Another Sweet Blessing

We are so excited to share that our family is growing again! Marc and I had begun hoping for another Carrigan baby and God blessed us with this joyous news right around Christmas. We wanted this announcement to family and friends to be just as exciting as the first so Marc made a very sweet video of an ultrasound he took of baby #4. The kids are full of enthusiasm and already making their opinions known about what they hope the gender is. Hailey has vowed we must send it back if it is another brother! We have tried to reassure her having three protective brothers to look after her could be a good thing. :)

Baby Carrigan #4 at almost 10 weeks

Enjoy this video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR0WVTxyC9U

Thanks for sharing in our news!

Happy New Year!

We spent New Year's Eve with pizza and a movie with our kids. They had so much fun celebrating the new year. Any excuse for a party is a good one to them. :)

Marc had to round New Year's Day morning but was home in time to enjoy the new Christmas presents with the kids and to celebrate with some in-town-family that invited us over for lunch. 

Isaac is starting to warm back up to people besides me and Marc. However, if he spots me in the room he immediately wants me back. So, I just try to disappear. I'm so thankful! He gets heavy to carry around all the time and I enjoy letting others love on him some. 

Christmas with Family

This year we headed to Arkansas the weekend before Christmas to open gifts with my family. We had a great time enjoying our family and eating lots of food! My mom had some vegetable soup waiting on us when we arrived from the long drive down to Arkansas. Isaac was a big fan of the soup. My dad said, "Do I just keep feeding him more???" So far, he has been doing really well with most table foods.

The presents were all out under the tree when we arrived which was quite tempting for our trio. The packages were slowly losing paper in spots until it was finally time to unwrap.

 My mom finally made the call to open presents a few hours earlier than planned. :)

Hailey got some new PJs and sleep mask. Ha!

We headed back home just in time to load up in the car again the next day to drive to Bloomington. In fact, I didn't even unpack the suitcases. My parents had all the clothes washed and dried before we left so I didn't need to re-pack when we got home. We were able to stop off and see some extended family for a few hours Christmas Eve afternoon before the church service. I think our kids were quite entertaining for the crowd. I kept getting comments like, "I don't know how you do it!" They are a BIG handful at times, but I can't imagine it any other way. It is a good "full." :)

We did an early church service in Bloomington and arrived to the Carrigan house in time for pizza and presents. Our kids really love spending time with people. It is always fun to watch them interact with family with such enthusiasm. 

We brought the kids' stockings with us for them to open on Christmas day. They had lots of fun digging through their treasures. Even Isaac had a good time searching all the way to the bottom.

We enjoyed a few relaxing days with Marc's parents and brother. My favorite thing to do in the winter at their house is sit by the gas log fire. It is SO warm, it easily makes me forget how cold it is outside!

Eli and Hailey made some cookies with Mama Reenie and then we all enjoyed eating them. :)

We really had a great time with family over the holidays!

It's the Most Wonderful Time!

The decorations came out right after Thanksgiving this year and it wasn't a day too soon for our eager little ones. They couldn't wait to get the tree out of the box! Once it was out, they enjoyed playing IN the box until Marc and I had all the branches ready to decorate. Pictures were few and far between because we had to keep the pace up with their excitement. I quickly threw up the mesh and then they started hanging ornaments. They loved seeing ornaments they had made from years past and finding the perfect spots for their favorite ones, which was usually the front bottom branch!

We are slowly figuring out some of our Christmas traditions. Last year, the season passed and I was bummed that we hadn't found any structured Advent time together as a family. The kids were still quite little so I knew we had some time to create something. Then for Christmas last year, my mom gave us a nice wooden advent calendar box. It had more pieces than the felt one I had been using and seemed like a great start! From there, I found a scripture reading schedule that I liked, along with an advent story book, and then we were set! The kids LOVED our family time each night through the month of December. Marc is such a great story teller. It was more involved than what we typically do at night throughout the year, but the kids really stuck with it for the whole month (I think the piece of candy in the box each night may have helped motivate them just slightly!). I am continually blown away by how much knowledge and understanding a child even as young as three can have. It was the most amazing thing to watch and be a part of. This was my favorite memory from our Christmas.

I had hoped to do a few crafts with the kids this year along with some Christmas cookies. What happened was ONE craft and then we ran out of time to even make cookies. We did Mod Podge with scraps of paper on some ornaments and added glitter sequins to the outside when we finished. It was a huge mess! The kids had a great time but I'm thinking I might just stick with cookies for next year. At least you have something to eat while cleaning up that mess. :)

We still travel to see both of our families around Christmas so we're never in our own home during Christmas. We just pick a free day to open up our gifts in between trips seeing family. Our kids get three gifts from us which keeps it simple. This year, I got a teepee for them as a collective gift. Eli and Hailey spend their entire day in imaginary play. They are always camping, traveling, or off on some adventure so I thought the teepee would be lots of fun (and it has been!). I really appreciated this article (and video) "Rethinking Santa" put out by John Piper this year. It explains well why we have chosen to skip the Santa stuff (though we teach them about the real life of Saint Nicholas of Myra) I know there are tons of people who love this tradition with their kids and I'm not trying to step on those toes. However, I think this article is very thought provoking and worth the read.

Our "Christmas morning" this year!

A few other favorite moments of the season included hosting our Sunday School class for a Christmas party and attending the Christmas performance at church with some new missionary friends home on furlough and a Chinese family we have gotten to know. We have felt so blessed by the way many friendships have opened up to us in this past year! Lots of great memories. Stay tuned for all the fun memories we made with our families this year!