Christmas 2008

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas with the Smith family this year. Shelley and Geoff (Stacey's sister and husband) graciously opened their home to host us all. We met Christmas Eve afternoon to get things started and after some naps headed to the 3:00 Christmas Eve service at Watermark. Going at 3:00 was awesome and the service was just wonderful...with the exception of my busted lip. We let Stacey choose if he wanted to come to big church or go to his class (they had childcare for 4 years and younger) and he really wanted to go with us. He did a great job and I actually loved having him with us. At one point he picked up our pager for Wyatt and dropped it, the batteries rolled out and as I leaned down to pick them up his head popped up and met my bottom lip. I was bleeding and had to excuse myself for a minute, but returned with a slightly fatter lip to enjoy communion and the candle lighting.

After the service we headed back to the house slipped on our matching PJ's (yes, both sides of our family do this every year!!!) for dinner and presents. Needless to say we had all been spoiled before Santa even arrived. We got a video camera!!! Thank you Nannie and Big!!!! So we were able to capture all of Christmas morning on film!! Christmas morning Wyatt immediately came out a took Brylie's stroller and started pushing it around, but we eventually diverted him back to his stash. Stacey checked Santa's cookies and milk and confirmed that he had indeed been there. The kids were really fun to watch this year and truly LOVED all of their gifts. III got a camera from Santa and was snapping pictures (I'll post some of his work later - pretty funny) all day. After thoroughly enjoying all the fun new toys and treats and feasting on the traditional eggs Benedict we had a birthday party for Jesu2 (the cake decorating letters only came with one s :).

Then it was time for the gift game. Every year Debbie and Cassie come up with a game of sorts and there are usually gift cards involved. One year we had magazines and we had to figure out which magazine went with which person, the next year it was restaurants we had to figure out which restaurant best suited each person then we got gift cards to that spot. This year our game was movie themed. There were envelopes with movie quotes and we had to guess what movie the quotes were from and then determine who among us would want to see that movie. Inside the envelopes we got movie passes and a traditional box of movie candy.

It was a great holiday and as usual we find ourselves unable to express how grateful we are for a family that loves the Lord, is creative and generous and loving and that we love to spend time with. There were to many pictures to post so I put together a little video. Hope you had yourself a merry little Christmas too :)