me and my burrito

preparing for advent...get your ornaments ready!

advent is just around the corner and the anticipation is building in our home.

what is advent?  advent (from the Latin word adventus meaning "coming") is a season observed in many Western Christian churches, a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. Christians believe that the season of Advent serves a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for Christ's return. (from Wikipedia)

we celebrate advent by doing an advent tree.  what is an advent tree? the idea of an advent tree comes from Isaiah 11:1-9, where God promises a discouraged nation that the glory they remember from david's time will come to them again. they will have another king from jesse's family, in whose reign the whole earth will know God. christians see that promise fulfilled in Jesus, and so we put up an advent tree and decorate it with reminders of how God prepared the world for that Kingdom. (taken from Darcy James' book Let's Make a Jesse Tree!)

each day, starting on december 1 and ending on december 25, i will share the scripture that we read as a family and the ornament that is hung on the tree with you in hopes that family and friends would join with us.

we crafted our advent reading plan to perfectly coincide with our favorite children's bible, the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.
if you have young kids and don't have this bible, you must walk out of your house, get in your car, and drive to your nearest bookstore to buy it. right now. seriously. and no, i am not being paid to say this. this bible is the sweetest one i've read. each story points towards Christ and is so good!

so here is our reading plan for this advent, along with the coordinating ornament.  some of the ornaments are simple, crafted from felt, that noodle and i made together a couple of years ago while burrito was at school.  others are hallmark ornaments or other ornaments that we've picked up over time.  if you need a sneak peek at our ornaments, look on the right sidebar of my blog under "canned" and click on advent...this will pull up all our previous advent posts and you can see our humble ornaments!

so the reading plan is this:

dec 1 creation genesis 1-2 pgs 18-27 dove
dec 2 the fall genesis 3 pgs 28-37 fruit tree
dec 3 the flood genesis 6-9 pgs 38-47 rainbow
dec 4 tower of babel genesis 11 pgs 48-55 tower
dec 5 the promise to abraham genesis 12-21 pgs 56-61 stars in the sky
dec 6 abraham and isaac genesis 22 pgs 62-69 ram
dec 7 jacob, rachel and leah genesis 29-30 pgs 70-75 stalks of grain
dec 8 joseph genesis 37-46 pgs 76-83 a rainbow coat
dec 9 moses and the burning bush exodus 3-13 pgs 84-91 a burning bush
dec 10 moses and the red sea exodus 14-15 pgs 92-99 the split waters
dec 11 the law exodus 16 ff pgs 100-107 stone tablets
dec 12 joshua and jericho josh 3-6 pgs 108-115 trumpet
dec 13 david's anointing 1 sam 16 pgs 116-121 david the shepherd boy
dec 14 david and goliath 1 sam 17 pgs 122-129 slingshot
dec 15 david the shepherd psalm 23, 51 pgs 130-135 lyre
dec 16 naaman 2 kings 5 pgs 136-143 a heart
dec 17 isaiah isaiah 9 ff pgs 144-151 crown
dec 18 daniel in the lion's den daniel 6 pgs 152-159 daniel and a lion
dec 19 jonah jonah 1-4 pgs 160-169 fish
dec 20 the prophets neh 8-10 pgs 170-175 party hat
dec 21 john the baptist matt 3 pgs 200-203 a shell
dec 22 mary and the angel luke 1-2 pgs 176-179 an angel
dec 23 journey to bethlehem luke 1-2 pgs 180-181 a scroll
dec 24 the shepherds and wise men luke 2, matt 2 pgs 184-188 the three wise men
dec 25 jesus is born! luke 2 pgs 182, 190, 192-198 baby jesus

i would love for you to join us in doing this. this is our fourth year to do an advent tree and it makes this season so, so sweet!  it takes a commitment of time, which just means less opportunity to be assaulted by consumerism in the malls. it takes a little bit of effort in making or securing the ornaments. however, it is so worth it and so rewarding! the boys loved taking turns hanging the ornaments on the tree, and the excitement and expectation builds as more and more ornaments fill the tree, until christ is born and christmas is here!

happy advent!

happy thanksgiving

thanksgiving blessings from our family to yours!

halloween 2011

halloween 2011 brought a new tradition to the rutherford household:  carving pumpkins.  neither john nor i could recall ever having done this as a kid and so we felt pretty uneducated and inexperienced.  however, with a little online research, we had a great time!

we bought two really great, big pumpkins.  they were so cute i hated to cut them up!  noodle's class had carved a pumpkin a few days earlier so he was our go-to expert!  after sawing off the tops, the boys were so excited to reach in and remove the guts!  noodle was totally obsessed with removing all the seeds so that we could roast them later.

love these two!

the perfect pumpkins

john and noodle

burrito

the finished products

this is their scary pumpkin faces!

aren't they cute?

and here's their spooky side!

the trick-or-treating crew

 and we had a blast on october 31 with our friends from church.  we made an interesting group:  a knight, a snow princess, a football player and a parrot!  nonetheless, we all had a blast and have 10 pounds of candy to prove it!

thanks friends for hosting us that night and letting us raid your neighborhood!

and for some regular traditions, the boys participated in a reformation day party at school.  they are asked to come dressed as either an animal from God's creation or a bible character.  we've been a frog and a lion, a penguin, and as abraham and titus from the bible.

noodle as a parrot

this is what he looked like when he actually wore the bird head part!

