We had a great time celebrating the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ this year. In the last few years, we have gotten together with our friends to celebrate on Dec 23. This year we were at the Koehler's house where Mrs. Tina made chili and lots of yummy treats for us to enjoy. The kids are easily entertained by themselves now so that leaves the adults some time to catch up.
We always do a gift exchange with the kids-this year it was a white elephant exchange. There wasn't much stealing going on except from Jessica who got the coveted last choice and she traded her gift for a remote control helicopter.
Brandon got a HUGE whoopie cushion and he was the perfect one for it. He had so much fun sitting on that thing all night....
We always get a group shot(we have been doing this since the girls first Christmas):
The kids spent the night with the Koehlers and then they fixed doughnuts Christmas Eve morning so everyone came back over for that relatively new tradition.
Christmas Eve afternoon we went to Walmart for a few last minute things and then Jennifer and I did something I have never done before on Christmas....we went to a play. We saw A Christmas Story at Elm Street theater. It went longer than we anticipated so we left there and picked Justin up and headed straight to church for our Christmas Eve service where we celebrate with our church family and focus on the reason for the season.
Christmas Eve, we always go to Mom and Bill's house for our traditional dinner of the best ham sandwich all year (with honey baked ham) and a shrimp tree. We were all excited to see my brother Brandon who flew in from Miami.
Unfortunately, I left my camera at home so I will have to get pics from Mom for that evening. But, we all had a great time and stayed later than normal. We came home and I made a breakfast casserole for the crock pot for Christmas morning and wrapped a few more gifts.
Justin woke up around 6 Christmas morning and went back to sleep for a few minutes and then woke up again so he started reading until 8:00 when he came and woke everyone else up. Jennifer really wanted to sleep 5 more minutes.... We all piled in our bed where we read the Christmas story in the bible before coming downstairs to open gifts.
Everyone must have been really good this year, because we had a bunch of presents to open.
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| Jennifer got vocal lessons this year! |
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| Our tree with baby Jesus at the foot in his manger |
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| Jennifer was so excited about her Dr Who t-shirt! |
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| We always get Christmas hugs after opening gifts!! |
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| Jake LOVES to shread tissue paper and wrapping paper! |
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| Justin got his camo BDU's |
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| Justin's big gift was small so we wrapped it in many boxes. It was an I-touch! I think he liked it!!
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| Jennifer with her gifts |
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| Justin with his gifts |
Dale's Mom came over for a little while that morning. 
That afternoon we went over to Dad and Sarah's house. We were excited to see Aunt Bob and Uncle Ray who stayed for a little while.
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| The dogs were a lot of fun this year |
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| Bullet giving Kim kisses |
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| Justin and Gladys |
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| Sarah and Kim |
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| Brandon and Bullet |
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| Kim, Dad, and Brandon |
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| Brian, Cindy, Dad, and Brandon |
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| Jones Family After we left there, we went back to Mom and Bill's house to see the Campbell family Christmas.
 Tyler     It took forever for everyone to open their presents so it was another late night. But it was so good to see everyone again. It had been a LONG time since we got together with them for Christmas-probably since before our kids were born. Happy Birthday Jesus! I hope we honored you on your birthday!! We love you!! |
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