2nd Christmas + New Year's

Grandma and Papa flew into town on Christmas night, which kicked off a week of fun Christmas activities with them! To say that excitement levels were off the charts is an understatement {and the kids were pretty stoked too}  :)

We basically had a repeat Christmas morning. I made homemade cinnamon rolls, and I think I found our recipe! We opened presents from Grandma and Papa, and then spent the day playing games, making Christmas crafts, and just spending time together. We enjoyed a roast turkey dinner that evening, and it was an overall great day.

Aunt Vi crocheted ADORABLE little animals for the kids, and they absolutely loved them!

The weather was pretty cold and windy this week, so we spent a lot of time at home just hanging out, playing games, watching Christmas movies, eating yummy food, and just enjoying the week between Christmas and New Years. The kids were more than happy to share their books and toys with Grandma and Papa, as well as curl up and watch movies, have dance parties, and learn new games like Labyrinth and Carcassonne.

But we did make time {and brave the cold} for some fun outings as well. On Saturday night, we grabbed some Chick-Fil-A milkshakes before driving around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. On Sunday, we headed to church and then lunch at one of our favorites: Uncle Julio's. That night, we had tickets to the Meadowlark Winter Walk of Lights. They transformed the botanical gardens into a beautiful light display, and it was so fun!

On Monday, we made sugar cookies with Grandma. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of that adventure, as my hands were in the dough, but we made some with sprinkles, some with icing, and I think everyone enjoyed the fruit of their labor :)

On Tuesday, we ventured out for some hamburgers at Foster's Grille, and then to Lucky Strike for a friendly round of boys vs. girls bowling! Papa came out on top with the highest score, and the kids were just excited to knock down any pins {to be honest, so was Mommy haha}. 

For New Year's Eve, we make it a game marathon day, and Aiden specifically requested a dance party because he wanted "to see Grandma and Papa boogie." We watched the celebrations in London, Dubai, and Sydney and then called it a night ;)

Today, we went to lunch at McAlister's, and we spent more time playing games and soaking up the time we had left with Grandma and Papa. We were definitely sad to see them go, but we are already planning for our next trip, and we look forward to seeing them again soon!

Thanksgiving 2025

For Thanksgiving this year, we had a couple of church members over for lunch, so we needed all hands on deck to help prep our Thanksgiving feast! We had a full menu, so we started a couple of days ahead of time to be sure to get it all done. But I had great helpers! 

We went back to our Pioneer Woman turkey brine and roasted turkey recipes from a couple of year's ago. I started cooking at 325, then raised the temp to 350, and I didn't have to worry about it being undercooked this time. Much better results :)

We made Mike's family recipes: his grandma's cornbread dressing and rolls. It's fun to pass down family recipes to the kids, and I love that they look forward to helping with these recipes. 

We also had mashed potatoes, honey roasted carrots, green bean casserole, corn, cranberry sauce, gravy, and (of course) pumpkin pie. 

The rest of the day was relaxing and enjoying our turkey coma :)  And of course, we couldn't finish the day without watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we are so thankful for the memories together as a family. We missed being with our extended family, but we are thankful for the time we had with members of our church family. We praise God for all the blessings that He has granted throughout this year.

Easter Week 2021

We had a fun week counting down to and celebrating Easter!

This year, we used these Resurrection Eggs from Family Life to countdown to Easter. Overall, it's a good resource, and the items themselves were good quality {enough to withstand our chaos}. I do feel like it left out several parts of the story, so I ended up having to supplement, which wasn't a big deal. 

We made a fun craft for Palm Sunday; Mrs. Debbie is always so sweet to think of us and send home crafts from church. And anything to do with scissors and glue is a big hit in our house haha.

We made an Easter Egg Fruit Pizza! The kids loved getting to put the fruit on the pizza, and of course, they loved eating it :)  Aiden was more interested in the fruit than the cookie and cream cheese frosting, but the twins loved the whole thing.

We had our own little Easter egg hunt inside on Saturday morning. It was pretty chilly outside, so we just kept it indoors, which the kids didn't mind at all. They were just excited to hunt for eggs and then open them up to find fun treasures!

This year, we also made Resurrection {or Empty Tomb} Rolls. We used this recipe, and they were so yummy! The kids love helping in the kitchen, and this is such a perfect visual for the empty tomb. Because we had been talking about the cross and the resurrection all week, they knew immediately what the empty roll represented. So many times I don't think they're listening or paying attention, but with repetition, it definitely sinks in. It might be much later, but I'm thankful to catch glimpses of how the Lord is connecting the dots for them...and it makes the hard parts of teaching little ones worth it.

Our church also surprised us with another Easter egg hunt! They "egged" members' houses by hiding eggs in their yards, filled with candy and a shorter version of the Resurrection Eggs. And thankfully the weather was nice enough that we were able to hunt for eggs outside this time.

Mike had a full morning at church, starting with a sunrise service, followed by 3 more Easter services. Since we can still only fit a certain amount of people in the sanctuary to abide by social distancing guidelines, they wanted to be sure there was enough room for everyone who wanted to be there in person. {And they require masks and registration at all of their services, and have throughout the whole pandemic}. I'm still not quite ready to have the kids in Sunday School, and it's pretty difficult to wrangle 3 kiddos solo. So we stayed home and joined in online. 

We gave the kids their Easter baskets later in the afternoon, as a fun final Easter activity. We fill their baskets with books and small toys, as a celebration of the resurrection. We give gifts to celebrate at Christmas, so we like to do something small at Easter too. 

It was a FULL, fun week of Easter activities. It was definitely more than I had originally planned, but I am glad that the week was full of fun memories that pointed us to Jesus. Happy Easter!