Cupcakes, Crafts, Stats, a Mess & Advent=December

The creative juices have been flowing this Christmas. 

(forgive the fuzzy pics)

We had planned to have the kids make reindeer cupcakes at Claire's preschool party.  At the last minute though (as in while the kiddos were downing their PB&J), we decided that time was running short, so we threw them together.  Fun, huh?

Each preschool classmate got to take home one of our crafty Rudolph Christmas Hershey bars!

For our supper club party, we made our annual baby Jesus cupcakes!
Cute, right?  So cute in fact that we left them in our fridge and forgot to take them out for the par-tay!

Oh, how we have Christmased this year.  Lots of crafts and fun.
What's that?   You want stats?

~27 felt, handsewn Jesse Tree Jonah and the whale ornaments
~27 felt, handsewn sandle Jesse Tree ornaments
~27 painted wooden Mary's heart Jesse Tree ornaments
~16 Hershey bars made into Rudolph
~24 Rudolph cupcakes
~16 Baby Jesus cupcakes
~100++ Christmas cards
~1 weekend hosting family
~1 box of gifts mailed to NY
~1 trip to KY
~4 shindigs hosted
~140 Haiti ornaments tagged and tied
~75 adoption fundraisor ornaments
~27 nights snuggling together doing our Jesse Tree devotions
~lots of fudge and cookies made and eaten
~3 Truth in the Tinsel ornaments made (more to come)
~10+ mugs of hot chocolate consumed
~20+ Christmas cartoons watched
~30+ Christmas books on our coffee table
~40+ times that our girls have played "Mary and Joseph"
~3-5 fun things we said no to just to hang out at home

We love all that this season offers, but also have to fight busyiness.  Reality time.  Many times this month our lives and our home have looked like this...

And when it has feels like we are on the crazy train, when stuff gets in the way of peace and joy, we refocus.  We remember that it is Advent that we are experiencing.

Love today's reminder from Ann Voskamp:

Celebrate a Christmas that cannot be bought, or created,
or made by hand.

A Christmas that isn’t a product to wrap — but a Person to unwrap.

A Christmas that can only be found —

in the creche… in the cradling trough… in the mire and the stench and the unexpected and the unlikely.

Only in the person of Christ.

The mystery so large becomes the babe so small — and infinite God becomes infant.

Christ, the babe, comes in Christmas as Christ the Savior comes on the cross —

Seeking only our embrace.