Merry Christmas!

We have a somewhat busy day planned for Christmas Eve - cooking, straightening up and cleaning for Santa's big visit and our family church service at night. I will try to post soon after Christmas Day for all those interested in the girls' Christmas but for now we wish you all a very blessed and happy Christmas!!

School Is Out!

Tuesday was Gabrielle's last day of school until after the new year. She went to school for a couple of hours and then the classes put on a little Christmas program. Of course it was so cute!

From My Little Sunbeams

The kids marched in playing instruments. Then the preschool director told the Christmas story as the older class took the various pieces of the Nativity up on stage. Then each class took turns singing 2-3 songs. While all of the kids were super cute I have to say I think Gabrielle's class did the best. They were definitely the loudest performance!

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

Gabrielle loves to do arts and crafts types of things and I've always loved doing them with her. But I have also looked forward to the day that she made something just for me, something I didn't have to help her with and here it is...

From My Little Sunbeams

Actually it was for me and Ed but still, I love it!!

Something else I love - Christmas packages, especially unexpected ones! I did more online shopping than usual this year and I loved receiving so many packages in the mail but the best packages are those you don't expect like these delicious chocolate covered strawberries we received this week. Yummy!!!

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

Gabrielle & Samantha's Christmas manicure -

From My Little Sunbeams

I had not planned to paint Samantha's but she was awake from her nap and watched me paint Gabrielle's. She then held her hand on my lap and said "mine" so what choice did I have really? She kept her hands unbelievably still and did not even try to touch her nails until they were dry. Anything big sister does, she has to do too!

Peace On Earth December Challenge - Final Week!

Not even a full week before Christmas. I have really enjoyed these challenges. I still have certainly had my moments of being a little "crazy" and definitely stressed but I can honestly say I've had several moments where these challenges have forced me to stop, calm down, and think about what is really important.

I don't feel like this week's challenge will be as difficult for me because I already have less planned and scheduled to do this week.

Here's this week's challenge: Christmas is just 5 days away and so much of our time is often spent helping the children to remember the "Reason for the Season". Now it's our turn. Once the kids are in bed get yourself a HOT drink (again we are warming the body as we warm the soul.) Get ALONE and turn out the lights by your Christmas tree, a lit fire, or a candle and just be alone with God. Pray, talk to him, I encourage you to sing Christmas carols or songs praising him, and just rest with Jesus.

I think a moment like this sounds incredibly calming and I'm all for it! It probably won't happen tonight but I'm hoping I can manage a couple of nights this week for moments like this one - maybe one of alone time and one with my sweet hubby. *smile*

Christmas Countdown

Christmas is quickly approaching and for us our celebrations have already begun. We had a busy and full weekend of Christmas.

From My Little Sunbeams

Saturday was a busy day - shopping, cooking, cleaning - with some fun thrown in as well. I spent the afternoon making spaghetti sauce with meatballs and Italian sausage. The evening was spent baking sugar cookies and Nutella pinwheels while Gabrielle and Ed were busy wrapping presents and building a gingerbread house.

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

Yesterday morning we attended church. Because of a couple of late nights in a row we did not quite make it to Sunday school but I'm just thankful we were actually early for church as opposed to running crazy late which is usually the case. The girls got to wear their new "Christmas" dresses. Growing up we always had special, usually new, outfits for church for Christmas and Easter Sundays - another "tradition" I hope to carry on. After dressing the girls they twirled and danced in their fancier-than-normal church clothes.

From My Little Sunbeams

I hate the picture is so blurry - I have a feeling a new camera is in our not-too-distant future - but even with a blurry photo I think the girls are beautiful in their Sundays duds. *smile*

The choir performed their Cantata during the 11:00 worship service. I love our choir! Ed and I think they are one of the best choirs we've seen. The cantata was so moving. There were a couple of songs and moments of narration that literally brought me to tears. It was a great reminder of what this season is truly all about.

After church we came home to finish preparing for our first of three family Christmas celebrations. We hosted Ed's family yesterday at our house. Gabrielle was so anxious for everyone to get here. She had been asking for the past three days "Is this the day they are coming?" Unfortunately I was so busy preparing food and just enjoying the company, getting caught up and having some adult conversation I did not get really any photos. I guess the important thing is we all were enjoying each other's company and not really concerning ourselves with the capturing perfect photo moments.

The one photo I did take was our antipasto spread we "snacked" on before dinner.

From My Little Sunbeams

The kids of course loved opening gifts and they were all so genuinely excited with each and every single one. Here are a couple of photos of Ed and Gabrielle playing with Gabrielle's new Lego blocks. This is her first set of Legos and she loves them but right now still needs help putting the pieces together and building. Ed is more than happy to help though since he loved Legos as a child (and in my opinion, still had quite a bit of fun with them!).

