Halloween:
Does Halloween count as a part of the holiday season? Some might say it's a holiday that celebrates satanic creatures and encourages children to bully treats out of their neighbors. But I kind of think its fun. The scary, bloody, gross stuff doesn't float my boat, but I'm always tickled to see little guys dressed up as princesses and super heroes. Plus it means I get to eat lots of pumpkin flavored treats, and that's never a bad thing.
We kept it simple this year as I was still recovering from Jay's birth and adjusting to my new sleep schedule. And by sleep schedule, I mean no-sleep schedule. I put on an orange sweater and we took a walk to Brick Oven pizza where we enjoyed a delicious large Hawaiin and some home brewed root beer. I'm usually not a soda person, but one does not turn down Brick Oven root beer. Not unless they're crazy. MMMmmmm. It was a fun, low key night, which is exactly what we needed.
38 week shot taken on Halloween haha
I'm slightly obsessed with family traditions. Some of my fondest memories revolve around my family's holiday traditions so I decided to get one of our own going. Hence, the "gratitude" tree was born. For FHE one night, Carter and I talked about the importance of gratitude and then wrote things we are grateful for onto little leaves which we stuck on a paper tree trunk. It was really cute actually, I wish I had taken a picture. Jayden obviously didn't know what was going on, in fact I think he was asleep, but that's ok. He'll catch on eventually.
Carter and I originally planned to drive to Auburn the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but with the help of a couple horrifically hard school weeks, I convinced him that taking our break a little early would be good. So instead we made our way the Friday before.
It was awesome being in Auburn. Our families decided to combine their Thanksgivings so we got the best of both worlds while we dined on Turkey. All of the grandparents, aunts, and uncles shamelessly doted on Jay and I got a good nap in. We played a lot of cards, watched movies, talked into the night, ate yummy food, went on some beautiful runs, wake boarded in Lake Rollins (wearing dry suits) and watched my dad, brothers and husband's studly finesse in the ward turkey bowl.
I loved the opportunity to ponder on the importance of gratitude. Truly, gratitude is the key component to a happy life. You can have all the riches this world can offer, but if you don't regularly count your blessings then you'll never be happy. Life's difficulties are much easier to wade through when we take time to thank the Lord for what we do have.
Grandmas blow drying jay's diaper rash. Talk about quality service!
I LOVE Christmas!! When Carter and I set up our little tree, nativity stand, and lit our "evergreen scented" candle I couldn't shake the smile from my face. Christmas music was going constantly, and in the evening we took time to read different parts of the Christmas story. It was magical I tell you. I just felt full of good cheer and the desire to do good.
The Thursday of finals week, Carter took his last final and we sailed away to Auburn. It's always nice to be home. Throughout the weeks we played some football, ran, Christmas shopped, baked, attended friend's wedding receptions, played cards, visited, and introduced Jayden to the hot tub. He loved it by the way. That baby is a total water bug.
Growing up my family had a tradition of doing a little something for "baby Jesus" every day. At night when we'd gather before family prayer, my mom would ask what we each did, and then let us put a chocolate under the "Baby Jesus Tree" after we told her. Sometimes we forgot and would come up with something silly (in fact that happened more often then not) but the message stuck. Christmas is about service and love. Its about remembering the humble birth of our Savior and what His life meant. It's a time to try a little harder to be a little better to those around us. Carter and I want to instill that truth into our children and so this Christmas season we continued the tradition.
This lead to our deciding to make Christmas Eve a day of service. We found some sweet widows in our ward and put together some goodies (with the help of my mother in law) to take over. My family ended up coming too. All three were nice to see, but I especially loved visiting the second. She was so excited to have visitors and just beamed with excitement. It was really fun to talk with her about life and bask in her wisdom. I think we benefited more than she did.
Unfortunately, Jay and I got really sick and felt pretty under the weather the whole break. I felt bad for our families because Jayden was often cranky (understandably) and not very easy to snuggle with. But oh well. It was so nice to be with everyone. We were sad to leave, but excited to get back to a normal schedule.
Yep, the 2013 holidays were mighty good to us. Still, its nice to get back to the usual routine.
