Merry Christmas

December has been a busy month, as it is for most people. This year I had a helper with my baking though.
Ok, so he wasn't really much of a help, but he sure thought he was. :) He loves to "help" me bake, and lately he has been waking up from his afternoon nap telling me that he wants to make cookies!




















He was in his first Christmas play with his preschool class this year. He started out sitting in the little chair he was supposed to sit in, but before long my exuberant extrovert took front and center stage.















I had so much fun watching him, and yet even as I laughed at his antics on stage, I held back tears. For so many years I watched little kids in Christmas programs at church and wished I had my own little one on stage. This year I did. :)

Ava started walking a few weeks ago and is having fun with her new independence. She has been quite tempted by the Christmas tree, and seems to think it's funny when we tell her "no no." But she is easily distracted by other interesting toys, and so far does not come close to Jonas' strong will. Hopefully (for my sanity) she will keep her rather easy-going and compliant personality!


Putting up the Christmas decorations has reminded me a lot of being pregnant. I was close to my due date last Christmas and I was full of anticipation for Ava's birth. For a split second I wanted to be pregnant again this year and experience those feelings again (a split second, I tell you!). As I was thinking about that I realized that thousands of years ago, another baby's birth was greatly anticipated, the birth of our Savior. So I will close this post with a quote from Jonas' Bible, The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

"Everything was ready. The moment God had been waiting for was here at last! God was coming to help his people, just as he promised in the beginning. But how would he come? What would he be like? What would he do? Mountains would have bowed down. Seas would have roared. Trees would have clapped their hands. But the earth held its breath. As silent as snow falling, he came in. And when no one was looking, in the darkness, he came. And there, in the stable, amongst the chickens and the donkeys and the cows, in the quiet of the night, God gave the world his wonderful gift. The baby that would change the world was born. His baby Son. Mary and Joseph wrapped him up to keep him warm. They made a soft bed of straw and used the animals' feeding trough as his cradle. And they gazed in wonder at God's Great Gift, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. Mary and Joseph named him Jesus, 'Emmanuel'- which means 'God has come to live with us' Because, of course, he had."

Merry Christmas! May you be blessed as you celebrate the birth of Jesus, and may you truly experience Emmanuel, God With Us.