una oración para que mi amiga

Matthew 11:28-30 

 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Just In Case...

Just in case anyone may have forgotten about this post, I wanted to remind you that I am going to see this guy play some of my favorite music for my birthday. I am far more excited than I should be and my family is probably very tired of hearing about it. Oh well!

I love this picture. I think it evokes what I love about his music-it's just him and his guitar and so much authenticity. I could wax poetic all day, but I'll stop now. It's 55 days on the John Mayer Concert counter downer! Oh yes!

Brothers

I love that more often than not he goes to his big brothers to read a book to him. I think it makes them feel special and they are usually so eager to please him. What a lucky boy to have those siblings, let's just hope they always call on each other when they need something.

Handmade Christmas

This year I vowed to make a lot of our Christmas presents. Not only because it is more economical but because I wanted to give a more meaningful gift. I thought a lot about each person and what they might like. Luckily for me we have many girls outside our immediate family and I was able to make things that I knew would be appreciated, boys are just really hard to sew for! The one thing I did forget was to take a picture of each gift before wrapping it, so I don't have any pictures to show you. No proof! But I am taking another vow to make more gifts handmade next year. I might actually sew all the pajama pants we receive on Christmas Eve. I received a new fancy sewing machine from Chad this year so maybe that will cut down on the time it takes me to finish. All I can say is that there was so much fullfillment from finishing one of those projects that I didn't get from buying from a store or online.


These are not the actual gifts but pictures I used for inspiration to make some of them. The top one was a small purse I made for my 20 yr. old niece Chelse and the bottom are peg dolls that I made for my 2 yr. old niece Eden. I also made a bookmark to go along with a book I bought for Kate and a card holder for an itunes gift card for Allie. And every year I embellish a purse with the boys picture on it for my mother in law so I made that one too.
This is an ornament I made for a Secret Santa gift that we gave to a neighbor and apparently the only photo I took of all the handmade gifts.

Here's to remembering the photos next year!

Christmas for the birds

Chad and the kids decorated a live tree in the backyard with cranberries, popcorn and bird seed. It is a simple nature inspired Christmas tree with one strand of lights that is lovely to see when I look out the back windows. I hope the birds and squirrels enjoy it as much as the boys enjoyed decorating it. This will probably become a new tradition at the Griswolds...I mean the Williams'!!

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Evan's first gun to go hunting with his Grandpa. Luckily it's staying
at their house.

St. Lucia Feast Day

In honor of St. Lucia (Lucy), whose name means light, we ate our dinner and dessert by candlelight. Legend tells us that Lucia put candles in a wreath she placed on her head to free her hands to carry bread she was smuggling to Christians in the catacombs. These days, mainly in Scandinavian countries, the daughter leads a musical procession with siblings in tow and serves the family special buns called lussekatt for their breakfast.

I am very fond of this feast day in particular because many of my ancestors are from Norway and I enjoy learning of their customs and traditions. I have a trunk that was my Great Great Grandmother Louve's when she came to America from Norway as a mail order bride. We also have her spinning wheel that is still at my parents house that the boys like to imagine is the steering wheel of a ship. And I can only imagine she celebrated this feast day as a young girl and maybe even portrayed Lucia herself and served her family.

Thanks to it being the third Sunday of Advent we had plenty of light around the table.

Here are the rolls we ate as dessert in honor of St. Lucia buns. St. Lucia is the patron saint of blindness and eye-problems so we said extra prayers for her intercession for my Mom who is having eye surgery on Monday. Providential!