little things.

Christmas Dinner for the 118th Security Forces.

It was a fun night!  We got to catch up with the Eaves' (unfortunately, none of us had time for a repeat dinner at RosePeppers).  The also handed out some awards and promotions while all the families were there. It's always kind of cool to see all the pomp and circumstance. They had babysitters, toys, pizza, etc in a separate room for the kids- which our's loved.

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Friday was an emotional day for our family. After wallowing in our sorrows for quite some time, we headed out to run a quick errand. That turned into randomly stopping at a gas station for $.89 hot chocolate- with Christmas sprinkles- in our pajamas (and ballistic goggles, apparently) at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Best $3 I've spent.

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Layla has been stretching and working on her flexibility pretty much every day so she can get her side split. One of the things she does, is lay on her back with her bottom against the wall and her legs out as far as she can get them. She was practicing that the other day, when Little Sister decided she was gonna give it a whirl.

Um... not bad. She also jumped up and did a drop split like she's a dang Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. Impressive.

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The Christmas before we got married, we got a TON of perfectly matching, high-quality, fancy-shmancy Pottery Barn ornaments for our tree (after-Christmas sale). I'm really loving that we've reached the point in our lives where 75% of our ornaments are made from cardboard toilet paper rolls and pipe cleaners.  It may not be the prettiest tree on the block on the classic sense, but I love that it represents our family.

We did much better this year trying to add ornaments that represented big experiences for our family. We added one from the Alamo (that I can't seem to find right now...), a beautifully hand-painted one from New York, a (quite hard to find in June) tree from Jamaica, and the one that arrived yesterday....

Our Reece's Rainbow ornament. We didn't buy it, we got it as a "gift" for donating to sweet Alissa with their Angel Tree Program. And guess what?! The day after we donated to her, she got a family!! (Which has nothing to do with the fact that we donated, it's just exciting!)

 I'm super glad that we have an RR ornament - considering they've been a pretty significant part of our year! ;)

*If you'd like to donate to an orphan thru Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree program, click here. There are some little loves that have absolutely stolen my heart!!