Christmas Eve 2010

 

We all enjoyed celebrating Jesus’s birthday with family and friends and good food and ….SNOW!! 

We started out on Christmas Eve with possibly a new tradition-we all went over to the Koehlers that morning for homemade doughnuts. The kids had never had any that were homemade before.  All of the older girls had spent the night with the Koehlers and the boys spent the night with us. 

 

The breakfast was yummy and the friends even better.  Then we came home and I finished wrapping a few last gifts. We gave some cocoa mix to our neighbors and headed to church for the Christmas service.  It was a beautiful service celebrating Jesus and his birth.

 

Then we headed to Mom’s house for the celebrations to continue.  Brandon came into town and him and Brian and Deena showed up. We had our traditional ham sandwich (best one of the year!!) and shrimp tree (which I look forward to for months beforehand!) One of Mom’s single ladies made this beatiful cake for her and it was as delicious as it was beautiful!!

We opened gifts after dinner and everyone got lots of nice things.  She had made the kids an ornament that was on the tree with pictures of them from birth all the way up to present times.  It was so fun to look at them grow up and remember the good times. 

Nick and Lindsey also brought the kids-Michael and Mia over to add to the fun. 

Justin got the Nerf gun he had been wanting!!

We came home when we found out that Santa was in Canada heading this way and put the milk and cookies out and headed to bed.

Christmas Day 2008

Well, I have worked for several hours now trying to figure out my new camera and how to download the pictures. Forgive me for taking so long. My new camera is very nice and has a ton of nice features that I have NO IDEA how to use. Maybe one day in my spare time I can take a class. Yeah, right. Anyway, I am finally getting around to Christmas Day. We were very blessed to be able to spend some time alone as a family and then with extended family. It was actually a pretty relaxing day for us, which is kind of unusual as we used to have several places to go on Christmas Day.
One of the fun things the kids enjoyed over at my Dad's house was to play with their new DS's. Kim got one for Christmas and they thought it was oh so cool to chat on it with each other. This is a picture of them (sitting side by side no less!) "chatting" on their Nintendo DS. How funny!!
We really had a very nice Christmas!! Happy Birthday Jesus!

Christmas Morning 2008

Happy Birthday Jesus!! We told the kids that they needed to stay in bed until 7:00 am. This has never been a problem in the past as usually they have never woken up early. Last year, I think we had to wake them up around 8 or so. Anyway, for whatever reason(yeah, right!), Justin came running into our room at 7:01. It was still dark, so I had him get in our bed for a few minutes of cuddle time. Finally, he was able to go wake Jennifer up and we got up and going. Santa had come and left the kids plenty of goodies. Even Jake and Patches and Sam got a lot of goodies in their stockings. The cats got a laser mouse that Sam tries to "catch". It is funny to watch him. If you have a couple of minutes, here is the video of Christmas morning.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Then after we had breakfast, Lorine and Doug came over for a while to see what the kids got and ate some breakfast with us. Before they got here though, I got my BIG present from Dale. In order to find it, I had to go on a scavenger hunt (Thanks, Mom!) and do goofy things. But in the end, I got my reward..a new digital camera..the one I had been wanting for a long time! Thanks honey!! After they left, we spent some time as a family exchanging gifts that we had gotten each other. It is always so sweet to see what they buy us that we don't know about-either at school or with their Awana money. They are so precious during this time, freely giving hugs and thank yous. One of Justin's big gifts this year was Jake so he got a picture book with a bunch of Jake's photos in it. Both kids got Nintendo DS's this year for the first time. That was exciting!
Since getting my new camera, I have had a lot of fun playing with it. However, I have not learned how to get the pictures downloaded yet. I am praying that it is easy, because that is my biggest deterrent to blogging. I will try to work on it some tomorrow so I won't leave you guys hanging about the rest of Christmas.

Christmas Eve 2008

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve, as usual. Our festivities "officially" start at church as we remember the reason we celebrate the season. Our church had 2 services this year with the choir singing in both, so I had to be there for both services. Mom and my family went to the early service and then Mom took the kids home with her. Dale hung out with me and the choir and then we went to Mom & Bill's for dinner. Bill had been sick all week, so he was unable to sing this year. We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner which consists of ham sandwiches (which are by the way, the best sandwich we eat ALL year!!), chips, and boiled shrimp(usually a shrimp tree) and congealed salad. It is yummy and quick so that we can spend more time with each other. Brian and Deena joined us a little late as they were celebrating with her sister before us this year. Brandon wasn't able to join us this year and we all missed him. It wasn't the same without him this year. Papa also wasn't able to join us this year as he is in a nursing home and still doing rehab. Although, as a side note, we just found out that he will probably have to stay in the nursing home as they have done all they can for him. He seems happy there, although we will have to give up his apartment where he has lived for about 20 years. So, it was a quite Christmas over at Mom's this year, but a joyous one anyway. We love Mom & Bill and always look forward to spending Christmas Eve with them.Jennifer with her stack of goodies!Owen felt quie confident that he was getting a PS-3 for Christmas, so all he wanted was accessories for it. And that's what he got!Justin enjoyed playing Santa and handing the presents out...but he enjoys opening presents too! He is into Pokeman this year and Aunt Deena, Uncle Brian and Owen got him some cards.Jennifer wanted clothes this year. My baby is growing up!! :(Brian and Deena got an outdoor clock that is very nice. We got one too!And our favorite clown (aka Bill) watches as Mom opens one of her gifts. We love you guys! Thanks so much!!
Afterwards, we rushed home to get cookies and milk ready for Santa and the kids in the bed. The kids were tracking him on the internet and got really worried when he was in the United States (Florida) before they were in bed. Thankfully, they made it to sleep in time.

