Third Advent

Thanks to my German heritage and the fact that both Dale and I served our missions to Germany, our family has the tradition of celebrating Advent each December. Advent is a celebration marking the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas. Each Advent Sunday, Germans light one of the four candles on their Advent wreath. Families then celebrate with singing, reading Christmas stories, eating traditional German goodies (stollen, lebkuchen, or cookies), and drink something warm (hot chocolate, mulled cider, or peppermint tea).

Our family has been doing this for years and it's something we look forward to each year. This year, on the second Advent Sunday, our family invited our friends, the Blues, to our home to celebrate. We read stories, sang Christmas music, and decorated Christmas sugar cookies. Our relationship with the Blue family goes back to when Dale was in the fourth grade with Jason. Since then, they were roommates at BYU and have continued their relationship into their 30's. We were blessed to live near each other in San Jose from 2003-2005. After we decided to move to Dallas back in 2007, they informed us that they, too, would be moving to Dallas for Jason's job. We're thankful to have close friends so close by to share these fun moments with.

Here is Laurel creating one of her many masterpieces, which were covered with several types of sprinkles AND marshmallows.

Here is our little Andrew enjoying the Christmas fun. As you can see, most of his cookies ended up in his little mouth before I could capture what they looked like.

Here I am taking a moment to decorate a snowman. I love this time of year when we can spend quality time like this with our family and friends.