Christmas

Our candlelight Christmas Eve dinner


The kids at Perkins - what kind of face is this Benny?

At church for Christmas Eve "Eve" service

this is Perfect Kate. Christmas morning, still in her PJ's, new Hannah Montana Roller Skates

on & putting together some new Lego figures!

We had such a wonderful Christmas. Even though we were all a bit disappointed that our original plans of heading back to Pender were changed once the weather got bad in Nebraska, we started some of our own Christmas traditions here. Our annual routine of going to Perkins after Christmas Eve "Eve" (the night before Christmas Eve)church held true. We all enjoyed a yummy meal and of course the kids were super excited because they love that place! We usually go there after Christmas Eve church, but this year we went to the Eve "Eve" service because we could and the weather was supposed to get bad on Christmas Eve. Thank you HOPE for having church that night - it was such an amazing service with the live nativity (donkeys, sheep and even some awnry goats (-: ) and once again, celebrating the wonder and magnificance of Christ's birth. How blessed we all feel being able to BELIEVE in such an awesome and amazing God and RECEIVE his love and grace in return. We played games after getting our PJ's on, and then turned in for the night. Christmas Eve day was very relaxing around here. Doug went to work until noon and then we just played all day. The weather continued to deteriorate in Nebraska for all of our family there, but here it really was not that bad. The kids even enjoyed some time out in the snow. Kate had been asking Doug and I what we used to do on Christmas Eve and we shared stories and memories with them. I decided to surprise them all with a special candlelight dinner and then we opened our gifts from one another after that. They were so excited! We finished our evening with watching the movie Snowbuddies and then got our cookies and milk ready for Santa.

Christmas Day, Miss Kate woke up at 0630, but did a great job letting her brother sleep in until almost 8 - that was CRAZY! They both enjoyed playing with their lego's, new race track, board games, DS games, and playing out in the snow most of the day. Kate skated around the kitchen in her new skates without even one wipe-out - way to go SIS!

That night, we ended our day with another "dark dinner" (that is what Ben refers to the candle light as) and cupcakes with candles for dessert to sing "Happy Birthday Jesus"! What a wonderful celebration we had! Such fun memories for us all.....quality time here at home together playing games, sledding and shoveling snow, laughing, cuddling, eating yummy Christmas treats and truly enjoying the reason for the season. We are so blessed.