Christmas Wrap-Up

We had a great Christmas weekend!  We kicked it off with the Candlelight Christmas Eve service at church (which was incredible as always!) and had a great time with my family on Christmas day after Santa came to visit us.

Getting ready to put out the Reindeer Food.  We talked about spreading it out in the grass for the reindeer, but she decided it would be best in a pile right outside the front door.

Modeling her new Muppet pajamas that Buddy the Elf (on the Shelf)
left for her Christmas Eve Morning.

Hannah asked for new blocks like Mamaw has (aka Duplos) and purple Chapstick from Santa this year.  Santa happily granted her wish with this Lego table along with pink and purple princess Chapstick in her stocking.

Hannah was very cautious on Christmas morning.  It took her a few minutes to realize that Santa left the table and blocks for her.  After sending Winnie the Pooh down the slide one time, she was ready to play!

Merry Christmas!

Anniversaries and Weddings

We spent last weekend in West Texas celebrating many happy marriages.  First, we headed to Lubbock to celebrate my grandparents' 60th Wedding Anniversary.  We had a great time celebrating with my grandparents, their kids and spouses, and my brother and sister at a brunch at the Overton Hotel in Lubbock near the Tech Campus.  Before the brunch, we met Katelyn from Blessed Photography.  She came over to Tech and the Overton Hotel and took a ton of pictures of our family.  If you need photography services in the Lubbock area, I highly recommend Katelyn!  Because of the photo session, I didn't pull my camera out much at the brunch but did get a few of Hannah enjoying Christmas with my grandparents back at their house later that afternoon.  I will definitely share some of our pictures from Katelyn when we receive them!  Happy Anniversary Nana and Grandpa!  We love you!

Chillin' after a long, fun day!

Playing Wii with Mamaw.  Grandpa even joined in on the fun!

After Lubbock, we headed down to Midland for Chet's brother's wedding.  We enjoyed getting to spend time with Chet's family and are so happy for Randy and Emily!  It was such a beautiful and sweet ceremony!

Chet with his parents, brother and sister

Randy and Emily chose the date for their wedding because it is also
Jim and Judy's anniversary and Bobby and Jennifer's anniversary.

Hannah loves playing with her cousins!

Christmas Cookies

No InstaFriday this week... I've been using my big camera all week!
Today, Hannah and I made cookies for Santa with plenty of extra for us!

 It has been a crazy, busy week!  I will post the pictures from the rest of the week soon!

InstaFriday

It's been awhile since I have done an InstaFriday!  Here are just a few of the little things this week that have made our life perfect:

Our little elf, Buddy, made his appearance right after we got home from Disney.  One day, we found him hanging out in the fridge.  It must have reminded him of home!  :)

Every year, Hannah and I decorate a gingerbread house together.  It is always a lot of fun and we eat more candy than what gets put on the house!

Last weekend, we went to downtown Grapevine with Mamaw and Granddad to see their Christmas lights.  They always have a fun display every year with animatronics and lights choreographed to music.

On Sunday, we headed down to Cleburne to see Cousin Kayden as Susan in Miracle on 34th Street.  She did a fantastic job as she always does and even took Hannah to meet Santa.  It was her first time to meet him!  She told him that she wanted chapstick for Christmas.

Chet went to Des Moines, Iowa this week for the premiere of the documentary, The Gift of Life.  Chet was one of the featured stories in the documentary that explores the sanctity of life as a moral issue.  For more information on the documentary, you can read the blog entry right before this one.

Chet met many interesting and passionate people at the premiere including Governor Mike Huckabee.  Governor Huckabee is the host of the documentary.  

Many of the Republican Presidential Candidates were in attendance as well including Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

The stories he tells me of this night are pretty amazing and fun.  I am sure he will have more to share on his speaking ministry blog soon.

The Gift of Life

Chet is headed up to Des Moines, Iowa today for the premiere of the documentary, The Gift of Life.  The documentary, hosted by Mike Huckabee. explores the sanctity of life as a moral issue and looks at the lives of individuals who were nearly the victims of an abortion, but through God’s grace were spared.

