Holiday recap

I always have such a difficult time transitioning from the activity of December to the blah of January, and right now the absolute freezing cold temperatures don't help this transition at all. I have said before that January is my least favorite month, but I'm really going to try hard to embrace it this year. We are leaving the house as little as possible, however, so we are going to have to find some new, fun things to do INSIDE. All of the snow is beautiful and we'd love to spend the afternoon sledding, but it's going to have to reach above 10 degrees for any of us to venture out in it.

But before we move on to the new year, I need to give a quick holiday recap.

We had a wonderful Christmas - it really could not have been more perfect. The snow started coming down on Christmas eve, but my sister and her family and my mom were still able to make it to our church's Christmas eve service and to our house to celebrate. We had a delicious meal and our traditional Jesus cake. And then we let the kids open their presents from each other because of concern about the weather on Christmas day.
My sister and her family left and safely (thankfully!) made it home after an hour drive home in heavy snow. My mom stayed the night with us, which was such a treat for the boys! We tried to take our traditional Christmas eve picture in front of the tree, but it obviously wasn't going to happen. My mom tried to get some family shots. And then we lost Graham.
The boys put on their pj's and left some cookies for Santa, but not before they grabbed one for themselves. And then we checked on Santa's location before heading to bed.
Christmas morning was just perfect. Santa did not disappoint. The boys were so excited and filled with awe. It actually took us hours to open presents as the boys all wanted to set up and play with each toy before they opened another. We had to drag them back to the living room many times.
We were snowed in the rest of the day and not able to make it to my sister's house. This was the 10th anniversary of our Christmas day accident in 1999, and we didn't want to take any chances. The kids were disappointed, but thankfully they had lots to occupy their time. It was fun to have my mom with us, as she was snowed in also and had to spend another night at our house. Oh, darn.

Saucer Scramble, a game Levi had asked for, provided lots of entertainment later in the day. I'm not sure anyone ever caught a saucer, but we sure did try.
We spent the day after Christmas held up inside again, although the boys did have lots of fun sledding. I only have a picture of Ben, as Levi came inside before I sent the camera outside with Michael.
The next day we headed down to Wichita to spend a few days with Michael's family. We had a great time swimming, going to a movie, visiting family and just being together.
We spent New Years Eve at my sister's house, and we all had a blast. Spending the night there was such a treat for the kids. My boys just can't get enough of their cousins.
The kids stayed up way too late (so did the adults!) and played hard with their cousins the next day, which made for some very grouchy and tired kiddos. Graham fell asleep in the car on the way home that afternoon and when we got home Michael carried him up to his room so that he could continue his nap. Michael never came back downstairs so I went up to see what he was doing, and this is what I found...
I think we have finally recovered from all of the festivities, and we're ready for the new year. We have a lot to look forward to and many memories to make! Blessings to you and your families in 2010!

What happened to December?

I can't believe I haven't written a post since Thanksgiving. That's not because I haven't had anything to write about. There have been lots of happenings at our house this past month, and wow, have we had a lot of fun. Somehow I managed to finish all of our shopping early in the month, and I was able to really enjoy the season with the boys without running too many errands and having too many things to "check off the list".

We visited Santa...
We had class Christmas parties...
We watched an adorable preschool Christmas program of a little boy who we thought would be wild and crazy on stage but decided he didn't really like performing...
We took a carriage ride on the plaza...
Lots of decorations got broken (I can't imagine who did that!)...
We did lots of goofing off and posing for the camera...
We did lots of baking...
We made gingerbread houses...
We loved on a sweet newborn baby...
And the boys and I threw a Christmas cookie decorating party for 8 moms and 23 kids.
It has been a full and WONDERFUL month, and lots of memories have been made. We are more than excited for Christmas because I think Santa might make an appearance at our house sometime tonight.

Merry Christmas to all of you! We have such reason to celebrate, don't we? Not only of the birth of our Savior but of a Savior who lives today and who will one day return again. May His first coming remind us of His second coming and the HOPE we have because of HIM.

"HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS, and IS, and IS TO COME." Revelation 4:8