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

My favorite moment concerning the gifts was GrandDad opening his gift from Gabrielle. Our church had a Christmas Shop during their fall festival. I dropped Gabrielle off at the Christmas Shop with a list of people to shop for and a very limited budget ($10 for all five gifts). She was paired with a member of our youth group and was able to shop and wrap the gifts by herself. Amazingly Gabrielle has done a terrific job keeping all the gifts a secret so we truly had no idea what she got for everyone. I was in the kitchen stirring the spaghetti sauce while GrandDad opened his gift and all I could hear was a bunch of laughter. She got GrandDad a can koozie - a Carolina Tarheel can koozie!! Now anyone who knows us know we are Wolfpack fans all the way. We thought we had taught Gabrielle about our rivals! Ha! It was actually pretty perfect and ironic - Ed's brother graduated from Carolina so he told Gabrielle how great the gift was. Just too funny! We all agreed it could have definitely been worse - it could have been a Duke koozie!!! LOL

Early Morning

I have been awake now for almost 4 hours which means I have been awake since around 4:00 am. A little someone came into our room wanting to crawl in bed with us, which has become quite the regular event recently. After Ed and I each took a turn or two taking her back to bed and tucking her in, I found myself wide awake. I knew the television or computer would not lull me back to sleep for those precious couple of hours I longed for so I started a new book instead.

Needless to say, reading did not lull me back to sleep either. Almost 200 pages later, the book was finished, Ed had left for work and the sun was beginning to rise. I probably could have gone back to sleep at that point but I knew little ones would be stirring soon and I thought of the mile long to-do list I had written out last night before bedtime.

The book this time was "Christmas at Harrington's" by Melody Carlson - another can't-put-this-down-until-I-finish-it kind of book and a great story about forgiveness and the real meaning of Christmas.


Probably between 1:00 and 2:00 this afternoon, just as I am putting Samantha down for her nap - which she has been fighting more and more lately - I will hit a wall of exhaustion and need to take a little siesta myself. I just hope I have an extremely productive morning so I can give in and get a little rest.

Another Good Read

I finished another really good, yet short, novel yesterday - Max Lucado's "The Christmas Candle." It only took me a couple of hours to read so definitely a quick read but a great story about miracles, prayer and faith.

Another good children's story we read the other night is Mercer Mayer's "Little Drummer Mouse." This book is basically the story of the Little Drummer Boy only it is a mouse so there are obviously a few twists and changes, but such a great story as well.



We made another trip to the library today, to return some of the books we have already read once or twice, and to of course pick up one or two - okay, actually 10 more Christmas books and a random book about a dinosaur Gabrielle insisted on checking out. I also picked up a new book to read. I bought "Christmas at Harrington's" from my book club which I can start next or "A Simple Christmas" which I got from the library today. I'm not sure which I'll start next but I know it won't be tonight because I have to make a grocery list and gather all my coupons - exciting night, right?

Peace On Earth December Challenge

It is now week 3 of the challenge over at Women Living Well. I have to say I really enjoyed my scheduled bubble bath last week even though I had to borrow my daughters' Disney Princess bubble bath! I was so relaxed and refreshed I really wanted to schedule a second one but the week got away from me before I had the chance. Maybe Santa will surprise me with some really nice Bath & Body bubble bath in my stocking and I can enjoy another quiet bath after Christmas.

This week's challenge is going to be super tough. My calendar and to-do list is out of control this week with last minute Christmas preparations. To schedule a night of getting in bed - and going to sleep - super early this week BEFORE my to do list is all checked off will certainly be tough for me to commit to. But I also know I NEED this. I need this time to get my priorities back in order and to remind myself what is really important about this time of year and to enjoy Christmas all the more.

I'm getting out the calendar now and scheduling my early bedtime!!

After a Little Bribery

After weeks of begging, explaining, promising and then finally a little bit of bribery we convinced Gabrielle to allow me to change out her earrings. From the time she had her ears pierced she talked and asked about the day she could wear new earrings but when the day finally came and I started to pull on the backing of the existing earring she decided being able to change her earrings was not all that important. She was terrified it was going to hurt all over again and refused to let anyone get their hands near her ears. GrandDad even begged her tonight to have new earrings in by next week when he comes to visit for Christmas.

I'm not sure what exactly did the trick - promising to not pull too hard, promising a present - but she finally allowed me to change out her earrings. After I took the first one out she cried. I'm not sure why. It certainly didn't hurt but I guess I had to pull harder than she thought I should. But once we put the near earring in - a gold sea turtle - her face lit up, she started clapping with excitement and was thrilled.

