Our Christ Centered Christmas

I had always wanted to find the perfect way to help our children focus on Christ more during December.  However, I didn't want to completely eliminate the magic that Santa Clause and little elves add to the season.  I had been throwing the idea around for a few years, I had even discussed it some with Jared and my sister, Lisa.  Lisa is the one who found the book and shared it with me.  It was what I had always wanted, but I wasn't sure how to pull it off.  Thanks to author Emily Freeman, I finally figured it out.  

The book is called, A Christ Centered Christmas:  Seven Traditions to Lead Us Closer to the Savior.  In the book she talks about each member of the nativity in more detail and gives ideas for how to implement new traditions in your family to keep your focus where it should be...on the Christ child.  The first time I read it I cried, I knew this was what I wanted for my family.  Jared was excited as well, so we began this tradition three years ago.  I wondered how the kids would react.  At the risk of sounding too cheesy, they loved it.  For seven nights during the Christmas season, our family has a little lesson and then activity centered around a different person or persons who were involved in the birth of Christ.  I love it, it has changed how I enjoy the season.  You see, I've always enjoyed the season, it's my favorite time of year.  Now, I enjoy it in a completely different way.  We love watching our kids learn and grow stronger testimonies of our Lord and Savior.

We had our lesson a couple of weeks ago about the Wisemen.  We learned about how they protected the Christ child by returning home a different way, instead of returning to King Herrod.  We talked about how sometimes in our lives we have to do things a different way to honor our covenants to our Heavenly Father.  We learned about the angels and the good tidings of great joy they delivered to the shepherds.  The hymns remind us of the incredible miracle that is Christ's birth.  

Tonight we sat around our kitchen table and learned about the shepherds.  The shepherds are my favorite.  Tonight I shared three lessons we learn from the shepherds.  First, we learn to answer the call to follow Jesus Christ "now" and "with haste". (Luke 2:15-16)  Second, we learn to surround ourselves with good friends who will encourage us to seek the Savior and will want to seek Him with us.  (Luke 2:15)  Lastly, we learn how important it is to spread our testimonies abroad.  We share our light and love of Christ by sharing our testimonies in words and by our example. (Luke 2:17-18)  We finished around our table with each of us holding an unlit candle.  We each took turns sharing our testimonies with one another and then lighting our candle.  As a parent, there are no words for the awesome spirit that is present in your home as you listen to your little ones share their love of the Savior.  I know this night has given me a memory that I will always hold dear.  

Our Week At A Glance (sort of)

As I'm sure all of you can relate, December is packed full of events.  All of these things are good, it just keeps us very busy.  First, check out what our friend, Jingles has been up to this week.  The kissing booth is my personal favorite.

We made annual Christmas trip to Salt Lake where we ate at yummy Crown Burger and then enjoyed the lights at Temple Square.  We took my sister, her kids and my dad with us this year.  It was snowing and cold, but so fun!

Sadie had her Christmas dance recital where she danced like an angel and adored every second of it.

Ethan had his Christmas program at school.  His class memorized countless Christmas songs and poems to share.  He worked so hard at home to have everything learned and memorized.  His awesome mom forgot to take her camera to the school though, so you'll just have to trust me that he is the cutest third grader at Orchard Elementary.  I'm sure believing that won't be stretch for you.  ;)

Friday night, Sadie lost her second front tooth.  With an adorable toothless grin she screamed, "Now when I sing All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth I can really mean it!!!"  This child totally cracks me up.

Saturday, we had our first ever Walker family Christmas party.  It was so fun that we've all decided it will have to become an annual event.  This little munchkin, also known as Savannah, stayed over at our house with her family.  We all love her to pieces.

We ate lots of food, visited, laughed, watched nieces and nephews share their talents and Grandpa Walker read the Christmas story from the bible.

Two month old, Ryker, graciously accepted the role of baby Jesus.  He did great, as did all the other children in their parts.  We love you, Walkers, we can't wait to see you all again very soon!

Elf On The Shelf

Have you heard about Elf on the Shelf?  It's a fun story all about elves that work with Santa at the North Pole.  The elf is at your home all of December.  Each night he uses his magic and flies back to the North Pole to report back to Santa on the kid's behavior.  Upon his arrival back to your house each night, he picks a new place to hang out for the day.  I should mention that they only way he keeps his magic is if the kids don't touch him. 

Everyone knows I love a good tradition so I was excited to add this one to our Christmas season this year.  I started off with an elf on the shelf breakfast.

