Christmas Day at Disney

Chris and I spent lots of time talking about what to do for Christmas this year. As we talked, we both had the feeling that the Christmas season was getting lost in all the busyness of life at the holidays. Church programs, school programs, recitals, parties: all good things, but certainly things that became huge distractions to our family this year. We believe that God has called us first and foremost to live and speak the gospel over our children in every way possible and so, for our family, we decided that this year instead of making a big deal of presents that will be fun for a little while and then be thrown into a corner with all the other toys, we would take the money we would spend on Christmas presents for the kids and have a big family day on Christmas instead. So, for this year, we thought that Disney would be fun. We decided to go to EPCOT because we figured that Magic Kingdom would be ridiculously packed and we love EPCOT so it seemed like the best choice for us. So, Christmas morning, we packed the kids up, put on our matching Mickey Mouse shirts (because we were that family) and headed to Orlando. The kids had such a good time and it was such a simple, not stressful day for - until it got dark and cold - then it wasn't so much fun. :( But until that point, it was great and here are some of the pictures of our Day of Fun.

Heading into the park - I told you we had matching shirts :)

PLaying with a fire truck - just what you think of with Disney World, right?!?

in Finding Nemo, playing fish matching games

and looking at the real fish!

Playing in a fountain while I fed Creed

See?

Chris and Cadence entertaining themselves in line for a ride - by far my favorite pictures of the day :)

Racing Cars

Stopping by the potty for the millionth time

EPCOT's Christmas Tree - one of my favorites

Mary Poppins decided to go to EPCOT for Christmas too!

Playing drums in Africa

Proof that Creed was there!

and the beautiful crashing of the kids at the hotel!

We so enjoyed our day together and will definitely make this a bigger Andersen tradition. It only makes sense really that we would take the focus on Jesus' birthday off of what earthly stuff we could have, and focus instead of the gifts that God has given us. Jesus - the greatest gift ever! and our family - a pretty close second :)

Christmas - so late that's it's ridiculous!

There is no excuse for a Christmas post in March but I need it documented so that when I decide to print my blog out as a lazy man's scrapbook, Christmas of 2010 will be included in the book :) So, here it is, we did "Christmas" with the Wilson's on Christmas Eve because it was the year for it. So, Christmas Eve morning, there was a plethura of presents to be opened and enjoyed.

Our traditional Christmas present with all the loot!

Random shots of our Christmas Celebration.

Mom's Tree for 2010

Cadence opening her Princess Tiana box from Lellow GiGi and PaPa - she loved it and now officially has every Disney Princess Dress.

Liz and Shan with their boxes

It was all kind of lost on Creed but he enjoyed being held by PaPa during all the chaos.

Caleb Shaun was digging the whole present thing and got more trucks and balls and boy things than had ever been in the Wilson House before!

The Grahams and Lourceys were there too and we were so glad we got to hang out with everyone. Janey loved her dress up stuff. She's got a great role model for all things dress up in Cadence!

I'm so grateful for our family and the fact that we get to celebrate so many holidays together. We are certainly a blessed group of people!

Soccer!!!

We wanted Cadence to try playing a sport and her Dad decided that that soccer would be a good first choice. Easy rules, lots of running. Well after a few practices and the purchase of some super cute soccer equipment here are a few highlights from her first game!

My New Favorite Sound

If you can have a favorite sound, this is definitely high on my list :)

VIDEO

and yes Creed is soaking wet because of teething. He had drooled all over his jacket!

Perspective...

This is a wordy blog so feel free to skip it :)

This past week Michael, our worship leader, asked me to lead worship next week at church. He's running a marathon at Myrtle Beach and wants to be able to stay the whole weekend. Our church right now is in a series called "Radical Sayings" and this next weeks is James where it says to "count it all joy when we encounter trials of any kind" So, this week as I've thought about songs that lend themselves to that topic and read other scripture around that topic (ie Job/Romans/anything Paul said) I should have known that I would get to put this into practice.

Fast forward to Friday when Chris went to the dr to have a "procedure" done. :) I'm grateful for it but it definitely put him out of commission for the weekend. So, he had an appt at 10:30 and then Caleb Shaun had an 18 month checkup at 12 - where we found out that the reason for his fever wasn't teething but rather a double ear infection - oops! Creed is full in the throws of teething and pretty miserable with a low-grade fever himself. and Cadence is a really energetic 4 year old. I knew the weekend had the potentional to be interesting............

