The First Sunday of Advent

This Christmas season we are starting a new family tradition in celebrating Advent, awaiting and rejoicing in God's promises of a savior for His people.... leading up to the birth of Jesus being the first Advent. When John and I got to thinking about it and giving it some study, God really used this celebration to pinprick our hearts to how blessed we are as children of the King. To be on this side of the promise fulfilled, knowing that the Lord has been born, lived a sinless life, died that we may can have eternity with Him and the Father and will come again to take us "home."

This being the first Sunday of Advent, we lit our first candle and did a small bible study with Bright after lunch this afternoon. Obviously Bright can not think abstractly yet so we have placed a wooden manger scene around the candles to help him understand for the next few years to come. John read a small first portion of the Christmas story in the Bible and we prayed and let Bright "play" with the figures. How sweet it was see him pick up Baby Jesus and hear him say "baby."

We are really excited to continue this throughout the next 4 Sundays and then finally on Christmas day!! What a way to treasure God in our family traditions for years to come also to align our hearts to the true reason for the celebration of Christmas!! It is so easy for all of us to get caught up in the shopping, party hopping and other things that come with this time of year!!







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Sunday afternoon's are also a fun fun time for Bright and John. John doesnt go to work till 330p on Sundays so they actually have a bit of play time before Bright takes his nap. Bright LOVES wrestling with Daddy and trying out all of his new "techniques" on him.

Today Bright realized that he can balance on his head, reach through his legs backwards and tickle Daddy.... Im so glad I caught it in a photo because it was PRICELESS!! He was so proud of himself for doing it all and honestly... we were pretty proud too!! We've been teaching him to do sommersalts (sp?) and we think he learned it from there.

John is very gracious and lets Bright win sometimes (like he is wrestling a gator) but also pins him good to show him who is "boss" :)


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Last but not least... John has been aching to hit the new Steak and Shake since it opened a few weeks ago. I think inpart because it was one of the places we used to venture to while we were dating to get milkshakes. We made it today before the crowds... Daddy being so excited that Bright got his first S & S paper hat. They really are well prepared there as in the hat came a wet wipe, a pack of crackers and some crayons!! How much more perfectly could it come?? Something to wipe the toddler room germs off, something to hold him over until lunch came and something to keep his BUSY hands, well, BUSY :)

All this to say... while we were waiting for our food I saw a bunch of people come in at once. I looked over to a family sitting on the bench waiting to be seated and immediately started recalling my "hero" section on a certain website. Much to my appreciation and admiration was a very LARGE and BUSY family. A Mommy and Daddy.... 5 BOYS probably between the ages of 10 and 1.5 (about Brights age).... and a baby in Mommy's belly. They had all been at church that morning, as you could tell by their dress and the name tags on the youngest kids. So that means they all woke up, got dressed, out the door, to church and then were brave enough to venture to a bustling restaurant!! Can you imagine being a mom to 5 1/2 children much less all VERY BUSY boys?? God has certainly equipped them in amazing ways... seeing a mom of that many patiently attend to all of their needs... now that is amazing!!

I just had to give a shout out to that precious Mommy (and Daddy too!!) I did want to ask if the baby in her belly was a girl :)