Drea Wood

Category Archives: holidays

Few Christmas Memories

Written on 12/25/2012 by Dreawood in caleb, family, holidays, Owen, Taite

I thought Id post a few Christmas photos before time got away with me :)
I will be totally real though in admitting this was not an easy Christmas for me. While we were blessed tremendously… not having Travis around for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, was hard… I know I could have it worse and he could be over seas for a year like a friend of mine’s husband… but either way, it was a very different Christmas for us all…

Thankful for the memories… but… I do pray Travis is off next year for those two days… Im sure that will be easier said than done.

Our boys requested the Stuffies.
A toy they saw on a commercial.

I am usually against those… but this one actually is really cute!

Our main gift this year was something kind of last minute.

Any Guesses? :)

To those familiar with the Wii, you may recognize the thing Caleb is holding.

A friend of ours gave us the Sky Lander’s DOCK with figurines and game for the Wii. From what I understand that was no cheap gift! Her son no longer played it, so she gifted it to us. Thing is, we had no wii :) – so as the days led up to Christmas, I began doing some Craigs list searching… and less than a week before Christmas, I found one. It came with A TON… and at least 10 games. The price was great. Had I purchased everything new it would of cost us more than double. So I am happy with the deal I found :) and the kids are loving the Wii.

I really like that we can play netflix from it too. It is def. going to be one of those things I have to monitor their time use on… but I think it will be a great incentive for them to get their school work done so they can play it.

So “yay” to Craigs List finds!

Reed was last to get up :) – the boys had fun opening his gifts for him.

He sadly woke up with a little bit of a cold today though :(

So he spent most of the day resting…

My mom made some sweet hand made items for the boys. They are always special to them.

Thank you everyone who helped us give our boys such a great Christmas.

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Our Easter

Written on 04/08/2012 by Dreawood in family, friends, holidays, Owen, Taite

In a nutshell below ;-)
Although I have no photo’s of the awesome food we had.
Or worship. The band “New Song” played this morning at our church.

Was weird having such a famous band lead an Easter Service in praise and worship. I must say, they were awesome.

I think my favorite was when they sang “Arise My Love.”

Hope everyone had a great day.

We btw are probably one of the only families NOT to get a group photo of our family :(

Always next year , right?

Love dirty little toes :)

Wish I had more pictures :) – I feel as if I am in a photo rut with my family. I can handle a portrait session just fine, but I haven’t taken as many of my own kids as I use to. I may try harder this week to be more creative when I am with them :)

Off to crash now.

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Sweetness

Written on 02/14/2012 by Dreawood in holidays, Owen

The sweetness these moments bring is way better than any Candy :)

I have never been a huge fan of Valentines. Although I will say I have fun putting together a little something sweet for my boys :) – and most Valentines my husband and I do get to go out. This Valentines however, we were unable to find a sitter. Which is fine. It just means I get to spend an evening out with not 1, but 4 great guys ;-)

Do you celebrate Valentines?
Got any fun traditions?

We don’t…

Yet.

I’m always up for fun suggestions… I do remember my friend Lis mentioning something about Saint Valentine and having their Valentine incorporate the history of that. I just can’t for the life of me remember what she did :) – refresher?!

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Some highlights from Christmas Day

Written on 12/26/2011 by Dreawood in caleb, holidays, Owen, Taite

It has been a busy day after Christmas… and therefore this post will involve lots of pictures. :)

We had a great Christmas!

I think it went well, without overly lavishing the boys with gifts. Its so hard isn’t it? I know for me I struggle with the right amount to give our children at Christmas. I want them to get excited just like I was as a kid… but also want them to realize the real meaning of Christmas & not put to much emphasis on the whole gift thing… its hard tho when they are little. I think it may actually be harder for the parent than the kid :) – I don’t know about anyone else, but I love seeing my boys excited at Christmas. It really is fun.

That being said. We are so thankful for how the Lord provided for our family this year.

Without a steady income… and Travis having no full time work since July this year… we just weren’t sure how we could manage to do much. Because of a generous Sunday School class, that I am proud to admit adopted us :) – and our miles card, we had an amazing Christmas… but most of all we are just so thankful for where the Lord has placed us this Christmas. While it felt strange, surreal, bittersweet and amazing all at once… we cannot imagine life in any other place right now.

I hope everyone else had a great Christmas as well. Below are just random pictures throughout the day :)

It btw rained here on Christmas…
So our day was spent inside… which was fine, but the boys gifts mostly consisted of “outdoor” toys… so well, we decided to set one of those outdoor toys up, INSIDE :) – and it was a hit rain or shine.

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New Holiday Tradition

Written on 12/08/2011 by Dreawood in blogfrog, caleb, holidays, Owen, Taite

Before my husband and I ever had children, the talk about Christmas has come up. In fact I believe one of our 1st real fights was over Santa. :) To do, or not to do…. why I wanted to and why he didn’t. It was one of those things that for years we just butted heads on…

We avoided the issue for years, until our oldest son Caleb was old enough to understand something was going on ;-) – besides a bunch of gifts under the tree. He would have random people come up to him asking “Soooo what is Santa bringing you?” - so we knew, we had to make a decision.

We ultimately decided not to do the traditional Santa route with our family. While I think its perfectly fun, imaginative and sweet... My husband just had a bad experience with it and really felt led to do things differently. So we have… and so far so good. Our boys know who Santa is, they also know that they are never to SPOIL it for anyone else… We’ve been very up front with them and have expressed how important Santa is for some families & how it is not their place to tell anyone he isn’t real. So far so good :)

Our oldest however, this year told us “I wish Santa was real, so we could put cookies out for him.”- I encouraged him to still do this, if he wanted too. I told him he is more than welcome to have fun and pretend all he wants….

This then led my husband into finding a resource in order to teach our children about the real Saint Nicholas… and where Santa really came from.

So this year, for the 1st time… my husband sat down and read the boys a story all about it… and in the story it talked about one of the things the real Saint Nicolas did… and how the children use to put their shoes out on Saint Nicholas Day… and in the morning they’d find a surprise. This surprise was typically money.

Our boys got to do this & along with it, they were also taught that on Saint Nicholas day they were to do something nice for someone else, but that it had to be a secret… so whoever they did something nice for, couldn’t know they did it.

You would not believe how excited our children were to do this!

It was just a perfect evidence for us that we did the right thing for our family. This will be something we continue for years… until our kids are to old to play along :) – and will add a little bit of magic and imagination to the holidays.

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