Merry Christmas!

Fun in the Sun

Welcome back old friend

It's a miracle of all Christmas miracles. The SUN is actually shining in Nashville. It is streaming in my window as I type. I actually put my sunglasses on when I was driving home this morning. It has been at least a week, and probably more, since we've seen sun around here and I've missed it. Don't get me wrong, I love a good cloudy day, but not 7 straight days in a row. Granted, the sun is shining, but every once in awhile we get a little shower of rain.

Here's the best part about the sun peeking through the clouds.

This morning, the boys and I were sitting at the table eating breakfast. I had just opened the curtains and saw that it was raining again. I told the boys I was so sick of the rain and wished that the sun would come out. I hear Sam mumbling something, then he looks at me and says "Mommy, I just prayed that Jesus would make the sun shine today".

Skip to later...we walk out of his school after his Christmas party and the sun is shining brightly! We all got really excited, started yelling and got some interesting looks.

I looked at Sam and said "do you know what this means?"

He replies, "God answered my prayer!" with the sweetest smile on his face.

Thank you Lord for the sweet gift of answered prayer for my baby, for revealing Yourself to him in such a real way, and, for the gift of sunshine, for a couple of hours today.

It's hard, being little.

I asked Gabe the other day why he didn't want to go outside and play with his neighborhood friends. This was his response...

"Because they all think I'm little, and that makes them hug me".

Poor thing.

Christmas Traditions

Everyone has been blogging and talking about favorite Christmas traditions. I thought I'd throw in two of my newest favorite traditions.

My friend Christy gave us What God Wants for Christmas last year, so we are just using it for the first time this year. It is so sweet and really emphasizes the TRUE meaning of Christmas. It is very kid friendly, the boys love it, they ask a few times a day when we can open the next box. Follow the link to read about it and then buy it, you won't regret it.

Another is Elf on the Shelf, I've noticed that a lot of people are doing this one too. Sam's class at school has their own elf, Goldie, so he has been asking when our elf, Buddy (from the movie Elf, of course), would come back to our house. He made his appearance this morning in the Christmas Tree (pictured above). I'm not really big on telling the kids that they have to be good in order to get Christmas presents, but the thought of Buddy going to see Santa every night to report in on how Sam and Gabe are doing is so magical to them, we'll keep doing it as long as they like it. Buddy is supposed to hide somewhere new each morning, so hopefully, Neal and I will remember to move him! It comes with a book that tells the Elf's story and gives the kids an opportunity to name their elf. Very cute and fun.

It really snowed!

This is the view we woke up to on Friday morning...

Then, of course, we got all bundled up and headed out to play in the snow.

We got enough snow that the schools called in an official snow day on Friday. The boys have been having a blast the past two days, getting in as much time with the snow as they can. I love this time of year!

10.5 months

The littlest Watson and his newest thing...
He's been doing this for a few weeks, but I've been pretending that it hasn't been happening.
There is no ignoring it now.
Sorry for the poor video quality.