 

Doesn't my kitchen table look awesome?  I'm totally dying over it!  We read the story about the elf on the shelf.  Then came the hard part, we had to name him.  There were lots of ideas thrown around.  We finally had it narrowed down to two;  Jingles and Ned.  We all voted, and as usually happens in our particular family, the girls won and he was named Jingles.  

Now the kids are excited to get up each morning and find where Jingles has chosen to be for the day.  Here's one place he was hanging around.

Tonight we put him in the living room. 

Do you remember the part in Finding Nemo where the sharks keep saying, "Fish aren't food.  Fish are your friends."  I'm not sure if my kids will catch on to that, however, I thought the Littlest Pet Shop students were over the top.  For the sake of full disclosure, I did not come up with this idea.  I, of course, found it on Pinterest.  I'm looking forward to a fun month of doing cute things with Jingles and watching my kids enjoy some of the magic of the season.

Ethan's Thanksgiving Scroll

Have I mentioned how much I love my son?  I always tell him he's my favorite son.  A couple of weeks ago his school class made Thanksgiving scrolls.   He brought it home before Thanksgiving but it had taken him a long time to tie the ribbons around it so he didn't want me to open it.

 

I finally convinced him to let me open it and read it when I promised him we could get the ribbons back on.  This is what he wrote: (I've left the spelling the way he wrote it)

Thanksgiving 2012

When I hear the wooshing of the trees and hear the birds chirping, I see the birds flying south and see my cousins.  When I smell the turkey I know Thanksgiving is here!

When it is Thanksgiving time we celebrate thanks.  I am grateful for a lot of things but I'm only going to share a few.

I have lots of gratitude for my family.  I love when my dad makes fires.  I love my moms cupcakes.  I like when Jenna plays with me.  I like when Abby does art with me.  I love when Sadie plays football with me.  I am blessed to have a wonderful family.  

Food is very important.  It helps me to survive.  My favorite food is orange chicken.  I love when we have orange chicken with rice.   I like when we have sauce with it.  Food give me energy so I can play my sports.  It helps me not to get sick.  It also helps me not to starve.

I'm elated to have clean water.  Clean water helps me not be thirsty.  Clean water is the healthiest drink on the planet.  When I'm really thirsty I drink a lot of water.  Clean water is really important.  

I am happy for education.  Education helps you get a good job and a better life.  Education helps you learn so if your child has homework and they don't get it you can help them.  Why education is important to me is because I really want to learn all the subjects in school.  The reason education is important to me is because I need to learn so it will help me later on.  The favorite thing I've learned in school is cursive.  

When I smell the cinnomon candles burning and see kids jumping in leaves and hear leaves crunching I know Thanksgiving is here!   -by Ethan Walker

I guess you can see why I'm so in love with this darling little guy.  You might say he's my favorite son.  ;)

  

Family Pictures 2012

A few weeks ago we had our annual family pictures taken.  I'm always glad when I have them done, but I detest choosing what to wear and getting everyone ready.  I'm not going to lie, sometimes it feels like World War 3.  For some strange reason, this year wasn't too bad though.  Once I got past choosing what we were all wearing it was pretty much smooth sailing.  Here's a look at our favorites.

 A big thank you to Jared and Jenni Skelton with Silverstrand Photography for taking the pictures.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was early this year, November 22, to be exact.  Did you know that's the earliest it can ever be?  True story.  One thing I was grateful for this Thanksgiving was the nice weather.  You see, every Thanksgiving morning we play Walker/Sundell Family Football with our dear friends, the Sundells.  We play come rain or shine, so I was glad there was mostly shine this year. 

 

 Team Sundell

Team Walker

Team Walker was super lucky to have our nephew, Luke, visiting from BYU/Idaho.  Luckily he's a Walker, so he could join our team.  Each year we mix up the teams a little bit, but we always begin with family vs. family.  I'm happy to report that Team Walker won by one touchdown this year!  Lahoo!  (As Sadie would say!)

As you can see, we had a fabulous time.  Sadie was particularly excited to play this year.  She had a great time trying to tackle Curt at every turn.

She also had fun sitting on people that were already down, even if they were on her team!

This year we decided to mix it up with kids vs. adults. 

That was...interesting.  It turns out the Walker girls (not Stacy, mind you) are afraid to catch the ball!!!  This was a major source of frustration for Luke, though he was a good sport the whole time.  When worse comes to worse, you can hand off the ball to the littlest kid and run it and them in.

Disclaimer:  No children were injured in the football game...not too badly anyway.  Sorry about the knee in the head, Brannen!

When all was said and done, we had a great time and we are even still friends.

P.S.  We tried to get Grandpa Walker to join in on game, but he chose to be the cheering section and part-time photographer. 

