December happenings

The month of December is full of fun for the O'Dell 4.  I love every minute of it.  It's always busy, especially in years past, but this year I really worked with our December schedule to try and keep it balanced.  We love our cozy, at home movie nights as well as being out and about enjoying the season.  We're enjoying it so much.  

This is our first year to welcome an elf on the shelf to our home.  Clemmy arrived on the first of December and has brought a lot of fun each morning.  She is an ornery elf!

We saw a Christmas play with some good friends from church called "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever."  It's the sweetest story.  We enjoyed it so much we're reading the book now.  It makes us all laugh.

I love this picture because when we bought our mini van, this is exactly what I pictured in my mind.  A van full of our kids and their friends.  Makes me smile 😊

We visited Santa and I'm in love with this picture they took.  So sweet.

I took my little ballerina to see The Nutcracker while the boys went to the movies to see the Good Dinasoar.

This is a new tradition for us.  I called it the Christmas Light Express.  We got the kids all ready and tucked into bed then gave them a ticket for a hot chocolate and a ride to look at Christmas lights in our jammies.  This picture is the 4 of us in Starbucks in pjs.  I honestly don't think I've ever seen our kids so surprised and excited.  It was a really fun night and a tradition that we'll continue.

This is a house in our city that we visit every year.  It's unbelievable how many lights they have!

A local church has a drive through, living nativity that we visit each year.  I love seeing the story of Jesus birth come to life in our kid's eyes.  It gives us great opportunities to talk to them about why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. I want them to know and understand the true meaning of Christmas more than anything.  

I took Cooper to pick out a gift for Lainey.  They love shopping for each other and Cooper wanted to wrap it all by himself.  I think he's worked himself into a job!  I could use some help getting things wrapped.  I'm way behind 😁

So we have 10 days until Christmas and have some fun things planned.  I'm so excited to continue celebrating this wonderful season!

Savoring the moments

Every Tuesday Cooper and I have "Mommy/Coop time."  Tuesday is the one day a week that Lainey is in school all day.  I pick Coop up from kindergarten at 1:00 and we have all afternoon to do something just the two of us.  Some days we have a lunch date, some days we come home and play a game together, lots of days we go walk around Target together.  Cooper loves this time with just the two of us and starts talking about it the moment I wake him up on Tuesday mornings.  I love it too.  I treasure our family time together but there is something about one on one time with each of our kids that I value so much.  Yesterday, we were walking into Target to do some Christmas shopping and I looked down at his hand in mine and his other arm snuggling his favorite "doggy blanket" and I just had to stop and take a picture.  I know these are fleeting moments and I just don't want to forget how his precious, little hand feels in mine.

Thanksgiving at the beach

This Thanksgiving we decided we wanted a not so traditional celebration.  We are heading to Missouri for Christmas and that trip is way too long to drive twice in one month.  So naturally, we chose one of our favorite places on the planet ☺️ Destin, Florida.  Now, our very favorite spot is anywhere along 30-A in the Santa Rosa Beach area.  However, it was all booked up as this was a very last minute plan.  We opted for a beach front hotel in Ft. Walton Beach and soaked up the sunshine.  I didn't expect it to be so warm, but the weather was perfect.  We wore jackets as we walked along the beach early in the morning, but by 10AM we were decked out in bathing suits and sun block.  Our kids are such little fish that they swam for hours each day.  

They even swam at night!  Thankfully, the pool was heated.

My favorite way to start the day.  I'm pretty sure this is a small taste of what heaven will look like 😉

Checking out each other's shells

The beginnings of a sand castle

Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel and let me just say it was yummy!  I wouldn't choose it every year, but there was something really nice about not spending the day in the kitchen.  I felt like I had time to really reflect on thanksgiving and what it's truly about.

I took this picture because I wanted to remember these moments.  My favorite thing to do at the beach is to go for long walks all alone.  Jamie hangs out with the kids and I walk and soak it all in.  There is something about the sound of the waves, the smell of the air and the feeling of the wind on my face that makes me feel God's presence.  I love that I can walk and pray out loud or sing and no one can hear me because of the sound of the wind and waves.  It's honestly one of my favorite things in the world.  

Nothing more beautiful.  

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.