Oprah's Favorite Things (if she were me)

I have always thought it would be cool to be on Oprah's Favorite Things show because I would walk away some cool things that are, well, Oprah's favorite! Now, if Oprah were me, here are a few of what her audience members would be walking away with:

*Hitachi Bread Maker - This thing makes awesome bread! Since my wonderful mother-in-law gave me it, I have yet to buy a loaf of bread!

*Kawaii Cloth Diapers - Almost exactly like Bumgenius diapers but for half the price! They hold up really well and I rarely have leaking issues.

*Shout - This stuff is like the Jesus of laundry products. It works MIRACLES!!!!

*Diet Dr. Pepper - I have an obsession. I rarely spend money on it but I love it. Let's just say I asked Garrett to get me some for Christmas...

*Cetaphil Facewash - This stuff doesn't smell the greatest but it is the only thing to tame this post-pregnancy face of mine.

*Norwex Cleaning Cloths - I would not spend money on these myself but my lovely mother bought them for me and they work magic in the bathroom and the kitchen. And the best part of all, no chemicals or cleaners of any kind!

*Moby Wrap - All I will say is, I love wearing my babies.

*Cedarmont Kids - They might be from the 90s but their awesome music tames the wildest of toddlers:-)

*Nasal Aspirators - I have about 4 hospital ones. These things will make the snottiest child free of all boogers in 0.2 seconds!

*Shark Steam Mop - I love that I can vacuum and then steam mop my floors. This also means everything is sanitized without the use of any chemicals (I still clean with my floors with pine sol, just not as often).

*Public Library - Who doesn't love reading free books and movies?

*Free Wifi - I still can't believe that you can get on the internet everywhere!

*My Husband's Old T-shirts - These make the best cleaning cloths around!

*Gumdrop Pacifiers - This is s shout out for Eden. She is an addict and couldn't live without her paci, so therefor, it is a favorite of mine:-)

*Swagbucks - I have gotten several gift cards and purchased quite a few items off or amazon and Target.com for free!

*Harry Potter - Thank you Garrett for turning me into a Hogwarts fan!

*This Momentary Marriage by John Piper - This book is recommended to anyone and everyone!

*Free Shipping - Gotta love it!

*Settler's of Catan - Thanks to some wonderful friend's of ours this has been a game we love!

*Speed (the game, not the drug) - This is probably my favorite card game of all time.

*Elbow Grease - There is nothing I love more than getting down on my hands and knees and cleaning.

I am not sure how Oprah would go about giving some of these things away but she is Oprah and I am sure she can do it;-)

Our family's new traditions.

We were at our ABF this morning and we were talking about what we got our kids for Christmas when Garrett proudly announced that we only spent $6 on our kids. Yep, you read it correctly, $6 + tax. And that was for both Eden and Coop. They are the owners of 6 new books!

At first, I was a little embarrassed that we hadn't spent more. But there is a reason why we didn't feel the need to buy our kids everything or more (and trust me, I wanted to badly) and there really is no need for me to be embarrassed because this is what we have chosen for our family. Each family is different and I am sure that each family has traditions and "things" they want to do for their family, so ours is no better or worse than any one else's...we are just...different. And maybe a little quirky, at least my family thinks so:-)

I have been really convicted about the way we have done Christmas. We have always done lots of gifts and had a lot of fun but we lost the meaning of what it really was about. And I want my children's first memories of Christmas to have meaning and not be filled with toys that will get forever lost. I want them to remember "that Christmas" that Coop was Joseph and Eden was Mary and our dog was baby Jesus and how they traveled from afar and our other children were shepherds. And how much fun it was to reenact the nativity story. I want them to remember the awesomeness that was Christ's birth!

This year was a fresh start for Christmas for the Hufford family. We have made it a goal to change our Christmas a little bit every year to hopefully focus more on Christ's birth and life than on the commercial aspect of it.

Here is our plan:

Throw Jesus an awesome birthday party!!! ****raising the roof****

Since we came up with this idea a little on the late side, we are not doing it this year. Next year we plan on having a birthday party on Christmas for Christ. This year, we are settling for a cake. The cake will be red velvet cake with white frosting. We decided this would be the cake because the red symbolizes the blood that was shed for us that now makes us white as snow (that is where the white frosting comes in). We haven't fully decided on all the party plans but we figure we have a year to pull off an awesome party for our King!

