Top 18 of 2018

Happy last day of 2018!  We've been thoroughly enjoying this last week of the year with David home from work, lots of time playing and sitting together, and lots of time for reflecting and goal setting.  We went through Jennie Allen's Dream Guide together over the last week and have been looking ahead to what we hope next year holds.  Yesterday was our final Sunday Family Devotional of 2018 and for our activity I had just put "Family 2018 reflection."  I had no idea what that would be, but figured I'd cross that bridge when we got there.  It ended up being looking through lots of photos of the year through a video slideshow I threw together (since Coop loves looking at pictures we knew this would be a big hit, and it was!) and making a top 18 list of 2018.  Our top 18 memories and/or things we're thankful for from this past year.  It really was a good year for us so this list wasn't hard for us.  I thought it'd be fun to make my own list-- using some of the ones we discussed as a family with a few of my own personal things mixed in.  So here's my top 18 of 2018.

1. New Church, ABF, and Small Group

This is number one hands down.  Any time this year we've thought about or talked about what we're thankful for or our high of the year this is it.  We had spent a few years talking and praying through possible changes in church home and/or community and we just weren't ever sure what that looked like.  God has answered our prayers in ways we never even thought to imagine or ask for in the community we've found this year.  No group is perfect and I know this one will have it's share of messiness, but it truly has been a confirmation that we made the right move.

2. Taos

Our first family vacation was one for the books!  We had such a good time in Taos together and I'm glad we got away for this week.  It was a perfect blend of active and restful (as restful as it can be with a 1 year old).  We will treasure the memories for a long time.

3. Orange Beach

While we had been planning a Taos vacation for most of 2018, our beach vacation kind of fell into our laps.  My mom wanted to go to the beach and invited us to join her.  Getting to experience the ocean with Cooper for the first time and spending a long weekend with some family we don't see as often was such a great way to end summer.

4. Friendships

When we talked about this as a family, David mentioned being thankful for our friends Lucas and Yali and the fact that we still get together with them fairly regularly.  I am also so thankful for growth in other friendships this year.  Aside from our new friends at The Heights, it's been fun strengthening some of my old friendships.  I love getting together with Erin-- when we met 14 years ago I don't think we could have imagined where either of us would be now, but I love that we can get together and catch up amidst the chaos of toddlers.  And even though she's a little bit further along with three times as many kids as me (ha!) I love that we've gotten to experience motherhood together.  And I'm thankful for Nicki and our long-distance sharing life together.  Through Marco Polo we are able to catch up frequently and share the craziness of parenting Cooper and CJK :)  I've got some great friends that made this year a good one.

5. Desire and study of God's word

When I looked back at my goals for 2018, I was elated to see that I'd actually worked on both of them, which is not always the case.  The first was this: grow in my desire for God's word.  I didn't know what that would look like, but I knew going into 2018 that my study was severely lacking and that my heart just wasn't in it.  So I made a commitment to start each day and each study with the prayer "God teach me to delight in You.  Grow my desire for Your Word."  And He was faithful to answer this prayer over time.  I'm thankful for all the studies I've done this year and the ways they've sunk in.

6. Losing Weight

My other 2018 goal was listed as: Get Healthy. Lose Weight. Exercise.  Which is so trite, but I just honestly didn't even know what to say other than I needed to do something different.  So I started eating differently last January, took lots of walks with Cooper through the year, and have managed to be pretty consistent.  I still have a ways to go toward my goals, but I have lost weight this year and I really feel better than I have in a long time.

7. Cooper's 1st birthday

This was such a fun and special time, from his 1 year old pictures to his Easter birthday to his birthday party.  Love this little one year old of mine.

8. Meeting more neighbors

This has something that's been on our planning sheets for years and we just haven't done it.  We go through stages where we feel a little more passionate about it and then it kind of falls by the wayside.  But this year we actually met more of our neighbors.  First off, one of our neighbors started a preschool night at our local Elementary school-- it's once a month at the school and gives us a chance to go and meet other families with young kids.  We also made cinnamon rolls to take to a few neighbors for Christmas, a couple we had already met, but it gave us a chance to meet a few more and start some relationships with them-- and it ended up not being nearly as scary as we'd made it out to be!

9. A stable job for David

David changed jobs a lot in the first few years we were together, but he will hit his 3 year anniversary at Aptitude this year!  We are so thankful for his job and the benefits they provide.  And he's really enjoying the work and the people he works with, so I'm grateful for that.

