12-31-13: Christmas Recap 2013

Christmas was nice this year. Truly, I think having little ones just adds so much spice to everything! I just loved having the time to spend with the girls and Andy--and as an added bonus, his grandparents got to visit this week also, which was nice.

As a recap, we continued our tradition of everyone getting one new ornament to signify something special about the year--here's what we got:

Andy: guitar.

Not only did he finally get that Taylor acoustic he's been wanting forever, but he also got the chance to lead worship in a lot of different settings this year--youth choir tour, normal worship services at Bethel, the band led worship at kids camp, etc. He is a busy, talented guy!

(As an aside, I really wanted to find some kind of ornament to represent healing/glory to God, but everything was kind of morbid. Honestly there is nothing more major that happened in our whole family's life this year than his not having cancer---I am SO grateful and thankful to God and I doubt I will ever stop being awed at how he moved in our lives. Wish I could have found a non-morbid way to memorialize that on the tree.....)

Juliana: baby doll 2013.

My little girl is a born mommy! She LOVES baby dolls! Will carry them around, light up at seeing them and even kiss them! This was the only ornament I found with a baby on it. So glad that she is a part of our little family this year!

Anna Claire: Cinderella.

It's been a Cinderella kind of year! Anna Claire is a princess through and through! She loves dresses and dress up and to be pretty! She loves Cinderella but as the year progressed she also started liking the Little Mermaid very well also--never more than second place though! I got her a Cinderella ornament that I thought would be sturdy enough for her to play with....WRONG!  Notice in the first picture that she has a superglued neck and superglued torso and no arms at all.  Poor Cinderella....

So the second ornament is the "keeping" ornament that goes up high on the tree!

Rhonda: pregnancy.

Biggest thing for me this year is our precious surprise baby Eliza Joy! I feel miserably pregnant at this point but we are so excited nonetheless!

And of course, our annual family picture ornament:

Anna Claire got crafty this year and here are some of the ornaments that she got to help make at church, Sunday School and mothers morning out:

Mom bought us this cute family snowmen ornament at the Christmas Made in the South craft show:

And I got this painted/decoupage (not really sure which) Ostrich Egg of the three Wise Men.

And this Goofy ornament for Anna Claire since she really likes him right now....

And lastly, our Christmas card:

This was a special gift for Andy this year - I took some of his worn out tee shirts and sent them to Granny and Aunt Carol and they made them into a quilt for me!  I just love how it turned out!  He was so surprised that I even had kept many of them - we have blocks representing everything from high school marching band to Cowarts Baptist and on to many of his adventures at Bethel!  Neat memories!

My favorite gift was my Origami Owl locket that Andy picked out all by himself - SOOOOO special!
I'm still working hard at my Jesse Tree ornaments--I'm hoping to have them complete by springtime!