Merry Christmas

We hope you are having a wonderful Christmas celebrating our Savior's birth! Here are a few pictures from our home as Christmas came closer and closer....

 

Fun visit with Grandpa Greg and Debbie

 

 

 

 

 Then, we had our own little Christmas before we traveled...

 

Great present from Grandparents and Great-Grandparents in New Mexico!

         

New Christmas Traditions

This weekend we tried two new things with our family that might become a regular Christmas event! 

#1 - I am the field trip coordinator for Caleb's Kinder class this year and I organized a field trip to Elgin Christmas Tree Farm on Friday.  We went on a "tour" - they did some mazes, looked at animals, took a hayride, made a pine cone ornament and listened to a talk about growing Christmas trees.  During the talk they even read a Christmas book that talked extensively about the real meaning of Christmas being Jesus.  What was great was there were a few other schools on this tour that were not a Christian school group like ours...so it was great that they got to hear that message.  At the end, we walked out to cut down our Christmas tree.  I remember doing this as a kid with my family, so this was really neat to do with our kids.  Here are some pics!

#2
Georgetown Historic Square Christmas Stroll w/ a Bethlehem Village

This was wonderful and all free (well, except the food)!  The downtown square was filled with music, lights, vendors, food, a barrel train ride and a horse drawn wagen ride.  Even the Williamson County Museum was open.  We only had about 2hrs before it ended, so we did the two things we came for - the Bethlehem Village and the snow hill.  The Bethlehem village was great!.  There were various decorated tents with places you would see if you walked through Bethlehem - a market, carpenter shop, perfume shop, etc.  They had a tent where they placed a head ribbon around each kids head, asked them their name and gave them a blessing ("May the Lord bless you and keep you...").  The Inn where they received a bracelet with a bible verse tucked inside.  There was a nativity section with a temple with "priests" talking about the Holy of Holies and the veil tearing.  Then they had a live nativity presentation every 15min.  It was short, simple and sweet but we thought it was truly worth the time and actually better quality then the Bethlehem Village in Burnet.  This one had a humble atmosphere, an evangelistic message, more interactive/hands-on for the kids, small crowd and no two-hour wait!  I definitely think we will go back next year just to see this.  The other thing we did was the snow hill.  Silly me, I really thought it was going to be a snow hill for the kids to sled down, with man-made snow.  But, it was really just a HUGE inflateable snow hill.  The kids had fun, but were a little let down because there was no snow.  We topped off the evening with some frozen gingerbread yogurt!

Receiving the blessing

Writing their name for the census

Grinding grain

Making bread balls

The market - they "bought" some raisins.

The Inn - Receiving their bracelet with a bible verse

The Temple

 

Making clay pots

 

The "snow hill".  Silas climbed right up that thing with no help!

 

 Hope your family finds fun and meaningful events to go to this Christmas season!

Christmas Letter - coming soon!

Our Christmas cards were mailed quicker than I thought this year!  Please stay tuned for a Christmas letter... If you are interested, we have a new feature on our blog.  You can subscribe to our blog through email and you will get an automatic update we when add something new.  Thanks for visiting!

Happy Thanksgiving - Fall at our house

We hope you all have a wonderful day celebrating the blessings the Lord has given you and your family!




Psalm 100

A Psalm for Thanksgiving.

1 Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.

2 Serve the LORD with gladness;

Come before Him with joyful singing.

3 Know that the LORD Himself is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving

And His courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him, bless His name.

5 For the LORD is good;

His lovingkindness is everlasting

And His faithfulness to all generations.

Here is a little look at fall at our house.