Birthday Party for Jesus

Our Birthday party for Jesus is definitely one of my favorite traditions that we have started since having children. And the older the kids get, the more fun the party is getting!  It's so fun to me that these same little girls have partied and celebrated Jesus coming to earth together for the past 3 or 4 years. My prayer is that as they get older they will continue to be great friends who spread the HOPE that they have grown up hearing about. 

Here they all are decorating their cupcakes. At Jesus' birthday party you get to decorate, blow out a candle and eat your own cupcake :)

The addition of boys to the party has been fun and a little interesting. We'll get better at it as the years go I'm sure!

Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus with their candles all lit. 

Caleb thought he was big stuff with his own knife full of icing!

Creed just ate lots of icing with his fingers because he had eaten his entire cupcake 

before any started decorating!

Cadence picked out a "hanitizer" for each of her friends. I love that she loves to give gifts. 

After cupcakes we started decorating Christmas trees. 

First step: paint popsicle sticks

While Christmas trees were drying we had a scavenger hunt to find all the pieces to the nativity. Everyone found one piece and then had to tell what part their piece played in the story. It was so fun to hear the story from the girls point of view. The boys mostly just wanted people to fight or a pirate to show up.....we're still working out the story for them :)

You had to put your piece at the best spot so that everyone could see baby Jesus. 

Sometimes there aren't enough pieces so giraffes and Larry the Pirate need to show up too!

and then there was sword fighting - necessary at all events with boys

After going thru the story our trees still weren't dry so we moved on to ornament making. 

Glitter is so messy. 

That is all. 

FINALLY the trees were dry!  So then we moved on to decorating. 

So fun and definitely less messy than glitter!

Creed much preferred being a fighter!

Until the M&M's came out for Christmas Bingo. 

Then all of a sudden even Creed was a participant in the party :)

This face totally represents all things 6 & 7 year old to me!

I was stunned at how much fun they had playing bingo. 

We will definitely remember it for years and other parties to come!

and so our party ended. It was so much fun and I am so grateful for these people and this season that lets us celebrate that we are the people we are because Jesus came to earth. It is such an honor to know that we get to pass on these truths to our children and I pray that we will do it well every day and not just in the Christmas season. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!

Mooresville City Lights

For the past couple of years a local family has teamed up with the city to put n a big light show downtown. This year we loaded everyone up and headed out to see the lights and music. 

We were all excited on the front end!

If I'm being fully honest, some days are just harder than others in the Andersen house and this was a hard day! It was actually our second attempt at going to see the lights and the first one was so bad we didn't even make it there. I'm hoping for a third try where we make it there AND it is fun :). But in case we don't, here are the pictures that prove we actually did all make it downtown together to look at the lights.

It isn't an awful light/music show considering it's a local thing. 

RAID: Holiday Edition

RAID is a youth event we do once a quarter. The original premise was to "raid" a resturaunt around closing time with a bunch of teenagers and totally overwhelm the staff. Well, we've changed it a little bit in that we do want to overwhelm the staff but we want to do it with how respectful, polite and helpful we are :) This time since it was close to Christmas, Chris decided to call it the holiday edition and attach some fun other than the eating together part. So, everyone met at the church, loaded up on the bus and went to McDonalds. 

 

 After eating and overwhelming with kindness, we got back on the bus and headed to the bonus part. The kids didn't know where we were going but we headed to an indoor sports complex for a fun-filled 2 hour long kickball game!

Caleb, Creed and Cadence were so excited to get to ride on the bus with the big kids!

and then we kickballed! and while everyone participated in the game, most of these pics are of Andersen kids because that's really what this blog is about :)

 I am so grateful for all of these kids and the role models they are for our children! 

God has blessed us greatly. 

Christmas comes to the Andersen House

I do love Christmas. I love that it's a time I get to see most of my family. I love that we do purposeful family devotions every day. I love Christmas decorations. I love that we get to go to FL and be warmer than our people in NC :) I love the food that you get an excuse to eat it. I love the full calendar and multiple events with friends. I love the music. I love all of it. I mostly love that it's the time where we celebrate that our entire reason for living is full of hope because of what Jesus chose to do when He came to earth. and as our kids are getting older I love that we get to share that with them over and over again. 

Cadence and I had a conversation just the other week - after Christmas stuff was out - about why we decorate more for Christmas than we do for other holidays and it was such a sweet conversation with her where we were able to talk about the fact that we go all out in our decorating and celebrating because Jesus went all out for us. It's unfathomable to me that Jesus would leave His rightful place in the perfection of heaven to have a relationship with me and yet He did. and so if I can take a month out of the year and decorate my house as a daily reminder of what started Jesus' earthly journey, I'll do it. Even when it is a pain to keep small hands off of stuff :)

So, because my sisters, FL friends, and FL family won't get the chance to see our house decorated, here are some pictures of what you would see if you were to stop by this year at Christmas time. 

Caleb was quite the "helper" in this hanging fun. I know Chris was really grateful for it :)

4 stockings for our 4 kids. That still seems crazy to me!

Lots of snowmen this year!  I remember when Grannie gave me all this snowman stuff and I love looking at it and thinking about her.