The week before the week before Christmas...

We played with some precious boys, whose windows evidently needed a good bit of handyman work...

who had an excellent toolbench they were willing to share (prompting the blowing of kisses),

and who are just edible!

We worked on our gingerbread house very diligently,

did a little quality control...

and were just astounded at our final product (that we gave to our Gigi!)

Cookie decorating with friends from church- the perfect thing on that freezing cold Thursday last week! These are such sweet girls and little people!Allison is always a fabulous hostess, and she seemed to also always have one of mine on her hip. Here she is showing Joy to her own sweet Reagan...

Just think, that little person off to the right will be bellying up to the decorating table next year!

And... the evidence of the best part of cookie decorating on the cheeks!

Santa Conclusions

Thanks for all of your feedback, on and off the blog! I've loved hearing people's thoughts as formulate our own.

We have decided that we are going to continue with "doing Santa" but that we will really major on the birth of Christ and downplay Santa. I'm pretty excellent at stoking Abby Jane's fires about various concepts, and I'm going to really back down in the Santa department. In the meantime, when Santa comes up, I'm going to try to wrap it back as often as possible to how St. Nick gave gifts out of the joy and love in his heart from Jesus and how we give gifts to remember how God gave us Baby Jesus, etc etc.

So don't you worry, if you invite us over, my kids won't disillusion your kids. :)

But while we're on the topic... we have a favorite story of a sweet friend who was down in Baton Rouge for an LSU game a few years ago. You all know how those LSU fans can be- I don't need to elaborate there other than that we've all heard stories of 5 yr olds flipping off fans of opposing teams, etc. Well, this one little LSU kid kept taunting and taunting our friend, and finally she turned around and said, "Oh yeah? Well there's no such thing as Santa Claus!"

That's one way to learn that there are consequences to actions... :)

The Gross girls' oatmeal

Every morning, I assemble these ingredients for all three of my girls' breakfast. It's an adaptation from Deceptively Delicious. I combine oats, a few spoonfuls of pumpkin puree, pour milk to cover, then microwave two minutes (I know, microwave zaps nutrients, stove is better for you, but not during our breakfast "rush hour" where every minute is precious!)

While it's cooking, I make Abby Jane's daily smoothie. They're usually done about the same time, and I open up capsules of Juice Plus* into Jane's smoothie and the twins' oatmeal. Remembering to add some flaxseed meal with and pumpkin pie spice is extra credit. Then all I do is pour a little applesauce into the babies' oatmeal to cool it off, and sweeten Janie's oatmeal with a little agave nectar (in place of the brown sugar called for the book's version) and raisins or craisins. All of the above takes a max of 5 minutes and voila! hearty breakfast that includes pumpkin in all its nutritional glory.

*I love knowing that no matter what food aversion each girl will have each day- and we all know those change daily at this age- they already had 17 fruits and veggies' worth of nutrition in a whole-food form. The reason that's important is that your body absorbs nutrition in a whole-food form significantly more than when those nutrients are isolated into a multivitamin. Tell me if you want to know more about it- Juice Plus is about the easiest thing you can do to change the direction of your family's health.

"The Pink Train"

On Monday, in 7 degree weather, we headed to Lenox to go ride Atlanta's famous Pink Pig! Most Atlantans rode this at some point as a child, as did our parents. We went with Betsy, Cade, Luke, and some friends of the Gillies with a little boy close to Abby Jane's age.

The kids took a peak at Mr. Claus while we were nearby...

Despite the cold, we warmed right up to Priscilla the Pig on our way inside...

Holding her train ticket...
Joy snuggled into her Aunt Betsy!

Turns out there's a "no lap children" rule, so Betsy rode with Joy, while 1-yr-old Luke (on the right) rode with 2-yr-old friend Jason all by themselves!
Despite these oh-so-genuine smiles, these two had a great time (don't you love Cade's engineer hat?)
As long as the train was going, Blythe was taking it all in...
Aunts and kids warm inside Lenox...
Precious friends, Cade and Abby Jane!

It was a perfect way to spend a terribly frigid morning!!

Sugar Cookies Recipe

Here's my favorite go-to recipe! The icing listed if you scroll down is fantastic as well. Just don't make my mistake that ranks in the all-time worst ever and forget that almond extract comes from... almonds... which are nuts... and then serve the cookies to your beloved oldest niece with a severe nut allergy... who by God's grace had no reaction...

How many times does God look out for our stupidity??!!

Mid-Season Crisis

We're having one! We have gone pretty far about talking about Santa, as we do have older cousins who believe the whole thing and plenty of friends who do as well. It was natural.

We do mainly focus on celebrating Christ's birth and on the nativity story. We have a great book called The Story of Christmas that tells the nativity story and says we give gifts at Christmas to remember the gift of Jesus and to show others our love as God showed us His love.

But Abby Jane does also know all about Santa, and I believe we are making a bit of a mid-season adjustment of our storyline on Santa. We have been tying him into Christ, to showing love, to remembering Christ's birth, but we have been treating the Santa she met at the Depot, etc. as the real deal. I believe we are going to shift towards talking about who St. Nicholas was back in the day, that the guys we see as Santa now are remembering the spirit of what St. Nick was about, etc. etc. We'll put out our cookies, oats for reindeer, etc., the whole nine yards, but focus on how that's part of the Christmas tradition in remembering St. Nick, who gave to those in need out of the joy he had in Christ...

As we have been trying to figure out exactly how we want to handle this season, this article on a friend's has been very helpful!

Do you have a fabulous way you've handled it?

For what it's worth, if you're going hard core "Santa is real", feel no judgement here! I asked Jake last night if we've totally screwed up already, and he pointed out that we both totally believed and most people we know did as well, and it did not affect our spiritual lives... so if you've chosen that route, do NOT feel any guilt from this corner!

Jingle Jog

Saturday morning was the Jingle Jog! The last time I ran it was in high school, but it actually made Runner's World this month as one of the top 5 Christmas runs in the country. Jake's been battling a cold, so he decided to skip the 30 degree weather and stay home with the youngest girls. My sweet friend Grace took his spot and joined Mom, Abby Jane, and I! We missed Jake, but it was great to have that time with Grace.

We had to take the post-race picture- how much she has grown since her last Christmas race at 10 months (scroll- it's at the bottom of that post)!

One of my fav things about this run is that you bring a toy to donate to the Salvation army. Jane marched right up and put her toy on the table, and told the folks "Merry Christmas!"

There was face painting, balloon artists, a bouncehouse, and the highlight,

one of those huge bouncy slides that she insisted on going down by herself!

In other news from the weekend, it turns out Blythe likes wearing Jake's hat (though judging from the picture, I think Jake's hair needed it more)...
and it snowed all afternoon and evening today!

This morning going to church was one of those we-have-three-children mornings. Usually the twins are in similar and coordinating outfits, but not today, and I think it threw me off my game. Blythe ended up in the car (in freezing weather) in a short sleeved smocked Chirstmas dress (incidentally the same one Jane is wearing in that post I linked above), MINUS a jacket. Joy at least had sleeves but no jacket. I grabbed a fleece for Blythe, but Joy got the shaft. Abby Jane had a darling dress courtesy of her cousin Katie, but we could only find one of her black patent leather Mary Jane's, so she was wearing hot pink suede shoes with her red and black Christmas dress and red jacket. It was great. But hey, we got there and no one seemed to die of exposure or clashing shoes.