All my parents grandkiddos in their matching (well almost) jammies!!!
My parents and their grandkiddos in front of their Christmas tree!!!
My entire family, parents, brothers, sister-in-law and niece!
of Livingstons!!! Well, He cried when He was hungry,
Did all the things that babies do;
He rocked and He napped on His mother's lap,
And He wiggled and giggled and cooed.
There were the cheers when He took His first step,
And the tears when He got His first teeth;
Almost everything about this little baby
Seemed as natural as it could be.
CHORUS
But this baby made the angels sing,
And this baby made a new star shine in the sky.
This baby had come to change the world.
This baby was God's own son, this baby was like no other one.
This baby was God with us, this baby was Jesus.
And this baby grew into a young boy,
Who learned to read and write and wrestle with dad;
There was the climbin' of trees and the scrapin' of knees,
And all the fun that a boy's born to have.
He grew taller and some things started changing,
Like His complexion and the sound of His voice;
There was work to be done as a carpenter's son
And all the neighbors said He's such a fine boy.
But this boy made the angels sing,
And this boy made a new star shine in the sky.
This boy had come to change the world.
This boy was God's own son, this boy was like no other one.
This boy was God with us.
This boy became a man,
And love made Him laugh and death made Him cry.
With the life that He lived and the death that He died,
He showed us heaven with His hands and His heart,
'Cause this man was God's own son.
This man was like no other one,
Holy and human right from the start.
CHORUS
This baby was God with us, this baby,
this baby was Jesus;
this baby was Jesus, this baby was Jesus
We sang this song many times in preparation for the production(the girls had a CD to practice with). After having our son Jack earlier this year it really hit me, the magnitude of God's precious gift of His Son, His one and only Son...just like Jack is our one and only son. Realizing God sent His Son as a helpless baby (picture Jack as a newborn) as Savior of the world, WOW what a responsibility and how scary for Mary & Joseph, teenagers! Just like the song says, he experienced all the things that babies do....I think back when Jack smiled for the first time, when he rolled over, laughed, got his first tooth and started sitting up! When he learned how to crawl, stood up and started walking along the furniture! How exciting were all these milestones in his life and to think Jesus, Savior of the World did all these same things and with his parents by his side!
Many of us would say when we think of Christmas it's not all about the presents, it's really ALL about Jesus, it's His birthday we celebrate after all! But are our actions and attitude really and truly that? A celebration of His life, what He has done for us? It's so easy to think of Jesus and "the story of Christmas" and "the nativity scene" as just that, stories, but these weren't just stories, they are facts, history, they really happened!!! How awesome that we have a book, the bible, to read all about Jesus and the life He lived, like an instruction manual for us!
We have struggled since Emma was born about Christmas, just what to do in general. What traditions we wanted to share with her (and later the other kiddos) from our childhoods, new ones and what we really wanted her to know about why we celebrate Christmas and the most important gift we could ever receive, Jesus!
I don't know where you are at financially, if you have a job or are jobless, your social status, if you are married, single or divorced, but God knows you. He formed you in your mothers womb. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He knows your heart. He loved you and sent His one and only Son to earth as a helpless baby to grow up and live a sinless life, He was mocked and ridiculed and crucified all so that YOU could live for eternity in Heaven with Him.
So what is Christmas REALLY about to you? What do you and your family celebrate on Christmas? What are you telling the world through your actions and attitude during this Christmas season?
This month at Sweet Sisters we had a white elephant mug swap! In years past we've done purses and ornaments! Since our move a some months ago, I had gone through and gotten rid of all my mugs that didn't match my dishes, I couldn't give one of those away! So I headed to the goodwill and bought a mug for the mug swap for $.50 (it was a great mug that a lot of ladies wanted too :)
Before the night was over I had had a few mugs, but was super excited to take home my Mary Kay mug :) Isn't it such a great mug? And the box it was wrapped in was just as pretty!!!
Here's sad Anna with her lone shoe (these were her favorites even though they were hand-me-downs from Emma)...
Each of my kiddos (actually Jody & I too) has one pair of "play" tennis shoes and one pair of "good" tennis shoes. On Thanksgiving we went to my Aunt & Uncles house, they have acres upon acres of land so I always pack their "play" shoes. One of my Aunt & Uncles puppies "borrowed" one of Anna's tennis shoes and she was some kind of upset!
My Mom & Dad found these....
for a great deal on Black Friday so here's Happy Anna with her new shoes!!! She kept asking me to take pictures to show everybody :)
Thanks Papa & Wanka for making Anna's day :)
I put all the names in a bag...
And had Anna pull out a name....
And the winner is.....
Michaella Johnson
Durham, NC
Michaella I'll get your $10 Target gift card out to you tomorrow in the mail!!!
I had several people tell me they were unable to login and leave a comment, sorry for the technical issues :(
Thanks for reading and lemme me hear from ya more often!!!
Do you ever have those days when you think your family and kiddos are kinda weird??? Today was that day for me....crazy kiddos :) Yes those are panties on her head, I came into the room and found her reading a book with panties on her head (clean of course)!!!
My dad's side of the family is large and a lot of them live here in NC, so we always have a lot of people at holidays, birthday parties, general family get-togethers...But this year for Thanksgiving I believe we've topped it, we had 36 people! Yes all in one house and no, not mine!
Here are some more random pictuires taken by myself, not the best photographer in our family...
We hadn't seen them in about 3 years, so it was a treat!
not too much of a mess and they sure had fun creating then eating their creations!!!
