ADVENT

I'm not sure what is harder to believe, that it is already December or that I am writing a blog post! It has been quite a while since I posted here and our lives look extremely different since the last time I wrote! Something that hasn't changed though, is the meaning of Christmas and the joy that celebrating Jesus' birth brings to our family regardless of what city we live in. 

The last couple of years we have taken the month of December to work through an Advent devotional. At such a busy time of year, it is easy to get caught up in parties and celebrating and lose focus of the very reason we celebrate Christmas. The word Advent can be a little confusing to some people, however it simply means "coming". Celebrating advent for us, is a way to help our family come together and prepare our hearts to celebrate the fact that Jesus came to earth, and the gift of grace we have been given because of that event. The reason to celebrate advent is to hear the story of Jesus again and help prepare our lives and hearts for Jesus' coming! It is a way to be purposeful with impressing God's Word in each of our hearts. What an opportunity to be intentional about learning ourselves and teaching our kids about Jesus' life story and where it began. 

A daily advent celebration brings the whole family together(which can be a challenge these days) and gives us all a common ground. It gives the weeks leading up to Christmas consistency and rhythm to our days that lets face it, are filled with shopping, school parties(not to mention a bundle of other parties to give and attend), traveling and the list could go on. 

This year we are going to be more active in our attempt to focus on the coming Savoir. What we want most for our kids(and I'm sure you do too) is for each of them to understand that the real meaning of Christmas is much more than presents under the tree. It is Jesus and the relationship of love, grace and salvation that is His gift to us. We are going to try our best to be purposeful about focusing on Christ by creating tangible ways this season in which we can worship through advent and I challenge you to do the same! 

Be Blessed~

Too old?

We are very excited around our house! We found out that we are going to have another cousin!! My sister is going to have a baby!!!! She has two precious boys that we all adore and we can't wait to meet #3!
While telling my children about our exciting news however, the following conversation took place.......

Me~ "Aunt Heather is going to have a baby!"
Lainee~ "YAY!!!! A new cousin!!!"
Jake~(somewhat put off) "MOM, why do we always get new cousins, but never new brothers or sisters??" (has he looked at our family lately?)
Nathan~ "Jake, mom is too old to have a baby!"
Me~ "EXCUSE ME!" (in a somewhat squeaky surprised voice)
Jake~ "Yeah, Nathan, she's not too old. Look at Elizabeth(in the bible), she was like 87 or something. Mom is not too old!"
Nathan~ "ehhhh, that was just a miracle!"
Me~ "HELLLLLLOOOOOOOO!!!! I'M SITTING RIGHT HERE! AND I am NOT too old!" "BUT, we do NOT need any more brothers or sisters!!" :)

Those kids make me laugh every day!!
Be blessed!

Merry Christmas 2010

A free greeting by Smilebox

Happy Mother's Day!

I have had a fabulous day so far! My children made breakfast for me this morning! It was toast with strawberry jam, a banana, a bowl of fiber 1 cereal(that had been sitting there for about 10 minutes) and 3 little chocolate donuts! Perfect! I also had a little chest of treasures waiting for me. They were thoughtful and useful gifts that I am very thankful for! The cards were especially heartfelt! Lainee made me a book and included the thing that she thought was my absolute favorite thing to do~ snuggle with her! She is right about that!! Nathan made a card that said, "I love you mommy! Thanks for everything!" Riley wrote me a sweet card that made me cry, and Jake recited a poem~ I would love to share it with you. I tried to scan it, but it isn't working quite right so I will type it for you.

Mom, I adore you,
I think your the best.
How beautiful are you,
In your dress of blue!
Mom I adore you,
I think you are swell.
I will never throw you down a well!
Mom you are awesome,
And that's not a lie,
But when you spank me it makes my cry!
Mom I love you and dad too,
Don't get me wrong.
But I love when YOU sing me a song.
Mom I adore you
I think you're the best!

Pretty talented kid, don't you think so! He is so funny! The coolest thing that my family gave me this morning were some earrings. Let me explain. I have a long string of pearls that belonged to my great grandmother. Some time ago the pearls broke. I gave them to my neighbor to see if she could fix them. She did fix them for me and I LOVE them! Well, without me knowing, she kept 2 little pearls from that necklace and made them into the prettiest earrings!! I received them this morning! What a thoughtful thing for my husband and my neighbor to do! They are beautiful and have such special meaning! I am blessed!

My family also took me to my F.A.V.O.R.I.T.E restaurant today for lunch! Napolis!! It is a little family owned Italian restaurant and it is FABULOUS! They had flowers for all the moms and they also had a craft table for the kids to make Mother's Day cards. My children thought that table was just for them and they made a couple cards a piece! SWEET! I loved every minute of it! Thanks family, You are the best!

Happy Mother's Day to all the fabulous mothers we know! Especially our MOTHERS!!

