Finishing December

After we finally returned to our reality and while J worked on finding a job, we stayed pretty busy!

We got to buy our first Christmas tree! We used a little of the money J made helping put up Christmas lights with a guy from our church.

Here, he's putting our beautiful tree on J's parent's car. :)

It was soooo cold when we bought it, that it continued to sigh in relief when we put it in a warm house with water to drink! It got so big!

So then we bought 4 strands of lights and decorated this tree!

It was so fun to decorate my tree with my ornaments!! 

C LOVED the tree. He would constantly play with the ornaments and bring them to me….such a helper...

I've had this advent calendar for at least 10 years. Maybe 15…

We finally used it!

My Christmas decorations weren't very kid-friendly. But my mom got us our very own Little People nativity! It was such a lovely surprise!

When J helped with setting up Christmas lights, the guy he helped just gave him tons of the ones he was throwing away-tangled, half-working etc.

So we fixed em and strung em up!

It was so lovely!!

Because we were unemployed, we hung out at J's parents' place frequently.

C loves stairs. he's almost always playing on them (even now as I write this in April, he loves climbing those stairs.)

I love it when they read together. Melts my heart.

J's parents wanted some festive lights out front of their house, so we wound their trees with lots of pretty lights!

Next year, I think we need to string lights on the house itself. That would be cool.

C was big enough to ride Daddy's horse, so we had this out a lot. I have a picture of him on it right after his bath. I think that'll be a wedding slideshow photo one day. :)

This is from our ward's Christmas party. Santa was played by a 15 year old… haha

But 15 or 51 or any age really, Santa is scary. hahaha

My cute little old man in his sunday clothes. So stinkin adorable!!

Making mommy's lunch 

My little boy LOVES books! It makes this teacher so happy!! He is almost ALWAYS surrounded by books!

I am pretty sure I set the Little People nativity back up about 5 times per day.

C loved playing with them!

Here, we have a wise man who arrived at the stable in STYLE!

Love taking selfies with this kiddo! heehee

This is a foam square that was in a package to C months ago. He loves playing with it and likes it on as a hat

C really liked his bottles. When he went to the hospital, I stopped trying to give him a sippy cup. It was too tough and I was just glad he was drinking and staying hydrated with his bottle.

But this picture below was the line. he was done when he left teeth marks on the nipple. Crazy kid!

This was the ornaments the Young Women leaders gave to our beautiful Young Women for Christmas. 

It has the theme for the year, Stand in Holy Places on the front and each of us signed it on the back along with the year.

A few days before Christmas, we went to stay at J's parents' place for Christmas!

Here's C reading with Gpa.

C loved nutella. But who can blame him?

Christmas Eve, we usually go to J's uncle's house for personal pizzas, games, and making signs for Santa.

It was a really enjoyable, fun evening. C loved making his sign.

You can decorate the sign however you want, but you need to have your name on it and where Santa should put your presents. :)

Here are C's presents-A Scentsy Buddy-monkey, treats, and HotWheels!

J and I have decided that Santa gives the kids simpler gifts, but still fun. And the parents get to give the best gifts. :) We gave him a Little People airplane that sings and zoo legos!

Gma and Gpa Curtis gave him this awesome car and some toys.

Gma and Gpa Tobler gave him some books, a Razorback shirt, and some toys

One of my favorite toys he got was 10 soft, squishy blocks. They're easier to stack than wood and nice, because they don't hurt to step on! 

After Christmas, we went home for a few days then came back for a few more when Todd and Jolyn would be there more.

We met up at church. Here's Gpa with his grandsons on his lap

Solitary, thoughtful time with Gma

One of my favorite gifts I got this year was a shopping spree! I got money to go shopping for ME! I'd only been a mom for 16 months (then) and I was beginning to realize that I didn't shop for me anymore. I always justified putting that shirt I loved back onto the rack. 

So I got to go shopping!! I even had some extra money from my birthday the year before!

Linda, Jolyn, Kristin and I went shopping at cheaper stores! It was lovely! I spent $30 at DI and got 4 shirts and a sweater. I spent $60 at Macy's Outlet and got a maxi skirt, a $99 dress, and sexy mom-jeans. And then I got some socks-most had holes, so it was time- and a few of my favorite songs for a running mix. 

It was awesome. I loved the time spent and the fact that I had no guilt buying stuff for me!

Sign me up for next year!! :)

This is Jolyn wearing an awesome suit I just couldn't convince her to buy!! ;)

Kristin got some very hot dresses. She's pretty much a babe.

New Year's Eve, we made cookies (See below my awesome marbled sugar cookies), made resolutions, had a marshmallow fight, drank sparkling cider, and played games. The marshmallows was fun.

He's a goon.

My silly nephew telling a story that really didn't have much of a plot, but the room was captivated.

It was a good month. It was a little hard to be unemployed at the holidays, but looking back I have realized how we did it.
We could chalk it up to having a great savings account, but guess what?

We didn't use much of it.

We were able to get new toys for C's presents, buy something for each other, our parents, and the sibling we gave to in the gift exchanges. We bought a tree, stand, and lights. 

You know what I chalk it up to, really?

We pay our tithing.

Yep. Tithing.

I didn't really have much of a testimony of tithing except that it had good results because you help build temples and buy new chairs and nice resources for buildings everywhere. 

But really, we have always paid our tithing and it has kept us safe from debt and hardship. Pretty amazing that because we pay 10% of our income we are able to afford things when we don't even have an income. 

So thankful for a merciful, giving Lord who loves me and my little family!!