It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

November 1st--Christmas music starts to play in our home.

That's right! We LOVE the holiday season in our home! Right after Halloween you start seeing Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations in all of the department stores and you hear wonderful Christmas music throughout the mall. Everything goes on sale and most everyone seems to be full of good cheer! It really is the most wonderful time of the year! It's no wonder we keep our Christmas Tree up until February...even later if we feel like it!

So, this year we spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with family at Josh's parent's home in Rancho Cucamonga. My mom was even able to come out for a visit from Wisconsin! We had a great time taking pictures, playing games, and enjoying each others conversation! It was a great day. We spent the evening playing cribbage and looking through all the Black Friday ads. We only went to two stores on Black Friday and both were to purchase Emery's birthday presents and Christmas presents from my mom. Emery is one little lucky guy and will be very fashionable this upcoming year! :)

Friday was also spent preparing for Emery's birthday party which was on Saturday. A great friend of ours, Trish, helped us to make and design a beautiful Toy Story themed cake! It was amazing! (Enjoy the pictures) We had so much fun working with the fondant and you know what, it actually tasted pretty good as well! It was relatively easy to work with and made the cake look beautiful!

Bottom Tier:

Center Tier:

Top Tier:

Alien Cupcakes:

My mom, Josh, and I spent Friday night and all day Saturday with the stomach flu, so we were not able to celebrate Emery's 2nd birthday with him. We were so sad! We were thankful, though, that Emery never got sick! In fact, the people whom we most worry about getting sick didn't! Not the kids or great-grandparents! We were very thankful for that!

Emery's birthday was on Tuesday the 30th and we celebrated by going to Disneyland the day before. My mom, Emery and I spent the day there and enjoyed visiting Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and all the rest of the Clubhouse gang! We got to ride several rides as it wasn't very crowded until the parade in the evening. Emery did such a great job with very few pouty moments!

Josh and I have so much to be thankful for this year! We especially remember our friends and family around the holiday season and how grateful we are to have them in our lives. We found out back in October that we will be expecting a baby, and now that I've almost completed the 13th week, we're feeling pretty confident that everything is going to go well this time around! Praise God! We are also thankful that we've found a new apartment that will save us a little money this next year! There is SO MUCH to be thankful for but, above all, we're thankful for God sending His Son down to earth because of His great love for us and our desperate need for a Savior! He didn't have to come. He didn't have to live as a baby. He could have chosen to live as a king in a comfortable, warm palace, but instead, He chose to sacrifice everything for us. We are most thankful for that! What an amazing God we have who is full of mercy, compassion and grace!

As we prepare to enjoy this Christmas season, it is our prayer that you would enjoy time with your families and friends. It is our prayer that you would remember how blessed we all truly are--no matter how bad you may think you have it, you area truly blessed person just because you can read this post! If you're reading it, it means you have access to a computer, internet, have sight, and have been educated! There are so many around the world who don't have those benefits! So appreciate them! Enjoy them! And share your joy with others!

Happy Holidays!