Happy Birthday, Jesus!

This Christmas season has come and gone very quickly.  We were surprised to still be living in the Atlanta area, but very thankful!  It looks like we may be living somewhere else by next Christmas, but it's hard to know for sure!  We did a photo shoot with our photographer, Summer Adams, to use for Christmas gifts.  Here are some of the shots:

Zeke and I planned to spend a week at Wynna and Granddaddy's, but Gregg's travel schedule changed and my mom got an awful cold, so we came later in the week.  We still had a wonderful time with "Nynna" and "Papa."  I got to go see my friend Dena's new baby, visit with Ellen and Teresa, and go to the annual Atlanta Athletic Club Christmas dinner (Gregg had to work, though, which was disappointing).



Heading to the AAC dinner

 

At the "Build-a-Moose" station!



Zeke and his moose

 

Keeping his eyes on the robot



Wynna was protecting him from the robot...ha!

He loved the "balls" (ornaments) on the tree

 

Real reindeer!



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Christmas Eve we got to visit with my friend Kristen who was visiting from NYC, then we headed off to Perimeter Church for their Christmas Eve service...always a blessing!  Zeke went to the nursery with Wynna, then we all went to dinner at Di Paolo's.  Yummy!  After Zeke was in bed, my dad and Gregg put together the kids Little Tykes toys.  It took longer than expected, which made us appreciate their efforts even more!

 

Ready for bed in his flannel pjs!



Trying to get one more family shot, but Zeke was over it!



The guys "working!"

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On Christmas day, Jared, Jami, Kariss, and Sophia came over to my parents' house so we could all celebrate together.  We had a wonderful meal prepared by my mom and opened gifts.  The kids had fun playing with their new toys (and so did Jared as you'll see below)!  Haha!

Happy Birthday, Jesus...it's Christmas day!

 

We couldn't get a good one of all three kiddos, but this is pretty cute!

 

Heehee!

 

Sohpia's new scooter!




Kariss' new big wheel

Zeke's new truck (just like Daddy's!)





Jared having fun on Kariss' big wheel...haha!

 

Playing in the garage because of the rain



Sophia driving the truck!

 

Helping clean up after a long, fun day!



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Gregg and I have prayed and talked a lot about how to "do" Santa next year.  We don't feel comfortable with the traditional way of doing it, although we totally respect parents who make that choice.  We both feel uncomfortable telling him something is real when it's not.  We never want him to wonder if Jesus is real because we have told him Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc. are.  It may seem ridiculous to some people, but that is the good thing about parenting...we follow God's lead for OUR family, while others do the same! 

My friend Amberly gave me some good ideas about how to still include Santa.  We will still "do" Santa, but Zeke will be told that it is pretend.  We will take him to get his picture with Santa if he wants to go, and just "play" Santa each year.  The focus will be on celebrating Jesus' birthday.  We will sing "Happy Birthday" to Him and have a cake.  We will give each other gifts to celebrate Jesus.  We will also focus on reaching out to our neighborhood and community.  I'll have to let you know how it all goes next year, but that is the plan for now.  I'm thankful Gregg and I are able to pray about these things and make decisions together about what is best for our child (and future children).  We certainly don't have all the answers, but our hearts desire to glorify God. 

1 Corinthians 10:31 ~ "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

Well, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas celebrating our Lord's debut on this earth as a tiny baby.  What an amazing way to save the world!

Thankfulness

It is hard to believe I haven't written since before Thanksgiving when I posted our Halloween photos.  It is now 15 days until Christmas!  Since I wrote last, we took a family trip to Asheville, NC to stay at the Grove Park Inn and see the Biltmore House.  We stopped in Young Harris, GA on the way there to visit with Gregg's Uncle Raymond and Aunt Sybil.  Raymond ended up having to work, but we had a great time with Sybil.  Zeke adored her as you'll see below.  We found out that Sybil is undergoing treatment for cancer, so please join us in praying for her complete healing.

This is what we saw as we drove up to The Grove Park Inn, except A LOT more cars!  It was like a parking lot.  We found my mom, though, and were able to get checked in to our rooms.  George H.W. Bush had stayed in one of our rooms when he was Vice-President, which, as you all know, was very fitting! 





 (I was 6-years old and Gregg was 15 when Bush stayed there...heehee!),

The kids made themselves right at home, and as you see, used Wynna as a jumping gym!  We made great memories together even though it was challenging to have 3 little ones under the age of 4 in such a small space.  Everyone pitched in to help entertain (and wrangle) them!



On Thanksgiving day, we had lunch at the grand ballroom, which was HUGE!  I cannot explain to you how many people were at the hotel during our stay.  It is one of their busiest times of the year.  They have a huge ginger bread house competition, which brings people from all over the country.  Gregg kept trying to guess how many people he thought were there.  Every time he threw out a number, it would get larger! 

