Christmas Time Is Here

We headed to Nor Cal for Christmas this year and it started out by randomly seeing Uncle Ryan, Aunt Stace and cousin Abram at In'n Out. Abby had a great time watching a boy eat dinner. It was a wrestling match!

Once we got there, she spent lots of time collecting berries outside...

finding the baby in mommy's tummy...

hanging with her cousin Katy...

petting her first horse...

dragging Grandma and Papa around the house...

doling out kisses...

and falling asleep amid the loudest Christmas Eve (rock concert) service I've ever heard.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

This Christmas was special mostly because she was excited for "anta" to come and because she didn't really care about the few gifts that she did get. It wasn't about that. It was about being with her family. Amen.

And, Papa (who is suspiciously absent from these pictures!) got a few good shots with his new camera...(isn't this the cutest hat you've ever seen? Thanks, Aunt JJ!)

This was a really special Christmas for us to all be together, for Abby to get to know her Uncle "Kev!" and Aunt Christi better and for her to spend time with Katy. We are so blessed to have family within driving distance (even though that return traffic was a killer!).

God, Immanuel, is with us, indeed.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

100. That God truly is with us, everyday

101. God's love for His own

102. Christmas traditions

103. Christmas PJs

104. Family

105. Our health this year!

Scar Update

It was over 80 degrees here this week. In December. It's crazy. Abby kept spitting water out of her mouth, getting soaked and insisting to take off her shirt (no comments about how I need to cut this off immediately in regard to her older years). What resulted were some fabulous scar shots -- it's been 14 months since her surgery. Miraculous.

97. her scar
98. the hope of all that her scar reminds me of
99. pediasure to grow, grow grow

Who Needs Santa?

We headed out to the Americana to see Santa while Grandma was here. Abby was talking about it all morning. I knew once we got close to the man she sometimes calls "pop pop" that her white knuckles would be clutching on to me for all that was worth. She bravely marched up to Santa's house...


and once inside, was in awe of the Christmas decor. As we approached Santa, she hid her face in my chest and Santa said, "Go for it, Mom. It's only going to get worse." Right he was.



Classic.

After she pulled herself together, we spent the rest of the afternoon eating cheese and watching the water show that compares to the Bellagio in Vegas.



Oh, and her shirt was quite apropos for the day...(from Grandma N.) "Who needs Santa when you've got Grandma!"

91. Classic Santa moments
92. having Grandma here to see it in person
93. dinner out when I've run out of ideas
94. a reliable car
95. not doing costco alone
96.the largest bag of chocolate chips this prego lady has ever seen

Smiley

Grandma has been here for a few days to soak up some pre-Christmas memories (and help me out a lot!). We were determined to make cookies (this hasn't yet happened and she leaves tomorrow) but Abby and Grandma spend lots of time walking around the backyard.







I mean...what are they talking about? How can this be this fun?

Even flopping around on the bed had them both in stitches.


88. hearing that little girl laugh
89. a growing belly
90. sun in december!

Beautiful Day

One day last week was just....beautiful. Warm and crisp and lovely. Abby and I spent some good time in the back yard this morning soaking up the sun, tormenting Red and pretending to rake. She's quite the big girl these days. Isn't her GapKids jacket fabulous? i know. And before you ask me, I checked. It doesn't come in my size. Or yours. :)

Dead Giving Life

Two fabulous things recently came from the death of this tree (and if you ask my mom, it's been dead a long, long time...) :


roaring fires at night and an advent tree. I can take ZERO credit for our first ever advent tree (my advent calendars in the past always simply included chocolate - what's not to love?!) -- all of it goes to Hillary. I just utterly ripped off her fabulous idea and didn't listen to those voices in my head that said, "This is a lot of work. You have gifts to buy and lunches to make...!" Lo and behold, 24 hours later, the advent tree was born, with a verse for every day this month, leading up to Christ's birth. Grant reads one each night at dinner. I must say, it's the highlight of my day. Funny how that dead tree gives life to our home every night.




84. roaring fires
85. twinkly christmas lights
86. The Bible!
87. Abby's open ears when daddy reads

This Season Last Season

It's been quite a year -- Grant was just saying how glad he is that this year isn't last year. We were "out of the woods" with Abigail regarding surgery but still watching her closely for sickness and weight gain. When I look back on these pics, I'm amazed at her chubby cheeks!

This year we kept up the tradition of looking for the ever elusive $29 tree and decided to go for broke and spend THIRTY-NINE. We went crazy! And, it's the best tree we've ever had. Even if the men that sold it to us didn't have teeth. Really.




We did most of the decorating after Abby went to bed. Here she is the next morning....

Of course, Raggedy Ann was her favorite ornament to look at (placed just out of reach on purpose!)

A New Favorite Book

Lately, this is Abby's new favorite book. (just not the Spanish version!)

Yes, Abby is going to be a big sister.






Yes. It's true. After years of trying to conceive Abigail, we have been blessed with another child on the way! We are beyond thrilled and know that since this wasn't a trial, we'll have another one coming around the bend (one is always on the way, isn't it?). But it's nice to know that God has given us some trials in the past few years so that we can be ready to exercise that muscle of walking by faith again soon. And, to top off the excitement, when we went in for an early ultrasound to check for heart issues (so far, so good) we found out that it's a boy. A BOY! (What do I DO with a boy?!)

81. dreams coming true without long bouts of prayer
82. mercy on us who deserve so much less
83. blue, blue, blue!

In the Genes

Is a love of paper in the genes? Abby spent about 30 minutes today chilling on our bed, stacking and organizing old letterpress scraps of paper that I have laying around. By the way she was inspecting them, you'd think each one was different (they almost all the same).