Christmas 2010

Even though we arrived home from Tahoe on Christmas Eve we still managed to keep up our annual traditions. We joined our church family for a wonderful service full of great worship, a good message on the peace that Christ offers (something I really needed to hear) and wants to give through us and then we came home to do have a small Birthday Party for Jesus. We played some games, had a birthday cake and gave presents to Jesus. Each of us shared why we love him and why we are choosing to follow him. It was a precious time full of simple but honest answers. Including Adisons answer to why she loves Jesus - "because I get presents because of him".

Christmas morning we added a new tradition to help slow things down and get the focus more off of the presents. We told the kids that we were going to hide the little nativity pieces and they would not be allowed to open their stockings until they had found each piece. Kenyon was up at 6 telling me how he had already looked and not found anything. He was pretty upset. Kyle forgot our kids are 11 and under and decided to hide them for a group of adults. Seriously one of them was in the bread maker that is put away in our cabinets, to find one you had to take the clock off the wall and look inside it and others were taped or hidden in rediculously hard places. Eventually the kids found them all (with major hints) and they got to open their stockings.

Grandpa Paul and Grandma Jenny joined us for our omelet breakfast and the final reading from our Advent book. The kids enjoy the book and practically have the whole thing memorized by Christmas day. I love it!

Then of course, the presents need to be opened. Not my favorite part but I do see why the birth of Christ is worthy of such a celebration. I just look forward to the age when the kids enjoy the giving more than the getting. We give the kids 3 gifts each year in honor of what the wiseman gave to Jesus. 1 gold/best gift, 1 frankencense/something for worship and 1 myrrh/something practical. Disneyland was our gold gift this year so there wasn't much but it still always feels like too much. This was also our first year we did a stocking exchange (siblings drew names for whose stocking they would fill) and a sibling gift exchange. That helped minimize the chaos a bit and the kids had a lot of fun picking things for eachother.

Since this is also my journal I want to document what they each got from us...

Adia got a book called 8 great dates for moms and daughters that we will do together and an interactive globe.

Avery got her first real Bible (vs. the kid kind that only have short little stories), rainboots and an umbrella.

Kenyon got a boys devotional to start doing with daddy, the Adventures in Odyssey DVDs and a new backpack.

Adison got a new christian princess book, rainboots and an umbrella.

Kaden got the animate Jesus movie and some Hot Wheel toys.

Yes, Adia got an I-pod (thank you Auntie Ta Ta) - it's wierd when she has nicer things than me.

Grandpa got to be the first to read Adison her new book. It was a hit!

Kenyon got a new Michael Jackson ornament this year and both the boys seriously play it every day and practice their moves - obviously they still have a lot of practicing to do!


When everything settled, g'ma and g'pa went home and the kids sat around playing with new things the exhaustion from Disneyland, Tahoe and more hit and Kyle and I fell asleep. Of course we woke up to a disaster! But whatever. We cleaned up the house, took down some decorations (namely the big tree dying in my family room) and then took off to spend the evening at the river (kyle's parents). Uncle Ty and Aunt Christi were there and the kids were SO EXCITED to get to see them. We also got to see crazy Uncle Ben and Aunt Dara - always a treat. It was fun to hang out with just the brothers families - thats a rarity!

And that is about it. We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

For those of you family members we didn't get to see - we sure missed you!