Christmas Tree

I am the total Christmas geek who absolutely loves decorating the house for Christmas. I actually look forward to it and want to make an event of it.  I am one who has feelings of peace and joy when I see Christmas decorations.  It is simply a wonderful time of year, when we remember the birth of Christ and spend time with people we love.  This year my parents and sister were in town for Thanksgiving, and mom helped the kids and me decorate the house we are living in right now, and this is what we did.

Football

Thankful Tree

It is the season of thankfulness.  Last night when I put Alathea to bed, she wanted to pray before I did, which is pretty much par for course with her right now.  On this particular night, she went on a thankful rampage. She began thanking God for an awesome hike, that was awesome, awesome, awesome, and went on from there.  I had to put my head down to keep from giggling at all her thankfulness.  I even posted her prayer to my facebook status because it struck me as so charming and sweet.  What came to me later was the beauty of her thankfulness.  She did not even think to ask for anything when she prayed.  All she did was thank God for the things that matter in her three-year-old world.  She did not know she was doing it, never the less, Laela reminded me how much there is to be thankful for in life.

I decided we needed to remember all the things for which we are thankful, so we made a thankful tree.  I totally stole this idea from pinterest, but I love it.  We found a Mason jar in the kitchen, collected a bunch of sticks from the yard, and created the 'tree.' Next we cut out circles from construction paper, wrote what we are thankful for on them, and attached them to the tree.

Both Laela and Cord really got into the idea.  They loved to color and cut and place the circles on the tree.  We made quite a mess.

In the end, we had a thankful tree.

This tree sits in the dining room, which is in the middle of our rental house. It reminds me every time I see it, to be thankful. Every time we eat breakfast, we add to our tree something that we are thankful for that day.  We have everything from family members to treats that the kids love - we even have football, because nothing is too silly to be thankful for in this family.

I know that in life there is a lot of pain, disappointment, and loss.  Thankfulness does take away the need to grieve.  The thankful tree is just to remind this family that even though life is sometimes really, really hard, there is hope.  There is something for which we can give thanks.

More Fall Fun!

Fall is loaded with fun activities and great moments to be with friends and family.  Laela and Cord make the time that much more fun for me.  We participate in things that you wouldn't do unless you are a kid or you have kid.  For one, Laela's school went to the pumpkin patch at Amazing Savings in Black Mountain.  The kids got to pick their own pumpkins, have their face painted, eat snacks, and read stories with Mrs. Corrie.  Laela and Cord loved it and I enjoy watching them have a great time. 

Laela with her teacher Miss Katie

Miss Tiffany helping Laela pick the perfect pumpkin

I got one mom

Story and snack time

Ellen's butterfly

 This is the swan at our local lake.  The kids and I walk there every chance we get to feed the ducks and see the fish.  I told you all in a previous post that Laela calls him/her (i don't know which) aggressive swan - and this is proof positive of that fact.  He likes to attack out stroller which is truly funny.

 Halloween is obviously a big part of the fall.  This year Laela dressed up as a hippie and Cord was a hobo - it was my ode to Asheville.  We went to Church Street - where everyone east of Asheville shows up to trick or treat.  My camera was on the fritz so I only have a few photos, but the kids had fun and we had a great time with our friends.

Cord is with my friend Julie's son Caleb