Learning to just enjoy

So this holiday season has all the makings to be just plain stressful.  We are in the midst of moving!  We have bought a house in town and we close on December 21st...and yes my plan is to have Christmas morning in the new place!  So that means we have to amend our homestudy (our adoption paperwork) to reflect the new address, and then in turn have to update our paperwork with USCIS (US immigration).  And on top of that a bunch of our adoption paperwork is nearing the one year mark and has to be updated/redone so we're in the middle of that right now too.  Not to mention the normal hustle and bustle of buying gifts and parties and holiday travel.  Well, I found myself lying awake at night stressing out over the most incredible time of the year literally slipping by without Max getting to really experience all the things I wanted him to.  Max knows that we celebrate Christmas only because we were given the most incredible gift over 2000 years ago.  He knows its not all about the presents (although he does enjoy those!)  But there were so many fun things I wanted to do as a family this year that I was worried (I do that way too much...worrying) those things might get forgotten about or pushed aside amidst all the other "stuff".

So this year we made a Christmas count down chain (courtesy of our church's children's program who passed all the supplies out to the kids in class) and each day is marked with a fun activity or service project to make sure our family purposefully takes time out of each day to focus on showing Christ's love to as many people as we can while making awesome memories!  I was also sure to stick some things on there that are just fun traditions that I didn't want to miss.....if they're on the chain, then they HAVE to be done right??

I haven't laid awake one night since the chain went up :)  How ridiculous is that?!  But that's just the type of person I am, I stress about things I shouldn't stress about.  But, I'm so thankful to be making such incredible memories with my family, all while still accomplishing everything on my to-do list!!  Here's just a couple pictures from some of our fun events!

 We even have the 21st listed as "Moving Day!"

 Our annual ornament!  A family of four!!!

 This day's activity said to "Make a special Christmas picture".  Max chose to paint snowflakes!

 Skating Christmas party with our Family Life group at church!

 "Make a Christmas present for someone special".  Max painting an "E" to hang in Ellie's bedroom.  He is SO proud to be a big brother!!

Some of the other great things we've gotten to do "Make a donation to a charity", "Pray that this Christmas season would be all about Jesus", "Read a Christmas story before bed", "Have breakfast for dinner"

Some of the fun stuff coming up, "Have a picnic dinner in front of the Christmas tree", "Sing carols in the living room", "make hot chocolate and stir with candy canes", "Make a special treat for someone" (we are doing our mail carrier and our local fire/police department), and "decorate Christmas cookies."

This Saturday the three of us are also going to be bell ringers for the Salvation Army.  Max is SUPER excited.  He always LOVES to put change in the bucket but now he can hardly believe he gets to be the one to ring the bell and say "Merry Christmas!"  Hopefully it will be a great teaching opportunity on serving too!

I pray you all are having an awesome Christmas season.  We are busy, but still enjoying every minute of it!  And this crazy stressful move.....well its taking us to the home where we will make a room for the most beautiful little girl!!  So I really can't complain about that!