Christmas in the Magdziarz Home

Merry Christmas all! I can't believe it's this time of year already! I have always loved this time of year, but I find my self anticipating and enjoying it more so this year. I have gotten the house decorated, the tree put up, and I made 2 wreath for the exterior doors (Alaina helped). The lights, the candles, the smells, all so vivid and intoxicating. Our tree is a frasier fur, which really makes no difference to me, but my husband insists on that type in particular and it MUST be a real one. It is interesting to me especially this year for us to figure out our own Christmas tradition. Mark has his family's and I have mine, which are near and dear to my heart, as are his. But at the same time it is a bit of a challenge to pick and choose what we want as a family of our own. Growing up Christmas was always a huge deal in our family, we would have Christmas Eve candle light service, then come home for dinner and open all the presents under the tree. Which always seemed to look a bit absurd with the what seemed like hundreds piling out from the bottom of the tree. My Papa always served as "Santa" for the evening and handed out all the presents accordingly, with a big green bow on his forehead I might add. *sigh* Christmas morning came with great anticipation, as we all knew "Santa" had visited. (Which were just the unwrapped, "big" presents from my parents. I don't even remember if I ever believed in Santa, but it was always a fun tradition we had for as long as I can remember. Then we would spend the rest of the day, playing with all our new loot and toys, most of time staying in our pajamas until well into the afternoon. :-) Mark's family has traditions too. Some of which I don't know yet, but he never grew up with Santa Claus, or the big hurrah of Christmas like my family. They celebrated it certainly but not with the gusto as mine. So now that we have our own home, the time has come to make decisions of our own regarding what is to be done at this time of year. Mark is very much anti- santa, to the point of calling him "satan-claus", which often gets him laughs and the nickname, "Scrooge". I honestly don't care about Santa, cause he's not the point the point of Christmas anyway. Christmas has been majorly commercialized, so I can understand his hesitancy to encourage that. We are spending Christmas this year in NC with Mark's grandparents. It's always fun, very different from what Im used to, but that's not a bad thing. It's just cool to think about our own kids and the stuff and traditions they will remember and that we can do whatever we want for our Christmas, santa or satan claus. :-) One thing that is and will remain the same all three of these families, is that Christmas is to celebrate Jesus Christ and his gift to His gift of salvation to His people. So really and truly all this stuff is irrelevant, as long as our thoughts, hearts and actions reflect that of God Almighty and His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ what He did for us thousands of years ago on the very first Christmas.
One tradition I will share with you of the Magdziarz family, we make popcorn garland for the tree. Alaina thoroughly enjoys this, if she doesnt eat it all first. I hope she will remember this and look forward to it every year. ;-)

Our home

So I am way behind..... Since my last post of griping and complaining, we have bought a house! Ha. I find my impatience humorous from this side of things, because of how it all worked out. The address of our new 3 bed 1 bath house is 2579 Poplar St in Snellville, Ga. Why is this important? Well besides the obvious, my parents and my grandmother live on Poplar St. We bought the house literally next door to my grandmother and right around the corner from my parents . It's seems crazy to me to think back to when I was little that the house next to Mema would be mine, where I would raise my children. Pretty cool. It was a foreclosure, and I knew the lady who lived there. She lived there for 18 years, and has moved out of state. We were able to put a bid on it the day it went on the market, and had a contract on it within 10 days. It was as if God was saving this house just for us, which I know is the case, but really awesome to think about His Sovereignty and perfect timing in it all. We finally closed on July 30, over a month and a half after we got the contract. I wont bore with all of those details cause the bottom line is we are finally homeowners!
So then began the long overhaul of the house. It wasn't in bad shape, just mostly cosmetic, everything needed primer and paint, plus taking down wall paper, (not my favorite thing to do).
Finally after 2 months of 100s of hours of work, we are in the home stretch, just odds and ends now, We should be moving in this weekend! Im so excited!! I can not even tell you. Finally after nearly 4 years of living with my parents we are out! Many thanks to my parents for all they did for us. God is good and provides in the most amazing ways. Praise the Lord. Pics to come soon. :-)

living sitchiation

My husband and I have been married almost 4 years. I cant believe it. Some times it seems like way longer and in other ways it doesnt seem like that long at all. The Christmas after we got married Mark lost his job, so we moved in with my parents. We lived in a missionary's home for 6 months in 08. But other than that we have lived here with my parents. Mark has an awesome job with Gwinnett County working on the school buses, but his pay leaves much to be desired. We have some cash to buy a house and we have been looking for almost 2 years now and havent been able to find anything. We either find one we like and it has a contract on it already or it's too expensive. My parents are awesome and gracious for allowing us to be here so long and have been nothing but helpful and understanding. But we are all tired of us being here. I have prayed and prayed asking the Lord to show us something but nothing yet. I have been very patient but unfortunately it's running thin and I find myself more and more discontent with where we are. My heart's desire is to have our own home, to be a family of our own. To be able to cook, clean, and do laundry like I want to. I feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I am wicked discouraged and I hate it! I want to be this strong christian wife who doesnt doubt the Lord and His timing and ultimately I am. But Im selfish and sinful and can't seem to get out of this rut. I keep telling myself, "Wait on the Lord, and be of good courage and He will strengthen your heart". I know that's true and I believe it, otherwise I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. God is good and has given me so much. I have no reason to complain. He will take care of us and give us our home when it's time. His time. So we will keep looking and praying, asking God to guide our every step.

Blogging......

Never thought I would want to do this, but I find myself quite often lost in my own head. Spending all day with a baby and 3 year old has tendency to leave me desiring adult conversations. :-) Maybe this will help. I also have things that I want to write down about my kiddos; this will be an easy way to keep up with it. So here it goes...........................

Debbie and Megan were for her a visit today, or so my daughter affectionately calls Debbie, Grandmother. This is my husband Mark's mother and sister. They live in Greenville, SC. I love it when they visit. We miss them so. Spent the rest of the evening with Mark, Alaina and Trey. Now they are all in bed. I breathe a sigh of ....... (relief isn't the right word, relaxation maybe?) relaxation when they are successfully in bed. Nice to have a few minutes to myself. I am so blessed to have a loving husband, and 2 adorable children. God is so good. :-)