12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge - Day 1: Christmas Traditions

I'm starting this a day late, but I'll do 2 days worth today. :-) I saw this on my friend Holly's blog, who's also participating. Thought it would be fun. :-)

Be sure to click on the button to link up...



 12 Days of Christmas: Day 1 ~ Christmas Traditions  

Jake and I have several Christmas traditions that we've started since being married. One being that we get our Christmas Tree from Sullivan's Tree Farm every year. The first Christmas after we got married, I knew I wanted to get a real tree. Both Jake and I always had an artificial tree growing up, but thought it would be fun to try a real tree. We've really enjoyed having a real tree, even though its a lot more work. Its worth it in our opinion. The first year we wanted to go all out and go cut the tree down and everything. So we went out to a farm that we found online about an hour away. When we got there, they only had little dinky small trees that weren't even ready to be cut down in my opinion. So needless to say we didn't get a tree there, but we decided to go right down the road from us to a family owned lot and pick out a tree. We loved the tree we got there and the super nice family that runs it, so we've gone back every year since then. Its so convenient too. We get a Noble Fir every year that smells wonderful and looks beautiful. Its probably my favorite tradition that we have.

These have been all three of our Noble Firs so far. I always take a picture with just the tree skirt that Jake's Great Grandma made for us, before decorating the tree. From left to right its 2007, 2008 and 2009. The best looking tree we got so far was the 2008 tree. It was shaped almost perfectly.

                                                                                                             

A second Christmas Tradition is that we've taken a family picture in front of our tree every year. I use the picture for our Christmas card. I also always use the picture to make an ornament to hang on the tree. I thought it would be cool to have an ornament on our tree from every year to see how our family has grown. Below are our three years worth of pictures so far. I'm hoping next year (2011) there is a baby in the picture, ;-)

 2007

2008

2009

A third family tradition, and this goes back all the way to my childhood, is that we always participate in the Christmas Musical at our church in one way or another. As kids Jake and I were always in the play and now that we're older, I help direct it and Jake always helps in one way or another whether its building the set, playing a small role or whatever needs to be done. Its always fun and gets us in the mood for Christmas.

A fourth family tradition, and this also goes back to our childhood, is to go to the Christmas Eve Service at our church. Its always late at night, normally at 10 p.m. Its normally candle-lit and we sing Christmas Songs. Its one of my favorite things about Christmas. Usually the kids come in their pajamas and it just really gets us ready for the coming of Jesus and helps you remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.

Just a little update on life...

Hi all.
  I created this blog a couple years ago to share pictures of scrapbook pages and crafts I've made. Then earlier this year, I decided to share a little more of my life with pictures of our house, wedding, vacations, holidays and just every day events. Since there haven't been any big events going on these last couple weeks, I thought maybe I'd just take some time out today to give a little update on some things going on in my life. No real big events or anything, just a little update.

  Right now is always a busy time for us with the holidays and because we have a childrens Christmas musical at our church every year and I always help with that. It takes a lot of time and practice. So a lot of my time is going to that right now. This weekend we are going to Jake's Aunt and Uncles house in Lee's Summit, MO (near K.C.) for Thanksgiving with his side of the family. I've also arranged for us to go to a Kansas City Chiefs game while we're there. Its a b-day present for Jake since his B-day is Nov. 23rd. It should be a very fun weekend. Then of course next Thursday is Thanksgiving and we'll be going to my Aunt and Uncle's house that day to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.

  We also just adopted out one of our foster puppies last night. Little Perrier (or Marlee as we've been calling her) went to a great home where I know she'll be loved and adored. She will be living with a couple that has a dog that they treat as family and she'll get lots of play time and love there. They don't have any kids and treat their dog as if he were their child. So she's going to a great home and I couldn't be happier for her. I'm of course sad and I miss her very much, but it makes me happy to know she will live in a great home for the rest of her life. So now we're down to our 2 dogs and Vasser (or Max as we've been calling him). We've considered keeping him, but if we find the perfect home, we'll probably adopt him out too. It all depends on how long we have him and how much more attached we get to him.

  Another thing thats been going on is, Jake and I have been trying to start a family. We've been trying for about 8 months with no success. I'm 29 and he's 24 (almost 25) so our age shouldn't really play much of a role in things. I've been on the birth control pill for 11 years and even after going off of it in February, I've had pretty regular cycles. The latest I ever was in these last 8 months was about a week. Well this month I'm on CD 49 and counting and AF hasn't shown herself yet. I've taken pregnancy test after pregnancy test and all have come back negative. So last Thursday I had an appt. with my OB/GYN. They did a blood test just to make sure I wasn't pregnant and also checked out my thyroid to make sure that wasn't causing me problems. Everything checked out fine and the preg. blood test came back neg. so she prescribed me some Provera, which should jump start my cycle and then I should test for ovulation this month to see if I'm even ovulating. The lack of AF this month indicates that I may not be ovulating on my own. So once AF comes I will test for ovulation and see what happens there. If I get a pos. ovulation test then I'll have to go to the Dr. to have them check my blood for the Luteinizing Hormone to see how good of an ovulation it was. I guess theres a number that it needs to be at in order for it to have been a good enough ovulation for pregnancy to occur. If I don't ovulate or get a good enough ovulation, they will most likely prescribe me Clomid. Which is a drug that you take to help you ovulate. So I never thought I'd be happy to see AF, but I hope the Provera works and I start soon and can see whether I'm actually ovulating or not. That will tell us a lot and then we can go from there. Unfortunately, this is none new to me as my sister has had a lot of trouble getting pregnant. She has a son which took them 11 months to conceive. Now they've been trying for 22 months with no luck on a second child. She's gone through 6 rounds of Clomid and is now going to try IUI to hopefully get pregnant this month. I know this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I find it so strange that my mom had no trouble getting pregnant with either me or my sister. She conceived both of us within a month of going off the pill. But now my sister and I are both having the same kind of problems when trying to conceive. It just shows how different we all are. Thankfully I know God is in control of it all and both my sister and I will get pregnant in His time. Its not really been all that long of a wait for me so far. Usually they don't worry until its been a year of trying without conceiving. But having patience for something you want really bad is still hard. I've been waiting for a couple years for my husband to be ready to start a family, so even though we've only been trying for about 8 months, its still been a lot longer that I've been waiting to have a baby. I'm trying not to worry about any of it and just hope and pray it happens soon. We'll see how things go. I'll definitely keep my blog updated so you know whats going on.