After football we had worked up quite the appetite, so we were off to Sarah and Dean's house in Riverton for some awesome turkey dinner.  Jared's twin sister, Janelle, wasn't there so I felt obligated to shoot a few pictures.  (Love you, Janelle!)

We ate and ate and did I mention that we ate?   I was so full I thought I would die.  A huge thank you to Sarah and Dean for hosting us and making such a yummy feast for us all to enjoy!

These three had fun making faces for the camera while they laid on the floor trying to recover from eating way too much food.

Later that night, I was forced to go to Target for some awesome deals for Christmas gifts.  When I say forced, I mean this guy made me go.

Okay, to be fair (and honest) Luke didn't make me go.  I was going and he decided to join me.  We met up with my sister Lisa and my sister-in-law, Cher along with two of my friends.  It was cold by evening, I was glad I had my hot cocoa to keep me warm.  We were able to get everything I wanted and still get home by 9:50!!!  Huge success and one happy mama! 

The next day I took all the kids, and my little Luke, up to the new outlets in Lehi.  We had fun checking out all the shops.  My little shopper, Sadie was dying over these earmuffs at the Gymboree Outlet.  She was so excited when her big cousin tried some on too and posed for a picture.  She sure does love him!  I can't blame her, we think he's pretty fabulous too!

What a great weekend we had.  We have much to be thankful for.  Most of all, I'm thankful for this darling little family that is all mine for eternity.

Two Weeks of Catching Up!

Here goes a major catch up with what's been going on around the Walker house.  Two weeks of random stuff coming right up.

First, we celebrated Grandpa Allen's 69th birthday.  I'm pretty sure you're a little irritated that I posted your age Dad, but I love you.  We had my brother and sister and their families over along with my dad's sister and her husband and one of his brothers.  We had a fabulous time eating, visiting and laughing.

Next came Halloween.  It's no mystery that I don't love Halloween, but I worked hard to put on a good face for the littles.  The pumpkin carving is always a highlight for them.  

This vain little girl didn't want to share her picture with a pumpkin, go figure.

For as much as I dislike Halloween these littles do love a good Halloween and I must admit that they looked darling in their costumes.

 

After Halloween the BYU basketball season began.  My dad has always had season tickets.  Luckily for us, Jared got two tickets from work as well.  The night of this game me, Jared, Ethan and my dad all went to the game.  

Ethan got to sit with Grandpa.  This was fun for lots of reasons, one of which was the treats Grandpa provided for him. 

Yes, my son is wearing a red shirt at a BYU game.  I'm shocked that neither one of us noticed!

Next comes the fact that my little boy has been melting my heart quite a bit the last week or so.  We all overslept a morning last week and at our house that can become disastrous quick.  Jenna and I leave for the morning at 7:20, the other three leave 20 minutes later, followed by Jared 10 minutes after that.  So, the parents not waking up until 6:30 puts a huge wrench in the works.  Ethan got up quickly this particular morning.  He emptied the dishwasher, helped Sadie get breakfast and got some for himself as well.  He was such a huge help.  Sadie was sad because she wanted Jared to read to her.  Ethan solved that problem himself.  He told her to get her doll and he would read to both of them.  This is how I found them.

He is seriously such a good little boy and his little sister adores him.  If he sees her at school without anyone to eat lunch with he has her eat with him and his friends.  He also brings her along to play sports with his friends if she can't find a friend on the playground.  He gave our family night lesson last night.  He taught us all a lesson on missionary work.  I fell in love with him again as I watched him reading to us from his Book of Mormon.

To say I adore this little guy would be a huge understatement, I can't believe how much I love him.

This past weekend we had the first snowstorm of the season.  Last year we had almost no snow.  In fact, they never once even put their snow gear on!  So, when I picked them up from school on Friday they were giddy to put their snow clothes on and go play.  We had received about 5 inches and it was still snowing.  They spent hours out playing on Friday and then again on Saturday.

Monday afternoon Jenna had one of the best day in the last 18 months.  She got her braces off!  She was so excited to finally be done with her mouth full of metal.  To celebrate we made a huge bowl of sticky, gooey caramel popcorn for our family night treat.

To round off the past two weeks we celebrated Jared's 38th birthday!  He had the day off so we were able to go to lunch together.  Then we had a yummy dinner, presents and some birthday cake to finish off the night.

As you can see we have had a crazy, yet fabulous couple of weeks.  With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming I'm sure the next few will be the same.  I'm going to post a bunch of pictures of some of our favorite Christmas activities and traditions, so stay tuned.

P.S.  Sadie brought home three smiley faces on her behavior report three days in a row last week.  We celebrated with a big frosty from Wendy's.