Christmas 2012

We had a wonderful Christmas celebrating our Savior’s birth and praying God would begin planting seeds in Jax’s little heart about why we celebrate Christmas!  We tried to keep gifts simple and keep our focus on Jesus and giving to others.  God is continuing to work on our hearts about how we can take the focus off of ourselves and put it on Jesus and those in need around us.  We had a wonderful time with family and enjoyed time together!

We spent Christmas Eve day celebrating Christmas with the North Family and opening gifts!  We didn’t manage to take very many pictures unfortunately!  Jax got a Little Tikes car and a ball roller push toy that he had fun parading around Bebe and Pop’s house!

We went to Christmas Eve service with the Shearer family and got a picture of the whole fam (thanks to Ryan and his tripod!)!

On Christmas morning, we began our tradition of staying at home as our family.  It was fun to wake up and watch Jax open presents for the first time!  First, we read our last Advent book which is “The Christmas Story.”  It tells the whole account of Christ’s birth from the angel appearing to Mary through the wise men coming to visit Jesus as he grew older.  We loved all the nativity based Advent books, and Jax loved getting to open a book each evening and read together!

  Jax had fun with his new musical instrument set and jingle bells!

Next, we went over to Mimi and Papa’s house to open gifts with Nana and Pa Frank, Aunt Taegan, Grant, Maddie, Aunt Robin, and Uncle Josh!  This was the first visit that Jax got to meet his cousins Grant and Maddie!  Ryan’s brother Brad joined us via Skype from Kuwait!  What a blessing of cool technology!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are blessed with a wonderful family and are thankful for the fun memories we made!  Thank you Jesus, our Savior, who came to earth as a baby and lived a perfect life in our world and took the penalty for our sin so we might come to accept His gift of an eternal, abundant life and have a relationship with our Creator!  God is good!  I look forward to celebrating Easter as we remember the purpose that Jesus was born into the world!

Getting Ready for Christmas!

We decided to try something new this Christmas and buy our first ever real Christmas tree!  We went to the Old Time Christmas Tree Farm on a beautiful day the end of November and picked out our tree!  It was a fun experience and Jax loved being outside and getting to run around and around!

 

 

We desired to start traditions with Jax to focus our hearts on the reason we celebrate Christmas- to celebrate our Savior Jesus’ birth!  We began an Advent book countdown where Jax opened a new book each evening that was focused on Jesus’ birth.  Jax picked up right away on opening the book and was excited each evening when we let him pick out a book to open.  He carefully (and slowly!) opened the book on his own with little help, and then would walk over to sit in my lap to have me read his new book to him!  It made some precious memories!  Jax did pretty well focusing on the shorter books; the longer ones were more challenging but he usually made it through half!

We went to Candy Cane Lane at our church and enjoyed the tour through Bethlehem!  It was really cool and I’m excited to take Jax as he gets older too!

 

 

 

 

 

“For a child will be born for us,a son will be given to us, and the government will be on His shoulders.  He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” -Isaiah 9:6

I pray we keep the joy and excitement of celebrating our Savior’s birth with us throughout the year as we remember the perfect gift God sent for us!

Family Pics

We had a fun time taking some family pictures at the Houston Arboretum mid November!  Jax was 16 months and LOVED walking all over the nature trails!  He wasn’t very still at all but we still managed to get some great pictures thanks to my Momma!

We love you Daddy Ryan!

I love this boy more than I can say!

Jax was clapping and saying “happy, happy, happy!”

I adore these two!

Jax and his Bebe!  Thanks Bebe for making it possible to have pics of all 3 of us!