And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings.

I turned 26 on Friday. Which seems crazy old. I am officially closer to 30 than 20. Although, I still feel pretty young compared to all my loved ones who are turning 30! (holy crap that's old). I had a wonderful birthday weekend.
I started out having lunch with some of my favorite ladies

I love every moment I get to spend with these girls. And to top it off, I got to eat every kind of noodle/rice at the chinese buffet. Great time. 

And then I went to a meeting for conVERGE. Most people would hate to go to a 3 hour meeting on their birthday, but...I love meetings. I really do. Probably because my meetings are for cool things like youth events, instead of budget meetings and the like. And there was coffee. Great time. 

I enjoyed an easy evening, and got to go out to dinner with Lucy and some of my favorite fellows. I married one of them. The rest are still up for grabs. Any takers? (They hate that.) 

I spent most of Saturday listening to those fellows practicing for their show that night. I felt overwhelmed with joy watching this and listening to live Christmas music coming from my basement

Snow. Finally. It's all gone now, but I love it so. And so does my little pink snow bunny. She LOOOVES it. She's desperate for it. I will beg the good Lord every night to send us some for Christmas. 

Saturday night Joe, Kevin and Michael played at the Electric Brew. I love live music. I love it more when my friends are playing it. It was a wonderful evening out.  By the time I went to bed that night, my cup overflowed. 

Today, Sunday, we baked a million cookies at my mom's house. Lucy consumed enough sugar to...well...do permeant damage of some sort I'm sure. And then we came home, cuddle up, and I introduced her to White Christmas. My FAVORITE. 

I felt weepy the whole time. I don't know why. I just really love Christmas maybe. But there is something incredible about sharing traditions with your kid. I loved that she thought the ballerinas were Barbies, and she kept yelling "SING JINGLE BELLS!".  

This is Christmas. Family, a belly full of cookies, great movies, decorations, and Bing Crosby singing "Count Your Blessings".

When I'm worried and I can't sleep

I count my blessings instead of sheep

And I fall asleep counting my blessings

When my bankroll is getting small

I think of when I had none at all

And I fall asleep counting my blessings

I think about a nursery and I picture curly heads

And one by one I count them as they slumber in their beds

If you're worried and you can't sleep

Just count your blessings instead of sheep

And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings

I am so blessed. So many good friends, that make me laugh and fill me with so much joy. A sweet little family in a sweet little house away from the hustle and bustle of life. Oh...and this: 

Who doesn't love a Keurig?! Hello perfect single cup of coffee when ever I want it. 

Note: I do know that Christmas isn't about cookies and Bing Crosby...although....no, no it's not. I actually have a post in the works about the true meaning, so keep a look out. I'm not a heathen. 

Polar Express Day at School

Jeff's school had a "Polar Express Reading Night". They had cookies, and pictures with Santa, and you wore your PJ's, and a "Conductor" read the story. It was really cute. And we took Lucy. I'll have to scan in the awesomely bad Polaroid picture we got with Santa.

We boarded a "train" to listen to the story:

It looks like she is listening so well. Lies. She was a crazy women.

I knew she was going to be going to school, and looking so grown up sitting in the seats, and playing with the kids...so I put her in pigtails and feety pajamas. CHILDHOOD FOREVER!

She listened for...5 seconds maybe? Then she ran away...

To read books: (she's such a rebel)

Then we went to visit Daddy's room:
And Lucy played with Daddy's tangrams.
And then she fell and bumped her head and made the saddest face ever:

You're welcome for the overly detailed post about my night!

Making Memories

I decided this month I would blog about the things we are doing to celebrate Christmas. It will help me remember this short precious time, and give me motivation to find new interesting things to do, and take pictures! I'll start with our new countdown tradition.

One of my favorite things as a kid was getting those cardboard advent calendars that had chocolate inside. Of us 3 kids, we took turns getting the chocolate each day. I loved it because my birthday was in December, so we always worked it out so I got the candy on my birthday. Jeff and I bought a wooden "advent calendar" that we fill with candy. We always make sure the other one gets it on their birthday. And Lucy really loves it too, but I thought I'd do something a little different too this year.

