O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth

Long lay the world In sin and error pining

'Till He appeared and the soul felt His worth

The thrill of hope, The weary world rejoices

For yonder brings a new and glorious morn

Fall on your kneesOh, hear the angel's voices

Oh night divineOh night when Christ was born

Oh night divineOh night, Oh night divine

Oh Holy night, the stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth

OhLong lay the world In sin and error pining

'Til He appeared and the soul felt His worth

The thrill of hope, The weary world rejoices

For yonder brings a new and glorious morn

Fall on your kneesO, hear the angel's voices

O night divineO night when Christ was bornO night divineO night, O night divine

The Soul felt its Worth....

Oh Christmas time. I love it, almost all of it. For the second year in a row we are participating in Advent Conspiracy. An attempt to worship God and love those around us in a way which reflects the event in which we are celebrating. Though all the activities and presents can get in the way of what's really important, sometimes I do worship God and love fully by baking cookies or buying a present. However, it is hard, very hard to walk the fence- to not give in to the rediculous amount of consumerisim this time of year, but still buy presents. To slow down and be with family - but celebrate with joy at like 9 different Christmas partys. To make memories with Christmastime traditions without the traditions becoming a to-do list a mile long. For example I love Christmas movies. I actually watch them year round. If I have a bad day, my happy feel good movie is ElF. And lately I've had many "bad" mommy moments where I let Grace watch Even more tv then she already does, because there is a Christmas movie on in the middle of the day. But the other day we were watching some Mickey Christmas movie and the jist of the story is that Mickey saves Christmas. Now we've actually watched several Christmas movies this season where someone Mickey, elmo whoever - saves Christmas. Wether it's finding Santa his missing magic bag or whatever, Christmas is at risk for not happening unless some cute and fuzzy creature comes to save the day! Now, Im not going to go nuts, I don't think those movies do much harm. And I dont mind santa or frosty or rudolph. I'm not going to keep my kids from enjoying those childhood traditions in attempt to stick with the "reason for the season". However- those Christmas saving movies erk me because....Christmas saves us.

My grandma, the other day, was telling me how she was feeling deppressed. She said she just didn't care about Christmas anymore. I knew she was feeling like she couldn't give much to us as gifts for Christmas and feeling bad about it. She said to me "at my age Christmas is just about Jesus' birthday- it's between me and God, I don't care much about all the other stuff anymore". And I know she thinks she has lost her "Christmas spirit" but really she actually gets it! This year what's important to me is PRESENCE not PRESENTS. And I wish she would understand that, because really she gets it she just doesn't know that she gets it!

Josh always says that his favorite line in O Holy night is " and the soul felt it's worth..." and it's my favorite too. The night Jesus was born, the night we supposedly celebrate by spending ourselves into debt (for our kids) and baking cookies that look like snowmen, was a gift of PRESENCE. Jesus gave us himself. He paved a way for us to know our loving creator. It was a beautiful, scandolous event that took place in a barn no less- and it was meant to restore our relationship with God - to give us life to the full. It was meant to make our souls -your soul- feel it's worth. When I give someone a gift, it's beacause I want them to know how much they mean to me. It's me trying to wrap up how much I love them and value them- to show how much they are worth. And that's what God did then, he gave us his son because he wanted us to know we were worth it. So that's my goal. I'm jumping off the fence, throwing everything else down the drain- I just want to pass on the message, that you are worth it.



p.s funny story that got me thinking- We, Grace and I, were baking Christmas cookies. I laid out all the cookie cutters and was explaining what each Christmas shape was, you know, Christmas tree, snowman, stars, reindeers. And she said "and where's Jesus?!!" She gets it too!!!

HALLELUJAH!

I just wanted to take a minute to post......................................simply because I have a minute to post!!!
This week has been HARD. It started off GREAT. I actually left Gabe for the longest that I ever had. Ran some Christmas errands, had dinner with my mom and helped throw a super fun panty party for our friend michelle. Then gabe slept ALL NIGHT LONG, without making a peep until 7am the next mornign! I woke up refreshed and even missed the little guy. I was rested, refreshed and optimistic about the week ahead. THEN HE DIDNT SLEEP THE REST OF THE WEEK. At night he cried almost every hour until the wee hours of the morning only to awake at 6. He cried and cried every time I put him down for what would turn out the be a 30-45 min nap. It was hard. I love that little man with all of me, so it is all so so worth it. But this week I prayed, I cried I even swore a little bit. I contemplated calling the doctor just to Cry "what can I do to get him to sleep". But I knew even the best doctors don't even have the answer to that. So last night all the cards fell into place. I had him on a napping schedule. and even though he didn't really nap I kept to the schedule (keeping him awake for longer, then putting him down.) I fed him at night and then had Josh top him off with a bottle. (Im thinking he may not be getting full at night and that could be part of the problem) And guess what HE SLEPT ALL NIGHT LONG! I had actually forgotten what it felt like to sleep for a SOLID 7 hours!!!!!! Its incredible and I love it! And it gets even better. I kind of changed up our morning naptime routine, and HE IS STILL SLEEPING! I put him down at 9!!!!!!!!!!! and it's 11:22!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I am ecstatic and just had to take a minute to post! Now with Gabe it's always been two steps forward one back, so I know this may be to good to be true, just a fluke, but Ahhhhh Im just going to enjoy it while it lasts!!!!!!

Giving Thanks and Apple Pie

Watchin football with daddy

Gabe with Uncle Bryce

Grace with Grammie

My perfect Apple pie!

Identical eyes!

Little Red Riding Hood

O Christmas Tree!

We went to get our Christmas tree this last weekend! Eola Hills Tree farm has lots of great trees!

