Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too!

I sure do love that people know that I love Christmas cards :)

John's Pass morning and Gators for lunch

Christmas Vacation day 1

Beach day with cousins and crews and Altazara

Potty training at 18 months?!

Julia wants to pee on the potty already. So odd. It started after she was so constipated and #2 really hurt when it finally cane out. So she was scared to go the next couple of times. I helped her on the potty and think she liked being held. That was like a month ago. I thought it would be a quick phase but she says "poop" and does the sign language to go. Yes, I am the one who put Tyler's undies on her today, but only bc it is a pain strapping and unstrapping diapers. I don't want her to figure out how to undo them but do want her to figure out going potty by herself. She can sirta put pants on so may as well help. She tells me when and we run to the toilet. Easy. She did get the undies wet twice today, but said "wet" and we ran so she could finish. No puddles. She stopped when she noticed! I am not ready and tried saying "just go in your diaper " when we were watching the glass blowing 2 weekends ago but she insisted. So yea, only diapers at nap time/night time! 

Ih. And I love FL in December. 

Our Feger Family Uber The River And Through The Woods Christmas Card 2015

Play this as you open the card. It's not polished and probably wouldn't have made the final cut if we had actually made musical cards. It was bed time, I had Dylan figure out the violin part real quick, bribed Tyler into singing, and Isaac knew the piano part so we did it in like 3 takes. Done. [audio m4a="http://www.fishyfacephotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/11-272-post/Uber.m4a"][/audio] Here's the card, with only Tyler, our 4 year old, singing. My friend Mendy sells Matilda Jane clothing and outfitted Julia and myself. Www.matildajane.com #520 I was relieved since I had not figured that part out yet. I didn't even know there was Matilda Jane for adults, awesome! And this is what Dylan drew for the back. He had some direction then I used a pen over it to make it more like a coloring page. Have you seen the adult doodling pages lately? I've been seeing friends post about how relaxing it is to do alone or another loved the bonding time when she and her niece colored. It's stress relieving and opens up the right brain which is sometimes just what the doctor ordered. We pretended to cram into an Uber car to go over a river, we walked through the woods, and we hugged my mom to have the best Christmas ever. We hope you can be with family this Christmas too :) My big plan was to order custom musical cards. I found a couple of companies who could play a recording of my kids playing/singing, but it was so expensive. I considered it until my husband grounded me. It would've made the card make more sense, not that it really makes sense, but it's the year that both piano and violin click for our boys. Tyler is taking violin lessons too (but barely started.) Julia can talk so I would have her say something cute, even if it was just "hi." Maybe you sang along and didn't need us. "Uber the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go." Instead of the music, since I wanted something interactive so had my oldest draw the doodling coloring pages. I like it.

Advent

Reading by candlelight with my babies could be this sweet. If I remembered to do it. 

It is Christmas time. 

Time for traditions. My mom started one where we read scriptures by candlelight each night. She had a pretty red paper with Bible stories of Jesus. It is an advant calendar to help remind us of the reason for the season. The last stories were Christ's birth and the Book of Mormon perspective (from the Americas on this other side of the world where there was the night without darkness too) was included. Kids love fire, routine, and family time and this gives a fresh take/break on/from normal family scripture study. (We needed help in the first place to make this a daily priority.) 

The rules were to light the candle and read the passage while the candle burned down to the next glitter line. 

The problem is that making the glitter daily lines was time consuming. And we did it before bed when I was not so patient and the kids were not so reverent. I love found another similar list of scriptures and did not mark and sparkle the candle. But I did make copies for friends at work! 

This tradition helps the kids remind us to read scriptures and helps us be better Christians. I hope the habit sticks. Tip: reading right after dinner is best. It is already dark this time of year. If someone finishes early, he can clean!!!

So many things to do!!!!

Bread!

We took blessing bags and clothes and rolls to a place in Clearwater and fed the homeless. There was a cute dog that Dylan pet. My cousin Keri does this monthly event.