Happy Birthday Bro!

Today my brother turns 36. Looking good! Happy Birthday! Salute to a great husband and great daddy and talented Occupational Therapist. He's always up for any adventure Andrea can get him on :) We are diffent people but I have learned a lot from him! Hope you have a great one and I love you!

Christmas 2014

We left on Sunday before Christmas to start our Christmas celebrations and slid into our own beds by Fri night 12/26 around 10:00. We travelled to Baton Rouge and enjoyed lots of fun things...time to play at the park, a neat play place called Lil Bambinos, play at the Mall, and even mommy and daddy got a date night. We enjoyed a nice Christmas Eve Service at First UMC (Jeff's parents church) after Uncle Bob arrived from Charlotte. We continued with our little family tradition of crawling in bed all together on Christmas morning and reading the Christmas Story from Luke 2 together...then after breakfast it was time for discovering what was under the tree. We took turns enjoying seeing what everyone opened...especially Claire and Joel! Jeff almost got away without having to put something together but Joel's Big Wheel needed some assembly. Claire's scooter was ready to ride! We enjoyed a delicious traditional Christmas meal which I am amazed how my mother-in-law can get it all to the table, hot and good! THe afternoon was filled with opening up the gifts and discovering how to play with each thing. Dec 26 started a journey home with 2 big stops...first in Brandon, MS to see my extended family (Lacey Family Christmas - my mother's side) and meeting up at my mom's house to do Christmas with her and Jim and Robert's family. My aunt Bobby managed to coordinate a family photo of 28 people and feed us all in less than 2 hours. Dirty Santa games always bring some laughs. We ended our evening with Mom's BBQ and homemade mac and cheese and a room full of paper flying as the kids ripped into their gift bags of toys and all got rainboots! Brodie (7) and Ellie (3) are growing up so fast and so cute! They too had been on the road all week making their southeastern tour. Those cousins love each other! Such fun ages! On another note: Each Christmas I like to find one aspect of the Biblical Christmas story and ponder it through the season. This year it was Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth PEACE among those with whom he is pleased." (ESV) (emphasis mine on Peace). This was the exclamation of the multitude of angels as they surrounded the Shepherds proclaiming to them the Good News that the Savior was born. They gave God the glory for something only He could definitely do...bring us the Savior...and the result of that Glory and that Savior was PEACE...I pondered why PEACE and not...on earth JOY...on earth LOVE...on earth SAFETY...on earth HEALTH...(you see what I'm doing here)...It was PEACE we needed, and when we are at PEACE, the rest of those things and more are covered...Only in Christ do we have real PEACE. Glory to God in the Highest...

Getting Ready for Christmas

Here's some random fun we've been having...Enjoying Christmas PJs, went to a Santa Party hosted by Jack (and according to Claire who she's going to Marry!) and you can see reaction by Joel to Santa...Claire would only stand by Santa if Jack did too. Claire got her Christmas haircut and we've been to see Big Daddy to do Christmas with him. Each night we are doing a "project" guided by an ebook called Truth in the Tinsel...check it out...helping keep the focus on Christ as we move through the holidays...Also having interesting discussions about Santa...we are taking this approach shared in THIS blog post...we grew up on Santa and don't want to take the fun out but want to be truthful too...,hard dance to dance...Looking forward to more "Joy to the World" to come...

2014 Dec Christmas Fun - Kizoa Video Maker

Christmas Photo Shoot

Thanks to Lisa Townes, we got some great shots and hard to pick for the Christmas card...so here's the top picks