10. A new pool pump

David put this on the list and I wouldn't have even thought of it, but honestly it's such a huge thing.  Our pool pump broke in October and it was a bummer having to pay for a new one.  But it's made such a difference in how clean our pool is.  Within 24 hours of getting the pump going and adding chemicals our pool was blue-- usually this process has taken us months to get going.  And it's stayed blue since then.  We were beginning to think we just couldn't figure out how to care for a pool and after all of my research last year I could not figure out what we were doing wrong.  Turns out it was our pump!  I'm excited for next summer when we actually use it, hopefully without having to do as much work as in the past!  And I'm thankful for the provision of being able to afford a new one when we needed it!

11. Watching Cooper learn and sing

It is fascinating to watch all of the new connections he makes every day.  But my favorite has been the songs he's learned.  He will randomly burst out into song lately-- his favorites being baby shark, happy birthday, and a bible verse song (Nothing impossible! is the part he says over and over) he learned at CBS.  

12. ESL

I've loved getting to teach ESL again this Fall.  And I love that Cooper gets to go to the children's program.  He loves his friends there and I enjoy getting time to prepare for something a little different and have met some fun women through my class.

13. Visiting family in Oklahoma

We've gotten to take a couple of trips to Oklahoma this year to see some of David's family and we always really enjoy that time.  It's fun seeing Cooper with his second cousins and great uncles and aunt.  And we love getting to spend time at David's Nanny's (Cooper's Grandnanny) house.

14. Time with Cooper's grandparents and cousins

In addition to getting to visit extended family, we've also had lots of good time with our immediate families this year.  And Cooper loves everything about his grandparents and his cousins.  He talks about Nanny, Pappaw, Grandma, Chase, and Piper all day long.  We're so thankful our families are both close enough for regular get togethers!

15. Baylor OU Football Game

It was fun getting to take Cooper to the game this year.  Even though he didn't last long in our seats, it was a neat experience getting to visit OU's campus and see him enjoy a football game in person

16. Lots of good books and podcasts.

I feel like I've learned a lot this year through podcasts and books.  I always have several books going at one time and I read some good ones this year.  A few of my favorite non-fiction ones included: None Like Him by Jen Wilkin, White Awake by Daniel Hill, and Reclaiming Hope by Michael Wear.  Some of my favorite fiction this year: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson, and Beartown by Fredrik Backman

17. Better control of spending

Spending is always a hard one for me.  Every time we have budget talks it's hard for both us-- David feels the pressure because he is the one making the money so if we don't "have enough" it makes him feel like he needs to do more; I feel the pressure because I do most of our shopping, so for instance if we're spending too much on eating out (which we almost always are), it's on me to have a better plan for grocery shopping and cooking and that feels overwhelming at times.  But I feel like we found a pretty good balance this year.  I started using an app called The Daily Budget App and it has been awesome for me.  You put in your income and then all of the recurring expenses and then it gives you how much you have left per day.  Then you track your spending and it adjusts your budget each day.  This has been so much better for me than looking at lots of monthly budget categories that feel overwhelming.  When I go grocery shopping I know-- this is how much of our budget we have currently, so I have a better idea of if we have enough to stock up on things or just get the minimum and wait til later for more.  And on the weekends we know how much we have for eating out and playing, etc.  It has made it easier for me to manage and I feel like I've done a better job this year cutting out some unnecessary spending-- but there's always room for improvement!

18.  Breakfast Tacos

We couldn't leave this one out.  It really is amazing to me how we've continued this Saturday morning tradition almost every weekend since Cooper was born.  When we get in the car in the morning Cooper immediately starts saying "eat tacos."  We've enjoyed trying some new places and planning our Saturday morning outings around a good taco place, lots of times followed by a park or place to play.  It is the simplest of memories this year, but was so fun!

Alright, that ended up being longer than it should have fun!  But it was fun to look back at what a great year 2018 was and all the big and little moments that made it special.

Night Away

We had been talking for a while about scheduling a night or a weekend away since Cooper has never been away from us overnight and we wanted to start trying that a little at a time.  We'd talked about a few options in the Fall, but none of them panned out.  So as we approached Christmas we started looking at a time.  Since my mom and David were both off the whole week of Christmas we decided to plan a night away between Christmas and New Years.  We found a great rate the Omni Mandalay Bay in Las Colinas and booked a night there.  After nap yesterday we dropped off both Lily and Cooper at my mom's house and headed up to the hotel.

Here we are, ready for a night away!

