christmas 'tookies'

when i think of christmas growing up, i remember decorating christmas cookies with my mom. i LOVED it. naturally me and harp made some this year. sooooo, i may have jumped the gun. she was licking icing off of a paper towel about 2 seconds into decorating AND i am still finding sprinkles in the cracks of our wood work. but we DID it! and just to hear her say 'tookies' every other minute was worth it. too cute.

santa's cookies

we left some cookies out for santa on christmas eve. and i love this progression of harper looking at the half a cookie left in the morning. and my FAVORITE thing is that she ate what he left. that's my girl. {you may have to double click on the image to make it bigger so you can actually see the confusion on her face.}

christmas morning

we have loved being at home christmas morning. especially as harper becomes more and more aware of what christmas is about. this is what i hope i remember from christmas morning.

this is christmas eve. sorry i'm not sorry that our kids are so cute.

huck got his own set of keys. these things are genius. they finally figured out to make them out of metal instead of plastic. when are mom's going to be designing these things?

THE pink tutu. when harper sat on santa's lap and he asked her what she wanted for christmas, she said a pink tutu. obviously he had to deliver.

harper got some rain boots. the first thing she asked the morning after christmas once she rolled out of bed was to put on her pink boots. she loves them.

harper loves the movie cars. she still hasn't quite figured out how to work lighting mcqueen and mater that santa brought.

if you are wondering why i look so tired in that last pic...well, i was...am. yikes.

christmas with grams, pops and jenny

i have so many good christmas pictures so i'll just try to hit the highlights of our different celebrations. it was a pretty disjointed christmas this year with my mom in the hospital. so grams and pops and aunt jenny came to us this year. thanks for that!

i had sweet memories of harper 2 christmases ago when she was huck's age when i looked at this picture. harper loved all the paper and ribbons. he sure didn't eat paper like harper did. different strokes for different folks.

this clifford was a huge hit in our house this year. and the books too! (thanks cindy)

we were really excited when huck opened up this tee ball set. i mean, get out. it is too cute.

i could hardly wait for harper to open her new play kitchen. grams had it delivered to our house and it was all i could do to keep it in the box.

thanks to jenny for being the photographer so we could be in the middle of the action. i'm sad i don't have any pictures of grams, pops and aunt jenny with the kiddos. add it to my list of things to fine tune for next year.

beginning to look a lot like christmas

so christmas has come and gone, but i am BEHIND! it was really fun to get a tree and decorate it this year. everything is new for harper. it's so sweet to see the wonder in her eyes as she looks at christmas lights. and the excitement of santa although she really didn't get it completely. she could tell she was SUPPOSED to be excited. and huck is still reaching for that tree skirt.

we have a crawler

huck is finally crawling. he has been working on it for a few weeks. and he finally got it yesterday. i'll refrain from any...harper was already taking steps at this point and just say...hooray huck!


{just ignore the peanut gallery comments, it's pretty hard to keep harper quiet...she likes the spotlight. watch out t-swift, she's gunning for you}

cuties

i got a new camera for christmas and luckily i have lots of cute subjects. here are some of my faves...

this is my first pic out of the box. BELLA!

my dapper dudes.

harper girl

the hubs turns 32!

my sweet hubby turned 32 at the beginning of this month. we had some yummy spiderman cupcakes or as harp calls them "tup takes".

love harper's face in this one!

a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

i haven't been blogging much since my mom went to the hospital. she is still there and hopefully will fully recover from a crazy brain injury that started about 4 weeks ago. we are hoping to get her talking really soon. she has said a word here and there out of reaction and it made me realize how much i missed her voice. this whole process has made me look at death completely differently. i've had grandparents pass, but this is something all together different. having eternal life and knowing we are not made for this world creates in me a sigh of relief on death. just like the song...the sting of death is gone. but as this whole thing has unfolded i have realized that as much as i say that...the truth is...the sting of death is not gone (in the earthly sense). there is still human emotions tied up in the absence of someone. and watching my sweet mom in a hospital bed for this long has been a nightmare. to talk to her and then only get a confused look or even no look back has been a journey of redefining everything that is important. i feel like i have been walking around with a lump in my throat for 4 weeks. on the verge of weeping every moment. and i've felt completely exhausted: emotionally, spiritually and physically.

