It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Stockings are hung, house is decorated, gifts are being wrapped, Christmas music is constantly playing through every speaker in the house, trees are up-hot pink of course for Miss B, blue for Hank (don't you love how kids decorate trees, with all the ornaments in one spot!), white in the play room, and of course "my" tree. :) I can't get enough!!

Well, actually it has been Christmas at our house since before Thanksgiving. We put our trees up a few days before (although we didn't officially turn them on until that night). On Thanksgiving night my parents have the "lighting" at their house, where they turn on all the lights and we all "ohhh" and "ahhh", cheer, and shout "Merry Christmas!" The day after lights on our house went up thanks to my Dad and Landon who showed up at my doorstep with ladders and lights ready to hang! I've really got the GREATEST FAMILY IN THE WORLD!!!Tonight the kids had "movie night" a weekly-sometimes more often :) Evans' family tradition. During the last few months it has been Christmas movies from Elf to White Christmas to the Santa Clause and everything in between. But tonight they watched The Nativity. Most of the time I am half cleaning up/etc. half watching, but tonight they asked me a few times to "snuggle" and watch the movie with them. I had dishes in the sink, stuff to put away, laundry to be folded, but I couldn't resist.

As we watched I was thinking about how blessed I am to have these sweet babies. I want to soak up every second, I want to remember what they smell like, what we talked about, how they sounded, what they look like when they are sleeping tonight. As the movie ended and we lay on the couch in the dark with only the glow of the tree, we just listened to the "angels singing" (music at the end of the movie). It was so peaceful. It was heaven! As I tucked them in bed in my heart was so full of JOY for the opportunity to be a mother. To be able to share these kinds of experiences with them, to have daily conversations about Jesus and angels, to teach them about God's love, and to help them remember they have great work to do here. But they are here to remind me what Heaven is like! They are here to bring awareness of those things that are not seen. They also remind me that I need to live in the moment. Not be in such a hurry to get on to the next thing. To treasure the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even with the anticipation of Christmas mounting, tonight I don't think they will be dreaming of Santa or having "visions of sugar plums". Hopefully they will fall asleep dreaming of our beautiful Savior's birth and the true meaning of Christmas.....