Wish

I wish we lived closer to this sweetie! He was kind enough to play tea party with Gracie, even when she chided him for not doing it right. :)

Love my cousin!

Travel

On our way home to Midland for the holidays!

Santa

A few weeks ago, we took Gracie to a breakfast with Santa party! As soon as we walked into the house and she saw him, she exclaimed, "Santa!" She wasn't quite brave enough to walk up to him without holding onto my mom's pinky, but she did go up to him and say hello. A little later, she even sat on his lap to tell him she wanted a kitchen. Whew! Good request, Gracie!

The party was complete with an amazing brunch buffet, face painting by Miz Elto and a reindeer treat bar. Grace picked a candy cane for her face. Thankfully it was a quick painting exercise, but she did surprisingly well for her first time! And she loved seeing the candy cane painted on her face throughout the day.

After making her reindeer food, she wanted to hold it for the rest of the afternoon, and she can't wait to toss some outside our house and save the rest for Nana and PopPop's house in Midland.

Family

As I listened to President Obama’s speech at the prayer vigil in Conneticut on Sunday night, I was overwhelmed with emotion. And when he began to read, slowly, the names of the 20 young children who lost their lives in a supposedly safe place, I could hardly stand to listen. But I listened to each of those beautiful names in honor of their memory and for their families. As he spoke the names, I prayed that there would be no little girl named Grace. But there was. Someone else’s sweet baby Grace. But it could have been my Gracie. And that is terrifying.

As I went to bed, I prayed that the Lord give the families of these 20 children peace and comfort. That He would remind them that their children are no longer in pain and are not scared, because they sit on the lap of our Lord. As I prayed, I broke down in sobs. Because that knowledge did nothing for my pain, and they weren't even my children. And so I asked the Lord to allow my grief to alleviate one small ounce of Grace’s parents’ mourning. Let me take on the pain for a family I know nothing of to give them peace and rest, so they might have the strength to go on for one more day.

I cannot fathom the shock, anger and sorrow 20 sets of parents are going through this week.  I hardly understand my own. I can only continue to pray for the healing peace only God can provide in times such as these.

Bow

As in, take a bow, not a ribbon. Gracie had her very first dance recital today at daycare. She's been taking a ballet and tap dance class at her daycare for the last few months, and they decided to have an informal recital for the holidays. We weren't sure what to expect, but Gracie did a great job, complete with a graceful bow and kiss at the end of both dances.



 

 

 

Treats

This Saturday we hosted a small Christmas party at our house, complete with holiday desserts and drinks! Our treats included:

-Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer cookies
-peppermint Oreos
-ornament cupcakes
-Santa hat brownies
-Poinsettia cocktails
-Hot cocoa with peppermints and gingerbread or snowmen marshmallow toppings
-Eggnog with brandy

I was very pleased with how my treats turned out, but I made way too many! I guess my coworkers will be merrily surprised tomorrow when I show up with extra treats!

Angel

Our own little angel...

Nice

Because we enjoyed making the gingerbread house earlier this month (and because Trinity found a $4 deal), we decorated a gingerbread man this evening. But Grace and I decided to make him a her... We thought it would be a nice change from the norm!

And this time around, Trinity was nice and let Grace handle the decorating with little to no input or forcing her hand! The gingerbread woman still turned out pretty impressive, even if her eyes were two different colors. Nice work, Gracie!

And then Trinity took a big bite out of her head... Not so nice in Grace's book! She started crying until we reassured her that gingerbread woman was actually a cookie, after which Gracie gladly partook in the biting off of the head.

Jingle

Tonight we went to our church's handbell Christmas concert at the Lewisville public library. We thought Grace would love listening to the jingle of the bells, but she wasn't all that interested in sitting still or being quiet. Even when they played Jingle Bells.

 

 

During the concert, Grace kept running away and pulling books off the shelves. Trinity finally got her to sit still for a while with several books. The concert was only 30 minutes long, so she didn't have to wait too long.

 

 

Afterwards, we found two books to check out, looked at the Christmas decorations around the children's wing of the library and played with at the lego center before heading home for bedtime. Grace was excited to see the reindeer and even stood still long enough for me to snap a picture!



 

Naughty

I was naughty yesterday and chopped my hair off. LOVE IT!!!

Trinity likes my hair long, so over the past year I have been growing it out. But there is only so much I can take, and when it gets to my shoulders and rubs against my neck, it starts to really irk me. So against his wishes, I had it cut short again.

Season

I love the Christmas season! It is so much more than just the giving and receiving of gifts. I think more than anything, I love the atmosphere of Christmas time.

