Christmas Highlights

We had a great Christmas with lots and lots of family time. Elise understood way more this year, and she even knew that all the presents, trees, lights, stockings is because of baby Jesus. We talked about him every day, and my prayer is that she always knows that the baby Jesus is the center of not only Christmas, but of our whole lives.

Here are the highlights of our week...

Following tradition, we celebrated together, just our little family, on December 23rd

We gave Elise a baby be blessed doll. She's warming up to her slowly,

but I hope that baby Grace will soon be a favorite.

Grace came with Elise's name on her belly and the verse I picked out for her: 2 Timothy 1:7

The Bush family continued our homemade gifts tradition this year, and it was as fun as ever!

I made my dad MSU pj pants and a black leather braided belt

Jess made me 12 jars of delicious canned peaches and salsa. Soooo good.

Paul made Abby this gorgeous mirror. The brown edge is all wine corks. Very very cool.

Abby made Bryan homemade salsa, spicy just like Bryan likes it.

Bryan made Paul a remote control airplane. Lots & lots of work,

one crashed plane, and this one yet to be flown.

They're both excited to fly it sometime soon.

Mike made mom this really beautiful wood cutting board. I think it's walnut and maple.....

My mom made yet another one of her amazing quilts for Jess.

This one is for the boat, and it even has the boat name, "off the Hoek" stitched onto it.

My dad took a bowl-making class and made this wooden bowl for Mike. It's really really amazing how it was made: lots of little pieces of wood glued together and then shaped on a lathe.

The Linns continued one of my most favorite traditions: Christmas Caroling on Christmas eve:

We caroled in Jon & Angela's neighborhood, and their neighbors were really friendly and enjoyed it. We all met at our house in Christmas for a full day of delicious food, presents, games, laughing, and celebrating. It was a great day to be all together. I didn't take many pictures, probably because I was too busy enjoying all the fun!

Now for New Years.........

christmas jammies

Christmas jammies are the best. I love them. I Love buying them. I love the pictures on Christmas eve of all three of us in pajamas.

Elise loves all jammies. Tonight, she was especially excited to be wearing her jammies a little early, and by a little early, I mean before dinner. :) Here are a couple pictures of my cutie girl being a total ham in her Christmas jammies.

Expecting

A little change is coming to the Linn family in July: a baby! We are thrilled to be expecting, and can't wait to see what life is like as we become a family of four.

opening doors

Elise learned a new very valuable skill: opening doors. She can now get into every closet and into every room. It's crazy that I used to be able to contain her by just closing a door. So not the case anymore. After a full day yesterday of closing closet doors, picking up things strewn around each and every bedroom, and trying to keep Elise inside on a very cold day, I was sick of Elise's new trick.

Then tonight happened. I had to stay at work a little late, so I pulled into the garage around 7 o'clock. My heart skipped a beat as my barefoot little bundle of sweet joy opened the door and ran to my car door shouting "mommy! mommy!" The simple art of Elise being able to open the door to greet me made my whole day.

Love her. Love her. Love her.

Christmas Traditions

Everyone has their traditions. Our big one is going to cut down the tree. Saturday was our day, and I was, as usual, over-eager to accomplish our task.

We headed out to a place we had seen advertised on 100th street. As we drove in, I got a little nervous at the trees I saw. We trudged through the snow with Elise trailing behind, discovering that the snow was cold and kinda hard to walk in, looking desperately to find any tree decent enough to take home. Sadly, we couldn't find one. I made Bryan go back into the barn and explain to the very nice people that we just didn't find a tree in their very large field. It was then that they confided that they wouldn't buy a tree out of their selection, either.

Plan B. We drove back into town, bought a newspaper, and headed to Allendale to Bosch's tree farm. Talk about beautiful trees! Elise had fun riding on the sled out into the field, and Bryan did a great job cutting it down, and I hauled it back to the car.

Yes, our lack of a good plan cost us most of our Saturday. Yes, we paid way more money than we usually do. Yes, I lost my cool a little bit as I mentally crossed off all the other tasks I had hoped to complete that day. But! We got a beautiful tree, made some good memories, got to eat popcorn balls compliments of the Bosches, and now have our tree up and decorated to enjoy for the rest of the Christmas season.