Christmas Decorating

The day after Thanksgiving is when we decorate for Christmas! This is my favorite time of year! Even as a little girl, I loved decorating the tree and setting up all our different nativity scenes.

This year, Lexi was old enough to help decorate, and she absolutely loved it! I think her favorite part was hanging ornaments on the tree 🎄 She kept saying "daddy, TREE!!!" and "oooo, pretty daddy!!" Can you tell she's a daddy's girl?! 😉💗

She also helped me set up our little Christmas village! Right now, we have just a few pieces, but would love to keep expanding it every year!

This year, I am doing Elf on the Shelf for her! We let her hold him while we finished decorating-she loved this!

I am excited to think of different creative ways to hide Elfie every morning for her to find! (I will post later about all the fun places she found Elfie hanging out)  So far, she absolutely loves it!!

As our girls get older, I am sure they will enjoy this time even more! But, I think they had a great time, and Addison really was in a good mood for it too! I think they both loved the Christmas music that was playing while we decorated! 😉

We are excited to spend this Christmas season making some new memories and traditions with our girls! 🎄

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day was spent with Matthew's parents! We would love to have Thanksgiving day to ourselves, but it has honestly been so nice spending it with family, because then I do not have to juggle two children and cooking the turkey, which honestly scares me to death!😨 I know not everyone has that option, so I am so thankful that we do, and that God has placed us here!

Every year I bake an apple pie for Matthew, which is his favorite. This year, I also baked a pecan pie for the first time. I was nervous, but I think it turned out pretty decent!

Addison is actually becoming a little gem when it comes to taking morning naps in her crib-something Lexi only would do in the swing or on the couch! So while Addison napped in her crib and Matthew had Lexi, I was able to peel all the apples and get most of the "time-consuming" stuff done and out of the way!

One reason  I enjoy baking a few things during the holidays is because I get to use my grandmother's kitchen aid! I get to bake and enjoy fun memories at the same time! I am so blessed to have it 😊

Matthew actually helped me with the rest of the pies while Lexi took a nap and I fed Addison. I love it when we are able to do things like this together!

The finished products! They were absolutely delicious! 😋😋😋

Since Thanksgiving is a time of giving thanks, I wanted to publicly share just a few of the things I am thankful for this year!

1. I am thankful for a husband who works hard to provide for his family. Working in Christian education does not bring in massive amounts of money, its true, but the rewards we do gain are priceless. Everyday Matthew is impacting a child's life. He is pointing them to Christ and doing his best to further their education so they, in return, can have an impact on others. I would not change this for the world! It has actually been eye-opening for me to see how much God has provided for us, and continues to do so uniquely and unexpectedly.
2. I am thankful for two beautiful, healthy daughters! It has been a tough year with all of Lexi's hospital stays and health problems, and then finding out we were expecting another baby. I am so thankful that Lexi's tests came back showing no signs of reflux-so the procedure she had done back in March seems to be working. I am also thankful for Addison, though she was unplanned, she is a blessing! We've had a rough start for sure, as she was colicky and constantly car sick (or motion sick), she is now settling into a groove, and she is trying so hard to keep up with her big sister!! She has taught me much about patience and unconditional love!
3. I am thankful for those who have sacrificed their time to help our family.
4. I am thankful for a church full of Christ loving people who are always ready to devote their prayers and time to those in need.
5. I am thankful for the God-honoring friends we have been blessed with!

We hope y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we would challenge you to be thankful year-round, not just the month of November!

Addison's Baby Dedication

Addison's baby dedication was this Sunday, so Audrey and Maw-Maw made the trip to visit us! 😆 Lexi loves it when her Audrey comes to visit her, and we do too, because that means we get a lexi break 😉

Audrey with Lexi and Addison

Audrey and Maw-Maw with Lexi and Addison

Maw-Maw with Lexi and Addison

It is always a short visit when they come, but I am always so happy when they can make the trip, especially near the holidays! This time was extra special to me as they were able to see us make a stand publicly that we want to raise our children in a Godly manner. This is not something Matthew and I take lightly. When both our girls were born, we took a few moments to ourselves to pray for grace and wisdom, and we put their lives in God's hands. We know parenting isn't always easy, and because God has gifted us with these children, we want to do our best to raise them to love the Lord. We never want to stop praying for them to love the Lord! 

Here are some pictures taken during the baby dedication!

Thank you for those who have prayed for us and our family! Please, continuing praying for us as we raise our children to love God and His word! 

Random pictures! 💗

 

Chick-Fil-A Family Night

It is really important to me that we spend time as a family doing things that Lexi would enjoy. It is hard for me during the day to spend time with Lexi during the day because Addison needs so much more attention than she did at that age. Having two children under two years old is definitely stretching and growing me in so many ways.

