tis the season to be busy

We have a weekly calendar on our huge chalkboard in the kitchen and this time of year its just getting out of control- trying to squeeze every minute out of each day! I have so many things I wanted to blog about but for now I'll just have to share a little from our children's choir concert on Saturday.

I hope it's ok to say that I have a love/hate relationship with our children's choir. I mean, I totally LOVE these kiddos and honestly really enjoy our weekly rehearsals with this group of wacky singers. BUT... it gets really tough doing all the behind the scenes work of keeping this group running. I'm SO extremely blessed to have a financial minded husband who handles all the business aspect of our non-profit organization! And whenever I walk away from conducting a concert with this group I always have a big warm fuzzy smile and am thinking how much I love the BCC. Saturday was no exception. The kids did great! I was so proud of them.

Here is our musical staff- Rebecca, Lisa and myself. These ladies really keep me sane during rehearsals... they are so hilarious and talented!

We have about 85 kids in the group this year, which is a little down from our last season but it's definitely enough to handle each week!

I do apologize to our blog fans (all 14 of you!) for not keeping up the usual posts. I'm almost to the point in my pregnancy where I won't be sleeping at night, so I'm sure the amount of blog posts will dramatically increase (even though they will be delirious 2am ramblings). But thanks for staying tuned and I'll resurface soon!

embarrassment

Well, we took the first step the other night towards a diaper free world and bought a toddler potty seat. And plastic sheets for Audrie's bed. And elmo panties (for Audrie). I mean, it was super cute to pick out the tiny little things and try to believe our little baby girl was actually going to wear them soon. So then Jamie asks if we should just go ahead and buy her a training bra while we were there...! ha!

And just in case I haven't embarrassed Audrie enough... here is a video I took of her singing in the tub last night.

christmas parade

I met my friend Emily and her son Ben on the Bentonville Square Saturday to watch the annual Christmas parade. This was my first year to go to this parade but I've wanted to go for years, so we bundled up (so cold!) and watched the parade.

It was tough waiting for the parade to start (hence Audrie screaming her head off here because she wanted to get down and run) but once the floats and festivities started- she was mesmerized!

Music and floats and people throwing candy... hello! She loved it. After every single float went by she said "more, more"!

And check out what these elementary kids are marching with... recorders! It was pretty cute, actually.

Audrie waved at everyone that went by.

And held out her hand for candy...

Ok, nothing says Christmas like the sign on the side of this float, right??

But it was the marching band that was the highlight for me. Brought back some nice memories of band geek days. (Look at all these saxophone players... who knows- maybe someday they'll fall in love with a piccolo player and ride off in the sunset in a red S-10 pickup.)

hearts

My friend, Kate, let me borrow her fetal heart beat monitor (Angel Sounds) and it was so fun listening to the baby! We all took turns and even Audrie thought it was really neat. She left the headphones on for a long time and kept wanting another turn. This was the closest I've seen her to understanding the concept of something inside of mommy's belly. The baby's heart was beating so fast- sounded like a dishwasher in there to me. Then we all took turns listening to each other's heart... exciting times around the Cornett house! :)
17 more days until we get to find out the gender! Whoo hoo! This pregnancy is already going by so fast. Crazy to think we're nearing the half way point!

its beginning to look a lot like christmas

Yes!! The classic "sitting in Santa's lap and loving it" photo! (I took Audrie to see Santa and this is what she thought about him...) This week's wintry weather and all the Christmas decorations around the house are making me smile! I love this time of year.

And just in time for this cold weather- our heat went out two days ago (supposed to finally fixed tomorrow), but it's been nice to actually use our fire place.

A random photo I took of our nativity set.

Every year we get a new ornament for the tree that has the year on it. Here is this year's pick...

A friend of ours made this for Audrie and I love it!

Here is my "self portrait"... :)

We may have to get a second tree just to hold all our ornaments. The tree is getting pretty loaded down!

This little guy is one of the many little trinkets I get from students every year. Jamie loves when I come home the last day before winter break with a huge box of goodies and presents from all my students. Middle schoolers can be pretty sweet when they want to.

I do love this time of year! Celebrating the birth of our wonderful Saviour. Singing Christmas Carols. Decking the Halls. Buying presents for all the people I love... good times! I do have a total of 7 choir concerts to conduct in the next two weeks but that's just part of this time of year. And I'm trying to get my shopping done early this year because we are actually going to start trying to potty train Audrie right at the start of my Christmas break. Wish us luck! Anyways, I'm praying that amidst the hustle and bustle over the next few weeks that I will still take time to remember what this is all truly about.

"In the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great multitude of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and singing, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and good will toward men." Luke 2:11-14

our little odd pod

It's kind of hard to make a nick name out of "Audrie", but occasionally we find ourselves calling her "odd pod". And of course it's just out of love that we call her that- because she is the joy of our life. HOWEVER I will tell you why she is a little more than ODD... because she begs to go to bed. That's right. I hesitate to tell you because of the karma of the little one growing inside of me and if I tell you how crazy EASY it is to put our daughter to bed we're only destined to have a hellion next, right?? So the usual routine is we tell her it's time for bed and she is more than happy to give us kisses night-night and we lay her in bed (now recently in her toddler bed) and sing her a song or two, give her a pacifier, tell her we love her and walk out of the room. And she stays in bed and goes to sleep. But on several occasions, like tonight, it was about 20 minutes until her usual bedtime but she started saying night-night over and over and trying to drag us into her room to put her to sleep. We tried to tell her it wasn't time for bed yet, but she really wanted to go to bed! And she does this for naps sometimes, too. So weird! What kind of toddler WANTS to go to bed? And she always wakes up happy and ready to play again. Anyways, who knows what the future holds for us but for now we are just amazed by our little odd sleeper!

Here are some photos I took of her today. We sure do love this little girl!

choo choo

For some reason I have a lot of fond memories as a child of when my mom would mop the kitchen floor- she would line up all the chairs in the living room... and I thought it was the BEST thing ever (I guess that's what happens when you grow up without tv...!?). Anyways, the other day I was mopping the floor and just couldn't help myself from lining up the chairs. And to my delight- Audrie thought it was pretty great too! She played for a long time in those chairs... kitty even joined the fun...

All aboard! :)

the ballet

Friday night I took my mom to The Nutcracker at the WAC and it was just amazing. (Made me want to put on some toe shoes & a tutu and leap around the house!) It was a fun night with my mom and definitely put me in the holiday mood!