After both earrings had been changed she got to open her surprise and was even more ecstatic. She finally got her stuffed Rudolph she has wanted since last Christmas. Rudolph is probably her favorite Christmas "character" and she talks about him nonstop. She is thrilled to finally have her very own little Rudolph.

From My Little Sunbeams

Thank goodness the earring anxiety issue is dealt with, done and over!!!

The Cutest Lil' Donkey You Ever Did See!

This past Sunday was our church Children's Christmas Cantata. Gabrielle was old enough this year to join the Children's choir and has LOVED it! For the Christmas cantata, the little ones were to dress like animals. She wanted to be a brown horse. After much difficulty finding a plain brown sweatshirt and pants we convinced her to be the very important gray donkey. After all, without the donkey poor Mary would have had to walk all the way to Bethlehem.

After we (my mom did the majority of the work) finished the costume, Gabrielle could not have been more proud - or cuter in my opinion!

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

And here she is with her best friend, Lilly, also a horse.

From My Little Sunbeams

More Christmas Decor

Finally! Finally I finished one of the craft projects I had hoped to finish up last week. My first attempt at it just was not turning out the way I wanted so I ended up basically re-doing it. My friend Janie bought a handmade garland for her kitchen window. I can't remember the exact phrase of her garland now but it was squares of stamped letters that spelled out "joy" or "noel" or something of that sort. I loved it and have thought about it ever since. I decided I would try my hand at making my own and here is the result.

From My Little Sunbeams

As usual I went a little overboard and ended up making four different words and hung them throughout the house. The above "peace" is on our living room mantle.

In our kitchen:

From My Little Sunbeams

Gabrielle's room (because she informed Ed the other day she did not have enough decorations in her room):

From My Little Sunbeams

Samantha's room (because we have to keep things fair and even you know):

From My Little Sunbeams

And now for just a cute little photo of the girls on the couch snuggled with their Christmas blankies:

From My Little Sunbeams

Gabrielle made some new decorations for outside today as well - birdseed ornaments! We found this idea in a Christmas craft book I bought for her from the school's Scholastic book order. It is Angelina Ballerina which Gabrielle adores. This particularly craft was so simple and a lot of fun. We're just waiting for everything to dry and harden enough to hang outside tomorrow on the porch for our little birdie friends.

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

So Awesome!

One of my best Christmas memories growing up was taking our traditional rides to look at Christmas lights. I love it and insist on keeping the tradition going with my girls as well. Actually, even when it was just me and Ed, I made him take me for a ride just to look at lights. Ha! But now with the girls it is even more fun to see and hear their reactions, especially Gabrielle's.

Last week I decided to do a search to find some really cool must-see kind of local light displays and found Lake Myra Christmas. Tonight Ed and I surprised the girls after dinner to take them. It was a bit of a (sketchy) drive for us but it was well worth it. As we made our last turn into the neighborhood Gabrielle's face lit up with this beaming smile. She was speechless and in complete awe.

From My Little Sunbeams

I took a couple of pictures that do not do the display any kind of justice so you'll just have to believe me when I say the show was so awesome! The display is a 30-minute "show" of over 180,000 lights - yes, OVER 180,000 lights - set to music. The side of the road is taped off so you can either get out of your car and sit/stand to watch the show or you can tune your radio to the specified station and hear/see the show from your car. We started outside but the girls were shivering and I didn't feel like we had them bundled enough so we finished the show from the car.

From My Little Sunbeams

If you like Christmas lights definitely check out this website and definitely consider the drive out to see the display in person. I personally have never seen anything like it (except on HGTV maybe). It was so great and the girls LOVED it! And I should mention in one of the photos above the white specks that look like snow - it really is snow! They have an actual snow machine for part of the show!!!

Christmas Reading

We have been reading lots of Christmas books lately. Actually we started reading Christmas books probably the week of Thanksgiving but now it seems to be all we read. I secretly bought a few Christmas books from Gabrielle's monthly Scholastic book orders and the book fair. This past week we made a trip to the library to check out some new books. Our excellent librarians had already pulled all of the Christmas books and had them conveniently on a cart. We came home with 21 children Christmas books!! Don't worry - there were plenty of good books remaining on the cart for everyone else.

I am no expert on giving a book review but we have read so many good ones lately I wanted to share our favorites.

Gabrielle's favorite book is probably "The Gingerbread Man" by Jim Aylesworth. She loves gingerbread men anyway and when I saw this book I realized she probably had never heard the original story so I had to buy it. We have read this book at least a dozen times in the past week. It is the classic story of the Gingerbread Man who is chased by various characters, only to be outwitted and eaten by the fox. The illustrations have this old fashion look to them.


