Roberts Family Chronicles: December 2016

My Favorite Birthday Tradition:

I print my favorite picture of each child from every month over the past year and display them on the banner. It's fun to look at the progression of them growing up. This was the first year to have THREE photo banners! One plus of having 3 birthdays in row is that you only decorate one time : )

Judah turned ONE December 3rd

Dec 3rd 2015

Dec 3rd 2016

Happy Birthday my sweet smiley baby boy - You are loved!

Three of my closest friends also have birthdays in Dec/Jan so I took them to my favorite band's concert as a treat. We had a fun girls night out...with 15 kids between just the four of us it was much needed!

Birthday decorations down and Christmas decorations going up

"Oh Christmas Tree..."

Newest addition to our Christmas decorations - Ha!

Delivering neighbor gifts

I love a fresh pineapple! The tag said "Mele Kalikimaka"

Merry Christmas in Hawaiian

Annual Gingerbread House Making with baby swap group

Our life group at church had fun doing a progressive dinner in Germantown

Thanks to the Langley's, Johnson's, and Hills for doing a wonderful job hosting!

Love these people!

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

Proverbs 27:17

My parents got the kids a year of creative play at a new local place "The Art Project"

We get to go and create, glue, paint, glitter, build...and leave the mess!

Can't beat that especially in the winter months

I am continually amazed at Benjamin's ability to build.

He is so much like his Daddy

I think he got the engineering gene

Frank took Hannah on a date to Disney on Ice...

Who knew that Tupelo is two hours away from Memphis (oops!) Not my best moment.

Good thing Frank was able to make it work last minute

No Shave November has continued into December...and beyond

Soaking up the last random warm days in December at the park before winter official hits

Time be still

My heart <3

Frank and I went hunting with our close friends Josh and Emily

What were we thinking? The wind chill was FOUR degrees!

This was me pretty much the whole time in the ground blind...and I was STILL cold

The guys went back for an evening hunt while Emily and I camped out at McDonald's for about 5 hours and read our books, talked, and people watched : )

Big thanks to the Gardner's for watching our kids for the day!

Making gingerbread men

Thanks mom for the cookie cutter

Looking at Christmas lights

(Incase you were worried, the car was parked)

The cookie decorating, gingerbread houses, lights, and gifts are all fun but the Jesse Tree is one of our favorite Christmas traditions. I just finished teaching the Old Testament to the kids so this was a great review from Creation to the birth of Christ. We are starting the New Testament in January.

Our Christmas did not go as planned

They might have smiles in this picture but 4 of the 5 of us got the stomach bug

(no pictures taken for the blog of that - you're welcome)

Frank was unable to get out of bed all Christmas Day and I was recovering while taking care of the kids on my own. It was a loooong day but still have so much for which to be thankful.