David and Teresa's family were here in KS for Christmas. Their families and ours got together for brunch Saturday morning at Mom and Dad's. Good food, and good people.
The Legos entertained them for quite some time. I must admit, the conversation was hilarious to listen to. As they were playing, they had ALL sorts of deep discussion. Molly especially can turn a playful conversation into a Jesus teaching opportunity :) I'll have to see if I can get the video I took of it on here.
Here is part of the conversation...
I thought it would be nice to get the boy cousins for a picture...
We all got around in the morning...ate some breakfast, and awaited Santa's arrival.
Carissa is super special :)
Santa arrived late morning...each grandchild received a gift from him..what a generous man.
Santa and company
Christian giving Santa a hug and thanking him for his remote control car.
He was so excited!
We sang more Christmas songs, Dad read the birth of Jesus story from the Bible, and then we opened up gifts from each other.
Mia and Gia (or as dressed in character as Anna and Elsa)
We ate a very good Christmas dinner...and then those that needed naps, took them.
Those that didn't take naps, played games or just relaxed.
The 'train game'..Ticket to Ride. Complete with puppy chow at our side, or carmel popcorn, or delicious cupcakes, or any number of cookies..anything you wanted to eat (not that we were really 'hungry'..but who's keeping track anyway).
Our annual Christmas play...
a cute little pantless sheep (Noah)...an adorable angel (Ava)
a couple shepherds resting (Maddox and Ava)
and a sleeping baby Jesus (Jonah)
the entire cast.
We then opened gifts downstairs...
the ones from Mom and Dad (or Grandma and Grandpa..depending on who you are!)
The fun didn't stop there....
supper, more surprises, the pickle (oh how the pickle find is fun!)
and a special treat of Mitch reading a bedtime book to the kids
The Book With No Pictures.
(It is hilarious...especially if you have an animated reader, and they have not read through it before.)
If you want to know what it sounds like you may watch this video...if you want to be surprised what the book is like...do not watch this :)
After the kids were in bed (which this particular evening took quite some time for some...eh hmm...Noah!) the big boys went in the hot tub, and then we played games again.
Oh my...LOTS and LOTS of laughing.
It was a very memorable Christmas.
We all stayed over night again...
Friday morning, this was the view in the living room.
Friday highlights included:
the hot tub with Grandpa, a movie (Annie) at the movie theatre for all but Mom, Noah, and Jonah, and pizza back at Mom and Dad's.
We are blessed. Truly blessed.
Sometimes that feeling almost overwhelms me..which is a good thing..I guess its when your heart is so full, it doesn't know what else to do but cry.
We celebrated our family Christmas on the 23rd. We wanted to have a little time before the larger family gathering to be able to play with the things at our house. I made ham loaf, cheese corn, a favorite lettuce salad, dinner rolls, and a jello salad. We ate supper before opening gifts.
After supper I finished reading the advent verses, we took a few pictures, and then we opened presents!
I love these pictures of them. All three of them. Our three sons.
Jonah's 1st Christmas
as you can see he was pretty excited :)
Noah was a fan of most anything he opened. He was VERY fascinated by his light up dump truck.
Mom and Dad stopped in right as we were finishing..so they took a family picture of us.
They were very anxious to take a bath. Christian got new bath foam soap, and Noah got some color tablets for the bath. It was an all out soapy MESS!!! They loved it, but oh my goodness what a mess.
Christian sporting his new undies (he was super pumped to have boxer briefs!).
Noah is wearing his new cape (I had stayed up til 2 am making it...he wasn't really that impressed at first). They both ran around saying "SU-PER MAAANNN!!"
Then there's this guy...
I'll keep him. Just the way he is.
He's given me some kind of jewelry for Christmas from a place in McPherson ever since he started working up there. This year he gave me a necklace with 5 circles on it...our family, all 5 of us!
