Tree Lighting.

My dad and I love Christmas. Not that the rest of my family doesn't, but my dad and I love it the most and are all for celebrating early, including listening to lots of Christmas music way before it's deemed socially appropriate. :) (106.3 in Des Moines has been playing non-stop Christmas music since November 1 this year, and it's been awesome!) So, when I heard about the tree lighting at the mall, we had to go. 

Before we went, I hadn't heard of this before, and was wondering how I could have possibly missed something so great related to Christmas. Unfortunately, I think I built up the event a tad too much in my head. It wasn't as great as I was expecting, but I'm still glad we were able to go. (It didn't help that it was only a balmy 19 degrees outside either.)

First they had a band play Christmas music. They were from Des Moines, called Decor. They were okay- more rock than we would have hoped without much singing. We watched them for a little bit, then headed into the mall to warm up.

Kayla and Dad enjoying the musical stylings of Decor. They requested a picture and this is what I got. (Mom had already headed in to warm up. She lasted maybe five minutes.)

I must say, the end of the event was much better, and worth waiting for. (If you're going to go next year, you could just go for the last 10 minutes!) They had fireworks and lit up the big Christmas tree. They first had one firework shooting right to the tree from across the lake, and when it "hit" it the lights went on. (Dad thought it was a misguided firework. Ha.) Then they had a bunch of fireworks after that, which were really good!

Tree.

Then my battery died at the end, so I didn't get many good firework pictures. Kley had to miss out because he was working, but he came to dinner afterwards. 

Merry Christmas- start celebrating now! :)

My blog is famous!

Last week I was contacted by someone at Dwellable. Ever heard of it? (I hadn't before she emailed me.)

It's a site people can go to if they are planning a vacation. You can check out reviews of places all over, complete with pictures, maps, blog posts, etc.

"Vacation rentals and reviews with photos, maps, and more. Where do you want to go?"

Remember in July when we visited Beaver Creek, CO with Kley's family? You can check out each day of our vacation there here. The person from Dwellable specifically contacted me about my Day 6 post of our vacation. She asked me if she could feature my blog post on their site, for anyone looking for a review of Beaver Creek.

I said sure! So, now my blog is famous.

Check it out here (my day 6 post- I blogged every day of our vacation). This is a link to my blog post- at the bottom there is a Dwellable button that connects you to the site.

I was impressed they found me, and thought my post was good enough to feature!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

The De Jong household is ready for Christmas! It's only November 16th, you say? Oh well. I say it's better to decorate early and enjoy it longer- Christmas is the best! (Also, weekends are the best.)

Tree.

Window clings. (The teacher in me can't resist buying these.)

Stockings with our names! We got these as a wedding gift, and it was one of my favorite gifts, because it's so meaningful, you will use it every year, and you'd never think to register for stockings.

Nativity scene. I love this, and I just completed it last year when my mom gave me the ox and goat. :)

This was another one of my favorite wedding gifts. When I was 12, my family went on a mission trip to Ecuador with other families from our Church. It was a very meaningful trip and impacted my life a lot, so when one of the families gave me this Ecuadorian nativity scene for our wedding, I loved it very much.

This is from my mother-in-law (one of the many super cute things she has given me over the years.)

Snowman/star stand and berries under the candle.

Door wreath.

Merry (very early) Christmas! Enjoy your decorating!

Song and verse of the week.

This is the song and the verse that have impacted me most this week:

Acts 11:19-20- ¹¹ God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, ¹² so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. (How cool is that? Even a HANDKERCHIEF that Paul touched healed people!)


How He Loves- David Crowder

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions
Eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

And oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves us all

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions
Eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

Oh, how He loves, yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us, oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves

And we are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking

And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way

Oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves all
How He loves

Yeah, He loves us, oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us, oh how He loves
Oh, I love

Yeah, He loves us, yeah, He loves us
How He loves us, oh, how He loves us all

Highlights.

This week was busy...we were home Sunday and Thursday night. Which some would say is enough, but that's really busy for us. We also had a law school scare for a few days, thinking Kley wouldn't graduate as planned, but thankfully that fire is simmering and he is still going to graduate. Needless to say, it was a worrisome couple days. Thank you, Lord, for being the ultimate planner, for providing, and for caring for us. 2014 is going to be a big year for us! Help us to trust You, God, and seek You.

But...I wanted to share the highlights for the week.

Since my job does four 10 hour days, I don't work on Tuesdays. I was able to go out for lunch with my parents and then go Christmas shopping with my mom. It was awesome, and I will treasure that memory. Not only do I not get much time with my parents, or just my mom, alone, but I treasure it even more since we will not always live close together. It was a great afternoon.

Friday night was also really awesome. We had a bunch of friends over from our small group, and we just hung out, ate, talked, fellowshipped, and played games. We felt very full in all senses of the word, physically (yummy food!), literally (our apartment was crammed!), emotionally (great fellowship and laughter!), spiritually (friends are such a blessing!), etc. It was a wonderful night.

Thank you, Lord, for highlights.

Touching Proposal.

I saw this video the other day of someone proposing to his girlfriend, and wow, did he do a good job!

It's a little big long (7-8 minutes), but so good. He put so much thought into it and it's so meaningful!

Watch here.

(Kley, not that you didn't do a good job! You can read our engagement story here.)

Rewards always outweigh.

This last week was rough...literally.

Rough-housing, running, tackling, wrestling, climbing, pushing, grabbing- you name it. Rough.

My class has been wild and crazy recently, and hard to manage. It's not horrible, since they are not actually trying to be mean or hurt anyone, they are just being boys and loving to wrestle. I am not against kids wrestling, although it gets hard and out of control very quickly in a school setting. Let's just save all your wrestling for home, okay?

I feel like I've spent the last few days being in the rodeo or something and trying to lasso everyone in and teach them kindness and gentleness.

Today was a ray of sunshine. As a teacher, there are many demands that you must meet, all along with taking care of the kids and paying attention to them. Kids are smart- they know when they don't have your full attention.

Today was one of those great days where I felt like I still got done everything done that I needed to, yet still had time to just be with the kids. To engage in their play with my full attention. Get down on the floor and really enter their world.

They LOVE it when I do that, and I in return love it too.

Here are few favorite snip-its of the day:

1. One of my kids came up to me, unprovoked, and gave me a hug and said she wanted to be a teacher just like me when she grew up.

2. Another hug from a boy who put his cheek right next to mine and gave me the biggest smile.

3. Laying on the floor and being the "patient" while they examined me with doctor tools. (For some reason, kids think it's so hilarious when teachers lay down on the floor.)

4. Learning about wind and air during our large group time this morning and blowing up a balloon (we are learning about weather this week). I let the balloon go and they watched it zoom all over the room as the air screeched out. They freaked out and loved it so much. It's so much fun to watch kids be completely engaged and love learning.

5. Next week, we are learning about dinosaurs. I change the books in the reading center every Thursday, so today I put out some dinosaur books. I got one from the library about the biggest dinosaurs, and each page had not one, but TWO flip open flaps, so the dinosaur was three pages long. One picture had a T-Rex eating some sort of smaller dinosaur. It was somewhat graphic, but one of my boys loved it so much. He literally looked at the same picture for 20 minutes and showed it to every other child in class (and also one teacher and two parents who came in during that time). We talked about how sometimes bigger animals eat smaller animals and what that meant for the T-Rex to be eating him. He was entranced and it was so neat to be a part of his learning. Watching kids be excited is so awesome!

Today was a great day. The rewards always outweigh whatever negatives happen. :)