The hotel was really beautiful and it was an added bonus that all of their Christmas decorations were up.  We've looked at staying at the Omni in Downtown Dallas, but it's so expensive for a night that we've never done it.  We had some friends that have stayed at the Mandalay Bay before and recommended it and we found a great deal.  It was perfect for a night away!

After we got checked in and settled in our room, we spent a little time walking around the hotel and the area outside by the lake.  We grabbed a few pictures before heading to dinner.

David found this Mexican food restaurant online and it was a great choice!  The food was delicious and it was a beautiful atmosphere.

And we enjoyed eating just the two of us without needing a high chair and endless snacks to keep a toddler entertained.

After dinner we headed back to our hotel and then walked to an ice cream place on the other side of the lake.  They make and freeze the ice cream after you order it-- I had birthday cake ice cream with a brownie bowl and David had peanut butter ice cream with oreos.  Both were delicious.

We tried to get a few pictures with the beautiful Christmas decorations, but the lighting was not good, so we settled for this one.

And then we headed back to our hotel and were in our pajamas by 7:30 :)  We watched the first half of the Baylor Bowl Game before crashing.  We went to bed without any alarms or a baby monitor.  This morning we had a lazy morning at the hotel.  We did a lot of reading and some TV watching-- it was just nice to not have to get up right away and get going with Cooper.  My sleep is so off that I don't really sleep in even with the opportunity, but it was nice to be able to stay in bed and read/relax past 7:30 for one of the first times in 21 months.

After we got ready, we grabbed an early lunch at Chipotle.  We had tried a few new places Thursday night, but it was nice to go back to one of our favorites for lunch.

 We finished off our time away with a movie.  We went and saw Mary Poppins Returns at the new Alamo Drafthouse in Las Colinas.  We enjoyed dessert while we watched the movie.  We both really liked the movie and it was fun getting to see something together.

Then we headed back to get Coop and Lily.  Cooper had a great time with Grandma-- he did really well.  She said he asked for us a lot, but didn't seem to get too sad.  He was excited to tell us about "Grandma's car" since they went and ran a few errands that morning.

It was nice to get 24 hours away with just David and I.  We had some good conversation and lots of rest.  I'm so glad we planned this as part of our Christmas break!  And it's nice to know that Cooper did well without us for a night-- makes it easier to plan another time away!

Christmas 2018

What a fun Christmas we had!  Monday we got up and headed to David's parents' house for Christmas Eve.  

We got there in the morning and played and hung out until we ate dinner around noon.  We tried putting Cooper down for a nap after we ate, but he was having none of it, so we got him up and opened presents.

Nanny and Pappaw definitely won with these ball pillows.  Cooper loves them.  He opened them and then just wanted to carry them from one room to the other.  This kept him occupied most of the afternoon.

He came back through at one point with all the balls and found a hat David had gotten and put it on.  He was so funny carrying the balls back and forth.  He loved it so much that when David asked if he wanted to open another present he yelled "no more presents!"  Which was funny to hear from a kid on Christmas.  He did eventually come around and opened up the rest of his gifts.

His other favorite activity was trying on his new clothes.  As soon as he opened the bag of clothes he started taking his shirt off so he could put on a new one.  Here he is enjoying the Christmas tree in his third shirt of the day :)   After presents we tried again for a nap and he went down pretty easily.  We played a game with family while Cooper slept and then enjoyed dessert before getting on the road to head home.  It was such a fun day with them!

We got home a little after 6:00 and I knew we'd need something quick and easy for dinner.  I'd found an idea of doing a Shepherd's Dinner (found on Pinterest of course) and so we had our own version consisting of meat, cheeses, crackers, naan bread, grapes, nuts, and olives.  We spread out a tablecloth on the floor and ate in front of the Christmas tree lights.

While we ate, we read the second Christmas story in the Jesus Storybook Bible about the angel visiting the shepherds to announce that Jesus was born!  We sang a few songs and enjoyed our snack dinner.

We were also very thankful to be able to watch our church's Christmas Eve service online.  Because of the timing of the services along with naps and bedtime, it just didn't seem to work for us to go to church with David's parents or make it back in time to go to our church.  Our church streams their Sunday services on Facebook, so I was hoping they would on Christmas Eve as well and I logged in and we were able to watch the recording of it.  Cooper enjoyed pointing to the TV and saying "church" and we enjoyed singing all of the songs.  I was glad to be able to watch it at home, it just felt weird not being at church on Christmas Eve, so this was a nice way to end our day!