Grace watching Daddy in Action

Mommy and Gabe picked out the perfect tree

Grace had a blast traipsing through the mud, and didn't want to leave!

Oh how Josh wishes for a truck!

Cookies and hot cocoa are a must while decorating the tree!

The end result

Finally!

I have been wanting to post FOREVER now! I have had so many postings in my head over the past few weeks, but have been very unable to get them out! First, our camera broke so I had no pictures to post. Then Josh got the flu and I was busily, though joyfully, taking care of him and the kiddos. Then I got the flu and I was not so joyfully taking care of the kiddos with a fever and cough. THEN, of course, the kids both got it, and had really scary high fevers that would go away. (not sure if swine flu or not, because we got the vaccine!!) Anyways, we've been busy. And tonight I swore I would finish putting laundry away, but instead surrendered to exhaustion, and am finally doing some catching up! So to catch you up;

Besides getting the flu we have;

• Given Gabe his first bowl of rice cereal! He likes it, and soon we'll add some real real food!


• Thought Grace broke her arm, again, and she still might have- jury's still out


• Decorated my house for Christmas......a week BEFORE thanksgiving! (Josh's suggestion- I love that man!)


• Went black Friday shopping with TWO kids intow! (I know I know- so not dox, but it's my mom and I's tradition and I LOVE IT!)


• Went to Costco like a thousand times


• Made the most perfect looking (and tasting) apple pie for thanksgiving - these are super out of order!

Another major reason my posting has been non-existent. Gabe has went from sleeping from 7 to 8 am to waking up every hour through out the night, to taking up nursing twice throughout the night, to finally sleeping through the night again but waking up at 5am, then to having the flu so back to waking up and nursing throughout the night again! I've said this before but Gabe, bless his heart, is teaching us that we know NOTHING about parenting. I still have no idea what makes him sleep and what doesn't. The past four nights have gone like this; Night1- had Josh get up with him when he cried so that it would be easier not to feed him and hopefully get rid of nighttime feedings, result- he cried and cried and cried! Josh was up with him for TWO hours in the middle of the night and then I broke down and fed him! Nite2- we let him cry, 45 whole minutes at 2 AM, then he went to sleep till 6:30. And then the past two nights he has slept through but waken up at 4:20, thus my exhaustion. And after the past month of not sleeping I will take 7 to 4:20! Apologies for the tired rambly post!

Dear Sleep

Dear Sleep,

We miss you very much.
You were so good to us for so long.
Please don't forget us, we will meet again.
With love, Josh and Leslie

Mommy Guilt

I just spent the past 60 minutes trying to get Gabe to take his nap. My head hurts and I'm sure his throat as the poor guy cried the whooooooole time. Grace was downstairs dangerously eating her choking hazard of a lunch, periodically crying (for real) screaming "I'm a baby too" since I've paid her no attention this morning. I spent the lunch hour litterally running from Gabe to Grace. Gabe to give him his binki and try and calm him down to Grace to make sure she wasn't choking, tell her she's a big girl, tell her mommy's sorry, and to find her when she once in a while wandered from the table to hide from me. Right now I should be desperately racing through my chores of the day, but I'm not, because I just have this burning on my heart right now. (and when I say chores I don't even mean trying to clean my messy house, I mean basic keep the fam fed and clean and alive chores.
I finally just shut the door to the poor little guy's room and let him cry it out. If I pick him up and walk, we walk for 45 mins sometimes still to be put down and crying. If I rock him he wants to nurse even though he's not hungry- and then I'm the only one who can put him down for his THREE naps and bedtime. He wouldn't calm down with the binki, so I let him cry. It took 8 of THE LONGEST minutes of my life, but he fell asleep, on his own. And then of course I have to cry myself. I cry because I feel like the worst mommy in the world, letting my 3 month old cry himself to sleep, I cry because I not only ignored Grace most of the morning but yelled at her very loudly to sit down and eat her lunch, I cry because the clean pile of clothes and the messy pile of clothes have finally creeped accross my bedroom floor to the point where they are now one pile, and I cry because, though some days are better, others feel like making dinner and not yelling at my children are nearly imppossible. But after a few minutes of crying, I remembered Pete's sermon, last night at Dox, and God's sweet love. His love for me has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with my capacity. My capacity to keep a clean house, make amazing dinners, be the perfect mother, or even to keep my cool at all times. He loves me because he made me, because I'm his. And now I am crying again!! God loves you for the same reason, not because you are great at something, are successful, have the perfect fam, or whatever, he loves you because he made you and you are his. It's pretty hard to mess that up! Because you can't! It has nothing to do with what you can or can't do!!

Pumkin Patch and Cousins

We had a fun week, filled with birthday parties, enjoying family, and going to the pumkin patch!

GRACE'S BIRTHDAY!!!

Gracie girl, I cannot believe you're three! It seems like just yesterday that you were just a tiny baby! Daddy and I were over the moon for you from the start, and our love has only grown! You are smart, funny, sweet and energetic. While sometimes you are reserved to begin with; you are confident, sometimes stubborn, but always lovable. You are such a good big sister to Gabe and are the best little girl we could wish for! Your birthday was a blast! We had two parties, one with cake and family and another with ice cream and friends. We love you Gracie Happy Birthday!

Last days of summer....

A true cowgirl.

My little stud!

Such handsome guys

We spent the last days of summer at the fountain, eating ice cream, bbqing every night for dinner, eating lots of fruits and veggies from Grammy's garden, and Grace potty training herself. We celebrated the official last day of summer by doing all our favorites in downtown Corvally, the fountain, the dream, and gellato. A great day!