Sweet Christmas Time

We had a wonderful Christmas as a family of three. So many memories...

We started our celebration on Christmas Eve. We made ice cream for our Happy Birthday Jesus party. It was surprisingly easy to make.

Ingredients:
5 egg yolks
1 pint milk
1/2 pint Heavy Whipping cream
2 oz sugar
6 oz milk chocolate cut in small squares

Directions:
Create a custard base and when you remove it from heat, drop in the chocolate and mix well. Cool the custard in the fridge for 30-45 minutes. Next, mix in the cream and stir well. Place in freezer for 30 minutes or until edges freeze. Take out and mix well. Repeat 3 times. After third time, leave it in the freezer for 1 or more hours until you get desired consistency to eat.

Custard base:
Mix and whisk egg yolks and sugar.
Pour milk into small saucepan and bring to small boil.
Pour hot milk into egg and sugar mix and stir constantly.
Pour entire mixture into pan and heat gently, stirring until it thickens. Don't boil.
When a film forms over spoon, remove from heat and let cool.









Of course, Huds could not take part in the ice cream tasting this year, but he still had a blast staring at the advent candle while we worked.



On Christmas Eve night, we had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at Ge and Pops. The menu: prime rib, green beans, salad, bread, and mashed potatoes. Yummy!


Here is Huds with his first crown from the Christmas popper: (a Patridge family tradition)




On Christmas morning, we woke up early to have some family time. Will read the Christmas story from the Bible and we lit all of our advent candles.

Huds didn't really understand all of our excitement. He was still tired from our late night:



He wasn't sure what we wanted him to do with his gifts:



He sure was excited when he figured it all out:



Afterwards, we loaded up and headed back to Ge and Pops for our traditional Christmas breakfast. Unfortunately, the Patridge clan had an early visitor. The stomach bug that had already been to our house arrived on Chablis Way on Christmas Eve. We still managed to have a fun time despite the sickness!

Huds with Santa Pops:



Huds and Nana:



Enjoying presents with Uncle Wes:



Annual family photo:



Yes, Laker is giving a full frontal!!

We loaded up to have dinner with the Gordon family in Alex City.

Needless to say Huds had a few gifts waiting for him:



We may have to set a gift limit next year so that a greedy Grinch is created.

After dinner, we enjoyed a white Christmas:







We ended the day by relaxing in front of a movie with Maw Maw and Paw Paw.

But Christmas wasn't over:

The next day, we visited the Caldwell family:



As well as having the annual Taylor family Christmas complete with two intense games of Dirty Santa.

Huds enjoyed more family time and MORE gifts:






Needless to say, we are beyond blessed. Our family had a wonderful time reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas: our Savior took on flesh to save us from our sins. How beautiful! No gift compares to His gift to us. We pray as the years go on that Hudson would look back on Christmas and remember Christ! To Him be the glory forever.

New Decor

As a result of staring at my walls lots more lately, I have recently updated the look of the Patridge household. I will take you on a quick tour. Almost all of my new looks are stolen from other people's ideas!




I took two boring pieces of artwork and stripped out everything but the frame. I sanded the wood and painted it with a coat of white and yellow. I then took hooks and wire and strung it across the frame. They are hanging over our bed. We are using them to hold old pictures of our parents and gradparents, cool snapshots, and old letters from our sweet love story. :)






We scored this piece of furniture in the midst of piles of garbage at a foreclosure site. I wish I had a photo of what it looked like before. It was a piece of work. Will did the sanding, painting, and staining work. My job was to find knobs. We are using it in our bedroom. It is the site of my couponing office. We scored the old lamp for around 5 bucks at our local thrift store.








I am pretty proud of this one. First off, we own so many books. Old books are a weakness of mine. Yeah, I am a major dork! I could spend hours in thrift stores looking through books. We found this cabinet door in a trash pile. I just piled lots of books under it, and presto, we now have a new end table.






Remember the old boring pieces of art I tore apart earlier. Well I needed to fill the space they left behind. I found this old shutter at a consignment store, and I painted old frames I found at a thrift store to go around it.






We needed a Christmas card holder. I fashioned this from twine and clothespins.



More pictures of other stuff to follow! I will leave you with this cutie.

Sadness.... and the Hope we have in Jesus!

I had lots of thoughts today. I decided to blog them in hopes to bring encouragement to someone else…

The other day I was watching something on the Holocaust. It was too painful to watch, and I had to turn the TV off. I have been thinking about the horribleness of the event a great deal lately. I just finished a book by Corrie Ten Boom (thanks Em!). It is about her experiences in a concentration camp, and I have to say it was life changing. It is just hard to believe that kind of hatred actually happened. Since becoming a mommy, my heart is even more softened to such hatred. I look at pictures of little children heading off to certain death, and I can’t bear to imagine my own little boy being torn from me by the hands of brainwashed officials. I weep for those mommies and daddies that must have felt so helpless. Needless to say, there are so many people hurting in the world today. The topics are endless…racism, abortion, abuse, orphans, the hungry the, homeless, the jobless, the unreached nations, those without the hope of Christ, people with no Bibles in their language, street children, those in the midst of war, the persecuted, the tired, the lonely, the hated, people trapped in religion and cults, those in prison, the widows, those that have lost children and loved ones due to tragic circumstances, the sick, neglected children, etc… Not to be Debbie Downer or anything, but it all breaks my heart!

Of course, I am convicted of my own selfishness. I may see something on TV or read about an event in the world, and I think about how terrible it is! A minute later, I forget and start thinking about how I could redecorate or where we should go have dinner or what movie we could watch.

Other times, I am just simply overwhelmed. I can’t give my time, money, or attention to every single issue. I can’t depress myself by thinking about all this stuff every second. There are things I can do….1) I can pray daily. I can pray for several of these issues, and the next day pray for several more. I can pray that my fellow believers would go into the world---that our feet would bring the good news, that our hands would feed the hungry, that our ears would hear the hurting, that our homes would be open to the needy, that our tables would welcome others, and that our voices would speak hope. I can devote myself to these prayers. 2) I can remember the hurts in the world as a reminder to not live for the pleasures of this life. These issues serve as a reality check in my own heart of where my treasure often lies. 3) I can devote my life to what I am most passionate about. I can’t tackle everything, but I long to find what I am most passionate about and give my money and my time to just a few areas. We all as Christians have been given gifts and hearts that may be more inclined to a certain area. How beautiful is that picture! We don’t all have to contribute to the same thing. What a great display of the body of Christ!

WELL……

On a much lighter note, check out Hudson’s updated room. I scored the door for 15 bucks at a yard sale, and I stapled fabric behind it. I also found the window at the same yard sale. I am beginning to love the treasures to be found at yard sales and thrift stores. Much of this is owed to Nikki Armstrong! See ya retail prices. Hello cheap finds with much character! The last picture is the baptism gown my talented mother in law made. I'll blog more about his baptism and post pictures really soon!