Advent Calendar (December 24, 2010)

Day 24 - Christmas Eve

It is a tradition with my family that every Christmas Eve we have "Snacky Meal." Snacky meal is just what you would imagine it would be - small appetizer foods in a casual setting. This year we headed over to Eric and Syndey's house. We had all kinds of things - little quiche, spanakopita, dried fruit tray, pepper jelly with cream cheese, little smokies, some other stuff I can't remember and lots of desserts. While there we also took family pictures courtesy of my brother-in-law, Ben who takes great pictures. It was quite the adventure to get everyone positioned in the right spot so that we all looked our skinniest while contending with 3 children the smallest of which was cranky (whose kid is that?). All in all the pictures turned out great and I even got to throw in some of my smooooth dance moves. Oh yeah baby!

**Update: Because this is my blog and I can ... I am going to add in a separate post for our family pictures ... and one for out-takes from family pictures ... and one for a couple of things that happened while in Florida ... and ... well, that should be all the "extra" posts.**

This is probably one of the weirdest pictures I have seen. Eric and Chris look like ghosts - weird!

Happy New Year!

2010 came and went just about as fast as it does on a spedometer! It flew by! Last year Elianna was just a new baby who was finally sleeping through the night. This year she is a one year old who decided last night that sleeping through the night is no fun. Last year I left the youth group New Year's Eve party a little early but stayed up until midnight. This year I am in Florida and am contemplating going to bed at 9:3o pm.

I don't do resolutions mainly because I don't keep them. Therefore if I don't make them, I don't have to worry about not keeping them. There are many things though that I would like to do better next year - have more courage to do things for God, be a more loving Godly wife, a gentler time-spending mother, an encourager, a better listener, and get more organized. I was also thinking this morning about a verse for the new year, but while I flipped through the Psalms a phrase kept catching my eye "His steadfast love endures forever". No matter what this new year brings I can rest assured that God loves me in the midst of the best of circumstances AND in the middle of a rough and tough situation.

"Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever!"

Advent Calendar (December 22-23, 2010)

Days 22-23 - Family Time

Because we moved our travel day up, our Advent Calendar got a little mixed up and a little undone. However, it was well worth it to watch Elianna interact with her cousins. C and K, my sister's kids, were so good with her! They made sure to tell her exactly what was going on and how to do things all the while making sure she didn't fall or catapult off the stairs.

We were also able to spend some time with Chris' mom and sister.

Advent Calendar (December 21, 2010)

Day 21 - Travel to Papa and Grammy's House

Originally this day was scheduled for Day 23 and then it moved up to Day 22 and slowly it found itself residing in Day 21. After we got home from NYC, we were exhausted and I still had to pack so we could leave bright and early the next morning. The plan was to drive the 19+ hours straight to Florida. We were going to keep Elianna awake during the day so she could sleep the last many many hours and arrive in a semi-good mood. Oh boy how plans change! Elianna is teething which results in a less than happy little girl. This combined with 2 parents exhausted from normal Christmas activities and an enjoyable day spent in NYC the day before .... well, you can imagine what gear we were working in.

I went upstairs to pack and Chris went downstairs to map out the route we were taking. After a bit, he called up and asked me to come downstairs. Mumbling a bit internally from being taken away from the packing, I headed downstairs to not so happily check out the route he had chosen for us to drive those many many hours. However, he won the Husband of the Year Award when he told me he had found tickets through Southwest for $99 and what did I think. What did I think?!? I didn't even have to think. Faster than Rudolph can get the sleigh packed, I was on that computer booking those tickets. I must grumble a little at Southwest though. When looking at the tickets, they were $99 each way. Since I was staying in Florida longer than Chris, we had to book the tickets separately. Chris' tickets - bought no problem. When I went back onto Southwest to buy my tickets, they upped the price on me! Can you believe it?! I wasn't brilliant enough at the time to hop onto another computer and buy them because I was panicking! There was no way Chris was flying and Elianna and I were not going to be with him! So technically Chris is the only one who got a good deal on a ticket.

May I just say that I am super duper thankful that we flew instead of driving! After much last minute planning combined with frantic packing, it was decided that we would fly into New Orleans and Chris' mom would pick us up and drive us back over to Pensacola.

Elianna did well on the flights down. I suppose she is getting used to it by now. We did have a bit of a melt down around nap time, but that is to be expected when you are awakened at 4:30 am to drive to the airport.