We couldn't believe it, but out of all of those people we ran into The Faulk family, who are related to Gregg in a roundabout way (it's too confusing to explain).  Anyway, they came to our wedding and have come to visit us once to meet Zeke.  We couldn't believe we ran into them not once, but three times, one of which was at The Biltmore House.  I'm so sad I didn't take a picture of them.

After lunch, we took the kids to go swimming, which I thought Zeke would love, but I was WRONG.  He screamed and cried and didn't want to do any of his Infant Swimming Resource "tricks."  I took him out quickly since everyone was staring at my hysterical child.  Good thing we'll do refresher lessons with our ISR instructor this spring!



Just some of the ginger bread houses



Yep, that's ginger bread!



Camo turkey for Dada!



Kariss decided she needed to rest after walking a long distance before lunch!



Watching Granddaddy hairspray his hair!

 

Happy to be out of the pool!

We got to go see the Biltmore House (Gregg's first time seeing it), but Gregg had a different reaction than I expected.  He felt like it was too extravagant, and was bothered by his feeling that Mr. Vanderbilt had poorly used his wealth in regards to bringing glory to God.  I always thought it was extravagant, but I hadn't gotten that "deep" about it.  That's one of the things I love about Gregg...he always keeps me thinking!



View from one of the decks at the Biltmore

 

The kiddos as we were packing to go home on Sunday morning


So...even though we won't do another hotel trip until the kids are older, it was fun to be together.  I know we'll look back on these pictures and remember the good things, not the loud neighbors above us who kept us up late into the night (well, I guess we will remember that since I'm writing it here!). 

Overall, it was a great trip and we are thankful to be able to spend another holiday with family while living near them.  Only God knows where we'll be next year, but we are looking forward to seeing His plan revealed!  Happy Thanksgiving!!!



22 Month Video

I thought you all might enjoy seeing the boy in action!  I apologize for the shaky camera work, but I was holding it with my left hand while holding the milk jug in my right!  Also, if you are watching the video on the actual blog, you can scroll down to the bottom and pause the music that is playing so you can hear Zeke talking.  Enjoy!

Mommy's Little Helper

The past several weeks have been packed full, but I promised I would give you all an update on what Zeke has been doing lately.  We decided to take him trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, really just to have a chance to dress him in his gator costume one more time!  We've gone back and forth about whether or not to "do" Halloween because we want to glorify the Lord in all that we do.  The roots of Halloween do not seem to be glorifying to Him, so we've prayed about what to do about it.  At this point, we're planning on avoiding any evil type of decorations and focus on pumpkins for the house.  We'll allow Zeke to dress up in costumes that aren't scary and we'll use it as an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors.  Gregg even had the idea of coming up with some sort of cute poem or something that would point people to the Lord to hand out with our candy.  We'll also give Zeke the option to turn in his candy to "The Great Pumpkin" in exchange for a special toy.  The more I learn about industrialized food, the less I want my family to eat anything that is not made by me!  I know that is a lofty goal, but women did it in the past and I feel like it is my responsibility as a homemaker to take care of my family's nutritional needs.  Wow...that was a lot more than I planned on writing about that!  Now for the baby gator pictures...

Zeke continues to be a happy, busy little man.  He has become Mommy's little helper.  He loves to help me with tasks and he follows directions very well for a 22-month old.  He enjoys helping me unload the dishwasher (we did have one bowl break!), clean up his toys, put things in the trash and/or recycling (he puts it where we tell him to), put clothes in the hamper, help feed Browning, and help me when I'm changing sheets by handing me things.  He is not speaking in sentences yet, but he continues to add new words.  He's especially interested in naming or pointing to body parts.  He adoringly says, "Nynna," referring to my mom, which melts her heart!  He has added "Baa-er Poo" for Dadder Poo, who is Gregg's dad.  It's so cute.  I honestly haven't weighed him or measured him in a while, but he is getting bigger, for sure, wearing size 2T and a size 7 shoe.  He constantly makes us laugh with his little sounds and "conversations" he appears to have with inflection in his voice.  Gregg and Zeke spent 4 days together alone when I went to serve on "A Walk to Emmaus" women's retreat.  Gregg did a great job as "Mr. Mom," and I was so grateful.  The house was clean, Zeke was clean and well fed, and they actually had a great time.  I know he was ready for me to be home and I was ready to be home too.  I missed them both tremendously, but it was amazing to see God work in the lives of the 36 women on the retreat as well as the team.  I was blessed by serving, to say the least.

It is hard to believe that we are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving next week.  I will be sure to post pictures of our time together with my family.

I hope everyone has a blessed Thanksgiving!