Yesterday

Yesterday was one of the best days we've had as a family. Im the one who loves family outings, holiday-related activities, etc. Steve ..... not so much. I start calling him scrooge about this time of year :). We tried the pumpkin patch in Oct and ended up with 2 of 4 kids having a nasty attitude and leaving totally miserable, hot, dirty and full of regret for even trying.

Like iI mentioned before, we got rid of our fake tree a few years ago because of the lead thing. And this year Caleb asked for a tree. So we headed to Mainstay Farms yesterday to cut down our own. We had an AWESOME day! They had go-kart things to ride (pedal), a huge tube slide, tractor rides, a jumping pad thing, etc. All for free. The kids had a blast and the weather was gorgeous. We had low ceilings in this house so we had to go for a smaller tree - and only those were anywhere near our budget. At the very end when we were about to leave we found "the one" :) It looked tiny but its just absolutely perfect in our house and smells wonderful. The price was a little steep but it makes me feel good to support a Christian, local, "green" business and not WalMart. And we actually came home to a Christmas check from a relative that covered it all. Praise God!

There was pretty much no fighting, we stopped and got lunch on the way home and the kids loved that (I wont even say where but it was cheap so that was good :)) I had a photo session just before sunset and it was cold but a really fun one, with fun people. I came home and hung the Christmas lights outside while Steve napped before his Sat night job. JJ and Abram came out and "helped" :) Then we put the lights on the tree inside - the kids too turns holding the string for me and following me around and around while I hung them on the tree (scrooge was not sad to miss this even so dont worry about him)

Then I made homemade waffles with freshly ground spelt. The kids LOVED them, said they were like cake. They did taste that good and were totally healthy, no sugar, etc. We use agave as syrup. We did our advent reading and Jesse tree ornament as well as our advent calendar before dinner over. It was a perfect end to a great day :) It was SO great to be out and not stuck here all day. The house is a disaster but it doesnt matter, it was worth it

Now off to get ready for church - finally after weeks and weeks we are all healthy and ready to go. I adore our church family, so real, so beautiful. I cant wait to go worship with them this morning!