Lights, Lights, Lights! (and traditions)

On Friday night the girls and I and my Mom went to this fabulous Festival of Lights. It was held in this adorable shopping village in Mystic. The village is a great place to go anytime of year - it has hundreds of cool little gift shops and a quaint church in the middle and a duck pond. My kids always call it 'the duck place' because there are SO many ducks and the girls love to go there to feed them.

Anyway, this quaint little village is right next to the Aquarium that we love so much. So both the village and the aquarium were having this Festival of Lights the other night. It was free and they had a bazillion lights everywhere and thousands of luminaries lining every walkway. There were also all kinds of musical groups - carolers, children's bands, string quartets, etc ... all spread throughout making beautiful music. Plus of course a couple different Santas - one of which was on stilts!

I will say ... it was wall to wall people! We had a very hard time finding parking and we didn't stay long because it was so crowded and so cold out. But it was still fun and neat to see all the lights and just nice to get out of the house and be festive!

The pictures are terrible, my camera does not take good pictures in bad lighting ... but hopefully you can see a little bit of all the beautiful lights ...





Tradition number 4 ...
THEN, last night we went to our favorite parade all year long. The light parade in a local town here is nothing short of amazing. It's LONG - over an hour! And it's amazing! This isn't your ordinary parade ... no marching bands and politicians and endless amounts of firetrucks. It's tons of gorgeous floats all decorated in lights - in fact the floats are in a contest for the best one. And in between floats are lots of dance troops in great costumes dancing to Christmas music. The whole parade is so much fun, so exciting and so bright with lights. Last night there were two floats that stood out that were just amazing - I couldn't believe we were at our local parade and not some fancy parade like at Disney or somewhere like that!

We went with our friends and the kids had so much fun. Our friends brought along hot cocoa for the kids and of course they got tons of candy which they loved. It was a great evening and is also one of our family traditions - one that I'm sure we will continue for years because it's just so much fun. (And no, I'm sorry but I have no pictures! My friend took some so if I can get them from her I'll post some - otherwise I'm sorry!)

This is what it's all about.

On Tuesday we were all feeling better so we had a fun little family night. We went out to Chili's for dinner, then came home and sat in the living room enjoying the lights from the tree and the glow from the fireplace.

We put on some Christmas music and the girls amused us by dancing around the room and singing the songs out loud. The dog could not be left out of all the merriment and insisted on sitting right next to the tree, in the center of all the action.

Then we put on America's Funniest Home Videos - Christmas Edition and laughed our heads off together at all the funny Christmas antics.

After the girls went to bed I commented to Bob that it was the perfect family evening. Nothing formal or planned ... just fun and merriment and being together. These are the moments I will remember forever.

How cool!

OK, one more post for today! I was just typing in the books we've been opening and reading on our Advent list over to the right ... and could not believe how crazy that we are using two totally different books and yet they are both teaching about The Star tonight!!

What are the chances that it would line up so perfectly like that? I love when God aligns really cool stuff like that to happen!

Little Christmas Moments around our house ...

OK so these are not so much traditions, as in something we do every year ... but rather some fun little happenings around our house in the past few days.

Keep in mind these little moments have happened in the midst of all the sickness that has been going on around here. After all, Christmas doesn't wait for sickness to go away so we'd better make the most of the moments while they're here!

Thursday - the girl scout troop made almost 60 cards for military personell and their families!
The girls then came home with a desire for card making and have been making Christmas cards ever since. Who are they making them for? Everyone they can think of!

Saturday - we made our first Advent wreath with some greens from the yard and some candles from Walmart. The purple candles represent hope, peace & love, the pink represents joy and the white represents Jesus Christ.

Saturday - we made SNOW! ...well, not the real stuff but this really cool non-toxic stuff you mix with water that grows to a huge bowlful of snow! The girls and I had fun sprinkling it all around the decorations that are around the house.
I let the girls use this little houses and figures as their own little area. They were allowed to set them up as they wished and decorate any way they wanted. It looks kind of festive with the snow!

My nativities got some snow too!
Today - the girls and Daddy opened Christmas coloring books (from our book tradition) and spent the afternoon coloring pictures together.

Also, since we've done a lot of laying around with sick bellies this weekend - we watched some great Christmas movies together ... Shrek the Halls & The Polar Express. And we're still reading lots of books from under our tree every night! Yesterday the girls opened a fun book called "365 things to make and do" - filled with lots of crafts and projects - right up their alley!

More fun coming as the month moves on ...

Update

OK the 24 hour bug was a lot more like a 72 hour bug ... so all day Saturday I thought I was feeling better until the middle of the night when J was starting with the stomach bug - which made me get sick all over again!

I was seriously in shock over how I could have felt better one minute and be right back in the throws of it the next! My amazing hubby took care of J so I didn't feel more sick and took care of everything around the house all day.

So today was somewhat of a lost day - with two of us sick we decided it was best to keep our germs contained and no one went to church.

On the bright side ... today was the first beautiful morning that we woke up to SNOW! H (who had no idea what a rough night of sickness and sleeplessness we'd had) came bounding into our room this morning totally dressed from head to toe in her winter wear! "When can we go out and play in it?!" she exclaimed. So even though Bob had pretty much no sleep and cleaned up after two sick people all night he took H out to play in the snow. What an awesome Daddy!

I am slowly feeling better, bit by bit ... and hoping for a good night of sleep tonight. J seems to be a little better too, not throwing up anymore but still somewhat feverish and lethargic. Now we wait to see if the other two get sick ....

Christmas Tradition #3

Our third Christmas tradition is all about Christmas cards, letters or photos. We always like to send something out to all our friends and family. Some years we've written a letter, some years we've sent a card, and we almost always send a photo of our family or of just the girls.

This year we opted to type a Christmas letter and do a photo collage for our picture. We're sending out nearly a hundred letters - we have so many friends and family - especially so many that live far away. We know this doesn't substitute for seeing people in real life, but it's a nice way to catch up at least once a year.

And we also love receiving Christmas cards and photos ... hint, hint!

From sickness to SWEEEEETTTT deals ...

OK, I'm just getting over a nasty 24 hour stomach bug. ICK, hate those things! I won't even go into ANY details as I'm sure you do NOT want to know them!

So, today I was still a bit groggy, achy and sore all over so I went to see the Chiropractor. Just getting all those kinks worked out seems to help me feel a lot better.

On our way home we stopped at this discount store - it's like one of those overstock places (I think in other states they are called BIG LOTS?). Anyway, the girls and I found this awesomely sweet deal on a Hooked on Phonics spanish program! It typically retails for $250, but since HOP has a sale going they've marked it to $99 ... but at this store I got the whole kit for $19.99!!!!!!!!!!!! woohoooooo!

I also saw some really cool gifts for the girls but since they were with my I'll have to go back another day. Gotta love those bargains!
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Christmas Tradition #2

In keeping with our Christmas traditions series I want to share the next thing we do every year. Our next tradition is putting up our Christmas tree and decorating the house. We do have a fake tree, we've had it for about 8 years. We talked about getting a real one this year but decided to save ourselves the money and just use what we had.

We do this sometime around or after Thanksgiving. Some years when we've been away for Thanksgiving we have put it up before but most years we do it the weekend after.

Anyway, usually Bob and the girls put together the tree. It's a long, tedious process where you have to sort through all the different sized branches, figure out where they go on the tree, and then fluff and spread out all the little branch pieces. The girls are fabulous helpers for Daddy.

While they do the tree, I do most of the rest of the house. I have lots of snowmen and way too many Christmas decorations ... so it takes me awhile to get them all situated just right. Of course I forgot to take photos of the finished product - so I'll have to add them to another post. but for now you can see the tree in progress by Daddy and the girls ...

Traditions continued ...

Christmas traditions have begun in our household! As I spoke of in this post
we always open a book a day for the month of December. We missed Dec. 1st because I was so not prepared for December to come so soon, so we started yesterday on the 2nd. We opened two books that day and I've decided we'll start a list on the right side bar. If you are interested in any of the books we post about let me know and I can give you more details. We have some really cool books we're going to open.

The ADVENTure of Christmas is one of my favorites from last year. It's written by Lisa Welchel and it helps children find Jesus in each of our holiday traditions. I loved it last year and I love it again this year! ADOREnaments is a new book to us which goes through 12 different names of Jesus. Immanuuel, Light of the World, The True Vine, etc ... each day you read about a name of Jesus and put the ornament on the tree.

SO keep watching our list and see what we've been reading each day! Hope you are enjoying your own family traditions!

12 Years!

This past Sunday my wonderful husband and I celebrated 12 years of wedded bliss! I'm so thankful for our marriage, I'm thankful for him, and I'm thankful that we've had 12 healthy, happy years together. On Monday we went out to one of my favorite restaurants to celebrate. My Mom was gracious enough to watch the girls for us. It was a perfect evening.

I love you hon!