Here is where the present side of Christmas in our family came in. Before we had kids (like the three months we were married before we got pregnant - lol) we had made the decision not to do santa. Both of us had grown up with santa and reindeer and presents galore. But for us and our new family, we felt uneasy about telling our kids about a man who has essentially the same characteristics as Christ (kind, loving, giving, etc...) comes and gives gifts and then tell them he wasn't real and expect them to understand that Christ is real (I want to make it clear, that we do not think doing santa is a bad thing, it just isn't something for us). Anywho, here is an article by a pastor we love about our approach to santa: http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/mark_driscoll/2010/12/what_we_tell_our_kids_about_santa.html

Our plan is to do one or two small gifts for our kids. As they get older, the gifts will naturally be more expensive and we will be spending more than $6. But we want our gifts to encourage learning and the love of Jesus. We also want to just give. We want to give gifts to the needy and the poor. We want to love on others as Jesus has loved on us. We are not completely sure what this will look like each year. My guess is that it will change to fit the needs we see in our community near and far.

I randomly stumbled upon a blog that was talking about the blog below and I loved how they do Christmas and while I don't want to do Christmas exactly the same way, I love the fact that they have not given gifts in almost 10 years!!! And their Christmas sounds awesome in my opinion! http://www.christmaschange.com/wordpress/2010/12/03/ten-things-to-do-on-christmas-morning-when-all-the-gifts-are-for-him/

I love how each family is unique and do things differently because we were not all meant to be alike! Christmas is a wonderful time to focus on Christ and family, no matter how your family chooses to do it!

Christ's Birth

I was listening to the song "The Night Before Christmas" by Brandon Heath and it got me thinking about Mary delivering baby Jesus.

Anyone who has been in labor knows it is not an easy task. It hurts and the pain is so intense that you can't breath and can't move. But you know it will end, so you eagerly endure it.

Can you imagine Mary? She is about to give birth to the Savior of the world. This is not an ordinary labor. It is probably the greatest birth story ever! And it is such a lowly birth story and yet, so great and perfect of a humble entrance into the world it was.

When I gave birth to both Eden and Coop, I was in a hospital surrounded by supportive people who had helped hundreds of women deliver babies. I was in capable hands. Mary only had Joseph, who I am pretty sure never delivered a child in his life. I don't even know if Mary gave birth all by herself while Joseph waited outside or if he was right there with her. I am sure she was terrified. This was her first child. This was God coming as Man and she was His mother. The pain you feel is terrifying when it's not exactly what you expected (and honestly, you never know what to expect). Plus she had the added pressure of birthing the Promised One.

I remember being worried that I was going to deliver Coop on a small hospital gurney and yet Mary gave birth on the floor of a barn.

After my children were born they were carried off to be cleaned and wrapped in a nice new blanket and get one of those little hats stuck on their cute little heads. After Jesus was born there was no one to carry him off and clean him and wrap him in a nice, warm blanket. He was wrapped in some random linens. It's humbling beyond words to think of how our Savior came into this world.

What a brave woman Mary was. What an awesome man Joseph must have been. What an amazing way to bring the King to save us all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCitZPr2oD0

This is how we play grocery store.

Eden loves to go shopping, so what better way to get her to "play" with her brother? Get him to go shopping too! Cooper didn't seem to mind sitting in the cart and despite the look on his face, he actually laughed and smiled:-)

***Note - I was right beside them the whole time. I don't want any of you to think I just put Coop in the cart and walk off;)

Eden and Coop are cute to boot!

Line Drying

Line drying is not a thing of the past! I started hang drying clothes shortly after I started cloth diapering (cloth diapers are suppose to air dry so the elastic doesn't go bad and because of the fibers they are made out of). When I was hanging up cloth diapers to dry I thought, I bet I could shave off a couple of dollars from our energy bill every month by not running my dryer as often. Garrett was kind enough to install clothes lines in our basement near the washer and dryer so I could have easy access to the line and even hang dry clothes during the winter and rain. I started doing just clothes but then it spread to everything. I haven't completely sworn off using my dryer because I don't like how stiff your clothes get when they hang dry. To solve this problem I throw the clothes in the dryer for about 5 to 15 minutes with a damp sock and vola! You have soft and wrinkle free clothes!!!

Not only does this save money on your energy bill but it helps extend the life of your clothes and who doesn't want their favorite pair of jeans to last???

I will have to be honest that when laundry gets backed up or we have sickness in our house the dryer gets fired up:-)