Thursday, December 20, 2012

"Ca"

Since we have been in Atlanta, Coleman has been real fascinated by the cat. He walks up to the cat and points and says, "Ca." He likes to try to pet the cat, but he has trouble being gentle.
We also found this picture that we took of Callie when she was 1. She was just as fascinated with the cat and loved to point at him too.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Jesse Tree


This year we've added something new to our Christmas tradition. It's called a Jesse Tree. I had never heard of this until recently. Basically it's an advent calendar of sorts. You can use a little tree, a drawing of a tree, or as in our case a branch from your live tree. Then you have ornaments that correspond with a story from scripture (i.e. a prophesy in the old testament that points to the coming of Christ). Online you can find a list of ornaments with corresponding scripture references for each day in the month of December (all leading up to the birth of Christ). The main reason that I got motivated to make this a part of our Christmas tradition is that I got invited to a Jesse Tree party (btw the name "jesse" tree comes from the prophesy from Isaiah that says that the Christ would come "out of the stump of Jesse" (Jesse being King David's father). So, anyway, the way the party worked was that 25 women were invited. Each woman made 25 of the same ornaments corresponding to one of the days. For instance, my ornament was the little town of Bethlehem. I made 25 of those. Each woman then collected an entire (unique) set. It was a lot of fun and I think it will be a nice thing to remember my time at our church here in Minnesota by. So, it has been fun doing our little devotions as a family each morning. Charlie will read the scripture passage and share a little bit. Then, Callie will pick out which ornament she thinks corresponds with the story and hang it on the tree. Then, we sing a Christmas hymn. Here's our little tree before any ornaments.

Here's what it looks like with all the ornaments on. I had to test our little tree when I first was setting it up just to make sure it would hold them all.

Saturday, December 08, 2012

Tea Party Birthday


Last Saturday we were able to celebrate Callie's birthday ( a little early) with her girlfriends. It was a lot of having a girly tea party! I found some real china for a dollar a set at the thrift store. That's my kinda price (esp. since it could get shattered at any moment). Note the plastic-ware was for the littlest girls.

We had a light lunch with finger sandwiches, pretzels, etc. and these little raspberry cheesecake cupcakes. I thought they were cute, but none of the girls ate them! The moms enjoyed them! And, thankfully I had also made these white chocolate covered vanilla wafer pops which proved to be a big hit among the young ladies.

we had to fancy up before the actual tea party began. We had a couple of beautifying stations. So, while some of the girls were getting their nails painted, the others were making/designing their own headbands. Callie's sweet Daddy was nice enough to hot glue each flower in the exact spot that each girl wanted. Finally, everyone was beautiful and ready for the party.

around the table we have Annie, Callie, Sophie, Lucy, Maddux, and Evey.

such a sophisticated bunch!

I love you Callie girl! It has been a joyful (almost) 4 years!

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Pool Time


It was great having Papa and Bebe visit for the long weekend over Thanksgiving. This year they stayed at the Radisson down the road from us. The big perk with that was that there was a nice indoor pool.

they had a baby pool

they had a hot tub

and of course they had a normal size heated pool. Here's Callie ready to jump. She is still quite the little fish. She picked right back up from where she left off last summer.