One of my favorite days of the year...

We're getting a jump start on decorating for Christmas this year.  I know it's a little early but we all enjoy the decorations so much that we just didn't want to wait any longer.  After church, we loaded up and headed to Pike's to pick out a tree because there are no Christmas tree farms around here!  Georgia is too warm to grow frazier fir's so we opted for a pre-cut one.  It's beautiful and Jamie didn't have to lay on the ground and cut it ☺️

These two little monkeys were so excited.  They are way into celebrating Christmas.

It's always fun going through our ornaments each year.  The kids have their favorites and Jamie and I have ours.  This year I found myself drawn to one more than ever.  

It's been one year ago today that our dog, Bailey, died.  Goodness, I miss him.  The vet made this ornament for us the night he died.  They took his paw print in clay and I'm so happy we have it.  I would have never thought of it because I was a crying mess, but I'm so thankful they knew to do something like this.  He was such a good dog.  A big part of our life for 12 years.  The thing I hate the most was that in the last few years of his life, we were so busy.  He didn't get the time he deserved from us.  Makes me sad.  I wish I could do it over again.  I'm sure we'll get another dog at some point.  The kids are already asking for one.  For now, I'm just going to remember my sweet pup.  

Here is my big 8 year old with her favorite ornament.

And Cooper with his

They cracked up over something!  Goodness, I love these two.  They bring so much joy to my heart.

The cozy, finished product.  I'm ready to put my feet up and enjoy this night.

Traditions

One of my favorite family traditions we do each year is filling our Operation Christmas Child boxes.  Our church is collecting them tomorrow so we finished them up today.

I love the thought of a little boy and girl in another country opening these and knowing someone far away thought of them.

One of my dreams for our family, when the kids are a little older, is to take a mission trip and deliver OCC boxes.  I cry every single time I watch the videos of smiling kids opening the boxes.  I'm sure I would be a mess to see it in person...but what an experience it would be.

The kids both wrote a note and included a picture of themselves.

I loved hearing Lainey and Cooper's prayers for the kids who would get their boxes.  Such a great reminder each year of what this life is really about.  I'm thankful for this simple way to share the love of Jesus.

The Good Ole Days

Looking back through all my old blog posts, I realized how I would have completely forgotten so many things had it not been written on this blog.  All the sweet family times, funny kid stories, special occasions and the mundane of everyday life.  So here I am.  Ready to get back to this blogging thing.  20 years from now, I want to remember the little details of our everyday life.  I'm pretty sure I'm in the middle of my future "good ole days" and I don't want to forget a moment.

This was my 37th birthday.  Man, my heart is so full of love for these people.

Cooper James is 5 now and is such a funny kid.  He makes us laugh all the time.  My favorite Coop story from recent days is when Jamie called his name and he didn't respond.  Jamie went into his room and found him playing with some toys.  Jamie said his name again and Coop looked at him and said "sorry daddy, I can't hear you because I have my invisible headphones on."  

Cooper is still my most affectionate child. He loves to snuggle and holds my hand when we walk anywhere.  He promised me he'll continue this forever.  I plan to hold him to it ☺️

Cooper loves soccer (the picture above shows Oliver the owl, his class pet, we were taking care of for the weekend.) He's just started his first season of Upward basketball, which is adorable to me.  He bounces up and down the court not quite sure what's going on, but loving every minute of it.  

Cooper is an extrovert to the extreme.  He talks to everyone and doesn't know a stranger.  He is the life of the O'Dell party.  

Coop is going to 1/2 day kindergarten at our church.  He loves it most days although he tells me 5 hours a day is way too long to be at school ☺️

Lainey Grace is 8 years old and as sweet as she can be.  She loves Jesus and has grown a lot in understanding what it means to follow Him this year.  I love seeing her awareness of Him in her life.  It's one of my favorite things about being a mom...watching my kid's spiritual eyes open.  Lainey is compassionate and loves to give gifts to people.  She's all the time making things to give to me or Jamie, her friends and teachers.  

She is an artist and would paint every day if she could.  She does draw every single day and is always watching YouTube videos on how to draw things step by step.  I'm honestly amazed at her talent.  She definitely doesn't get it from me 😁 She won first place in a local art show last spring for a painting.  We were so proud of her.  She entered on a whim and ended up winning 1st place out of 40 entries in her age group.  I cried.  Yep...big ole proud mom tears.  I just love watching both of them have an interest, work hard at it and succeed.  Of course there are failures too, but this was a fun success.

Lainey has lots of hobbies.  She does ballet and tap, takes piano lessons and plays Upward basketball.  She loves being outside and I find her swinging while reading a Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew book several times a week.  

She is in 3rd grade at Coram Deo, which is a hybrid school.  She attends there one day a week and they map it all out for me to homeschool her the other days.  For us, it's the best of both worlds.  I never thought in a million years that I would homeschool.  In lots of ways it doesn't feel like that because of all the opportunities that Coram Deo gives us, but honestly, I really love the homeschooling part.  I find so much purpose in it every day.  I'm excited to see how it goes next year when Cooper joins us!

This is my guy.  We've been married almost 13 years.  We had a serious growing season right after our move to Georgia.  He was in a brand new, stressful job.  Our house in Illinois took 16 months to sell, there was financial stress and life was hard.  I begged God to move  us just so we could get away from the stress.  There were moments when it felt hard to breathe.  But I can honestly say that I'm thankful for that season.  I sure as heck wouldn't want to go through it again, but I know God better because of it and I love my husband more because of it.  Our love is deeper and more grounded than it's ever been because we  put one foot in front of the other every day.  God has taken the good, the bad and the ugly and woven it into something beautiful.  

Jamie and I recently had a little getaway to Hilton Head and it was wonderful.  We were away from every distraction and had time to look at each other, laugh together, dream together, and it was wonderful.

So yay!  Now I feel at least a little caught up and I can begin fresh, blogging about our simple, little life.