So, Friday night as I'm bathing the boys, I begin to have a pity party in my head about the rough weekend I'm set up for. A husband in the bed that can't be of any help to me but the kids want to play with, 2 miserable boys who would rather cry and be held than anything, and Cadence, who was very concerned about her Daddy and basically played nurse all weekend. Just as I began to swirl into a vortex of self-pity, the Lord brought to mind James 1. I hate it when this happens! So, I ask begin to ask the Lord how I can "count this all joy" and He gently reminded me that I had lots to be grateful for.

- I have 3 children when I could count lots of people who don't have any - or at least not as many as they would like to have. Yes, one of them is teething and the other has a double ear infection, but we have the proper medications to make them comfortable and well.

- I have a husband - a wounded husband - but a husband who loves the Lord way more than he loves me and is sacrificing the weekend not because of his own comfort but because of mine. We had the money to go to the dr for the procedure. We live in a country where meds and drs are readily available to take care of us.

- Cadence - although her mouth drives me insane most of the time - as soon as she realized that there could be something wrong with her Daddy immediately burst into tears because she cares so much about him. She has been a perfect nurse to him and in turn, has been a tremendous help to me. She has a heart of compassion towards her Daddy and brothers that has been so evident this weekend that it's obviously a gift from the Lord.

Back to my story..........I got the boys out of the tub feeling much better about myself and my situation. It's amazing what a little perspective can do for you! I put all 3 kids to bed, got Shaunie's feeding tube started for the night and went to pump - yes this is the breast-feeding portion of the blog. Another job I hate and could get ill-tempered over until I thought of why I'm doing it.

First of all, I have a son that Chris and I made together - a real live miracle! I have been able to nurse him his whole life with no problems at all - and I realize that this isn't how it works for lots of people! Why am I pumping? To save up milk so I can have a weekend away in April. Chris is going to watch all 3 kids for the weekend so I can go on our church women's retreat ( you can start prayng for him now). So, there's something to be grateful for! 3 days with some of the best friends that God has ever given me! And I was went to the kitchen to put my freshly pumped milk away, I realized the bottle was full that I was saving it all in and so I went to dump it up into a bag to freeze and dumped the entire 5 oz of milk onto the counter and floor of the kitchen missing the bag completely. awesome. and so I just laughed because sometimes that's all you can do. and my perspective change on it was that I could start making more tomorrow :)

You know, in Ephesians when is says "that as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

or in Romans where is says to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, I think that this must be what it's talking about. When we immerse ourselves in the Word about a specific subject, we'll inevitably get the opportunity to put the Word into practice and hopefully come out on the other side of it and little closer to "holy and without blemish"

James 1
² Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ³for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

V-Day Photoshoot

Every year I try to get a picture of the Andersen kids around Valentine's Day. This used to be a fun endeavor - back when there was one cute little girl who loves to have her picture taken.......

Since adding boys, this picture has turned out to be more of a chore than a fun afternoon with cute kids. However, we press on! determined to get a picture. This year it took 42 attempts to get something that I could settle on. Here are some of the outtakes for your viewing pleasure :)

Yes, Caleb Shaun is drumming on Creed's head - another reason that I'm grateful to only have sisters!

So,as you can tell by the majority of the pictures, one Andersen was less cooperative than the other 2. As a result of this, Chris and I thought that this was our best option/representation of the holiday :)

Happy Valentines Day! Love the Andersens.

V-Day Preparations

Cadence had her Valentines party at pre-school today. Therefore, this year we had to make valentines for everyone in her class. She really didn't get what we were doing but enjoyed writing all the names on the cards and putting stickers on them. It made much more sense today when she actually got to put them in her friends "bags" at school and she got cards in her bag. That was lots of fun for her!

In the process of making the cards Caleb Shaun wanted to sit down and color with Cadence. So, we pulled out his crayons and let him go to town on some paper. I really think this was the first time we've ever really let him color - which is shameful since he's 18 months old! He didn't really get what to do with the crayons but caught on after awhile. He mostly thought crayons were for eating or drumming with but that's OK; it wasn't horrible for his first time :)

I lost the paper with all the names of Cadence's classmates so we worked from memory to come up with a partial list. I wrote them out for her to copy and then realized that she only writes in Upper-Case so I had to re-write them in "tall" letters for her to copy.

Eventually we just let Caleb Shaun down from the table. He's much happier playing in the bouncy seat anyway! It's definitely one of his favorite things to do lately.