Love, The Ators

Be Blessed~

My Michelle~

So even though it is now April, I want to write about one more blessing that we had in March.... Michelle came and stayed with us for the month and it was a blast! We so miss her when she isn't here!! There were a plethora of activities that we were able to do when she was here, I think the one her and I will remember the most was our trip down to Abilene! We were able to run down there on a Monday and spend the night so that we could tour the campus at ACU the next day! It was such a fun trip. The other night at dinner before she left we went around the table and told her our favorite memory of this stay and the thing we love most about her. My favorite memory was our trip. There are many things that I love about Michelle!!! The one that I love the most is her heart for God!! She has matured in her faith and really grown in her walk with Him over the last year and it has been a joy to see! I loved the kids answers, so I thought I would share them.

~Riley favorite memory was her taking him to get some cold stone ice cream one night after youth. He added a little humor to his what he loved most about her answer. He said that he loved how she was funny when she wasn't trying to be and sometimes not funny when she was trying to be! Brothers!
~Jake's favorite memory with her was on our trip to Austin when we stopped in Fredricksburg, he enjoyed the ice cream shop the best! What is it with these boys and ice cream? He also said that he enjoyed her sense of humor the best!
~Nathan loved swimming with her at the hotel on our trip to Austin, we had an over anxious "pool guard" that will cause us all never to forget that night of swimming!! He was a little miffed by the time we got to him on our favorite thing about Michelle, because he said Jake took his! He thinks she is hilarious! And the boy loves to give her a hard time because he knows she can handle it!
~Lainee's memory was the very first day we picked Michelle up from the airport, her and Michelle and I went to United to get a couple things. We bought a cinnamon roll and sat down at the little tables at Market Street and talked and shared that cinnamon roll. That was a sweet memory! Lainee loves having a sister!! She loves that Michelle will paint her nails and brush her hair. But her favorite thing was when Michelle would pick her up from school and take her to get a "treat"! They did that often this month!
Randall's favorite memory was one day when he and Michelle and I went to Cowboy Gelatos for lunch one day. The thing he loved most about her was the way she fits in our family! She was an automatic addition to our family and we absolutely adore her. We expected it to maybe take a day or two to get back in to the swing of things when she got here. But the minute she got here, we had our family complete and we didn't skip a beat! What a blessing God gave us when He added her to our clan!!
We love you Michelle!!!!!

Sock Hop

I know, 2 posts in one day~ mom, just take a deep breath! Just wanted to post some pictures of the sock hop that we were able to go to at the kids school! The three youngest were so excited and eagerly dressed for the part. Well, Nathan wasn't to excited about dressing the part. When anyone would tell him how great he looked, he would say, "My mom made me wear this!" He wasn't too keen on dancing either, he was mostly running from the girls! He is a funny kid! Anyway, our good friends let Lainee borrow this adorable poodle skirt. Lainee is convinced that she needs her own now, because it was so much fun to wear! It was a great family fun night!

Lainee~

She LOVES getting all dressed up!

She LOVES her "boys"

She LOVES to dance!

She LOVES her daddy!


Jake~

He shed his sports coat as soon as he could!

He showed off some pretty slick moves of his own!

Nathan~

He too shed his coat!

What a sweet boy, humoring his mom who wants to dance!

Be Blessed~

Birthday celebrations!

March is a fun month at our house!! We have 3 birthdays. Nathan turned 8, my baby girl is now 6 and, well let's just say I am still in my 30's!! Nathan is a low key kinda boy! His idea of a great party is 3 or 4 friends going swimming, and that's just what we did! This mom didn't take the camera though~ do you think I would take a chance of there being a picture of me in a swim suit?? On his actual birth day, we got him a puppy cake that the entire family enjoyed! After the birthday song, Nathan asked for permission to stick his face in the cake. Of course, I said no, and true to form dad says, "I'll give you a dollar if you do!" He glanced at me as if to say, "He said yes, will you let it slide so I can have a dollar..." I nodded and he proceeded to DIVE straight into his cake! We laughed so hard!! What a fun memory with such a great birthday boy!

Lainee's birthday was a little more high maintnance..... She had all sorts of ideas on what she wanted to do. Tea party(which I would have prefered) swimming party, jump n jive and then she had a bright idea~ SLUMBER PARTY!! So, we made her trim down her list of a million friends, wish we could have had them all but unfortunaly we only have so much sleeping space! Anyway we had such a blast, I will let the pictures do most of the talking~

We made candy bracelets while we waited for our friends to arrive

Freeze dance! These girls had some moves!

Lainee, Kati, Morgan, Gracelyn, Annsley, Addie and Taylor happy as can be!

We painted night shirts for the girls to sleep in.

Opening presents

We even made our own dinner~mini pizzas!

We decorated cupcakes with lots of sugary stuff!

We had a blast!!

Be blessed~