new traditions

i love christmas!!! i also LOVE having 2 little innocent pairs of eyes and ears that are ALL about this season!! it is SO fun to experience christ's birth through the eyes of court & beckham. we are also having fun with elf on the shelf and getting ready for santa's arrival. how do you balance all of this at this age? i'm finding it hard to explain that christmas is REALLY about celebrating Jesus' birth, but all a 2 & 3 1/2 year old can focus on is presents, presents, and more presents!! we are starting some new traditions this year that i'm hoping will get the true meaning of christmas across. this year, we let the boys pick angels from the angel tree at our church. we helped them  pick little boys that were the same age as them. then, we spent a day shopping for just those precious little boys whose parents are in prison. court (as any 3 year old does) wanted just about EVERYTHING in the store, but i tried to convey that we are shopping for children that don't have mommies & daddies to buy them christmas presents. he said that made him so sad. (sweet heart). we also made "blessing bags" for those that are homeless. i tried to explain that some people don't have homes to live in or live out on the street in the cold. court and beckham helped fill the bags with hats, socks, deoderant, soap, toothbrushes, snacks, baby wipes, etc). court filled those things up to the very top! court asked ALOT of questions about why they are homless and where they live, why don't they have money, etc - whew - i don't have enough answers for this boy!! monday, we went to downtown dallas to visit daddy and see the neiman marcus window displays. we took the blessing bags with us and we handed some out - should have taken more. hopefully, they will find some use with the things we gave them - even though they were asking for money. my prayer for our 2 boys has been that God will give them a compassionate heart and love for all people. it's my prayer for myself as well as we go thru our daily lives of busyness!! it's easy to get caught up in wordly things in the world we live in!

the boys are "helping" daddy wrap the bike we got for our little angel tree boy.

 here are 2 of the blessing bags we filled to the brim!