the holidays, not what they received. We also wanted to help them give to others. We've sent a special card to Hawa, our sponsored child through World Vision, and we are excited to send her a special gift for her family this year. Last year Katy and I volunteered at the local Operation Christmas Child drop off center, and we decided this year that each of our children would be given a certain amount of money and they were able to each fill a shoebox for a girl (or a boy, in Stevie's case) their age. They loved it! We keep talking about their new friends, and wondering where they are and praying for them. You can still do this with your family if you send it in to them now...



http://www.samaritanspurse.org/


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Instead of loading the kids up with gifts, we asked them to choose one gift they'd like to have (they also will get a book and a stocking with candy, etc... in it), and we will pick 4 toys to donate (or more, as the spirit leads...). I really love what Ann Voskamp's family does...

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2009/12/4-ways-to-celebrate-christ-in-christmas.html (see number 4)

We've also been doing something fun together each day to celebrate Advent- I'm hoping to do a Jesse tree next year, but I felt that was a little too stressful this year to make the ornaments with a newborn. Instead we are following an advent reading from an advent devotional each day, and we do an activity as a family- we've made cookies, snow fudge, candies, paper snowflakes, salt dough ornaments, eaten a pomegranate, made monkey bread, made tree decorations, set up our fisher price and playmobile nativities (and played with them!), compiled a list of people that we could surprise with a gift (of cookies or candy) that don't always get remembered this time of year (for example, we give cookies to our mailman, and we're going to drop some at the police station, fire station, the bank, a local nursing home, etc...). There's so many more things that we have to look forward to, also- I'll try to get pics along the way.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving up in Lansing. It's always such a fun time! The Lansing Harlans were able to meet Rebekah, and Erin had her family bday party. This was the first time that we didn't have snow when we were up there for Thanksgiving... In fact, when I was loading up the van, I said that. Then Hannah responded with "Oh, no, Mamma- I'm quite certain that there is always snow on Thanksgiving in Lansing." Soooo cute!

After Thanksgiving things got a little crazy. We went to stay at Nate's parents for a few days because Nate was going to preach at a church near there on Sunday. One by one the children became ill- then Bekah and I and eventually Nate all were sick in one form or another. We're still trying to recover. We also had our transmission go out- lots of fun! We're still figuring out whether we should just get a new van or not. We actually drove up to Villa Park (a town right by where my mom grew up and that I grew up visiting my grandparents in) to test drive a van that was a great deal. It was over 3 hours to get there and they knew we were coming. Guess what? They couldn't find the keys and it was going to take them at least until the next day to get a guy in to make some more. At least we got to see the skyline at Christmas (Erin came with and absolutely loved it!) with all of the red and green lights up. I love Chicago at Christmas!

Gotta love those newborn smiles!

Bekah loves to grin- she is probably my most good natured baby. None of my children have really been bad natured- but she just is happy-go-lucky most of the time... we all love making her smile. Note the obnoxious way that Sadie had to end our taping. She actually got right up into the camera with her nose when I tried taping later in the day. Ugh.