The Gift of Life

Chet's parents did not know that he would be born without arms and would have never considered abortion even if they had known.  His story is about the doctor who delivered him, and, after heroically saving Chet's and his mom's lives, decided on his own that if Chet's body was as 'mangled' on the inside as it looked on the outside, then it would be better if he didn't live.  The doctor did the minimum suction and lay Chet off to the side by himself.  Today, Chet speaks out not only against abortion but especially against selective abortion.  Some parents decide to abort their children because they may not be "perfect."  Not perfect can be anything to physical disabilities to Down Syndrome to even not being the sex that they were hoping for.  Chet's message is that we can't know what the future holds for anyone.  Nearly 32 years ago, who would have known that we would be married with a beautiful daughter and another on the way.  You can see from the other entries on this blog that he has a full and happy life regardless of how he looks on the outside.

Late last summer, the film crew came to our house and interviewed Chet and shot some footage of our family together in our home and at a local park.  We previewed the finished documentary a few days ago.  It is an amazing film.  Pro-life is often a negative term in today's culture, conjuring images of picketing, anti-abortion ads, and even killings of the doctors performing the abortions.  We love how this film challenges you to look beyond the deaths and see people and lives.  Every life is valuable no matter how not perfect we may think it is.  Contempt for any life, whether that be for the unborn baby, the mother deciding to get an abortion, or the doctor performing it, is not how we, as Christians are to believe.  Maybe if we stop hating and judging, and love as we are taught to do, then more precious babies will be saved and more people will come to know Christ.

I am so proud of Chet and the message that he shares with thousands of people each year.  I would love to be there with him but we couldn't make it work with my pregnant belly!

Here is the trailer for the documentary:

http://chetmcdoniel.com

We just found out that you can watch the event tonight (Wednesday, December 14) at 7:00 Central on C-Span 2.  Link: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Abortion-Campaign-Finance-Topics-at-Candidate-Forum/10737426276/

The Last Disney Trip as a Family of Three

I intended to get these pictures up last week, but we have been very busy!  Here are a few highlights from our last trip to the Walt Disney World Resort as a family of three:

Hannah loved visiting the characters decked out in their Christmas gear and we had a great time at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

Hannah was picked to be one of the kids that marches with the "animals" at the Festival of the Lion King show at Disney's Animal Kingdom.  She knew that is was a possibility at the end of the show and was ecstatic when she was picked!  She looks like such a big girl here!

Of course, we had breakfast with the princesses.

All of the little princesses are invited to parade around the restaurant with the princesses at one point during the meal.  Hannah was so happy to join Mary Poppins. (We are not really sure why she was at the princess breakfast but we loved seeing her!)

We got to meet Jake from the new Disney Channel show, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, for the first time during this trip!

One our favorite things during Christmas at Disney's Hollywood Studios is the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.  Over four million lights light up the street and are choreographed to "dance" to Christmas music.  It also "snows!"

Spinning with Daddy on the Teacups (I used little Olivia as an excuse not to join.  Hannah likes to spin the teacups really fast!)

Hannah got a new Minnie dress on our trip and Minnie loved it!

We had dinner with our favorite friends from the 100 Hundred Acre Woods.

On our way out of town, we stopped to have breakfast with Lilo and Stitch! 

We had a great time on our trip and are looking forward to heading there with our two girls next fall.  I think Chet has looked into every possibility to get us to a Disney Destination before then (we try to avoid the summer)!  We just bought the Xbox Kinect game, Disneyland Adventures, so that will have to do for now!

Mickey and Minnie (and Minnie!)

We are back home from our two week vacation!  The first week was spent in Gulfport, MS in a condo on the beach with Chet's family for Thanksgiving.  We had a great time there!  Since we were already halfway there, we decided to head down to Walt Disney World for one more vacation before little Olivia makes her appearance.  

We love Walt Disney World at Christmastime and had a wonderful time doing all of our favorites plus Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, the Candlelight Processional (retelling of the birth of Jesus with a full orchestra and mass choir), and seeing all of the beautiful holiday decorations.  It was a great last vacation as a family of three and we can't wait to visit again next fall as a family of four!  (This will be the longest we have gone without going to a Disney Destination since Hannah was born but totally worth it!)

I am still sorting through photos, but here is a video that Chet took during one of our visits with Mickey and Minnie.  They loved that not only was Hannah dressed as Minnie but that she was carrying a Mickey doll.