Happy Birthday, Jesus!

We made chocolate cupcakes with white filling yesterday morning:

The girls picked out the cupcakes and candles last week and have so been looking forward to this!


We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and blew out the candles!

Delicious!!

We've had a lovely weekend with Joel's family and we'll get to have another celebration with my family very soon!

One of Joel's Facebook friends posted this and I thought it was awesome:

"I'm excited to celebrate the birth of Christ!  But do you know what's better than Christmas?  Easter!  And do you know what blows the socks off of both?  Pentecost Sunday!  The birth would be insignificant without the cross, and both would still not regenerate us without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit."

So thankful!

Christmas Dresses

We made these chains last week and they have each been taking one circle off each day as we count down to Christmas!!

And when these chains are done, we'll make new ones that show how many more days until Grandpa and Grandma come!

Vintage Christmas Banquet

Jody set up this old-fashioned scene for our church banquet.  

The girls tested it out the day before: 

Justin and Joel: 

=) 

Joel looked the part but I couldn't find anything for the girls or I.  Jody loaned me the shawl so that helped a bit.  =)

Ava's Hair

My Girls

The wedding photographer took this one during the wedding and
I thought it was really neat:

Gracie's Hair

Matt got sooo many good pictures of the girls on the day of Jamie's wedding.  Like, 300 of them.  So I'm just going to post them in batches.  These are a few of Gracie getting her hair done.
(these are straight off the camera, unedited)

Jody made the adorable headbands!

Christmas Tree

Much to the girls' delight, we put up our tree last night!  They were so, so excited!  Or, as Gracie would say, "I'm so exciting!!" 

(Gracie had just spilled water on her shirt) 

We got this tree for $20 from Walgreen's when we were first married.  It's kind of a sad little thing but I'm happy enough with it and never want to shell out the money for a better one.  And the girls think it's the best thing ever so we'll stick with it for at least another year! 

They loved being able to help. 

They took their jobs seriously and really studied the tree to find a good place to put the next ornament.

The finished product!

The rest of the evening and all day today they keep telling me, "I really love our Christmas tree!"

Ava is obsessed with those pajamas.  She has worn them every single night for at least a month, maybe two.  And that's what she wants to wear during all day if we are staying home.  Thankfully, we have 2 pairs of them so I can keep them washed.  

And I have to make Gracie put pajamas on at night because the only thing she currently wants to wear is that pink skirt (again, thankful we have 2 of them) and a pink shirt.  Preferably that shirt, but if it's dirty she'll settle for another one, as long as it's pink.

=]