19 Days Until Christmas

Our first December weekend was jam packed with 3 different performances along with a trip to "Walk Through Bethlehem" and a local church's Christmas Festival.

Today the kids sang at both our church (pictured above) and the church the kids attend school at on Fridays. By the time this evening rolled around we were all ready to drop into bed but, with fun memories of a great start to our Christmas season.

20 Days Until Christmas

As we quickly approach the 2nd Sunday of Advent we have a jam packed weekend ... full of performances and fun activities. Today, the girls both participated in "How The Grinch Found Christmas" a beautiful adaptation of the original book by our ballet school director. Lexi was a Snow Queen and Ava Mae the Narrator's Daughter.

Tonight, we ended our day of fun with a trip to or, should I say through, Bethlehem.

21 Days Until Christmas

Dress Rehearsal for "The Grinch" ...

22 Days Until Christmas

Here are the cookies we made for the GA Bake Sale yesterday (Nestle Toll House Bar Cookies). All the money raised will go to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Lexi had so much fun working the bake sale and was quite excited to see her cookies go quickly and the sweet comments she received for her cute packaging.

Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most. ~ Ruth Carter Stapleton

Weighing In

One of my fellow homeschool blogging moms began a new blog last week to track her weight loss journey. She has had some great posts. It is always fun to take that journey with someone!

Kris is hosting a Weigh In on her blog and so this is my linked post. To catch y'all up ... I began my weight loss journey at the beginning of October when I began cardiac rehab. I am following Weight Watchers with the approval of my doctor and my cardiac rehab team. Since October 1st, I have lost a total of 20 pounds. Last week after working out 5 days in my regular gym I lost 3.8 pounds, and that was after Thanksgiving dinner.

My goal through the holidays is to continue losing. That can be really hard and I would not be disappointed if a few of the weeks I end up maintaining but, my goal is to lose. I am so excited about how much better I am feeling already. My EKG's in Cardiac Rehab have improved in leaps and bounds. I am also proud of the fact that I have been getting up on off days from rehab to workout at 5:45AM, not an easy feat being I am a night person.

My first big goal I set for myself was to lose 10% of my body weight - I am over half way there!

23 Days Until Christmas

My children love nativities and so last year I bought them one of their own so that the pieces to our really nice nativity did not keep turning up missing.

I always love to see how the kids set their nativity up throughout the day, it usually changes hour by hour because each child has a way they feel it should look. My only rule is that the nativity must stay on our school table.

This is the way it was set up yesterday ... apparently there was a Saber Tooth Tiger present at the birth of Jesus Christ, a fireman, in case any fires started in the stable, and a pink baby pony. You gotta love their creativity!

24 Days Until Christmas

Last night we celebrated our First Sunday of Advent, just a day late. Devin was given the privilege of lighting the Hope Candle and my husband read to us from the Advent book we have for this Christmas.

I have planned out some sort of activity for each day of Advent, using several of my favorite books for this season. The kids also have their own Christmas tree this year in the Family Room and they will be making decorations each day for it, by Christmas it should be well decorated!