We put Cooper to bed and then got things ready for the next morning.  We filled Cooper's and Lily's stockings and then worked on each other's.  David and I don't do big gifts for each other, we just fill each other's stockings.  So we went ahead and exchanged stockings on Christmas Eve.  David got me a book by one of our favorite podcasters and I got him new toothbrush heads, a new watch band for his Apple Watch, and an OU Football Playoff Shirt.

Then we set out Cooper's gift.  Right now we only do one big gift for Cooper (and his stocking) and we don't wrap it, we just set it out.  So we cleaned up a little and then set out this play rug that we got along with all of the buildings, cars, and animals that it came with.

Then we headed to bed to get ready for Christmas!  Christmas morning we got Cooper up and sang our song for Christmas Day (Joy to the World!) and read the final Christmas story in the Jesus Storybook Bible about the wisemen following the star to baby Jesus.  Then we headed to the living room.

While I was out shopping this Christmas season, I found this set of 10 star cookie cutters in various sizes and I bought them thinking we could use them for a star scavenger hunt in coming years.  This year we just set them out on a path from Cooper's room to the Christmas tree.  He loved collecting them!

He actually brought them all and put them under the tree and seemed more interested in collecting them than his play rug at first.  But then he quickly found the toys and got right to playing!

He saw his stocking not long after and asked to "open it" so we dug in.  We got him a new book, some socks, a new water bottle and straw cup, and new Baylor, OU, and Rangers hats.  He wanted to immediately put on the hats and the socks and drink water from the water bottle.

Pure JOY on Christmas morning!

David and Cooper ended up getting matching OU hats which was a complete coincidence.  David's sister got him one as part of his gift and we bought one for Cooper's stocking.  So we took a picture in their matching hats.

And of course we documented our matching pajamas!  Funnily enough, our pictures that we take with the timer turn out the very best.  Cooper thinks the camera beeping is hilarious and as soon as it takes the picture he asks for "more beep beep beep."  I think we took about 20 pictures in this same pose because he just kept asking for more.  At least he's smiling in them all!

We ate breakfast together and then got ready and headed to my mom's house.  We had some brunch and snacks there and then Cooper went down for a nap.  He must have been worn out from the excitement of both days because he went right to sleep.  The rest of us started opening presents while he slept and then he joined in when he woke up.

This Little People farm from his cousins is the other big hit of Christmas!  He loves all the animals.  And apparently they'd enjoyed playing with it in the box before gifting it to him so they were excited to show it to him!

Piper was so sweet to play with him all day long.  Cooper loves both his big cousins and they are so good with him!

A couple of my aunts joined us for dinner and we enjoyed some games and conversation around the table before heading home for bed.  We were all filled with joy and exhausted at the end of 2 full days of family fun!  We sure were blessed with a lot of good time this Christmas.  Cooper had so much fun and was so fun to watch the whole time. And today was filled with playing with new toys and being at home. 

Christmas Weekend

David's office closed at noon on Friday, so we kicked off our "Christmas Break" with a weekend of family fun.  We didn't have a whole lot of plans, but had a few things we wanted to do with Cooper so we set out to enjoy the weekend together.

After nap on Friday we headed to an early dinner at Snuffer's before going to look at some Christmas lights.  Cooper has been wanting to sit in the regular chairs or benches instead of the high chair lately, so we usually let him until he stands up and then he has to get in the high chair.  He was enjoying sitting and coloring while we waited for our dinner. 

Then we headed to Vitruvian Park to see the lights.  We got there right around 5:00 which is when they turn on the lights and it was perfect timing-- not too crowded yet and about to get dark.

Cooper would have been perfectly content to just run up and down this ramp all night, but we finally convinced him to move on to more lights.

He loved touching the lights and figuring it all out.

So very pretty!  We headed out a little after 6:00 and drove around to look at lights closer to our house before heading home for bedtime.  

Saturday our friends Lucas and Yali invited us to join them for breakfast and a trip to the Arboretum (with their membership).  Even though Cooper and I went last month, he was still really interested in all of it.

He loved getting to touch the Christmas tree

Cooper and Leon

Cooper is always telling us he wants to go "that way" so most pictures are of him pointing.  He was really into the 12 drummers drumming in the 12 Days of Christmas display and would frequently ask for "par rum pum pum pum."  We also saw the display of hundreds of nativities but didn't get any pictures.

Besides the Christmas tree and the drummers drumming, Cooper's other favorite part was running around and picking up rocks.