I actually go the idea from Pinterest. (If you are not on this, get on it, get obsessed. It's worse than Facebook) We found a Christmas/Winter book for each day until Christmas and wrapped it up, and put it under the tree.

(Actually, I got bored of wrapping, so I've only done 1/2...I'm kinda lazy)

And each night, Lucy gets on her PJ's, brushes her teeth and then she finds the day's date (She's actually got it right a few times...she's a genius), and opens the present. Then we take it in her bedroom and read it before bed. She loves it.

This is so easy to do as a Teacher's kid. She has so many books. I didn't buy a single one, I just pulled them from her shelves. Some are about winter, some about Santa, some about the REAL Christmas story. She loves it. It's nice to have a tradition. And I feel like it's teaching her to open one present and be thankful for it, to learn restraint by not opening them during the day. Although maybe I'm just teaching her to expect a present every night...

Day Thirty: 3 wonderful things that happened this month.

#1. Uncle Brent comes to visit

My baby brother got to come visit for Thanksgiving. And Lucy loves him. As a parent, you are always afraid how your kid will react to someone. I still remember the crazy month or so when Stella was scared of Joe who has been on of her favorite people since she was tiny:

And while I'm sure it broke Joe's heart, I remember Carrie feeling terrible that she couldn't make Stella love him. I was worried about this when Brent came. He'd been gone for a while, but the moment she saw him, she fell in love with him all over again (this happens a lot with Brent and women.) She pulled him around, shared her cookie bears, and taught him all about Strawberry Shortcake. It was a wonderful time. Christmas won't be the same without him, but we'll manage.

#2 Family "Tea" Party
Some of my most favorite moments in life are the unplanned ones. And even better if they include chocolate. We decorated for Christmas earlier than normal this year, and in the midst of it, we stopped and had a family "tea" party with hot chocolate and cookies. Lucy loved it. And it was a wonderful little family bonding moment. Although I mostly took pictures. Ha.

#3 KP Thanksgiving

I wish I had a picture for this. I went out the Sunday after Thanksgiving to help with a dinner Carrie was cooking for the neighborhood. I'll come to anything Carrie cooks at, but I was excited to be able to get to know the neighborhood more. I loved it. The dinner was fantastic, but my favorite was all the in betweens. Sitting and chatting with Carrie, drinking coffee and eating pie while David works, laughing with Stella, watching Devin try to play basketball in the little entry way. It was wonderful. And then we went to a late night movie. The Help. I cried like a fool. It was a fantastic day.

And so concludes my 30 days hath November blogging expedition. It was fun to (sometimes) blog everyday. It made me think, and take pictures, and share my life with my friends and strangers. I loved it. Now what to do for December? I've got some ideas up my sleeve! Stay tuned!

Day Twenty Nine: Some place I'd like to visit

I've never been. I want to go so bad. I want to take Lucy. I want her to get excited about meeting Princesses. I want to kiss Aladdin. (They allow that right?) I want to wear Mickey Ears the whole time. I want to swim with the Little Mermaid. I want to eat overpriced food, and buy overpriced souvenirs, and stay in Cinderella's castle. This will happen. Someday.

Day Twenty Eight: A skill I'd like to learn

I want to do this so bad. The first step is getting something besides a pocket digital camera. Unfortunately, a good camera isn't cheap. Someday.

I don't want to be crazy. I'm not going to take pictures like this:

Mostly because I'm pretty sure you can't learn to do cool things like that from Google. And you probably need some sort of natural talent, which I'm sure I don't have.
I just want to be able to take pictures like this:

And this:

Sigh. Someday.

(Thank You Joe Baughman for all these great pictures. I want to be you.)

Day Twenty Seven: Myself, a year ago.

This is the closest picture I could get to one year ago:

Look how weird and babyish Lucy looks?! Crazy what a year can do. This was September last year. But this is what I was doing exactly one year ago today (or the 27th...which is when this post was SUPPOSED to be written)

Man...I haven't played solitaire in a while...guess I know what I'll be doing the rest of today!