Waiting and Anticipating

Well, I can't believe it! Christmas is only a week away, that just doesn't seem right! We are excited and ready though! In fact, I think this week has kind of been the calm in the storm. We have been busy shopping and last weekend was our Sunday School class Christmas party, as well as our church's Christmas Music Program, so needless to say, it was a busy weekend. This coming weekend Hannah and I will being attending our 1st mother/daughter event and I am so excited. A friend is having a Jingle and Mingle mother/ daughter brunch, so we are looking forward to that! But the rest of this week has been pretty usual. Ryan's grandmother will come in town on Monday so I have a feeling holiday festivities will pick up again from there!
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This Christmas is going to be a very fun one in the sense that Hannah Grace especially, but Bennett too, will be able to enjoy opening presents, so that will be fun for us to see their faces light up- but we are still not yet into the Christmases I am really looking forward to- the Christmases that I can teach them what this whole thing is really all about and what we are really celebrating for. I can't wait to show them that Christmas is about giving and not getting. We haven't really been able to do anything with them that teaches them what Christmas is really about, they just aren't to the point yet where they even really know that presents are coming for them, but I have a feeling next year that we would be able to take Hannah to places and do things with her where she can learn it is not all about her and she can do things for other people during Christmas- that she can sacrifice for others, the way that God sacrificed His Son for her! That will really be the time that we can truly "get into" Christmas, and hopefully by next year she may be able to at least begin to understand and get a taste of that.
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One cute little thing Hannah has done this Christmas season, is we have been doing this little interactive nativity that Ryan's mom gave to us. There are seven boxes to open during random nights in December. There is a rhyming little story to go with each box, and when they open them there is a figurine to the nativity that she gets to place where she wants in the scene. We have only done three so far, but the night we do it- we pull her step stool over to her dresser where it is and we do our little thing- then I love it, when she gets down (this is always before bed) she sweetly says "night night Mary". We have done the angel, Mary and Joseph and she says them all, but for some reason Mary is her favorite so far, and it is always "night night Mary". I know it's kind of a silly story, but if you have kids, you know that sometimes it is the small things...
Here the kids are reading their "That's not my Snowman" book. I absolutely LOVE watching Bennett read it and feel all the spots so curiously. He may still be too small to say much, but you can always see his wheels are turning! Such a smart and sweet little boy he is!

I do have a cute little Bennett story for the week too =) We were all home on Saturday and doing stuff around the house. The kids had cartoons on the TV and I kept hearing Bennett mess with our space heater. By the time I made it in there to stop him, he had found the setting he wanted it on, had spread his blanky out on the floor right by it, and sat down in front of it with his little fuzzy hair blowing in the warm air. He was rocking back and forth to the song on TV and when he realized I was watching he just turned around to me and grinned form ear to ear. I desperately need to get the cord I need to upload video to our computer, because Bennett is at that age where he may not be old enough to be doing a lot of things I can type out, but if you could just SEE him!! He has so much personality and does the funniest things and makes the greatest expressions. One of my favorite things he does right now is he LOVES to spin in circles and he does it with such attitude. It is too cute! That will be my goal, to get a video uploaded on here so you can see it =)

All boy- and so handsome...

I know every mom thinks her daughter is beautiful- and I am no exception!

It is so hard to try to get a good pic of them together, but I took about a hundred trying =)...

I love this one of Bennett trying to give Hannah Grace a kiss!

And finally both smiling at least!!! Of course once they are not sitting posed anymore =)

Gotta love it!!!

So we are sadly not sending out holiday cards this year. Hopefully next year will be different but that's just one of the places I decided we could cut back this year- so consider this your holiday wishes from the Braithwaits! We hope you all have a blessed Christmas filled with loved ones and celebration of our Newborn King!!