Cake Wrecks

Here's an admission to my cake-y geekiness.
Tomorrow is Christmas eve, so if I'm blogging at all, should it not be about something Christmas-related? Probably, but it's not.
I can't stop laughing out loud (making Phil question my sanity) reading this other blog. It's all about failed cakes. Miserably failed. Monumentally miserable failures. It's hilarious! No, I'm not being mean-spirited to others trying to get into cake decorating or anything like that. Just look and you'll see.
Tomorrow will start the festivities for Christmas for us. We visited the boardwalk here in Virginia Beach tonight to drive through a whole row of lights that the boys really enjoyed. I'll be baking a few things tomorrow and we found a local candlelight service to go to. Even with all of that, Phil and I are dying with excitement this year for Christmas morning. Hopefully we can wait just one more day!

Christmas Cookies

It's that time of year again! One of my favorite Christmastime traditions from growing up is making cookies. Making a lot of them! If I remember correctly, one year we started just after Halloween. We would make hundreds of these little things, package them all up and freeze them. In the weeks coming up to Christmas, as they were needed, we'd pull a few out of each box and arrange them on a tray. Not making Christmas cookies ranks right up there with not having a Christmas tree.
The boys are big fans of this tradition, of course, and I love sharing it with them. Tonight we got out all my cookie books and talked about how some of these belonged to Nana and that's what those little notes are from. They had a great time looking at pictures and even got to choose which ones we'd make tonight before bed.
If you want to see the cookies we made tonight, I put the recipe on my other blog:
http://nicolesfavoriterecipes.blogspot.com/
With some cookies in the freezer and a few more coming out of the oven, it's beginning to feel a little more like a normal Christmas for us.

The Big Red Guy

Christmas is coming... whether we're ready or not. Currently we have friends with us who are waiting to move into their house here as well. There are still boxes to go through and projects around the house that need to be tended to. Most of all, there's no snow outside! I know. I grew up in northern California. I'm the last person who should expect snow to go with the Christmas season, but this year the lack of snow is definitely making it hard to sense that Christmas will be here soon. The boys haven't been nearly as affected, though. They're so excited and are counting down everyday! Hope everyone is feeling in the spirit of the season this year!

Heroes at Home

This year we found out about a program Sears was doing called Heroes at Home. Anyone in the military could sign up for this program. They collected contributions and are dividing them among the people who registered. I just happened to find out about it through this commands family readiness group.


The other day I opened email and found out how much will be on our gift card once we receive it. Suffice to say, it more then we expected! Then I just received another email from them letting us know they're going to give us all another gift card with money on it for Christmas decorations as well. Overall, I guess I just had brag on Sears a bit and let you all know what a great thing they were doing for us military families.

Miracle at my Dinning Room Table

"Mommy, I prayed and it made my macaroni warm."
-Joshua

The Frustrations of the Stay at Home Mom

Nothing novel here. Women all over the country go through this every single day. It's hard to feel motivated when there are no pressing deadlines for things. The work is never-ending. As soon as the laundry is finished, there is more being soiled. When I take the dishes out of the dishwasher, there are more ready to be loaded. The house could be immaculate, but two minutes later there will be some sort of mess, be it macaroni and cheese or boogers. I could busy myself all day and the house may still look like a mess when Phil comes home. If maintaining the house weren't enough, lately there is still the business of setting up our home to tend to.
Most mornings I miss having a job. I miss having the best babysitter around to watch the boys so I didn't have to worry about them for a few hours each day. I miss feeling like life had a purpose other then changing poopie diapers and feeding children who lately have been hungry again 2 seconds after they finished eating.
I know in theory that this work I'm doing here is some of the most important work of my entire life, but it's hard to keep that in perspective when Jeremiah has broken the 4th thing of the day that he wasn't supposed to have in the first place and Josh is asking again for the thing I'm not quite ready to get for him. Someday I'll have a job again... and maybe even finish college. For now it is back to the daily grind, trying to do my work for Father more then anything else and believing that this, too, is part of the Grand purpose for my life.

And don't just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you'll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you're serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible.

Colossians 3:22-25, The Message

Decking the Halls

We got a Christmas tree up today so the boys had a really good time putting on the ornaments and just helping overall. Jeremiah had a hard time with the hook idea, but mastered all the ones with a loop.
Josh is much more coordinated at it all this year, which makes it much more fun. He's starting to understand that some of these were from when he was a baby and all.
Now that we're feeling a bit more settled, it is starting to feel more like Christmas is on the way. No snow but people are starting to put out lights, so it's reminding me more of Christmases growing up.