Christmas with our Friends

We are so blessed to have a wonderful group of friends that we cherish. We all met years ago, before kids as newly married couples in Sunday School. We have remained close and do ALL kinds of things together throughout the year. But one thing that we always look forward to each Christmas is to get together to celebrate. We started this tradition when we only had the 3 girls(12 years ago) and have enjoyed watching the group grow to 11 kids between the 4 couples now. We change things up sometimes, but the last 2 years the kids have drawn names and each child has to try to figure out who gave them their present. It is a lot of fun. The adults did a "White elephant" for the ladies and one for the men. This year, the Fosters hosted and they had gotten a new puppy as well. He is a cutie and hopefully we can get the puppies together for a puppy playdate. Jordan came over and spent the night with us and met Jake for the first time.

Gingerbread Houses

 

Before Christmas, we went over to the Gowders house to make Gingerbread houses. We usually do it at home with a store bought kit, but Mrs. Lisa always makes her own gingerbread(and icing) from scratch. So, off we went for the REAL thing. The kids had a lot of fun making their houses with the help of our Gowder friends and our new friends this year, the Strouds.

Justin's Christmas party at school

Justin and his teacher. She is a great teacher!

Justin finished off the 2008 school year with an ice cream party. Who would have ever thought it would be warm enough for an ice cream Christmas party, but it was. They had all kinds of toppings and got to bring their favorite games to play. Justin brought "the Dangerous book of Boys" game but ended up playing Cadoo with his good friends Sam and Nathan. There was a massive game of Twister going on.

Justin shows me some of his artwork in the hall. This is probably the funnest day of the school year!

Seeing Santa

We usually go to Chick-fil-a Dwarf house to see Santa. We had dinner and then visited Santa even though he walked around and talked to us while we were eating.

Jennifer told Santa that she wanted clothes and Justin wanted an electronic guitar and a Nintendo DS.
For your enjoyment, here are some pictures from the past of us visiting Santa at Chick-fil-a. There are a couple of years missing but we have been going there since Justin was 3 months old. The tradition started when Jennifer spotted "SANTA" and Mrs. Clause eating dinner in the dining room in the Fall. They were not dressed up at all but she knew that was Santa and kept pointing at him(as a 2 year old). I was trying to teach her not to point and be rude and then Santa came up and told us she was right that he was Santa and that he would be back at Chick-fil-a in December.

As you can see the first 3 years are already scrapbooked, so I scanned a portion of the page. This will show you how "behind" I am in scrapbooking. Here are some more recent ones.

Christmas 2005

I LOVE this picture of Jennifer contemplating what to tell Santa she wants.

Christmas 2006

Jennifer goes over her list with Santa-again I love this expression.

Christmas 2007

Hope you enjoyed the trip down Memory Lane. Santa Don actually asked me to put this together for him.

Christmas with the Seelhammers

Every year at Christmas, we get together with our friends, the Seelhammers. We have done this tradition every year for the past 13-14 years. We have been to Stone Mountain Christmas (Several times), Lake Lanier Lights (Several times), Lights at Life, ice skating in Centennial Park, movies, Callaway Gardens (several times), and even Rock City's Christmas celebration. Honestly, lately we are struggling to come up with something new and exciting. We now both have 2 kids each, so we are able to do some things "new" again. This year, we decided to do something really different and attend Johnson Ferry Baptist Church's Christmas package. There was food, fun, and festivities all rolled into one. We met and had dinner at the church. We rode the train, took a hayride, petted the live animals, watched a short nativity skit, slid the big slide, made some crafts, and enjoyed cookies and hot chocolate. There were carolers caroling, artists drawing, and dodge ball. There was a display of awesome gingerbread houses and a nutcracker dance along. There were concerts, Christmas movies showing with popcorn, karaoke, and many other things that we never had a chance to get to. They really had a lot of fun things going on, and did a great job of having a fun night of Christmas traditions for a wonderful price-free!!Train rideAnna was scared to go by herself down the big slide, but not with her new big buddy Jennifer. Anna participated in the Nutcracker dance. We got there late as we were so the tutus were gone but she got to prance solo across the stage riding a "reindeer"The hayrideGingerbread house and church heaven!Craft time Anna is missing here as she had gone downstairs with Jennifer already. The animals are always my kids favorite things.

The Grand finale!! Jesus is born!!

As usual, we had a wonderful time with our friends. Its too bad we don't live a little closer so we could get together a little more often(once a year is not enough!). Thanks JFBC for showing us and the community what Christmas is all about!