5 Days In...

We've been having so much fun doing our Advent activities. Jonah asks every day to do it and is most excited about the activities that have to do with coloring and stickers. He sits on the couch and plays with his nativity scene while we read the Christmas story out of his little Bible storybook. He holds and rocks baby Jesus, and it's precious. Of course, we've had so many funny moments. One day he made Christmas cards for some of his friends, and he really got into it. He put stickers all over the cards, and it just always cracks us up that two-year olds will have an entire page to work with, and they'll put all five stickers or so in one little spot, pretty much on top of each other. His creativity at work was really making me and Joel laugh. Sunday night's activity had to do with making paper snowflakes, and Joel and I were ready to impress Jonah with our beautiful creations....only, um, we're not as smart as we thought we were, evidently. I used to make these all the time. I hadn't in two years. But I still expected to remember how. Well, I couldn't. Joel couldn't. We folded so many different papers and made cuts in what we thought were all the right places, only to open up our folded papers to reveal very retarded-looking snowflakes. Or they would just fall apart. It was hysterical. Jonah has absolutely no understanding of what a snowflake is supposed to look like and had no clue at all as to what we were doing. He just gave us the strangest looks as Joel and I laughed our heads off while continuing our vain attempts. We looked it up on the internet later and remembered right away how we were supposed to fold them. So we'll probably revisit that activity another day now that we know what we're doing. Anyway, it's been fun. Now I just have to find another place to have a picture taken with Santa....because the cheapest option at the mall is $25, and I just think that's ridiculous. If anyone from here knows a good, cheap Santa, then let me know!

It's also so fun to watch Jonah mesmerized by the tiniest things this season. I was telling my aunt Joy yesterday that I had really wanted to take him to Holiday in the Park at Six Flags, but now I want to hold off a lot longer because Jonah thinks my mom's house is a Wonderland at Christmas! I mean, he's so fascinated by watching this one little thing she has that sits on a table and has ice skaters going around it. It's really small. Yet it's a big thing to him. I want him to enjoy the simple things for as long as possible, and I don't really want to bombard him with the "bigger" Christmas decorations just yet. I like that his favorite thing in our house is a very small tree in his room that has one strand of about 15 lights and 4 ornaments! It's pretty pathetic-looking in many eyes, but to him, it's the first thing he wants to show you if you come to our house. There's such a lesson to be learned there, and I'm pondering it a while longer to hopefully gain insight into my own heart and discern whether I'm savoring the simple joys of my Savior this holiday season or if I'm always looking for more, bigger, better.

We tried to get a good Christmas card photo today, but I think it was to no avail. Yet I really don't want to wait much longer to get these done and mailed, so I might have to sacrifice finding "the one" this year. There are more urgent things right now....like being out of milk. I have got to go to the store. Now! So I'll leave you with a picture from this week. Some of you may know that on Mondays this fall, I've picked up three girls from school in the afternoon, and we take them back to their house for a little while until their mom gets home. I forget that it's a job....I feel like I get paid for a playdate! Jonah gets bombarded by pink and girly things and Barbies and all that....he loves playing with their three-year old girl. Next week is our last week, and I'm getting a little sad about it. This is a family I baby-sat for in high school when they had one baby girl. Now that baby is in fourth grade, and there are two more. It's hard to believe how old she is! Or maybe how old I am. But anyway, last Monday we stopped by my mom's after school and took this picture. So here's Jonah, Meg, Makensie, and Macy: