Our Christams Prep

So...Brad and I have been trying to figure out how to teach our young children about the real meaning of Christmas while still trying to make it fun. I remember Christmas feeling kind of two-faced as a kid, all the fun of Santa and gifts, but all the seriousness of Christ and reverence. So we decided that we would have a birthday party for Jesus. I've seen the Oriental Trading Company ads and that they have banners, plates, cups, etc for such events, but ours is going to be a bit different. We are having our party this coming Monday, the 8th. We decided that the thing that Jesus wants most for us is to be happy. He cannot just make us happy though. He respects our free agency. It is up to us to choose to be happy and to choose to help those around us be happy. So, for our party our kids have to come up with a goal of service or something else that could make someone happy and then make sure that they perform that act before Christmas and that's their gift to Jesus.

So we were at Target yesterday and I stopped on the party isle to look at party favors for Hy's party next week and Asher picked up some pirate plates and said, "He wants pirate plates." I said, "No, Hyrum doesn't want pirate plates. Put them back." He said, "No, Jesus needs pirate plates!"

Then completely off subject, but still cute, last night I pulled Samara's shirt off to get her jammies on and her skirt was covering her belly button a little. Asher said, "Oh no Mom, we left her belly button at Target!"

And randomly, here's a picture of Brad's turkey on Thanksgiving. We fed over 40 people at our church. It was delicious!


And lastly, this squirrel was outside my front door today. They are huge this time of year!