Christmas 2011

...the little ones slept in by our standards, with the last one rolling out of bed at 8:00am.  We began our morning by concluding our readings of the Jesse Tree Advent and the Noel Piper Advent Calendars.

Then before digging into stockings and presents we wanted to give some special gifts to those who may not even have food to eat or a warm home on Christmas day.  The kids enjoyed chosing gifts of chickens, blankets and Bibles for people in Asia.  We chose to give through the Gospel for Asia organization and pray that these seemingly small gifts would be an enormous blessing to those in physical and spiritual need.

Presents were opened with sheer delight and we enjoyed watching the faces and reactions on the kids faces.  (Far too many pictures to filter through, as I think there is a photo of each gift they opened.  To family: if you want to see any of them, let me know.)

Luca has a crazy face, I know, but it was the clearest picture that I got of them

We enjoyed our traditional Christmas morning cinnamon rolls.

Then began lunch preparations.  We had our colleague, Melissa, over for lunch and the remainder of the day.  It was a very relaxing and enjoyable afternoon, but this mamma started to hit a wall by late afternoon.  We also enjoyed a weekend full of skype chats with family around the world.  So thankful for technology and the ability to see our precious family members!  It took several days to kind of catch up, but that is what vacation time is for.  Nothing major went on this week and nothing major is planned for New Years.  We have our fireworks ready and the kids are looking forward to staying up until midnight playing games and watching movies.  We'll see if they last.

Happy New Year everyone!  Thanks for tracking with our family in 2011!