Since we were going to celebrate on Christmas Eve we decided to keep the menu simple and enjoyed frozen pizza, blueberries and sparkling cider. Oh, and these amazing homemade croissants that my friend Kristen gave us. YUM! It's amazing how quickly the boys will eat their dinner when they know they get presents afterward. We ate, cleaned up, and read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible together. Then it was time for stockings and presents. You can only imagine how excited our boys were :-)
We spent 4 days with my family celebrating with my sister, parents, Grandma, sister in law, brother and their kiddos. It's a full house when we all get together, but always full of good times. It was nice to spend time playing games, laughing with the kids and just enjoying each others company.
We then headed up to Spokane to spend the next week with Peter's family. Unfortunately I don't think I took a single picture. I remember that we had such a wonderful time exchanging presents and enjoyed each other's company and lots of good food. We spent New Year's Eve at Jennifer's house and we all (including the kids) stayed up until nearly 1:30am. Ethan was hilarious....we were watching the War Room as a family and he was so wired, he was dancing in front of the big screen and keeping us all entertained. The oldest two boys watched cartoons with their cousins and were in complete paradise getting to stay up that late. We were exhausted but it made for a great memory.
All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas season. It really is a gift to celebrate with so much of our family, and to have the birth of our Savior to celebrate together is something I am learning to cherish more and more every year.
