John 3:16

We are currently teaching Katelyn to memorize John 3:16 (our 2 year old version- "For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only son, Jesus.")

Katelyn has been doing great memorizing it and we are at the point where I leave out words and she fills them in  (the underlined portion).  She has changed the version and I love it...  "For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Baby Jesus."  I think it is adorable because we have been talking about how Christmas is baby Jesus birthday and I think it has stuck in her little precious brain! 

Advent 2009

The word advent, meaning 'the coming' in Latin, has been celebrated by Christians for centuries.  Centuries ago, Christians felt that celebrating the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for one day was inadequate.  Believers felt a time of preparation immediately beforehand was essential.  They would take time to meditate on God's incredible gift of sending his Son and take time to teach thier children the tremendous meaning of Christmas.  I'm sure most of you already know this, but I didn't so I had to research!

This year Jared and I decided to also celebrate advent for the month of Decemeber.  Most of the advent calendar things you can buy in a store have little cubbies to put treats, candy, little toys in for each day.  I'm guessing the advent tradition has slowly become more secular over the years, so we decided to create our own advent calendar! 

Under each day is a verse or group of verses along with an activity or craft to go along with the verse.  I know Katelyn is only 2, but I hope she is able to learn from this month long preparation what Christmas is truely about.  On December 1st we read Isaiah 7:14 and our activity was to create the advent calendar.  On December 2nd we read Isaiah 9:6-7 and created a wreath out of Katelyn's handprints our of Christmas wrapping paper.

 

On December 3rd we read Isaiah 32:1 and we were supposed to color a gingerbread man (but that didn't happen b/c we had company over). 

Then today we read Isaiah 40:39-41 and we made a snowman out of cottonballs, buttons and GLUE (Katelyn's favorite thing!).  I'm loving doing the advent calendar.  It has really been a neat time of reflection for myself and I'm praying it is teaching Katelyn the true meaning of CHRISTmas!

SNOW!!!!

I'm so surprised we actually got some snow today!  We had to go enjoy it while it lasted (only about 20 minutes), so we bundled up and headed out the door.  Katelyn got a work-out trying to pop all the bubbles, better know as snowflakes! 

Then we went back inside to warm up with some of daddy's coffee, again better known as hot chocolate. 

All smiles after sharing a cup of hot chocolate!

Happy Birthday Love!

I knew God had blessed me with an amazing husband when we got married 5 years ago, but I didn't realize what a huge blessing Jared is.  I feel so lucky to share my life with someone as loving, funny, and understanding as you!  You are such a wonderful father to Katelyn and sister.  You are my best friend and my love for you grows each day.  Thank you for working so hard to provide for our family.  Thank you for loving the Lord with all you heart, mind and soul.  I love you so very much!  Happy Birthday (2 days late)!

Hope you like the picture honey!  I figured a serious, heart-felt message had to be followed by a silly picture!

Baby #2 Update

Well, no fun pictures to post, but I wanted to give a shout out to the 2nd Hughes baby who is on her way!  I am currently 22 (almost 23) weeks pregnant and found out a few weeks ago that baby is a GIRL!  We are simply calling her "Sister" because Jared won't talk names yet.  Katelyn knows that Sister is in mommy's tummy, but I'm sure she doesn't realize that in March she will be joining us!  Of course, if you ask Katelyn where is Sister, she will lift up her own shirt...  Katelyn will be 2 1/2 when Sister is born and I'm sure she is going to be a GREAT big sister.  She loves, loves, loves babies and will be a big helper.  

I've been feeling Sister kick a lot lately!  She must be really strong because I've been feeling her kick since around 15 weeks and I didn't feel Katelyn until closer to 20 weeks.  Jared has even felt her kick many times! 

I am so thankful for this tremendous blessing.  God is so good and I am honored to be mommy to this 2 precious lives. 

Little Miss Pumpkin

What an exciting weekend we had in the Hughes household. We went to the 'fall harvest picnic' with our Sunday school class at a fun little park in Austin on Saturday for lunch. It was a great time with some of our dearest friends- unfortunately I only took pictures of Jared, Katelyn, and I so that will have to do! If you look really closely you can even see baby sister in this picture!

Here is Katelyn and I Here is one of Jared and Katelyn, our precious little pumpkin. We were totally shocked that she wore the pumpkin for so long. When we went to put it on she wasn't too happy- but I guess she decided it wasn't so bad after all!

After the park we went back to the house and all took a nice Saturday afternoon nap before the evening festivities started. After the nap Jared and Katelyn carved their 1st of many pumpkins. OK, I'll be honest- what you see in this picture is the extent of Katelyn helping. As soon as I snapped this picture she wanted her hand cleaned and nothing else to do with the slimy pumpkin insides! She is such a girl! Jared then carefully cleaned out and carved the pumpkin while Katelyn sat at the table and colored her little pumpkin with a marker.After pumpkin carving we had dinner and then headed out to go trick-or-treating. We went to about 5 houses on our street before Katelyn got scared of a fake pumpkin headed man on our neighbors porch and started to cry and insisted on being carried. So, we decided we'd just head back home and hand out candy to all the neighborhood kids instead. Katelyn was a great candy passer-outer!

Sushi Night!

Jared has decided he likes for me to make him sushi (yuck!). It is pretty time consuming so we have only made 3 attempts , and this last one was a huge success. I think we have finally figured out the 'sushi rice'. The first two times we tried the rice wasn't sticky enough and so it fell off once it was rolled. We finally splurged and bought some special type of rice and it made all the difference (according to Jared). So here is a picture of the finished product before Jared dug in...Jared gave his seal of approval- the good ol' thumbs up!!He must have really, really appreciated my hard work to make this last batch of sushi because he did the dishes while I sat at the table and relaxed a few minutes! I had to take his picture because, let's be honest, dishes isn't Jared's favorite thing- but he goes to great lengths to demonstrate his love for me- tonight it was in the form of dishes! Love you Jared!