Night in Bethlehem

Saturday night we went to our church's Night in Bethlehem. It was so much fun! I am a horrible church member and didn't invite any of my friends or family to go, but my excuse is this is the first year that we went so I didn't realize how cool it is. (Also, James and I were Joseph and Mary in the live nativity for part of the night. This may have had a little something to do with why I didn't want all of my friends and family there. I'll just say I should not win an academy award for best actress...or even a golden globe for that matter. We were more like statues than anything with our ad libbing consisting of "Do you want to see baby Jesus? He's sleeping in the manger." Good sharing of the Christmas story all around. Hey, we never claimed to be good actors.)

Anyway, here's some pictures to entice y'all to come next year!

Hunter's two favorite things were...

*The "Abraham's Kickin' Chicken" game where you got to kick (or throw for Hunter's age) a rubber chicken into a bucket. Hunter actually just walked up to the bucket and put the chicken in, but he still got a prize. (They're really generous at our church:)).

*Another favorite was the bread from the Bethlehem bakery. Hunter tried to take a bite of the bread while the man was still holding it. He just opened his mouth and walked right up to him. Luckily Mr. Reimer knows us, so hopefully he assumes our child has been taught some table manners.

The least favorite thing was for sure the head covering booth. Hunter fought this pretty hard, but I really, really wanted, no needed, a picture of the 3 of us all matchy matchy. This is the best I got...

We also had goats...

(We made the mistake of not taking the bread away from Hunter before putting him within the goat's reach)

and sheep...

and camels (Hunter is looking at the camel in the sheep picture above)...and a donkey the kids could ride, but after this fiasco, we decided not to try that.

There were so many other cool things there too. I hope y'all can join us next year!

Where I've Been

A lot has happened during my blogging hiatus. Here are the highlights of the past couple of weeks...

*Hunter's been training for the upcoming Rocky: The 43rd edition film....

I think he's a pretty good stunt double for Rocky for the far away shots, but he's way too cute up close......so we've given up on that dream.

*We played a fun game of hide-n-seek one day, and I obviously came out as the winner on that one because, well to be honest, my son has a poor grasp on how well he can fit into certain hiding places...

...also the loud whining that came soon after Hunter realized he was stuck kind of gave away the game.

*One word. Seven letters. V-O-T-I-V-E-S

Hunter's new favorite thing is pulling the wicks out of all of the unused votive candles in the house. Luckily, I only have one wickless candle in the drawer right now. I'm sure that wick will show up in the vacuum soon enough.

*Ladies and gentleman, the duck has left the building...er I mean nest. I know y'all are totally disappointed, but be reassured in the fact that NOONE is as disappointed as I was when I got to the playground and all I saw were some remnants of the nest and bits of cracked egg.

*And probably the most exciting, or maybe the more appropriate word would be traumatic, thing that has happened to us, is Hunter's first fight.

Actually it wasn't much of a fight. It went something like this...Hunter's playing with "a child" (apparently when your kid is harmed by another kid at school, they won't tell you who the bully is...probably so you don't go to their house to retaliate...not that the thought ever entered my head. ever.). The child bites Hunter ON.THE.FACE. Hunter starts screaming and crying. The teachers - and supposedly all of the girls in the class - run over to comfort him with "hugs and kisses". (Not kidding about this. That's what was written on the form...comforted with "hugs and kisses". I love that. Warm fuzzies.)

James will be starting self-defense classes for toddlers in our home next week if anyone would like to join.

I am proud of how whinyless Hunter was once I came to pick him up. If you had this battle scar, you'd whine, right?And just for dramatic effect, a close up...

Hope to post again sometime before January. I am checking y'alls blogs (if you have one) and I LOVE reading them even I haven't commented much lately. I promise to start commenting more!

Soon

The nausea has already kicked in, and the fatigue started several weeks ago, so that's my excuse for no posting in forever. I have so many things to tell y'all about, so I promise to post soon! Just wanted to let you know I'm alive...just tired...and feeling yucky:)