The Reason for the Season

As I sit back and reflect on the year and the real meaning of Christmas I am humbled by the gift that God chose to bestow on us. God chose to give us his son, to be born as a human, to live amongst us and to eventually die for each and everyone of us. It is a deeply humbling idea to know that someone died for me...who am I, I am not worthy, but isn't that the point. God chose to give us grace. We are so not worthy of the gift he has chosen to give us, but God's grace is there for each and everyone of us. In my opinion the birth of Jesus is the ultimate symbol of grace. God gave his only son to live a life he knew would lead to shame and death because he would be carrying the sins of all mankind. So as we gather with friends and family over the next couple of days to celebrate Jesus birth and exchange gifts, I will be thinking about the gift that God gave me. God's grace is the best gift ever.

Hotwheels

Last weekend, during the youth groups ugly sweater Christmas party, our good friends The S's came by to exchange Christmas presents. Their little girl G is one of Ethan's favorite people. She is about a year and a half older than E. Her mommy took care of Ethan when he was just a little guy when I first went back to work and the friendship began back then. Since they now live far away (not that far though) they don't see each other to often but they both have so much fun together.

Here are the two kids opening their gifts (remember this was the ugly sweater party, hence my strange attire).

Ethan giving G a hug thanking her for the gift.

G and her family gave Ethan a hotwheels carrier. He absolutely LOVES it. It holds 100 hotwheels (his most favorite toy) and it has wheels and a pop-up handle. This is a photo of him RIGHT after his nap today. I told him we were going to go for a walk to the mailbox and he immediately ran over to his new toy and wheeled it to the door. He wheeled it the whole way to the mailbox and back.

S Family and G, thank you so much the gift. It is Ethan's new favorite toy!

Christmas Season

**Disclaimer-This post was actually written Friday night but due to blogger not letting my upload photos, I am just now posting it.


I am absolutely giddy this evening...Today was my last day of work for the next two weeks. I won't be going back until 2010. Awesome. I have not posted much in the last month or so. December is a pretty busy time in my line of work so I have been a little overloaded with work; but now that is over. For the next two weeks I can enjoy the Christmas season and be a stay at home mom. We are going to have a blast.

But what have we been up to lately to prepare and begin to enjoy the holiday season you ask. Why I shall share....

This year I started a new tradition with Ethan, an advent. Right now he gets little trinket toys and snacks everyday. As he gets older I want it to be less objects and more events. You know like Christmas movie night with mommy and daddy, special little things like that. Right now he is a little young to get that idea, but he sure does get the idea of the little trinkets. He gets so excited when I ask if he wants advent. So cute!

One of his gifts was magnetic letters for the "fridge. He had fun putting them all up and then taking them down and putting them back in the container they came in. I think I have finally convinced him that they belong on the "fridge.
My grandparents came into town from Kansas and we had a nice time visiting with them.
We went and got us a Christmas Tree! Ethan seems to like the tree. He had so much fun helping daddy with the lights and putting the star on the top. We let him put on an ornament or two and when he started throwing the "balls," or the ornaments, at the tree we decided that was good, and finished the rest after he went to bed.


And we have also been enjoying the delicious tasting treats that go along with the Christmas season. Like Chris and his hot coco. Yummy.


I hope you are all enjoying this Christmas season!

Happiest Place on Earth

*This posted may be a little overloaded with photos. But my last few photos have been sans photos, so I am making up for that.
A couple weekends ago we went to Disneyland. My good friend and college roommate was in town with her whole family spending a long weekend at Disneyland. So if we wanted to see her we HAD to go to Disneyland. Darn! :)We went to Disneyland when Ethan was four months old. I know, I know, who takes a four month old to Disneyland. I was dying to go to Disneyland after I had him. The year I was pregnant we had plans with my family to go during Christmas time. When I was put on bedrest that trip was cancelled but I vowed to go and soon as I had him. So we all went and he hung out in the sling the whole time we had fun, but he had no idea what gloriousness he was missing out on (can you tell I love Disneyland?). So this was Ethan's first trip being old enough to take it all in. He had so much fun with so much to look at.
It was insanely crowded so we did not do everything, but we did a lot. We took him on BuzzLight Year ride where he got to use a little toy gun to shoot the targets. Pretty sure daddy helped him get a score that beat mommy. We took him on the submarine ride also. He went back and forth between Chris lap and window and mine. He loved looking at all the "fishes." He that was too cool.
We are big fans of food when it come to Disneyland and there are a few things we HAVE to get before we leave. The giant Turkey leg is one of Chris's must have foods. I am a huge fan of the churro.
We all went on the Winnie the Pooh ride.
Ethan thought Jungle Cruise was pretty cool as well.
We were bummed that there were not many characters out. We did not see our first character (only character) until after dark and it was Pluto. Ethan did not enjoy him. As I walked towards him and was about 4 feet away, he started whining and trying to climb over my shoulder to get away. We tried to tell him it was just a giant dog, but he was not buying any of it. So as you see in the pictures I was able to get that close but E was making weird little sounds under his breath and staring down Pluto the whole time. Oh well.
Brown and E bonding while waiting to see Santa.
We saw Santa also. Again E was not digging it and would not sit on his lap, so we got a family photo with Santa this year.
This is the castle all light up at night so beautiful. It was such a nice, fun day seeing good friends and running around an amusement park.