Getting excited about Christmas

Everyone's feeling better...praise God! We appreciate any prayers on our family's behalf. We've got our Christmas tree up (and decorated) along with decorating our house. Over the years our amount of decorations has greatly decreased but we prefer it that way. Less to put up, right???Our children were very excited, well the two younger ones (J2 is a little "too cool" if you can remember those days), to decorate our tree. C has become quite the independent decorater...I think she's quite good, too, for her age. She enjoys it, which makes it so much fun for me to watch her. She loves cooking too and loves to make desserts (Chocolate is one of her best friends...really!). Tomorrow she has a big field trip to a special Christmas ballet and was asked to dress up if possible. Funds are little low so we had to put our creative caps on. She very creatively took a dark grey headband and used some silver stars from something from J2's homecoming dance and decorated it...the cutest part is...she used double-sided tape to get the stars to stick. Bless her heart! Her hair will probably be getting stuck in it all day, and I started to "fix" it after she fell asleep, but I decided to stop. She did the best she could with what she had and it really looks cute. I hope she doesn't lose any hair tomorrow. Yikes.
I - got in trouble at school for the first time...he got sent to the principal's office. :( He was so cute and honest about it though...As soon as he came in the front door from school, he said to Russell and I, "Something bad happened today." With a very serious face...and no little smile beginning to crack in the corner of his lips either. It wasn't a joke this time. Immediately we were concerned and asked him what it was. Then he proceeded to tell us of his poor choices of behavior today...along with the help of a "friend". It was so encouraging that he basically couldn't wait to be honest with us about getting in trouble at school. To me, that says a lot about his heart and really blesses me. I doubt I wouldn've been that transparent at his age. (Not bragging.) He'll have to sit out for recess tomorrow but we didn't punish him additionally b/c we were so thankful he chose to tell us about it...and FAST! Way to go, I!!!
J2 - is really working hard in basketball. He and his team have won every game so far...Go Eagles! He practices so hard with his team and I am very proud of him. Plus his jersey # is very special to me b/c he picked my birthday date. Awe!!! What a sweetie! He also was given praise this week for scoring very high on his TAKS benchmark writing test at school. Apparently, last year, at his school, only 3 kids scored an "A" level on the writing portion...in the entire school. His teacher praised him, while walking down the hall, telling him he scored an "A" as well. This is a huge achievment and we are definitely proud. (I feel like I'm doing the "mom bragging" thing a lot in this email...oh well, they're way worth it!)
Tah-tah for now! Hope everyone is well and enjoying this festive time of year. Purposing each day to remember that Christmas is not about me giving gifts...as much as it is first and foremost about the greatest Gift given to me. My desire is that each day I will know Him more and make Him known more in my life.