Happy Thanksmas!

Since we are splitting our holidays between sides of the family this year, we are spending Thanksgiving with my family in Nashville and Christmas with Ian's in Orlando. We wanted to be able to do Christmas with my parents as well though, so we combined the holidays into one jam packed, fun filled, holiday weekend called Thanksmas!

 My sister and brother-in-law arrived Wednesday afternoon and all the ladies sat down and made a game plan for turkey day. Thursday morning, Thanksgiving day, meant cooking began! It was actually a pretty easy morning. With three capable women in the kitchen we were able to divide and conquer, all while the men entertained the girls upstairs.

Turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, corn casserole, sweet potato suffle, rolls, and cranberry sauce were on the menu, with sweet potato, chocolate pecan, and apple pie as desserts!

Thanksgiving night we headed out to find a new tree farm (their old one shut down,) and picked out the perfect tree. The farm had the cutest little barn area set up to get out of the cold. There were lights, hot chocolate, hay bales, and coloring books to take home!

We took the tree home, dragged out the decorations, and set it up! While we were decorating I set up my camera on the tripod and used my remote to capture all sorts of moments and I just love the pictures that caught the spirit of the night!

When Grace and Ian went to put the angel up on the tree we had the most unfortunate (and hilarious) event...

The angel's head came off and was impaled by the tree!! Several days later she was repaired and all was okay.

The next day, my sister and Grace decorated a gingerbread house. Really, Heather decorated the house and Grace licked all of the decorations. In the end, both were pleased with the results.

Christmas eve my dad read the Nativity story to the girls and then they opened up their Christmas pajamas.

Christmas morning, the girls woke up rather late, around 7, and we got right down to business, opening stockings and then presents. We let the girls open all of their presents first, then laid Sophia down for her nap while the adults took a much more leisurely pace with our gifts. My parents made us a pancake breakfast after that and we enjoyed a nice Christmas brunch, bacon and all.

I took the girls outside to do their Christmas pictures. It wasn't much of a success. I'm not used to this early sunset business, so I tried doing it before their nap which meant we were out in the noon day sun (stupid, I know,)  I got a few cute shots but they aren't my favorite. I'm also working my way through a glitchy camera (sand in the body, perhaps,) and an overwhelmingly large number of photos from our time in the States. I'm pretty sure I need to just choose my favorite 10 photos from each event and then DELETE the rest so that I don't have to keep sifting through them. I shot 600 pictures in our Thanksmas weekend. Crazy!

Saturday we watched football, baked, and went to see some local light displays. We ended the night with a game of Five Crowns. Sunday we went to church together and then to a Hibachi grill. Turns out, both of my girls are terrified of fire, so that was not a hit. They did love the chicken though. You know, once the terrified screaming and petrified shaking came to an end.

 We came home from church and my sister and brother in law packed up and hit the road. It was a sad goodbye to the girls' Aunt Heather and Uncle Ryan. Hopefully we can see them over on the other side of the ocean soon!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving + Christmas with my family and feel odd that there is still 20 days until the real Christmas day!

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Happy Thanksmas!

Trick-Or-Treat and Deck The Halls

It's that time of year again! September begins and people slowly trickle into fall decorations, pumpkin spice lattes, and apple orchards. October rolls around and people get to experience a change in weather (usually,) and the leaves change. Nice and slow and steady. The end of October brings Halloween, candy, costumes, and carving pumpkins.

Then, you wake up and BAM. It's Christmas time.

I went into a store on November 1st and there were decorations up and music playing.

Christmas creep is for real, people!

And in the spirit of, well, the holiday spirit, I thought I would join in by combining our Halloween and our decorating post into one post!

Aren't you so excited?

No? Enraged that I would dare combine the two? Or maybe just very confused why we have already decorated?

All in due time, my friends. All in due time.

After the girls afternoon nap, we headed over to Ian's parents' house for the afternoon and evening.

We carved a pumpkin for the first time with the girls. Grace wouldn't even touch it. And all Sophia wanted was a bottle. Still, Grace was pretty pleased with the results, a mickey shaped jack o lantern.

 We fed the girls a snack and then got them into their costumes. Precious, right?

 Obviously, Grace was Cinderella and Sophia was Minnie Mouse. Grace loves Cinderella so we thought that it was appropriate this year, ad we had been given Sophia's outfit, so free costume it was!

We headed out about 5:30, which was much sooner than other people, but I knew the girls weren't going to last long. At the first house we stopped at a spider fell from the ceiling and made some creepy noises but Grace just shrugged it off and focused on the task at hand- gathering as much candy as possible!

As soon as the door was open she would say "Trick or Treat!" and in the very instant that she was handed candy she would turn her head back to me and ask "More?" Sophia mainly stayed in the stroller and Grace would get a piece of candy for her and put it in her bucket above her head. Grace lasted until well after seven pm! We ended the night seeing some good family friends of ours and then headed back to the house for a late dinner from the grill.

 Grace topped the evening off by chowing down on some of her candy and gave out candy to the people who came to the door. We put the girls down and then we adults watched Monsters University! It was a great Halloween and I am so grateful that the girls got to have such a good experience!

It's pretty hard to believe that just one year ago our Halloween included this very busy bee and a one month old newborn!

