Christmas Celebrations

Our tree including the Jesse Tree Ornaments.  The poinsettia was gifted from our 4 family neighbors next door.

The weeks leading up to Christmas we use to prepare our hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus are always so precious for our family.  We have our tradition of the Noel Piper Advent Calendar, nightly Christmas carol singing, and this year we also added the Jesse Tree Advent Devotional .  The first advent calendar is practically memorized by everyone come Christmas morning and it is fun to recite together.  The second advent calendar took us on a journey from Genesis to the birth of Jesus and really allowed for us all to concentrate on God's love plan for the world shown throughout the Bible.  I am sad that these days leading up to Christmas are now past, but delighted beyond measure that we have a Living Hope with whom we need to continue to share not only with our children, but with the world throughout the coming year of 2011.

This past week we enjoyed a dinner out at a pizzeria with our Caselle church family.  It may just be a yearly tradition from here on out.  We had a great time of fellowship together over some amazing pizza.  What else would you expect, this is Italy?!  That same evening (the 22nd) Luca spiked a fever while at the restaurant and then Samuel threw up most of that night.  Both were perky come the morning.  Oh, and that was the day too that I threw out my back until 24 hours later my husband got it to pop back in place with a deep massage.  Then Emma spiked a fever on Christmas Eve.  All three kids are currently battling some nasty coughs that we pray will soon pass.

Christmas day was spent here at home.  Samuel was so excited about Christmas morning he still was struggling to fall asleep at 10:30pm.  Emma was so excited she woke up at 3am and had trouble getting back to sleep.  With the disrupted sleep patterns the kids did not wake up until 7:15am, which was way better than I expected for a Christmas morning rise.  We allowed the kids to open up their stockings, then ate some cinnamon rolls for breakfast before opening presents.

Stocking Stuffer Time

Gramma Kleis' Famous Cinnamon Rolls

Must every smile include raised eyebrows?  He's too funny.

Lucky for our kids, the package from Munga and Gramma arrived on time.  There are  5 outstanding packages still somewhere in transit.  More Christmases to come...

Zhu-Zhu Pets

Thanks for the scooters, Munga and Gramma!

Thank you Great Grandpa and Great Grandma!

Noella's gifts always lean towards house upgrades, like this nightstand and lamp.

For Samuel from our neighbors

For Luca from our neighbors

For Emma from our neighbors

After opening gifts it was time to get the turkey in the oven.  Catherine came over for a Christmas lunch and we had a relaxing afternoon watching the kids playing with their new things.  For lunch we basically did a belated Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings.  Turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, jello, Nano's famous yeast rolls and of course pumpkin pie made from scratch.  Yum-yum-yumminess is all we can say!!

Come late afternoon we began our Skype calls with family around the world. We enjoyed seeing and talking with our family in Iraq, Michigan and California before calling it a day.

And one funny to share real quick:  One day Luca was singing a Christmas song and this is what he sung:  "Ohhh Well, Ohhh Well, Ohh-hh Well..."  I almost didn't want to correct him with "Noel" because it was just too cute.

Out on the bike path with their new scooters