Merry Christmas

No surprise to us or any one we know, we had another wonderful and blessed Christmas! We've had a great time with the boys this past month getting ready, preparing, and anticipating this exciting time! I've said it before, but there's something wonderful about getting to experience this time of year with children - 'seeing' it through their eyes, the wonder and mystery of it all being new again - a true joy for us all!

Both boys loved all the Christmas decorations and did surprisingly well not tearing much up! :) We still purposefully do not put any of the breakable ornaments on the tree, but even Noah did a pretty decent job leaving the tree and light alone, and of course played with the ornaments, but they were all soft, so all was well. They both LOVED the dancing/singing stuffed animals, and we have quite a few, so it got pretty loud in our house when they were all playing at the same time! They also enjoyed all the new Christmas TV 'specials' to watch and even more so, loved all the Christmas lights and decorations outside. Several houses in the neighborhood had the large inflatable Santa's and such, and one was just a few houses down...we got to the point where when pulling into the driveway, Noah would say "ho, ho, ho" as to ask to go see the Santa. Well, as cute as you can imagine that was, it was hard to say no! So we made lots of trips down the street to see the Santas! As much as he loved those, neither boy wanted anything to do with the Santa we went to take pictures with! Drew was so excited to see him to tell him he wanted cars for Christmas, but once we got there, he wouldn't come close to him - walked about a 3 foot radius around him to come to the other side next to Mommy, where I had to pull him in. I had to WRESTLE Noah to stay in MY lap to take the picture...but it's all part of the experience right! Last year Drew wouldn't even be in the picture, so we're making gains! :)

Drew was one of the Wise Men in the Christmas program at the boys' school this year...he was so proud of himself. They sang "We Three Kings" while walking in to bring presents to Jesus...he and the others in his class knew about 5 words of the song...but they were cute!

Drew 'helped' us make some of the Christmas goodies this year, and he just LOVED that! Of course, he wanted to sample everything at every step, and most of what we made was melted chocolate of some sort, so who could blame him! At one point I had turned my back and heard Drew say "Sometimes these taste better when you eat them all together." and when I turned around, he was about to put an entire fistful of chocolate chips in his mouth! Still makes me laugh!

Mom, Dad and Kevin came up to visit the Saturday through Monday before Christmas day and as always, we had a BLAST playing with them! The boys opened their gifts on Saturday so they could play with them while the family was here, so that of course was a big hit! Drew loved everything and Noah squealed with delight when opening his gifts - hilarious! Everyone was incredibly generous and we had a great time playing with all the new toys! Drew especially liked his new superhero costumes! They left Christmas Eve afternoon, and I missed them the minute they walked to the car...Drew ran after Nana for another hug, making me choke back tears!

We went to the Christmas Eve service and I had the bright idea to take both boys to the front for the children's message - it would be Noah's first time and we were in a different sanctuary, so I thought it would help Drew not feel lost. Well, that was a mistake!!! Noah wanted to walk up the steps the whole time, so I had to keep pulling him back, which made him scream in disgust. When he wasn't doing that, Drew and Noah were all over each other wrestling or something of the sort. Finally, during the prayer, I had to control Noah with a bit more effort and he screamed so loud that Daddy could hear it all the in the last pew where we were sitting (and it's a large church), which made Drew loudly laugh his maniacal laugh! Oh, the only thing I was happy about was that thanks to sitting on the floor by the pews, no one could actually see us! But I'm sure they figured it out as we were walking back...you could just tell my boys were trouble! We went out to dinner after the service and then to the Benbrook Christmas tree - the boys enjoyed looking at more lights, but it was COLD! So we headed back home quickly and looked for Santa's sleigh in the sky! Drew was so excited to leave the cookies for Santa - just adorable!

We had a wonderful morning with the boys - Drew woke first and opened his stocking. Just as he finished, Noah woke up and got to open his stocking. They got to open their presents from Santa while breakfast baked and then we opened up the gifts from us after breakfast. Our house looked like a toy store, but we had a great time!

We headed over to the Palmer house around noon and the boys were ecstatic to see Santa had brought Grandma an indoor rollercoaster! They all had so much fun playing on it! Noah found the singing reindeer and kept that going most of the day it seemed! We had a great time eating delicious food and opening a TON of presents this year - again, the generosity was overwhelming! Drew did well, but struggled waiting for his turn to open his gifts - there are alot more people to take turns with all the cousins versus just one brother!

But we were all so excited and surprised with the SNOW that fell most of the day! The flakes were huge and it was just beautiful! Noah kept pointing to the window and wanted to go outside! :) But we hadn't brought coats, thinking there'd be no reason to go outside at any point - oh well! We had a wonderful time with everyone and are reminded once again of how blessed we truly are!