The Life and Times of the Watters Family

coming soon….

Christmas pictures will be coming soon. Sara and I have the same camera and somehow got them mixed up over the holiday. I’ll get some up in the next couple days.

We had a really wonderful Christmas. So many family get togethers and so many amazing memories made. We were blessed beyond measure and are so incredibly thankful.

My favorite moments from Christmas this year were to be at church Christmas Eve with our ENTIRE family and then having everyone come back to our house to share their favorite Christmas memory or their favorite memory from the last year. It was really special to hear the highlights of this last year. It was a big one for our family! I’ll have to do a run down of all the major stuff for New Years.

our Christmas card and holiday plans

Sean’s birthday party @1:00, Seahawks theme

Christmas Eve dinner @ Mom and Dad’s house, 8pm Christmas Eve service @ CTK, party at our house with our families after church

Christmas morning @ Scott and Sara’s with Cooper family (pajama party)

Christmas afternoon @ Mike and Terri’s house

Lots of togetherness and lots of excitement. We need to remember why we gather, why we celebrate, and why we give gifts. We can’t forget to take quiet moments to thank God for sending Jesus.

Have a VERY Merry Christmas!

the reason we celebrate

peace?

It’s crazy this time of year to pull everything together. I always think I’ll get EVERYTHING done early and then just have PEACE. It never works that way! I am never done early and I always regret not having more peace through the season. We listened to Pastor Grant’s message from last weekend on Monday night and I was SO convicted. I need to choose moments of peace and decide what’s really important and what’s not. I am going to try to relax for the rest of the week and make spending time with Jesus my priority– cause then I won’t care about what’s not important! I really appreciated the distinction about peace and quiet that Grant made in his message. I can find peace without having silence.

I heard about these two elderly women shopping the other day — one was really flustered and stressed out about not being done with all of her “stuff” for Christmas. Her friend indignantly (and with a hint of sarcasm) replied, “Geez you think they’d give us more notice”. I just laughed when the person who had overheard the conversation retold it. She made such a good point — it’s not like we don’t know when Christmas is coming and how much time we have to get ready for the WHOLE year!

I have been loving the “Vintage Jesus” series that Mark Driscoll (from Mars Hill Church) preached last Christmas season. The boys and I have been listening to most of these together and we have been learning so much. My favorite message in the series is “How did people know Jesus was coming?”.

As a family we have been trying so hard to focus on what’s really important and we won’t stop trying (in a peaceful sort of way). We (I) have to remember that there is so much more to this season than all the shopping, buying, wrapping, creating, striving, stressing, and cleaning. I only need one thing for Christmas peace and that’s Jesus. If I could pick 2 things I’d pick Jesus and my family, but that’s all I really need. Fortunately I am blessed to have both at all times and so what more do I need?

dressed up

I thought we should memorialize this event with a picture. We were dressed up, we matched and we were happy. We went to CTK’s Christmas party last night and had to dress up (ugghh– on the dressing up, not the party). We both hate dressing up, both feel like we aren’t ourselves and inauthentic but I think we are just gonna have to get over our hang-ups about it. And if I must say so, we looked pretty cute together. Thanks Scott and Sara for the picture by your tree!

more pictures and our new tradition

(click to see photoset on Flickr)

I forgot I posted a new set of photos to Flickr. These are also from the night we set up our tree. Yesterday we had our first real snow of the season. We took a wintry walk in the snow at dusk. I love how beautiful the trail is covered in snow — it is so bright and peaceful and my favorite sight is the snow covered trees.

We watched Elf last night while Cam and Caleb made chocolate chip cookies and Sean and I made an Advent paper chain. The Advent chain is a new tradition we are starting this year. The boys picked 25 people (couples or families count as one) that we would pray for throughout the next 25 days. I loved hearing their suggestions for who to pray for. Of course our entire extended family makes up most of those on the list but they also wanted to pray for Pastor Grant and the rest of the pastors at CTK, family friends, and our small group. We are really trying to stay focused on what’s truly important this season and not get caught up in the dizzying commotion that is typical for this time of year.

My prayer is peace for the season and for a constant reminder of the gift of the Prince of Peace.

Christmas, 25 ways for 25 days

Here’s the list of things we’ll be doing as a family this Christmas season.

I played around a little in Photoshop to create this effect– I love it!

Sean & Caleb — Christmas 2003