Journey to Bethlehem

BACK POST!!

In December, we had the opportunity to attend a Jerusalem Christmas type event.  It was so cool!  They had a gym with different activities that you could do.  They also had rooms that each acted out a part of the Christmas story.  

I stole this picture from Cameron's friend Johnny.  It is of the angels telling the shepherds of Christ's birth.  

A not so good picture of the shepherd's room.  It literally smelled like sagebrush.  The backgrounds were painted beautifully.

They also had a room with a bunch of different nativities.

A beautiful display.

Another nativity.

They were all so different but all intricate and lovely.

The three wise men.

They also had live camels!!

All the people were dressed in Bethlehem-y outfits.  The bright lights washed out the pictures.

Heidi posing with a camel.

Melissa with the camels.

Me and the camel.  They were kind of stinky, but also cute.

The camel dudes.

They had a fake well in the middle of the gym, but it looked so real!

They also had a silhouette of a Bethlehem horizon.

Heidi learned how to write in Hebrew!  They also had a super cool wood ornament making station.  

The King Herod room.

Okay, I'm sorry for this next comment.  But, I really feel the need to point out how amazing his tight shiny pants are.  Pretty darn cool.  

They did such a great job saying their parts and communicating the story.

Love it.  

Afterwards, we went to see a house that had it's lights synced with some Christmas songs.  It was super, super cool!  

Thanks for being patient with my catch-ups from 2014.

Love you guys so much!

Courtney

PS-Thanks for being such supportive and amazing readers.  Your kind words on my last blog post were so kind and helped me a lot.

We Need A Little Christmas!

You may (or may not) have noticed that Cameron and I haven't been observing normal hours.  This is because Cameron was inexplicably switched to the graveyard shift at his work.  Yes, the graveyard freaking shift.  Yay...  Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that if you want to get a hold of us the best time to do that is between the hours of 8 pm to 12 pm (we sleep from 12 pm to 8 pm).  This schedule is super difficult to wrap my head around.  We go to sleep four hours after most people wake up.  It messes with my brain.   Well, enough about that:

Here are some awesome Christmas cartoons you can watch on YouTube, enjoy!

1.  'Twas The Night Before Christmas (Rankin/Bass)

2.  Toy Tinkers (Disney)

3.  The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree

4.  The Snowman (Raymond Briggs)

5.  Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (Classic Media)

There are a bunch more on YouTube, but these were my favorites this year!

Merry (late) Christmas!!

Love,

Courtney

Ornament Exchange 2014

This was so much fun!  Basically, in the middle of October I asked these fabulous ladies to each make enough ornaments for everyone in the group.  Then, we got together the weekend after Thanksgiving and exchanged them!  So each person received about 11 new ornaments.  Here are all the ornaments and the people who made them.

 Gauchay joined the exchange and we were so happy to have her!

I thought it might be fun to share a picture of each participant too!  This is Gauchay! :)

Her lovely ornament.  She actually had quite a variety of different types, but they were all adorable!

My aunt Alysa and her baby Mirren.

She made these super cool terrariums!  I wish there was a picture of each individual one because they were all so fun!

My aunt Wendy.

She made these sweet lollipop ornaments.  They look good enough to eat!

My lovely Mom.

She made these super cute penguins!  She also had a few other cute ornaments.

My sister Miranda.

She made these awesome color swirl ornaments!  Each one was unique and had its own design.

My sister-in-law Melissa.

She made these cute painted wood ornaments.  They were all so intricate and detailed!!  There were a variety of adorable shapes which were all painted beautifully.

My aunt Alyson.

She made these disco ball ornaments.  They are so pretty on the tree when they catch the light.  It is so cool!!

My sister-in-law Jenni.

She made super cute, sparkly ornament shapes out of clay/dough.  They were all so cool looking with sparkles!

My sister-in-law Tawnee.

She made these cute poinsettia ornaments, which are also sparkle-full.  So cute!

My sister-in-law Heidi.

She made these cardinal/dove ornaments!  She painted them and put feathers on them.  They look so, so awesome!  

Finally, these are the ornaments that I made:

I made a variety of different ones, they all involved burlap in some way (love/hate relationship there).  My Mom totally saved my bacon at the last minute!!  Thanks Mom!

Here is a picture of all the ornaments!  

Hopefully you can see all the names!

This kind of allows you to see the variety of different ornaments that people made.

Loved all of the ornaments.

I cannot tell you how much fun this was!  We had some treats, played holiday taboo and admired all the ornaments.  It was so cool to see all the creativity involved in each persons ornament.  Thanks so much to all who participated and helped me out, it wouldn't have been possible without you!  Hopefully, we can make this a yearly tradition!

Love,

Courtney

Kitty's Adoption

I'm sure most of you already know this, but my little sister's adoption into our family is finally done!  Here are some facts about her that you may not know:

1.  Her legal name is now Brooke Ann Alder.  The reason we called her Kitty previously is because we were supposed to come up with a nickname for her until she was adopted.  This is to prevent her birth parents from finding her on Facebook or other social media sites and is actually strongly suggested by the foster agency.  Both sides of my family have a rich tradition of using several nicknames for children anyway.  The reason we chose the name Kitty was because her previous foster family had all cats and when she first came over she called Kibius (a huge St. Bernard) a kitty.

Fun fact:  Her middle name is in honor of my aunt Ruth who passed away a few years ago.

2.  This kid loves food.  I mean LOVES it!  She is fond of most foods and only has a few that she doesn't like.

3.  Her best friend is named Lylah (I believe she may have been mentioned on this blog before a few times.)

4.  She is part of the Turtle Mountain tribe from North Dakota.

5.  Phones are her obsession.  Whenever anyone is talking on the phone she will want to take the phone from them.  This is her first selfie:

Her letting Lylah listen to the phone, so cute!!

Give me your phone woman!

6.  She has a 45+ word vocabulary and loves to repeat what you say.  She is one smart cookie!

7.  Kitty has a very caring personality.  If there is a baby crying, she will walk over to it and rub their back.

I think that's it for the facts about her, but if you have any more questions, please ask!

Here are some more fun pictures of Kitty.

Here is a picture of her from the first visit:

Her first haircut:

And here are the pictures from the adoption:  

 The whole family with the commissioner. 

They all look so happy, except Kitty.

They had princesses there because it was national adoption day.

So cute!

She was completely exhausted after the whole experience (I don't think this is the exact picture of her passed out on that day, but you get the picture).

I am so excited that Kitty came into our lives.  Our whole family has changed because of her!  If there is anything else you have questions about, feel free to ask.

Love,

Courtney