Samantha's favorite book is a board book I bought when Gabrielle was 15 months old, for her second Christmas. It is a simple story but perfect for a toddler. "Christmas in the Manger" by Nora Buck and Felicia Bond is a short and simple board book with cute pictures telling the true reason for Christmas. Samantha loves to say "baa" at the picture of the ram, "moo" at the photo of the oxen, "shiny" at the foil star and of course "baby" for baby Jesus. We read this one almost every night before bed.


Another cute board book we checked out from the library is "Down Through the Chimney." The book originally comes with a CD which has a narrator reading the story as well as singing the song. Unfortunately the disk was lost with the library's copy but the book itself is really cute too. Samantha loves seeing Ho-Ho.


Some of Gabrielle's other favorites from the library are "Reindeer Christmas", "The Christmas Hat" and "The Christmas Humbugs" (my favorite out of the bunch we have read so far). All very cute stories.




If you are looking for a book true to the Christmas story scripture but on a child's level I definitely recommend "My First Story of Christmas" by Tim Dowley. I found this recommendation last year from Proverbs 31 and ordered a last minute Christmas gift for the girls. I let them have it on Christmas Eve so we could read the Christmas story before bed that night. We have already read it once or twice this year but I will definitely make it a tradition to read it every Christmas Eve.

With all the Christmas books for the girls I decided I wouldn't mind something on my level as well so I too checked out a couple of novels from the library. In one evening I read the short novel "Miracle on I-40" by Curtiss Ann Matlock. It was an excellent (and quick) read in which part of the story takes place near Raleigh, NC - which was the first thing that peaked my interest about the book. I had not planned to read it one sitting but as I sat down to read I could not find a good place to stop, I wanted to know what happened next.


Both myself and the girls still have a pile and a list of books we want to read this Christmas season. If we come across any other favorites I'll be sure to share those as well!

Love, Santa

In the mailbox today we received the reply I was hoping to get - a postcard from Santa!! Gabrielle was really excited.

On Saturday we visited Santa in person. Gabrielle told me she was not going to be shy this year and was going to actually talk to Santa herself. She did pretty good and managed to tell him one item on her list. Samantha was excited to see Santa while we were standing in line. Once we got near Santa she suddenly turned more serious. She also managed to say a word or two to him and leaned down from my arms to give him a hug but there was no way she was going to let me set her on his lap. So here is our Santa photo this year - Ha!


I did not want to hold up the line therefore did not get the chance to pass off my camera to someone to get a photo. Fortunately there was a photographer taking photos but instead of paying the insane cost one will find at the malls for a tiny package of photos, at the end of the day the photographer took a disc of that day's photos to the nearby CVS. Today I stopped by the CVS, viewed our photos and printed whatever I wanted of the photo. I thought this was a great idea and system.

I did manage to snap a quick shot of Gabrielle with Santa.



I wish I had a photo of the sticky mess Samantha was after enjoying her candy cane from Santa. She certainly enjoyed it! By the time we got home her face and hands were red and sticky and what was left of her candy cane was covered in lent from her sweater. It was pretty gross! *smile*

Decorating for Christmas

Well after a bit of Christmas tree drama and issues and about a week of placing items here and there I have to say I'm pretty pleased with our decorations this year. I am still working on a couple of craft projects that I hope to be done with tonight or tomorrow and we still have a box of outdoor lights and garland to put up but that will have to wait for a day it is not 40 degrees with snow/ice on the ground and blustery winds.

Gabrielle loves the decorations and has declared this as the best Christmas ever. Let's hope this feeling remains throughout the entire Christmas season. And fortunately Samantha is not afraid of the tree like she was last year. Instead I am back to the days of all ornaments and decorations lower than 3 feet high being removed and placed all throughout the house. *smile*

Here is a glimpse of our little Christmas touches throughout our home...

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

This is the second year we are doing our countdown paper chain. So far it is going well. I simplified the daily activities even more this year to make the season more relaxed and the days more enjoyable for us all. Samantha is not able to do some of the activities and needs help with many of them but she is definitely enjoying the mini candy cane she gets every other day with our snowman countdown.

From My Little Sunbeams

And here are our poor snowmen who are awaiting repairs. Samantha loves them and hugs them and kisses them but she is also a bit destructive and rips their noses, buttons and even arms off. Once they are all fixed we'll have to find higher spots to place them.

From My Little Sunbeams

Our first activity on our chain this year was writing our letters to Santa. This year we opted to mail the letters. I'm hoping to get a reply from Santa. I've heard of some people receiving a reply as long as a legible return address is on the envelope so we'll just have to wait a few days and see what happens.

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams