Our Christmas Traditions

Kelly at http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ is doing Christmas Traditions this week! I was excited to jump in for the first time because I LOVE traditions and I LOVE Christmas! So the combination is more than I can take sometimes!!

We have a lot of traditons that have carried over from my family and then Mr. R and I have started some of our own as well! Here are some of my favorite traditions!

We do a Christmas Eve present every year and it is always new Christmas p.j.s... usually even the grown-ups get some. Here are my kiddos in their new Christmas p.j.s last year!

We also started a new tradition last year of making cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve! Very fun!

Some of our other traditions include:

Monkey Bread on Chrismas morning

appetizers on Christmas eve after going to Christmas Eve service at church

I think this year we are going to try doing the Advent thing for the first year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgivng! I am SO excited for our first Thanskgiving in our new house! We have SO much to be thankful for! Here is a list of just some of the things I am so thankful to our Heavenly Father for!

1. Jesus! His Grace, love, goodness... all of it! I am beyond thankful that the creator of the universe loves me.

2. My husband. This year has been one of the hardest and best years of our marriage. But we came through it together and have never been more in love! He is truly my best friend and I know that God put us together for a reason!

3. Max. He is the most amazing little boy. He is my first child and will always hold a very special place in my heart because of that. He has such a sweet and loving spirit. He doesn't like to see me cry or be upset at all. He gives the best snuggles and kisses. But then he is this crazy wild boy who runs and jumps and screams all about Spiderman and dinosaurs and other boyish things. I am so thankful for his life. He is so much like his daddy in so many ways but I still see the me in there and it makes me happy. God has big plans for this little boy.

4. Sophie. Having a little girl is better than I ever dreamed it would be. She is so beautiful and sweet! I love how she giggles and smiles. I love how she snuggles with anything that is soft... even if it is the clean laundry I just folded. And I also love how sassy she is. She knows exactly what she wants at all times. I pray that we can deal with this attitude as her parents but that she will keep it somewhat into her adulthood. What an amazing woman she could be with passion like that. I can only imagine the awesome things God could do through that girl!

5. Our new house. Our new home is nothing short of a gift from God. We could never have gotten this house on our own. Through the generosity of my grandma and the weird job changes and lay offs Nick had this year God provided our family with this beautiful home. I am so thankful!

6. Nick's job. It may not be his dream job but he likes it and it takes care of our family so well. Nick is learning amazing skills that will give him amazing opportunites in the future. Plus, it took us to Las Vegas this year which just rocked!

7. My parents. We love living close to them so much! They love our kids so much and it means the world to us. Max talks about Grandma and Grandpa nonstop! I am so grateful for their willingess to help us out so much. They are awesome and we love them so much.

8. My grandma. What she did for us this past year is nothing short of amazing. How do you even thank someone who has done so much for you? She will never know how thankful I am. She has always been one of my most favorite people in the entire world and will continue to be. Basically, when I say I have the best grandma in the world, I think I know what I am talking about!

9. Friends. Old and new I am blessed. God has shown me so much about friendship this year and I am grateful for it. I am so thankful for my friends near and far that have helped me through this year and have helped me become a better person!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

My little man...

Brother Bear was in desperate need of a haircut. It had been waaaayyyyy too long. When I picked him up from Moms Day Out today he was all sweaty and his hair was sticking out everywhere. The poor boy looked like an orphan! But, he is in full on 3 year old mode so I just wasn't in the mood to risk a tantrum at the hair place. Then my mom had the BRILLIANT idea of having Nick take him... you know, just the boys! He came back looking like this...


Not sure what is on the agenda for today. Sister and I have been up since 6:30 and brother is still sleeping soundly. I think we will head over to Grandma June's at some point to drop off some groceries... not sure what else we will do! Should be a good day though!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

We are hosting our first Thanksgiving this year and I am quite excited about it. I know that there is a lot of preperation that goes into having a large group of people over for a huge meal... especially one as important as Thanksgiving! So, to prepare I took care of something very important yesterday... painting my kitchen



Okay, so maybe I am procrastinating a little bit!

I really do love Thanksgiving though. And as we have been trying to give more this season it is so more meaningful to me. We decided to do shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child this year. Our hope was to begin planting seeds of what it means to give to our kids, mainly Brother Bear since he is older. But, I think I was the one that learned so much through it this year. With every little gift I found to put in the shoebox I was just overwhelmed with how much I have. I am able to give my children EVERYTHING they need and so much more. I am able to buy them lots of clothes for every season, fun toys, presents for every occassion, candy.... I know that these mommas love their kids just as much as I love mine, but they can't give them everything. I am truly beginning to understand that we are blessed to be a blessing!

Our Parent's as Teachers Program put on a Jammin' in Your Jammies event where the kids were supposed to come in their jammies and play with music. Since our kids LOVE music they of course had a great time. It was so fun to take Sophie to something like this. We had an AMAZING library program when we lived in Springfield so Brother Bear went to stuff like this all the time.





We followed up the night with a special trip to Starbucks for chocolate milk and cookies... and of course coffee for Mom and Dad. It was so much fun!



It is so neat to do fun things with our kids! I can't wait for all of the fun memories will make in the years to come!!

Spiderman came to dinner last night...

Spiderman joined us for dinner last night. As you can see Halloween isn't quite over yet at our house! Having a little boy is way too much fun!



And of course this post wouldn't be complete without showing that having a little girl is also too much fun! Doesn't Sister Bear look so cute in her dress? It was a hand-me-down from our friend Maddie and I just LOVE it!

A new blog!

I decided to get a blog going to let everyone know what is going on with the little R's... Max and Sophie or Brother Bear and Sister Bear as they are usually called around our home! They do cute things pretty much constantly! And since I really enjoy blogging I decided to merge two of my favorite things! Stay tuned for more updates. But for now, enjoy a few cute pictures from our time playing outside yesterday!