Four Memories of Christmas 2013

This past week I became extremely sick with a dreadful infection that wreaked havoc on my sinuses . What started out as a common cold led to a ruptured ear drum, conjunctivitis, a throat full of knives, and you guessed it, lots of congestion. I felt like a giant piece of bacteria with red eyes living underwater (due to the hearing loss). My inlaws were gracious enough to let me stay holed away in their home and served me many cups of hot tea and breakfast's-in bed :)

Furthermore, I hit the belly-button poppin' phase of pregnancy where the most basic tasks, such as sleeping, breathing, and tying your shoes, suddenly became downright uncomfortable (or according to my more dramatic side, nearly impossible). Even my trusty snoogle is no longer coming to my aid!

Despite these 'light and momentary' bahumbugs, many fun memories were successfully made and it is these things that I want to remember when I think back to Christmas 2013...

1. Watching the Hobbit Part 2-During the week that we were in Summerville, one of the main topics of discussion was what day and time we should go to the theater to watch the Hobbit. Day after day went by and for one reason or another we would have to change plans.Finally we were able to make it a reality (much to my sister-in-law Abigail's delight).  We all thought it was much better than Part I and I was really quite proud of myself for staying awake the entire movie. Well, almost. I fell asleep the last five minutes:)

2. Game-Playin' and Story Tellin'-We had a lot of fun one night playing the game Whoonu around the kitchen table. Have you ever played that game? It's super fun and opens the floor for all sorts of stories to be remembered and shared. The Decker Family loves to tell stories. I've been in the family long enough now that I am familiar with the classics and can begin laughing at the opening line :).

3. Drugstore Dancing-On Christmas Eve night, Jared took me up to the drugstore to get some remedies for all my ailments. As I stood staring groggily at the array of pills and sprays, donned in the color gray from head to toe, with bloodshot eyes and a messy-bun-with-a-rat-tail hairdo, a Christmas song came over the CVS radio, sung from the time of my grandparent's generation.  I saw a sparkle in my man's eyes as he reached for my hand and slipped his other hand around my waist pulling my round pregnant belly in as close as it could be. And there we were in the Nasal Decongestant aisle swaying back and forth to the faint sound of the Big Band;  big cheesy grins on our faces and twinkles in our eyes. And the whole world stood still in that moment. My man gives me a glimpse..a small taste..of how my Father in heaven must love me. 

4.  Reading the Christmas Story-Every year on Christmas Eve night, my father-in-law reads the Christmas story to his family. As we gathered around to fulfill this special tradition, Jared asked if he could do the honor of reading the story since this was the first Christmas that his own child was present.  Danny passed the Bible to Jared and Jared placed his hand on my big round belly. When he got to the part where the angels sang "Glory to God in the highest!" baby girl jumped and kicked excitedly inside of me. It was a fun moment to share:)

Jared and I are so blessed to have families who love the Lord and each other deeply.  We are eager to bring our little girl into the world and surround her with people who can tell her all about Jesus and the great truths in the Bible. We can't wait to read the Christmas story next year with our little Munchkin all snuggled up in between us!

 May you cling to the sweet memories you made this Christmas season!
~Charity~

Seven Steps to Making a Gender Reveal Box

(Not interested in this post? Skip to the bottom and click on the link to watch a four minute film of life in the womb. It is the best one I've seen so far!)

For those of you who have asked how I made the balloon box for our surprise gender reveal, here are the directions! There are many ideas out there that involve spray painting the box, wrapping the box in paper, or using markers to draw the letters, but I like the method we went with the best. All credit goes to my better-half...I am just not very creative! 

1. You will need packing tape, glue, and scissors. 

2. I purchased some colorful card stock from Target, but you can also use construction paper. 

3. There are all different sizes of boxes that people use for this project, but I went with an Extra-Large cardboard box from Home Depot (labeled X-Large). This size fits a regular piece of poster board almost perfectly. Speaking of which, you will need to purchase four black poster boards. Don't tape them to the box until step 6.

4. To make the circles, I used three different sized objects- a bowl, a candle holder, and a mug. I cut these circles out of the cardstock and glued them on the poster. 

5. I am HORRIBLE at drawing bubble letters so I went to this website and printed off the letters I needed for my box. I used plain white paper for "it's a..." and traced letters out of the cardstock for "GIRL" and "BOY".  Once you have your letters cut out you can paste them onto your posters!

6. After your posters are decorated, tape one poster to the front, and one to each side. Cut the last poster in two pieces and tape them to the flaps. Don't worry about the back of the box as it will not be visible in the pictures :)

7. Okay, so now that the box is finished, you just need to fill it up with pink or blue balloons! My husband and I wanted to be surprised along with our family, so we had the doctor write down the gender of our munchkin onto a piece of paper after our ultrasound. We took the sealed envelope (it was hard not to peek!) to a local grocery store and purchased 12 pink or blue balloons. While we waited outside, they blew up the balloons for us and put them in the box--making sure to tape the lid tight!

It was a lot of fun to make a big deal over this milestone, since we had to be cautious with our emotions at first. However you may decide to announce the gender of your little one, never forget what an awesome privilege it is to carry a tiny life inside of you. If you have four minutes of time, check out this amazing video of life in the womb- 9 months in 4 minutes. ..."admire the perfect creation of God"...

Life is precious!
~Charity~