November - Part 1

November has already been SO busy. The first weekend in November my mom and I were brave enough to tackle Canton. We have been going for years and on this trip, planned to meet up with my good friend, Katie (we've been trying to plan this Canton trip for years!). It was SO crowded. I have never seen it like this. Katie and I tried all day to meet up with each other. My phone wasn't getting a good signal, so I could get texts, but not phone calls. It was nuts! We never even ended up seeing her. Mom and I made a couple of small purchases and got on the road and headed home. We enjoyed the day together, but the shopping was nuts.

This past weekend was a really fun. Friday night we had our Advent Ornament Exchange. Leslie found the idea for this from a blog that we follow and once I saw it, we decided that we had to do it! We emailed our friends and got 25 girls to commit to participate. Each girl was assigned a day of Advent. We used the Jesse Tree Advent Devotional as our guide and each girl made 25 of the same ornament to exchange. Friday night we all got together and swapped so that we each had one ornament to go with each day of December leading up to Christmas. We wanted to have something that we could use to help teach our children about the real meaning of Christmas. All too often we get lost in the all the activities and forget to take time to reflect and prepare our hearts. As new moms, we take the responsibility of this more seriously than ever. We each want our children to grow to have a personal relationship with Jesus, to love and follow him and be the men/women He designed them to be. It is also so wonderful to be surrounded by so many wonderful, Christan women to raise my child (and future child(ren) with. They are amazing!

 Leslie's world

 My lambs

 Kate, Leslie, Vanette, Allie

 Wyatt

 Kyle

 Raemi & Alisha

 Trudi & Crystal

 Picking up ornaments

On Saturday, mom, Brittany & I headed to The Nutcracker Market for some serious shopping. We had such a great time. We found the meaning to the phrase "shop till you drop". We pretty much dropped. We were so tired by the end of the night (we shut the place down). It was pretty crowded (at one point we heard that they were not letting anyone else in because the fire marshal said there were too many people inside), but still lots of fun. We found some great stuff, bought a few gifts, a few treats for ourselves and ran into Leslie, Allie & Kay.

Now I am counting down the days until Thanksgiving break. We have next week off, and I could not be more excited. I have never needed a break so badly.

In the next couple of weeks Lance and I will be celebrating our 7th anniversary this weekend, going on a little getaway and hosting both of our families at our house for Thanksgiving dinner. Stay tuned for more updates :)