 

burrito as a roman soldier.  i know it looks more like a knight but use your imagination! :)

all in all, we had a great time dressing up and being with friends and having lots of fun!

noodle's 6th birthday

as it seems to be standard practice now, we had a several-day celebration of noodle's birthday this year.  on friday, we celebrated with friends at school.  noodle sat at the front of the classroom while his friends sang "happy birthday" to him.  it was very sweet.  he then helped me pass out juice boxes and m&m cookies that he picked out from the store.

it also happened to be "texas rangers spirit day" so that it why all the kids have on rangers shirts instead of uniforms.  a fun day all around!

then the party continued the next morning at the soccer game.  after the game we shared gatorade and more cookies and the team all sang happy birthday to noodle.

i love his little smile here!

then the real party moved to skatetown that afternoon where the boys from noodle's class plus a couple of our dear friends from church joined us to skate it up.  even john and i strapped some skates on and relived our glory days from middle school!

this is a little game they have the kids play...balancing the ice cream on your head.

noodle doesn't like cake (or ice cream) so we went with the big cookie for the cake!

noodle's actual birthday was on sunday so we celebrated the real thing with a family party at our house.  this is one spoiled little guy!  his ultimate present was the nintendo dsi and a multitude of new games for it.

happy 6th birthday noodle!  we love you so much and thank God for you each day!

happy 6th birthday noodle!

 happy 6th birthday to my super sweet noodle!

i simply cannot believe that you are already 6.  i definitely don't have a baby or little boy anymore!  you are such a sweet blessing to our family.  the Lord knew we needed a laid-back, easy-going personality in our house of first-born type a personalities!

you are my little pumpkin because you were due on october 31, but you chose to come a little early, which was fine with me!  we love your little innocent personality, your inquisitive nature, your love for all things electronic, and your love for all sports. 

you are enjoying being in kindergarten and you work with such intense focus and determination.  you beg to read to me, you love coloring, and you can sit and work on a puzzle or lego set for hours.  you memorize God's Word with ease, you come home from school singing praise songs that you have learned and you love being on your older brother's soccer team with kids that are 2 years older than you.

we have partied all weekend long and when things settle down a bit, i'll post pictures from the multiple celebrations we've enjoyed having with you.  we love you so much and are so thankful that God chose us to be your parents.

we love you noodle!

making memories

i saw this quote earlier in the week, and i am making it my new mantra:

don't cry because it's over.  smile because it happened.  ~ dr. suess

i am trying to remember this as my children grow up way too fast.  i am extremely nostalgic, i don't much care for change, and i don't want them to ever leave me.  i just love them so much.  but i know (deep down inside) that i will have to let them go at some point, and that it is good to do so.  but until then, i want to make as many sweet memories with them as possible and treasure every moment.

so that's what this post is all about.

as i let these thoughts settle into my soul over the past few days, i tried to think of some creative ways to spend time with the boys.

so on thursday i packed a lunch and a blanket and headed up to school.  we have a beautiful pond by our grammar school building so i met the boys in the lunchroom and out we went to have a picnic by the pond.  burrito and noodle eat at different times so it was a good opportunity to spend some individual time with them.

the beautiful pond.  it ended up being 101 degrees this day (sept 29) but in the shade it was pretty nice.

my sweet noodle

my growing-up-too-fast burrito

this is one of those hold-the-camera-out-and-see-what-you-get sort of pictures.  i wish i would have thought to do the same with noodle.

the boys are already begging me to come up again this thursday for a picnic date.  who can say no to those sweet faces?

for more fun making-memories moments, i had friday's activities planned a few days in advance, and it was torture not telling them my plans!  the boys have been begging us to go camping.  for maybe an entire year.  we bought a tent last april for burrito's camping themed birthday, and we have been either too busy or it's been WAY TO HOT to even consider sleeping outdoors.

well this weekend was going to be a perfect opportunity.  the boys did not have soccer and the overnight temperature was going to be a glorious 54 degrees!  so friday afternoon, while they were still at school, i set up our tent in the backyard.  i figured we better do a trial run before officially camping somewhere just in case my little campers changed their minds about how much fun camping is, ha, ha!

i bought the necessary ingredients to make s'mores, i rented a movie to watch on the laptop, and we planned on attending our school's football game to ensure that we had two sleepy boys on our hands!  and things went just as planned!

here are some sweet friend pictures from the football game.  it was perfect weather!

noodle and his reading buddy caleb

burrito and his new friend diego, who is one of john's students.  they came over to tell me that they were bff's so i told them i better take a picture! :)

and they were so excited to come home and see the tent set up!  these first two pictures were taken in the afternoon before we left for the football game because i knew it would be pretty dark before we would get home.

our home away from home (but not really!) and yes, all 4 of us crammed into this tent for the night!

this is supposed to be their really excited and shocked faces!

burrito eating s'mores

noodle with s'mores already all over his face

we realized rather quickly why most campers do not eat s'mores inside their tents, and because the mosquitoes are crazy bad in our backyard, we decided we better head indoors to finish eating our snacks.

we retired to the tent around 11:30pm.  the boys watched the movie for about 15 minutes and then were out.  they slept all night until i woke them up the next morning for a breakfast of donuts.  we never get donuts for breakfast so i think they were shocked and thrilled at the fun time we were having.  i don't think any of us slept very well because we did manage to nap for a couple of hours this afternoon.

both boys said several times today that they had an awesome time and want to do it again.  and i would semi-sleep on the hard ground again to make these types of memories with my boys.

i love them so much.