Then, this weekend, we celebrated the start of the Christmas season with my in laws! We leave this week to head up to Tennessee to see my family for a couple of weeks and won't be back to Florida until mid December, so if we wanted to decorate together it was now or never!

So now it was!

I honestly didn't take many pictures. It was a crazy, beautiful kind of day. It was raining outside and Ian and his Dad hung up the outside Christmas lights. Grace "helped" assemble a snow man lawn ornament while my Mom in law and I put together the Christmas tree. Ian's brother and his wife arrived and they helped us wrangle the girls and string the lights on the tree. Then, once everyone came inside and were cleaned up and fed we put on a Christmas pandora station and put the ornaments on the tree. It only took ten minutes but it was so fun to see the girls' excitement!

I can't wait to do it all again with my family after Thanksgiving!  We get to do double the holidays this year!

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Trick-Or-Treat and Deck The Halls

A Shoeless Halloween

This is our first time to actually celebrate Halloween with Grace, as last year was just days before we left on our big trip to Turkey and no one was doing anything in our little town anyways.

We never celebrated Halloween when I was growing up. Something about a traumatic experience when I was five, answering the door to give out candy only to find a mummy right in front of me. I'm not sure they were able to get me out of my room for the rest of the night. And from then on, whenever we asked why we didn't celebrate, usually at the dinner table, my dad would make us go get the "H" encyclopedia and read, out loud, the history of Halloween.

And all I wanted was the candy.

Thanks, Dad, for an excellent education on celtic traditions.

Grace went as a bee to a "Hallelujah" party that our church threw at a local park. Sophia went as a newborn, because she is cute enough already. And also because Ian vetoed my idea for a Vampire/Dracula onesie that read "I want to drink your milk." Something about it being classless. Whatever.

We had a late start due to a nap that went long. Because of said late start, we forgot some of our necessities. Like a diaper bag. And Grace's diapers. Oh, and her shoes too.

We finally arrived though and just accepted the fact that Grace would have Wal-Mart feet and look like a hillbilly for the night.

Who ever heard of a bee that wore shoes anyways?

 Yes, she has a bow/headband on top of her bee hat. There was no strap so I had to get creative with how to keep it on her head.

 There was a pretty good turn out and the weather was gorgeous!

 I, personally, really enjoyed watching my little bumblebee wander around the park. She wore her costume all night and didn't mess with it!

 Be still my heart- my husband taking care of our girls is one of my favorite sights in the world! I bet he never guessed, not in a million years, that he would be a dad to two little girls, but here he is! And he's wonderful with them!

We made it all the way to the end of the party before we were regretting not having our diaper bag.

Just to let you know, Grace can fit into newborn sized diapers. If you use the word "fit" very loosely. Which the diaper was not at all. Loose that is.


And, if Grace gets ringworm from being shoeless all night, so be it.

At least she got to celebrate as a very adorable bee!

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A Shoeless Halloween

Happy Easter!

I'm a few days behind (what's new?) but we had a wonderful, family filled, Easter weekend that I had to share about.

Our long weekend started on Thursday, when we visited our friends out in the desert where they were camping.

And yes, it does look a lot like Mordor from Lord of the Rings.

I often break out into the overture from the movies as we drive through our country. It's like I can practically hear the footsteps of the Orcs echoing over the barren landscape.

And yes, I just talked about the Lord of the Rings. I'm a dork.

It was hot, hot, HOT, that day, about 104 outside! I think this summer is going to be a scorcher for sure.

On Friday, we pulled out Grace's birthday present from us, her pool, and filled it up outside of our apartment.

She had a great time splashing around and loved it when her Da Da joined her. She really likes being around other kids though, so she got bored with us and her toys pretty quickly. And even though it was over 100 degrees, she was cold. What can I say? She's a desert baby!

Easter morning we woke up EARLY for a sunrise service out in the desert. Somehow, in my 25 years of life I don't think I have ever been to a sunrise service! Grace was disoriented and tired but quickly perked up when she saw all of the other people to entertain.

The sunrise was beautiful and the fellowship with other believers was really special.

We went back home and got a nap in before we had a wardrobe change and headed to the traditional Easter lunch. My parents had sent a beautiful Easter dress for Grace, and though it was a tad big, she looked adorable in her blue smocked dress!

We had ham for lunch! I know, probably not too exciting for you, but for us living in a Muslim country, pork products are a rare treat and a reminder of traditions from home. Grace thought it was lip smackingly good!
We returned home for another nap before heading out for our evening Easter activity- a bar b que with some other friends! They had a pull out for all of the little girls (6 under 6!) and Grace had a blast swimming in the pool while I socialized and Ian grilled chicken. A four year old taught Grace how to put her face in the water and blow bubbles and it was so cute how proud of herself she was!

She's really comfortable in the water and I LOVE it! As a former competitive swimmer and Florida beach girl, I'd love for my children to love and appreciate the water like I do.

We had a wonderful buffet full of food and enjoyed good conversation and food late into the evening!
As I reflected on the meaning of Easter, and as I tried to convey to my local friends in Arabic what this holiday meant, the lyrics from the song "How Deep The Father's Love for Us," kept coming to my mind. I love Nichole Nordeman's version of the song on the cd Sing Over Me: Worship Songs & Lullabies

I'd love for you to be able to listen to this beautiful song as you read these lyrics and for you to know that my heart bursts with joy and peace when I get to the final verse:

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that left Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

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Happy Easter!