Third, and final, Christmas celebration

Our final Christmas celebration was on Christmas Day with Mark's family.  We went to church in the morning then came home, changed, packed up the car and headed out to Mark's parents house.  It was a bit of an adventure getting up their driveway, our van got stuck and we had to have Mark's Dad pull us out of the snow!  Eventually, however, we did get up to the house!  The kids (small and big) had lots of fun playing outside in the snow, being pulled on a sled behind the tractor (!), while all of the ladies were in the house making lunch/dinner and taking care of the littlest ones.  We had a HUGE feast and some great conversation, followed by cleanup.  And then came the gifts!  The kids had so much fun opening all their gifts!  They each got their very own pillow pet and one other toy, such fun!  It was a great day and a wonderful end to our Christmas season!

Second Christmas Celebration

Our second Christmas celebration was just with our family.  We celebrated 2 days before Christmas, which worked so well as it gave us all a chance to enjoy our gifts for a full day before our next celebration.  We were extremely blessed this year, a church in our area got our name (not sure how) as a family that might need help with Christmas presents and so they provided all of our gifts!  It was such an incredible blessing, we had more gifts than we have ever had before or are likely to have in the future!  We had already told the kids that it would be a very small Christmas this year, the business is still getting established and consequently we are struggling financially, but God provided an incredible amount for us!

We started the day out by opening our stockings, I stock up on little things throughout the year to put in them so that when Christmas comes I don't have to buy anything.  I also read a wonderful post on good stocking fillers and we used some of those ideas as well.  The kids were up early but they knew they had to wait to open their stockings till we got up.  I was so proud of them all, they all waited like champs!   

After breakfast everyone got dressed and did morning chores and then it was time for gifts!  We always take turns opening, starting with the youngest and working our way up to the oldest.  We make sure each person thanks whomever gave them the gift and take a few minutes to enjoy the gift before moving on to the next person.  Because of the vast number of gifts this year we tried to keep it moving a little faster than normal, but it all worked out well. 

 After gifts, we had a wonderful ham for lunch with lots of sides, very easy to make, I spent hardly any time in the kitchen.  Then the afternoon was free to spend time together doing crafts, playing with new toys, and just enjoying the day.  It was one of our best Christmas' ever!!!

Stealing Minutes Concert

As some of you know my brothers have a band that they started with some friends many years ago.  We were blessed to be able to attend their first ever Christmas concert this month.  It was wonderful!

The band spent all day setting things up so when we arrived in the evening this is how it looked, so beautiful!

The concert was very nice, lots of good Christmas songs focusing on the true meaning of Christmas.

It was too dark for me to get any good pictures of the concert but here is the picture they put together to advertise the concert.

Celebrating Jane Austens Birthday

A few weeks ago the kids and I went out to my mother-in-laws house to make Christmas cookies and celebrate Jane Austen's Birthday with a tea!  We had such a fun time of fellowship and good food!

 My mother-in-law had made the cookie dough ahead and then each of the kids was able to take a turn rolling out some of the dough and cutting out cookies.  Even Micah got in on the action, with a little help of course!

After all the cookies were baked and some of them had been frosted (with lots of "sampling"!), we sat down to a lovely tea!  Everything was so good and decorated so beautifully!

Here are some of the cookies that the kids decorated, they did a great job!

Christmas Decorating!

The day after Thanksgiving we spent the day putting up our Christmas decorations.  It was so much fun!!! I love Christmas!  We don't put up much beyond the tree, since our house is small it drives me CRAZY to have too much out, so maybe someday when we have a bigger house we will do more.  Elijah was the designated picture taker while Mark and I put up the tree.  He did a pretty good job!  We did have to take a break and run to the store in the middle of our decorating though...all our lights for the tree were not working! Everything looks so beautiful and festive, almost magical, I LOVE it!!!