Snow and Christmas!

 This weekend we went shopping to fill some boxes for Operation Christmas Child. We let the kiddos choose whether they wanted to do a boy or girl and they wanted to do both! We said a prayer over the Boy and the Girl before we went in. Last time we did this, Eliana was a babe and the boys were 4 and 6. It was hard for them, especially Z, to not have their eyes on all the toys and want them for themselves. We talked about it a lot and it was such a good learning lesson for them.

This year there was no complaining or "me, me me's" at all, thankfully! They really got into it and really wanted to make the boxes special:) I went to wrap them yesterday morning after we packed them up (and oh, you should've seen Eliana helping to pack it all up! So cute!) and realized that all of my wrapping paper had been ruined in the flooding back in May. I forgot all about it! We sheepishly dropped off the wrapping-less boxes but were told it was no problem and they could wrap them for us.

If I could tell anyone anything about doing something like this, I would say: Give freely and with your whole heart. People who don't have much and are in need don't deserve less than you. They are not lesser human beings. When I was growing up and we went through our tough period after my dad left, we were struggling and didn't have much food or any Christmas gifts and sometimes we would get food from the church pantry or gifts dropped off from the church. I will never forget opening a can of cornmeal and finding worms in it. Or the box of pistachio pudding (who eats that anyways??) that had been expired for over 3 years. Or the Christmas gifts that were nowhere near new and were falling apart or were cheaply made. It hurts when you are in that situation to even ask for help but it hurts more when you receive it and you realize that people think you are only good enough for their cast-offs....God asks us to treat others with Love and to consider them better than ourselves.

What better season to treat others this way!!

We found a couple packs of gel window cling-ons for the kiddos to have a little fun with! They each chose one and got their "own window" to decorate:)

Cheese! Eliana chose Santa and his reindeer and she definitely needed help because there were a few teeny tiny pieces. She loved it, though!

Samuel chose the snowman and Christmas tree. Getting a non-cheesy smile out of him is work, I tell you!

Haha, he has a great sense of humor!

Zakkai chose the snowflakes!

We got snow this weekend and Eliana was very excited to get outside and do some shoveling after we dropped the boys off at school. As soon as we got back, I got her all bundled up and out we went! We spent an hour outside shoveling. First I just took pictures of her cute self but then I picked up our shovel and got to work on the sidewalks. I do love shoveling!

Man, oh, man, this girl had fun!!! She did NOT want to go inside!

So happy!

Pretty snow!

Cheese! I kept saying, "Are you ready to go inside and get warm?" And she would say, "No!!" One of us was a little more productive with our shoveling but I won't make you guess who:) I think I will let her out a little whenever there is snow so I can wear her out!!

Here is a little pic of our Charlie Brown tree;) We tossed up the idea of getting a real tree because I miss it so but there isn't much time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year and with traveling for both, we wouldn't get enough time to enjoy our tree. I really hope we can get one next year!

Stay warm tonight!