I heart Traditions!

I really do love traditions! I like having those familiar things each year that make the holidays so special! Thanksgiving comes with many standard traditions - turkey, big Thursday meal, Black Friday, etc. Thanksgiving in our house comes with a HUGE meal with family and friends. This year our good friend Mr Tim joined us from Florida. He used to live here and would join us for holidays, so it was great to have that tradition even with him living so far away now. After eating and scouring the ads for anything worth staying up all night for (which by the way this year I found nothing worth losing sleep over), we played cards and watched football.

Friday Brandon and I held on to our tradition of seeing the Harry Potter movies in the theatres. It was great to have him home for a few days and get to spend some time with ever changing and maturing oldest child. He is one awesome man! (I also heart him!)

Saturday the whole family hit the movie theatre for Tangled. Way cute! It was great to sit there with all my kids watching a movie and laughing together. I would definately recommend this movie. Gracie is in love with Rapunzel . . . now if only she would stop twirling her own hair into knots and pulling it out . . . she too could have long flowing blonde hair.

Saturday evening we did one of my favorite traditions of this long weekend. We opened our new ornaments from Grandpa and Grandma "Hornsing" and put all the decorations on the tree. The pics are from that time together. I love watching the kids put all their ornaments on the tree and talk about what each one means and when they got it. And then to actually see them all work together to spread the ornaments out so they are not a bunched up mess. Ah, does my heart good?

We completed the weekend with one more tradition . . . Griswalding up the outside of the house for Christmas. We actually are pretty low key this year but it still looks great. After spending four hours outside we decided that was long enough and it looked good so we were done. We however are missing some inflatables that died at the end of the season last year. So maybe just maybe I can convince Jeff that I can get just one new inflatable . . . or maybe a nativity scene?!?!

How was your weekend? Full of traditions and family and friends that you HEART I hope! I pray you really enjoy this Christmas season and slow down to remember that Jesus is the true reason for the season!