It is so hard to try and find family friendly events to attend that do not cost a lot of money. A couple years ago, a Chick-fil-a opened right around the corner from our house. I have not always been a huge fan of their food, but I am loving it more and more. I also love the family friendly environment they create! I also found out recently that they host many family nights as part of their kids-club. I would love to attend their parent-tot-time during the week, but cannot because I babysit during that time. Maybe in the summer 😄

Last weekend they had a stuffed animal sleep over! If you don't know Lexi very well, she is extremely attached to all of her stuffed animals, so we were a little worried about how she would respond to this little party. We prepared her all week by telling her that she could pick out any stuffed animal and take it to chick-fil-a where she would eat dinner with it, decorate a shoe box bed for it, and say "nigh-nigh" to it and leave it there to sleep over with the cow. She was so excited. She had her animal picked out and gave it to Matthew when he came home! She chose her little Mousy with his cheese for this sleep over! (One that she doesn't play with too often) 😄

After Matthew got home from school, we dressed Lexi in her pajamas and headed over to chick-fil-a. She was given her shoe box to decorate, and a little paper to fill out about Mousy. She loved putting stickers all over the box and definitely enjoyed using markers instead of crayons! I may have to get her some for home 😄

She did great until the cow came out to visit all the kiddos. She was so scared and started crying and shaking. So we ended up taking our food to go, but she had a wonderful time up until that point.

Right before she tucked him into his little bed for the night!

Matthew said she kissed Mousy nigh-nigh and said bye-bye and left! We were so nervous that she would have a breakdown and not want to leave him behind!

Addison isn't really sure about this cow either 😆

Throughout the night, chick-fil-a posted pictures of all the animals having a wonderful time and enjoying their little sleepover!

Mousy is on the ketchup packets 😆

The following morning we went to go pick him up! They told her that Mousy had the most important job of all the other animals-he made 24 ice cream cones for all his friends to enjoy! Lexi giggled at the picture they took of him making the ice cream cones! She was so excited to have Mousy back and wanted to show everyone the pictures they took!

She also wanted everyone to know that the moo was big. We are still talking about it this week. I am not sure if she remembers that she was scared of him, or if she just remembers that he was very big. She loved seeing the picture of the cow and Addison so much that we printed it off for her. She has slept with it a few nights and loves showing people and shouting "Moo big!" She has had many conversations over face-time to Audrey and Maw-Maw about how moo is big! She enjoys telling Maw-Maw and Papa Bridgers about this as well. She gets so expressive too-which is super adorable and really funny! Hopefully within a couple years she will be used to him and love him like all the other kiddos do!

Even though the night ended short and didn't go exactly how we thought, I am so glad we went and made those memories. Plus, it gives us something to tease her about when she's older 😉

Trick-or-Treat

I know that not every family participates in trick-or-treat. I personally do not care for all the bloody, gory, scary costumes; but, I'm okay with the cute animal costumes or pretty princess ones. Actually this year, SWAT was a very popular costume. I think kids now days are into the superhero costumes, and I think Marvel has had a lot to do with that.

Since we were not home to pass out candy, we put this bowl outside! 

 Anyways, last year, we had planned on taking Lexi around our little association, but she was in the hospital again for her kidney reflux. This year, thankfully, both Addison and Lexi were well, and we were able to take them both out to trick-or-treat for the first time.

Lexi was a monkey and Addison was a goldfish 😍

We packed them up in the car and headed over to Matthew's parents house to walk their street. They live on a dead end street, so it was the perfect length of time for Lexi and Addison, especially since it was very cold out. I think many of the families in our association go to another neighborhood to trick-or-treat, because not very many people pass out candy. 

Lexi started out shy and wanted either Matthew or Paw-Paw to carry her; but, by the last couple of houses, she was knocking and saying "thank you!" 

I think once Lexi realized she was getting candy or toys at every house, she enjoyed it a little more! 

She loved these spider rings! She would say "Mommy, I ring!" and "Mommy, two ring!" She would have Paw-Paw take them off and put them on. She still wears them and plays with them at home with her stuffed animals!

Enjoying her haul. We hit about only 8 houses, but she came out with a good haul. Of course, Matthew and I have been enjoying it too 😉

Pumpkin Carving

I think carving the pumpkin is Matthew's favorite part of Halloween, especially this year! Lexi was so excited about the large pumpkin! I am not sure if she really understood what was happening, but she was very proud and excited to say to the least!

She is so proud of this pumpkin! Seriously, what a cutie! 😍

So my job during the carving is to pick out all the seeds. I get the grossest job, but I love it. Matthew hands me chunks of filling and I pull the seeds off and save them for roasting and eating later! This year, surprisingly, the pumpkin didn't actually contain a lot of seeds. 

 Lexi did not care for the sliminess of the pumpkin guts at all. She kept saying "ewww" and "dirty!" Her favorite part was watching her daddy carve the pumpkin.

Honestly, when we started carving this pumpkin, I was sort of irritated because Lexi was going to be late going to bed, which meant Addison's bedtime would be pushed back, and that meant we would have a cranky baby to deal with; but, I am so glad we did this as a family. I want the girls to have these family memories to cherish as they get older. It is so important to Matthew and I that we spend time with each other as a family, and create these memories. And yes, Addison was a fussy-butt, but she still went to sleep at a reasonable hour, and we enjoyed time as a family. 💓