Beach in December!

Gotta love Florida! We spent a whole day in Clearwater Beach in DECEMBER! 

Our friends and family up north were getting hit with a hard snow storm, so we made this "snow"man just for them! 

The boys had fun swimming, playing football, and playing in the sand. They could spend hours at the beach and never get bored! 

Carson decided to write his full name in the sand. Carson James DeMoor...so proud! 

After a few hours on the beach, we went to the pier playground. So fun! 

Then we headed a little bit south on the west coast to eat at our favorite restaurant in Indian Rocks...Crabby Bill's! YUM! Here are my 3 crabs... 

Can't visit Indian Rocks without hitting up the ice cream shop on the downtown strip! Their ice cream is homemade and so good! 

After ice cream, we walked back onto the beach to play some football as we watched the sunset... 

Best Daddy ever! 

We had such a fun family day! 

3 1/2 years old!

Our Tanner Matthew is 3 1/2! How did that happen?! Our spunky, adventurous, blonde headed TT keeps us on our toes in an awesome way! Tanner is 100% boy! He will chase a lizard and catch it faster than a cat. He picks up worms, fish, bugs, and more. He calls his pet lizards his "sweet hearts"! Tanner loves to wrestle! He will wrestle with Carson a lot longer than Carson would care to! You will often find Tanner making super long trains or playing with airplanes. He also likes to run around the house and roar like a dinosaur! Despite Tanner's energy, he is still our little snuggle bug. He loves his blankies and will snuggle up with you in a heart beat. He loves school, and prays every night for the playground, his teachers, and his music teacher Ms. Aloma. We are so blessed by our sweet boy and can't wait to see how much more he learns and develops different interests as he grows! Happy Half Birthday sweet angel! 

Happy Birthday Jesus Party!

Our Family Ministries team put on our 2nd annual Happy Birthday Jesus Party! Our Pastor handed me a book called The Sparkle Box back in May, and after reading it, we knew exactly what we wanted to do for the party this year! We had lots of sparkle, and encouraged families to dress in their sparkliest clothes for prizes! 

Our Sparkle Box craft stations... 

The giant sparkle box we made... 

I had the honor of reading families The Sparkle Box story and explaining to them what it was all about. We encouraged families to give to others throughout the Christmas season, and write them down as they did things, or saw their kids do things on their own initiative. Then on Christmas morning, your gift to Jesus were the things you did for others. 

Then we sent families out into the atrium to decorate their own family sparkle box... 

After our craft, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and had cake!

It was a fun morning with family and friends! 

So blessed to be apart of a wonderful team! Love these girls! 

We can't wait to open our family sparkle box on Christmas morning! 

Small Group Christmas Party

We had such a fun night at our annual small group Christmas party! Usually we kick the kids out of our small group nights, but this time they were allowed. :) They had fun kicking back and watching Christmas movies while the adults chatted and ate dinner!

I got snuggles in with baby Ethan.  

Nothing like a little white elephant gift exchange to get the party going! This year Matt was blessed with placemats! :)  

We are so grateful to be apart of such a great group! And I love my girls! 

Nursing Home Visit

One of our MNM outings this month was caroling and spending time with the residents of the Florida Living Nursing Home. We had a great turnout and the kids sang beautifully for them! 

The residents thoroughly enjoyed our sweet little kiddos dancing and singing Christmas songs to them... 

After singing, the kids sat at tables with them and colored pictures... 

The night before we went to the Nursing home, Carson asked if he could play Go Fish with one of the Grandpas there. I told him that we could pray that there would be someone he could play with. When we first got there, I wasn't so sure that there was someone he could play his favorite card game with, but God had the perfect person picked out for Carson. Mr. Bob, matching black rimmed glasses and all!  

After the kids colored their pictures, they handed them out to the residents... 

The sweet nurses brought in cookies for the kids! 

And we displayed our Christmas tree handprint craft that we gave to the Nursing home for Christmas.  

So incredibly thankful for the opportunity to teach our kids the importance of giving to others this Christmas! And I'm especially thankful that God answered our prayers and gave us Mr. Bob to spend time with on this special day!  

Gingerbread Train!

I found a Gingerbread train this year instead of a Gingerbread house! I knew the boys would LOVE this! I put the gingerbread pieces together first to form the train and caboose, and then let them decorate it however they wanted. I gave them each their own pastry bag full of icing and they went to town! 

I love this picture! Carson is so intense with how he is putting on his icing, while Tanner is just licking any icing that falls off or sneaking candy!  

They had such a fun time putting all the candy into place and of course had a few pieces along the way! 

Finished product! So much fun! And look at those happy little faces! :) 

Let the Christmas Season Begin!

The first Day of December means our Advent calendar comes out and we begin to really focus on the true meaning of Christmas, and spending time together as a family. 

The boys were SO excited to hear me read what we would be doing! I love the expressions on their faces as I read to them Day 1! We would be doing our annual tradition, picking out our fresh Christmas tree, decorating, and making homemade chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate! 

We were off to find the perfect tree! Surprisingly, they were a bit picked over, but we still found a good one! Tanner thought the Christmas tree tent smelled so good. He even said he wanted to eat the tree, haha! 

These two just melt me... 

After figuring out how to rearrange the furniture to get the tree all set up for decorating, we made homemade cookies and hot cocoa! We were ready to string the lights and get the party started! Love this tradition with our family! 

Ready for a fun month of celebrating our Savior's birth!