The beautiful decorations, the Christmas music playing everywhere you go, the happiness you see on people's faces. I honestly feel like no other time of the year in December.

And I just love our house decorated for the holidays, and this year we upgrades our tree to a 12 foot, pre-lit tree! It was quite a feat to get it up and decorated, and I giggled every time I saw it for the first few days because it is so tall! But I love it now that it's all decorated and lit up in our living room. And the pure joy on Grace's face each time she sees it make it worth it all.

I wish we could keep it up year round! It would be a great reminder that it doesn't have to be Christmas time to feel the love and warmth of the holiday season. But I doubt Trinity would go for that, so I will just have to remember the joy on Grace's face and the happiness I feel and try to live it each day.

Anticipate

To help teach the kids why we anticipate Christmas, our church had a fun Advent festival Sunday afternoon. It all started with a children's time during the service, followed by a pot-luck lunch and lots of kid activities.

We started off the activities by decorating a large gingerbread church. Grace was excited to do this, especially after having some practice on our family house this Friday.

Next, we headed to the ornament decorating craft, but Grace was a little young for the craft. Thankfully, they had a coloring page with markers for the toddlers, so she wasn't disappointed!

I think her favorite activity was the cookie decorating station! They had sugar cookies with lots of icing and colored sprinkles to choose from. Grace kept adding more and more icing as she ate the cookie! I was a little surprised that she didn't go overboard on the sprinkles though! She wanted some of every color, but she did a very tasteful (pun intended) job of adding just enough to see each color.

We ended the festival by stopping by the movie room for the end of the Veggie Tales' version of It's a Wonderful Life. We had no idea that the church had a small media room in the older kids' ministry area. It was a fun little room, complete with popcorn machine and theater seats. Grace did a great job of sitting through the movie and not talking too loud.

I know she had a great time this afternoon, and I am so glad we decided to attend. We are so glad that our church has lots of activities for kids and families!

Lights

After a year of hoping to make it out to Canton for First Monday Trade Days, we finally had an open weekend to go this Saturday. I planned our outing, which included a picnic lunch and shopping in Canton all afternoon, with a stop by SantaLand to finish off the evening.

We headed to Canton right after Grace's gym class and arrived at lunch time for our picnic in the back of the minivan. It's the perfect size for us to spread out and eat together! Grace loved it!

Shortly after we finished our lunch, Jen arrived to shop with us for four hours. I think it is safe to say to say that we were all shocked by the size of the trade days. It seemed that the buildings went on and on without end. Trinity and I found a few Christmas gifts but left with more purchases for ourselves than anyone else. We got some really cute wooden Christmas decorations for the front yard, which we need to get up this afternoon, along with our Christmas lights.

But the best part of the day was definitely the lights at SantaLand. I'd heard about SantaLand last year, but we weren't able to make it out that way, as it's 2 hours from our house and I didn't think Grace was old enough to enjoy it at the time. They have over 2 million lights on display, and it didn't disappoint... even with the wait in a long line of cars for over an hour! Gracie loved seeing all the lights and decorations, and she was not happy when we got to the end of the trail and we headed home. This might not be a yearly Christmas tradition for the Vaughn family, but we'll definitely try it out every few years. I may have to pull Trinity's leg to do so, but Gracie loved it so much that I am sure we can talk him into it again in a few years or when friends are in town.

Blogger Choice: Gingerbread House

On Friday night, we decorated our very first gingerbread house as a family! Now that Grace is older and more able to participate in activities, we definitely want to start some Christmas traditions for our family. Trinity found a cute gingerbread house kit at the store this week, so we busted it out last night after dinner.

We all had a great time decorating, but I think Grace enjoyed sneaking candy into her mouth just as much as adding it to the house! And I caught Trinity guiding Gracie's hand more than once... squashing her artistic side with his OCD tendancies. Oh well, in the end, she was very proud of her gingerbread house and hopefully made a wonderful Christmas memory with her!

Mint green is this girl's color! She looks beautiful!

Ready to decorate



 The goodies!

Sneaking candy

 

 

 

 

The finished product 

Blog a Day: December

I'm going to try again... maybe this month I can make it happen!

 

30 Days of Thankfulness: Day 21

Today I am thankful for an unexpected trip to the beach! We flew to Corpus this morning to visit my Dad and Linda for Thanksgiving, and he suggested a trip to the beach this afternoon. We were more than happy to oblige him and head to the beach to dip our feet in the water.

Gracie loved every minute of it, even dodging the huge jellyfish in the water!