Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

SANTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, we get just as excited as ELF about Santa!

The kids are growing up. And yet, they are both convinced that Santa is real. And you know what? I can't help but to feel fortunate. 

Their innocence is pure. Matthew who looks like a teenager, truly believes! He is 9 and still BELIEVES! Who hits age 9 and still believes?! I just love it, and I know the time is near when they will figure things out, but for now, we believe in Santa. 

We don't do the mall Santa anymore because that is ridiculous with the long lines and expensive pics. Instead we go to our church's annual Christmas party and the AMAZING Amy Herfurth, who runs a super photo business here in Dallas and also happens to be a member of our church, takes her fancy camera and photo taking skillz and gets pictures of the kids! Win, Win!

Then she emails us a high res photo! SCORE! But I should have dressed the kids better...

Anyway,this year was super cold, and Olivia lacks body fat, so she went to church in a camo footie pj that I got for her last year as it was $2.50 at Target after the Holidays. - Call me big spender! Hehe. She was as happy as could be, even though she didn't wear the usual pink girly get up.

Matthew doesn't want to wear PJ's to the Chritmas party anymore... He is growing after all, so he just put on a blue shirt, that he believed was festive enough. 

And the Santa you see is a good friend of ours, who is truly amazing for donating his time each year to pose with the entire congregation. 

I love my ward family!

Jazmin

Community Nativity

Nativity

Every year our church hosts a Community Nativity and it's free of charge and open to the public. I really love this for several reasons and yes, I will explain my reasons. 

1) It's an awesome way to put Christ back into Christmas. We often get caught up with the hustle of the Holidays and gift buying and elf moving, that we forget or we just don't put enough emphasis on Jesus as the reason for the season. 

2) People can go inside the LDS building and see the set up,  and find that we actually believe in Jesus. This may sound weird, but still to this day, there is a stigma about being "Mormon" and about what we believe in general. We don't worship a different GOD and we believe in the Bible and we are 100% Christian. In fact  the name of our church is 'THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS'. We just get called 'Mormons' because we believe in the Book of Mormon, so it's just a nickname.

3) I LOOOOOVE to see different types of Nativities! I love to see the International ones. Germany, Turkey, Italy are some of my favorite! They are so gorgeous and they are all similar to the Mexican ones or American Nativities. It just solidifies the reality that we are all children of God.

4) My kids actually ask to be taken! Yes, it's a tradition and they love to play eye spy with some of the Nativities. I also like that they can meet people of different faiths, because I'm all up for that! I hate when people are closed minded about my faith, so I want to educate my kids so they can grow to respect and appreciate other religions.

Anyway, here are some of the Nativity pictures. I took a ton, but these sum it up!

Olivia and Matthew posing in the manger of the live Nativity. The live Nativity was not there when we arrived so we took the opportunity to pose :)

 This Nativity event showcases all types of Nativities! They had this chocolate one! How cool is that?!

Our church members donate their time to set up the church. It is so beautiful, and a LOT of work!

One of my favorite Nativities. It changed colors with a light, but this pictures doesn't do it justice. 

 When I say there are a different types of Nativities from all over the world, I mean all types! This one is from Hungary and its inside of a coconut!

I love that Matthew really enjoys coming. You can see him sort of pause to reflect on what he feels and sees. It's truly wonderful to see your child be so spiritual.

This Nativity was tiny! It was all in a ring size box!

Japanese Nativity! So cute!

There are so many! 

Love this painting!

Can't wait to go again next year! If you are in the Dallas area, you should check it out next year!

Jazmin

Navidad.

Navidad.

'Noche de Paz' (Silent Night)

Noche de paz, noche de amor
Todo duerme en derredor
Entre los astros que esparcen su luz
Bella anuciando al niño Jesús
Brilla la estrella de paz
Brilla la estrella de paz

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I'm sooo excited for this Christmas! Last year, was REALLY fun, but for some reason I just didn't get in the Christmas spirit. But this year, I was totally ready to decorate for this special holiday. As always, we set up the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving and got the mantle and house all gussied up for Christmas! The elf, returned as well, and the kids are loving 'Buddy' They miss their elf so much. 

Anyway, I haven't blogged for awhile and mainly because I have been super busy with work and all of the Holiday stuff. I love how now our family has traditions that we repeat every year. I like that. The kids are getting old enough to help decorate, and they are old enough to sit through scriptures for a long time. 

They are also old enough to enjoy our Community Nativity. I will post about that tomorrow, but it's just an amazing displays of Nativities from all over the world and our church hosts it for the Community. Matthew & Olivia were excited to finish up homework and go to the church. When they got there, they got to play 'Eye Spy' with some of the displays and they had a lot of fun looking close at all the details of each Nativity. 

And of course, this is MY Nativity display on our mantle.I love it.

I always like to change up my tree decor. This year I went with red. Mainly because our first year, I purchased a lot of red and gold ornaments and then changed my mind at the last minute and I never got to use them. So, I didn't want to be wasteful and pulled them out this year.

One of the best things about our Christmas tree decor is that slowly but surely we are starting to fill our tree with homemade ornaments from years past. This ornament was made by Olivia when she was attending Pre-K.

All the ornaments I had before are from the dollar store. And they look sooo nice!

More dollar store berries!

Another favorite ornament! Matthew made this in 1st grade.

And of course. One of our favorite ornaments! Everyone in our family has one of these hearts. They were given by my in laws last year, and they represent our family. I love ornaments with meaning.

I'm excited for the Season, and I'm happy that my kids are believers of Santa, and of the Elf, but most importantly that they have true Faith in our Savior Jesus Christ. I want to preserve their innocence as long as possible, as well as help them develop a strong lifelong testimony of Christ. 

Are you ready for Christmas?

Jazmin

Snow Day!

Snow Day

Today, a miracle that happens every other Winter occurred. School was canceled and we had an ice storm! That meant, we got a lot of the white stuff, and the kids couldn't be happier! This morning we woke up to our elf on the shelf doing snow angels on the kitchen table with flour, and that only meant one thing: SNOW WAS HERE!

And guess what? We spent ALL DAY OUTSIDE! As in 10 hours of uninterrupted snow fun. I tried to take pictures of our day, but I had to work, and Steve came home from being on call, so we kind of handled the kids in shifts. 

But here are some highlights of our day:

It was a Winter Wonderland! All the streets and trees where frozen!

We began the day by walking Riley who was so confused! He was afraid to pee outside!

Once Steve was home, he got the kids ready by making "snow boots" AKA trashbags over shoes, and played hockey with the kids. All of this after being up all night on call.

The kids where in heaven!

After hockey, Matthew & Steve went to Cici's pizza (they walked 4 miles total) and brought us lunch.

Steve was BEAT. So he napped for a little.

I spent 2 hours decorating Olivia's gift last night, while watching netflix. This gift was going to get a picture.

While Steve was asleep I took pictures of our tree. It just looked so wintery

.

I love seeing the gifts under the light of the tree. Makes me happy.

The kids were across the street sledding down the hill for like 4 hours! I was soooo cold! When I saw our neighbor friends Molly & Alex, I felt like they were God sent! Molly was super sweet at helping Olivia up the hill. By this time, I was just peeking out the window.

The kids were using boogie boards as sleds! That is the TEXAN way!

Molly was being so sweet to Olivia and would slide down the hill with her.

Olivia was LOVING IT! She likes to hang with the older kids.

Matthew was smiling!!!!! He hates smiling, this really just indicated how awesome of a day it was!

I hope we get snow for Christmas! We really do like a white winter once in awhile.

Jazmin