We ended our trip with some time in the Children's garden.  Cooper really wanted to splash in all the water, so we didn't last long but he did also have fun climbing on this giant ant.

We headed home for lunch and naptime.  While Cooper napped, I met up with my mom for a pedicure-- I didn't take any pictures, but it was a fun way to spend the afternoon!

After dinner we headed back out to look at more lights.  There is a neighborhood about 10 minutes from us that has lots of themed streets but isn't too crowded, we went last year and really liked it so we wanted to check it out again.

 Cooper was not a fan of taking a picture before we headed out, he was ready to get in the car and look at lights!

It's hard to get any good pictures, but it was a really fun place to go.

Cooper's favorite decorations this year are the ones with The Grinch.  He loves finding Mickey and Minnie, Snowmans, and Santa, but the Grinch is the one he will get stuck on and ask for more of over and over.

Our church is not having Bible Fellowships the last few weeks of the year and is just having one service, so we had some extra time this morning and I decided to cook us a little more elaborate breakfast than usual.  I tried out biscuits and gravy from this cookbook that I got recently and they were both pretty good!

 Cooper was a big fan of the gravy and the sausage!  After breakfast we played at home for a little while and then headed to church.

After nap we did our Sunday devotional.  We read one of the Christmas stories out of the Jesus Storybook Bible and sang our song for the day.  And lest you think we're doing all these great Christmas things without a hitch-- Cooper made it through one page of the story before he jumped down and tried to shut the Bible screaming "all done" over and over.  Even while we let him hold the baby Jesus, etc. from his nativity and tried to engage him with that, he just wanted to be done.  We told him we were going to finish the story, so then he took his pants off and played with those while David finished reading.  #toddlerChristmas

 Then we went for an early dinner at Super Chix and ended with custard for dessert.  Cooper was a pretty big fan!

We came home to finish off the night watching Rudolph on our DVR.  Cooper loved the music and talking about Rudolph.  Now he's in bed and David and I are watching a few Christmas TV episodes on Netflix.  I have a feeling I'll be turning in for an early bedtime-- my Christmas allergies have kicked in full force this weekend and I am wiped out.  But it was a great couple of days to kick off Christmas week!

Advent Activities

I mentioned with our Advent song list that I would share activities that we did to go along with the songs as we came up with them.  We didn't do things every day or even most days, but there were a few things we tried along the way that I thought I'd share here to have all in one place.

I mentioned that we use the Little People Nativity to act out different songs and books.  One of the things we do a lot is make the angels "sing" by moving them all around during certain choruses of songs like Angels We Have Heard on High and The First Noel.  So now every time Cooper hears "gloria" in a song while we're listening to music he goes and gets the angel and pretends like it's singing.

The day we sang "We Three Kings" we got out our star cookie cutter and had the wisemen from the nativity follow the star to baby Jesus.  I moved it all over the room and Cooper would move the wisemen to it and then we'd move it again, including up on places he could climb to get to it and move all around.  We have plans to possibly try having a moving star that the wisemen follow every day of Advent in the future (like Star from Afar) but we didn't think Cooper would get it yet, but it was a perfect activity for one morning!

And we made drums for The Little Drummer Boy.  I used some old formula and snack containers and covered them with different papers.  Then I let Cooper color them and put stickers on them while I made breakfast.

We punched holes in one and added a stretchy ribbon so he could wear it.  He loves playing his drum to the music!

And Jingle Bells is one of his absolute favorite songs this year.  So we made some bell noisemakers for the day we sang "Ring Christmas Bells."  We talked about how every time we sing songs and ring bells it reminds us that Jesus is King!   He also learned this version of "Jingle Bells" at CBS this year, so we sing this one a lot: Christmas Bells, Christmas Bells, Ring them all the day.  Tell the world that Jesus came to take our sins away!

He couldn't be happier than when he gets to ring his jingle bells!

And for "O Holy Night" we tried out a nativity sensory bin.  I basically just used blue paper shreds that we had to represent the night and then added our nativity pieces to it along with our star cookie cutter.  Nothing too interesting, but it did give Cooper a renewed interest in the nativity pieces.

He played in the bin for a minute, but once he saw the star he just wanted to move everything around like the day we followed the star.  So he gathered all of it in his hands and moved everything around to different places in the room.  It was a little hard to hold it all at once, but he had a blast.

Those were just a few simple things we tried this year that we'll likely do again next year, and hopefully we'll have a few things to add next year too!