  Thanks for listening and I'd love to hear from anyone who has been or may still be in the same situation we are with trying to conceive. Any advice or recommendations are much appreciated.


Hugs,
~Amy



Halloween Night 2010

We had a great Halloween. The street Jake and I live on was hopping with trick or treaters and lots of houses really get into decorating for Halloween. We had some family over for dinner and then we took Landon trick or treating around our neighborhood while Jake and some of the guys stayed back and sat around the fire pit outside and passed out candy to the trick or treaters. We gave 3 big bowls of candy away that night!! :-) Here are a few pictures. Hope you all enjoyed your Halloween.

A pumpkin shaped cheeseball we made for an appetizer that night. I got the recipe and idea from a friend of mine's blog. For the recipe, click here.

Landon, the friendly moster, trick or treating.

One of the houses on our street all decorated for Halloween.

Landon trick or treating at one of the houses all decorated for Halloween.

A house on our street all decorated for Halloween.

Landon trick or treating at a house in our neighborhood.

 A house on our street all decorated for Halloween.

Landon with all his candy.



Candy-Corn Sugar Cookies

I just love this time of year and I'm always looking for cute little snacks and recipes to make for Halloween parties and gatherings. This year at work, I'm on the hospitality committe and the committee decided to throw a little suprise Halloween party for our office. I found this idea on Martha Stewart's website. Her recipe called for making the sugar cookies from scratch, but since I had limited time, I decided to go to the store and get a mix or something a little quicker and easier. I found this great tub of sugar cookie dough made by Nestle at my local Schnucks for $4.99. So I decided to go with that and I'm glad I did cause I was able to make lots of cookies and it was so easy! :-) Here's a picture of them. For the Martha Stewart recipe, just click here.

Our church toddler class Halloween Party

My sister and I teach the toddler aged kids class at our church. Last night we had our Halloween Party for them. We had a lot of fun. We colored a Halloween coloring page, played pass the pumpkin and we cut out little bats (using the cricut) to hide around the room and whoever found the most bats won a prize. We also bought some really cute cake mix and cupcake papers to make some cute Halloween cupcakes for our treat. The kids had a great time and so did my sister and I. Here are a few pictures from our party.

The kids coloring their color page.

The kids playing pass the "pumpkin" with an orange ball.

The festive Halloween cupcakes my sister made.

The cakemix we bought had Halloween funfetti in it. So cute and yummy!

The kids eating the cupcakes.



Harvest Fest at Church

Our annual Harvest Fest at church was last night. Its always such a fun time. Unfortunately it rained during part of it, but we still had fun. :-) Here are a few pictures...

The gigantic bonfire!



Food and games tents.

Clair dressed as Batgirl.

My nephew Landon (dressed as a "good" monster) and myself at the Harvest Fest.

Ruby, dressed as a cow. So cute!!

Cousins, Noah and Landon dressed in their costumes at the Harvest Fest.

My niece Sophia, dressed as Dorothy.

My nephew Larry, dressed up like Mario.

My nephew Brandon in his football uniform.

Brothers, Carter and Sam dressed in their costumes.

Carter with his sister Avery at the Harvest Fest.

My nephew Landon with his cousin Ruby. So cute! :-)

The hayride.

Halloween Party at my Mother-in-Law's House

My MIL's Halloween party was a success. The kids (and adults) had a great time. Here are some pictures...

Lots and lots of treats.

My niece Bella dressed as a cat and another of my nieces, Sophia dressed as Cinderella.

My niece Kyleigh dressed as a beat up soccer player.

My niece Alexis dressed as a beat up soccer player.

My nephew Larry dressed up like Mario from Super Mario Brothers.

My nephew Ethan dressed up like a pirate.

Some of the kids bobbing for apples.

My nephew Jack bobbing for apples. :-)

The friendly ghost. Its kinda hard to see him. But my husband dresses up as a friendly ghost every year and leaves clues for the kids, which eventually leads them to their treat bags. Its always so fun to see how the kids will react to him.

One of the clues the friendly ghost left us.

The boys playing together after the party.

My nieces Sophia, Bella and myself at the party.