Christmas

The best part of Christmas to me is all the traditions.  I even like adding new ones.  Our friends in AR have the tradition of wrapping all the Christmas books and opening one every night in December until Christmas.  We tried it this year and the girls absolutely loved it.  For Christmas eve we always have Mexican food.  We just get all the frozen taquito's, quesadilla's, chimichanga's, etc. It's a real treat for us all and it's easy set up and clean up for Christmas.   

The night before Christmas we opened and read 'The night before Christmas'.  We then continued our tradition of reading from the Bible about Christ's birth.   

 Look at these darlings sitting listening so intently. 

 Every year the girls get jammies on Christmas eve.  They tease me every year that I wrap them the same way and so they always know what they are.  This year I through them all off.  I got them all slippers but still wrapped them like their jammies.  I had them all fooled.

 The next morning . . .

 Stocking time

 New winter hats, gloves, and scarves. 

 Santa brought the girls all sleeping bags and our family this nice big tent.  Now if we can just get the weather to warm up, we'll be ready to roll.

 Grumps and Abuela

I think this was the first time they had been to our house for Christmas morning.  It sure was fun to have them here with us.

 Tim with his new pan.  I don't know many men that would get excited over a pan but Tim sure did.  I must say it makes fabulous scrambled eggs.

 Even though it was in the low 30's the girls were so excited about the tent they took books and games outside to play in the tent.  Here Maya is ready to go.

 McKenna with her new little people.  All she talked about was that she wanted new slippers and little people for Christmas.  Her sisters came through for her with the little people.

 The tent before the snow hit.

 When we were getting ready for dinner I went to open up the table to get the leaf out and found this choc. santa.  Found out that it was Livie's and Maya hid it days ago in there.  Who would have thought of such a brilliant hiding place.

By the afternoon we had a white Christmas.  It was beautiful.  Tim's parents were really excited along with the rest of us.  Poor Tim had planned to grill a leg of lamb and a stuffed pork loin for dinner.  Here he is coming in from checking the meat in his dress shirt and shorts?  What?  Nice outfit.

Maya setting up one of our new games. 

 McKenna was dying to go out and play in the snow.  I on the other hand wasn't so much.  Her sweet sister, Alexa went out sledding down the "mountain" as Mckenna calls it.

 They also built the cutest snowman I think I've ever seen.

 This is the tree outside our front window.  I thought it looked beautiful.

 Sunday was so nice.  Church was cancelled and so we got to enjoy another day at home with the family.  Just like a second Christmas.  Lynn and Terry went for a walk to enjoy the snow a little.

I stayed inside to enjoy the heater.

 In the afternoon we had our own church meeting.  Maya and Olivia gave talks and then Alexa gave a lesson from a great book she got for Christmas.

Here are the church goers - or I should say church stayers since we stayed out home.

 Last but not least - here is the puzzle we worked on this Christmas.  Thanks to all that helped.  Especially Lynn.  She was quickly addicted just like my family usually is with puzzles.  We stayed up pretty late working on it.  It was on the dining table so it had to be completed by Christmas day so we could have dinner.

Sorry this is a long post but it sure was a fun day and lots to document.