A Few Extra December Pics

The weeks leading up to Christmas are generally pretty busy for our family, but we love "scheduling in" lots of downtime too.  It guarantees that we don't miss out on some of the most important parts of the season-- talking about Jesus, togetherness as a family, and making lots of memories...

Mario does a fantastic job in leading our family devotions after dinner.  

Most evenings it's a simple Bible reading and character development book that leads to lots of good discussion.  But sometimes he goes all out like THIS Gospel presentation!

The boys LOVE it when he uses their "friends" (aka stuffed animals) to learn the lessons he is teaching.

morning snuggles and reading in bed with mama

(can they stay little forever?)

my birthday falls mid-month--

the big 3-3!

My three guys made this strawberry tiramisu cake--it was yummy!

Along with my precious gifts, my sweet hubby dropped me off to get a massage!

Of course, at one point during the week we did my favorite birthday activity--

going to see Christmas lights with the kids and a special Starbucks drink!  :)

the evening of my birthday was Mario's Voss Christmas party at Babe's.

rainy day movie and lunch at fuzzy's taco shop

my munchkins

at the end of every year, i wrap up all our Christmas books and store them in the attic.  starting december 1, we bring them all down and put them in a big basket.  the kids get to open up a book every day leading up to Christmas.  reading these is one of  our favorite parts of the day and really causes us to slow down and enjoy the little moments.

We also did an advent ornament tree.  

We started with an empty tree, and read a devotional each evening that matched up with a specific ornament to hang on the tree.  Loved that it presented the Gospel story as it should be--starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation.

This was our first year to do this, and we all enjoyed it.  It helped us to celebrate the birth of Jesus in a more tangible way.  And these two were pretty proud of the end result!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!