A special day

Sunday we got to stand together as a family and have our precious Mae baptized. What an amazing reminder of God's gift of salvation for us. We pray that as Mae grows, the Holy Spirit will work in her heart to draw her to Himself. How awesome His covenant with us!

I don't think she could be any more precious!

I still can't believe I didn't get a picture of our whole family [and the extended family that came to be a part of the celebration!]. There were flowers and a cake and a yummy lunch that we all got to enjoy and I just found myself enjoying the moments rather than snapping pictures!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

'Tis the season

One of the things we've enjoyed doing most years is decorating gingerbread houses. It's taken on various forms, but it's always a fun activity for the kids. This year, we got together with the moms from my discipleship group and let the kids decorate graham cracker houses. They had a ball!

Mae hung out for a little while and then napped while the big kids decorated. I love this picture of her with Ella...those eyes are awesome!

Side note: Instead of using icing to assemble the houses, I highly recommend hot glue. It sets super fast and is much stronger. It's also a good idea to glue it to the plate...save yourself from the "my house is falling apart drama!!"

We even brought home an extra house for Bo to work on after school. That way no one felt left out :)

All Smiles, sort of

Mae has been smiling for a while now, but she hasn't been all that cooperative when I get the camera out. She'll smile at the ceiling fan, but girl is definitely camera shy.

Take 1

Take 2

Getting there...

Take 3

Close...

Closer...

And here's the money shot!

How is she so big already?!?!

The Nutcracker

I love ballet. I danced for ten years and still remember how much I loved the feeling of my ballet shoes and those fabulous tutus. I have never pushed Ella to do ballet, but I love it that she genuinely enjoys dancing. For the last ballet class of her fall semester, her class performed a portion of a dance from The Nutcracker. She was beside herself with excitement and showed us the dance multiple times at home. It is awesome.

This may be one of my favorite pictures of her. ever. I love that little pointed toe and her hands on her hips. So adorable.

Can you tell she was proud of herself when it was over?

An after show shot with one of her fans :)

To say I am excited about her spring recital is an understatement.

Bring on the tutu!

Houston, we have a Christmas tree!

Our plans to cut down on our tree this year got trumped by a morning trip to Lowe's to scour the cinderblock rows for a perfect tree. It was just too much to attempt a day trip with all these little ones and a newborn. Next year, we are busting out the saw and heading out to a giant field full of luscious pines.

Lowe's has it's own holiday charm, right?

Stop #1: The tree stand section

Making sure we get just the right one...

Stop #2: the tree section

Sadie got a little sidetracked by the cement bulldogs. She touched each one to see if they were possibly real.

How about this one?

We found it!

This was my attempt at getting a shot of [most of] the group with the tree. Don't they look excited? I think I was saying something along the lines of, "you will stand there next to your dad with the tree and look at me and smile. This is supposed to be fun!"

Yeah, that didn't so much happen.

Stop #3: checkout

The trimming was a little loud for Jack.

Even Sadie was trying to figure out what was going on!

One of the employees handed Ella some flowers as we got in the car and she was so excited about it.

Jack was not as excited about it.

Poor Sadie was caught in the middle.

By the time J managed to get the tree tied to the top of the car, three of the five kids were crying. I stopped taking pictures at that point :)

It was an all day affair by the time we got everything [and everyone] home and the lights and ornaments made it on the tree!

I love having the tree up though. It's so fun to drive in the driveway and see the lights twinkling through the window!

Snacktime...

These pictures are from weeks ago, but they were too cute not to get posted. We had the kids outside for some attempts at a family photo shoot. When taking pictures of small children, always start with a snack :)

Mae enjoyed her snack inside and then came out to be with the rest of the crew.

This picture seems almost unreal to me...can't believe these precious gifts are mine!