i have been thankful for the knowledge of my weakness at times. to know that all i've got is the knowledge of god being in control and that he loves my mom more than i do. i have been thankful for my sweet husband who lets me weep when i need to. let's me race over to the hospital when i need to. but also takes joy in every baby step sometimes more than i let myself. i have been thankful for my kids. harper is the most joyful little thing. singing constantly and being silly all the time. and my sweet huck can remind me of god's grace in just his smile. i have been thankful for this new closeness with my dad. to be in this together. to pray for her together. to cry for her together and to try to rejoice in the things together. i see his love for her differently. as i watch him stand by her. to literally be by her side. to be her advocate. to hear him talk about her. to love her deeply. to mourn deeply. to miss her deeply. this is love. it's really hard at times. REALLY hard. but it makes life more real. more sweet. more fun. more holy. i'm not sure how people that don't believe in jesus do it. how can you really love someone more than yourself without jesus? how can you put someone before yourself without jesus? and really, why would you want to? with jesus the lens in life changes. this love for others makes sense because the ultimate sacrifice was made. and it makes us want to be better.

i feel like this whole process right now...at christmas (my mom's favorite holiday) has really taken the cheesy and the cliche and the commercial out of a very sacred holiday. it has given me a new sense of expectancy. although for a different reason, i have grown expectant and anxious and faithful that my mom will come back to us. it has made me rethink that night of jesus' birth. the expectancy in mary's heart. the knowledge and the faith that god's promise is real. that she would really give birth to the savior of the world. i'm not pregnant but i feel like i have a new knowledge and faith of god's promise being real. that these desires of getting my mom back are not in vain. that god is faithful to his people (Lam 3:23) but also that he does not disappoint (1 Cor 13:7). i have a new sense of hopefulness and desperation. i'm hopeful and faithful that His word is real and true. i'm desperate for that truth. that jesus was really born. and really died so that we could have eternal life. i'm desperate for that to be true. because what would it mean in the midst of this is it weren't true? i can't bear to think of that. i can't bear to know that it isn't true. with the truth of the gospel all of this isn't so scary. it isn't so awful. and it isn't so lonely. i'm desperate for jesus. as i watched harper hold her candle at church on christmas eve i was somehow thankful for all of this. i was reminded of my sheer need for jesus. my desperate need of something bigger than myself. of the hope that the truth of the gospel makes life make sense. that i need jesus not just because i'm a sinner but because i have no control over life. and that even if i did i would mess everything up. i was reminded of light that jesus is in such a dark world. we are free because he was born into a sinful, needy world so that we could have it all. 'he makes beautiful things out of dust'. i'm desperate for jesus this christmas. i am weary and expectant. just as it should be.

"a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

merry and happy

my little clapper

my little man just started clapping. it's pretty cute. see for yourself.

breakfast with mr. & mrs. claus

my sweet friend jamie had a breakfast with santa (her parents // madden's grandparents) and mrs. claus at her house. it was so much fun to see all the different reactions to them.

i may or may not have whispered some 'things' to tell santa were on her list. i tried to get her to ask for a pink princess dress because i may or may not know what santa has up his sleeve. instead she asked for a pink tutu. hopefully those two things look the same in her mind. ;-) huck just sat on santa's lap like it was no big deal. highly unimpressed. he may or may not get that from his mama.

Harp and Huck's fun inside

the day before we left for knoxville for thanksgiving we were stuck inside again. what better thing to do than to pull a mattress out of the closet and jump on it. duh. don't be fooled by harper - she LOVED this and still asks to do it over and over.
this is what huck was doing while harper was running around like a wild banchee.

4 Little Monkeys

This is what a playdate looks like with four 2 year olds.
embrace the chaos!

funny faces

we have been making lots of funny faces these days. harper pulls some really good ones out of her bag of tricks. not sure exactly where she gets them from. she is not short of personality (her nickname the last couple of weeks has been ms. bossy pants...that is pretty much all she does is try to boss people around). i had to throw in one of huck too. i think he gets that face from me. maybe i do that too much actually. that's the "you can't be serious face". ;-)

oh, hi same picture

i was perusing my pictures the other day and, welp...there they were. the same picture of harper and huck...only 2 years apart.