all things CHRISTmas

We had a fabulous holiday season, despite getting the flu for 1 1/2 weeks. I always feel such a sense of accomplishment after I get our Christmas card made, printed and sent out.
Front of card:

Back of card:

Just like past years, we did our Christmas advent activity countdown.  The kids were always thrilled to find out what activity would be a part of that day.

We were happy to be a part of the Zylowski's annual Reindeer Party again this year.  Good times!

With slight reluctance, I brought Eddie back again this year.  He came a little late into the season, but after last years experience, I figured 5 days was plenty of time for him to stay.  The kids were actually happy to see him and we didn't have any reports of Eddie trying to "get" any of the kids.

We had a great personal visit with Santa, which actually had my unbeliever (Mac), a believer again.  

This was an especially fun Christmas with Beck.  Everything was so exciting to our 5 year old guy.  He helped out a lot with the decorating and by Christmas Eve, Beck had arranged all the ornaments on the tree to be next to a "buddy" so that no ornament was lonely on Christmas.

Beck and Jilli also spent hours arranging and rearranging all of the nativity scenes around the house.  On this particular day, upside down was the look they were going for.

This is Beck and Jilli just before their preschool Christmas program.  Jilli was cute as a button up on the stage, but never opened her mouth to sing a single song.  Beck on the other hand, was just as cute and sang his little heart out.

The same night as Beck and Jilli's program, Mac had his 3rd grade holiday program.  Nate and Jax attended his program, while I attended the preschool program.  Divide and conquer and thank heavens for video cameras.

The kids ready for church on Christmas Sunday.  Such lookers they are!

Christmas Eve brought some last minute shopping and running around and then we had our first annual "Mary and Joseph" dinner.  It was as wonderful as I had imagined and the clean-up was even better!

Gift exchange with brothers/sister.  I especially love the enthusiasm on Mac, Jilli and Beckam's faces.  Jaxton's was more of a plastered on "this isn't exactly what I was hoping for" smile.

On Christmas morning before heading downstairs to the gifts, we met in our room and each decided on a gift that we would give to Jesus this year.  Each of the kids were very thoughtful about their gifts and then we put them in a gift box and wrapped it up for Jesus.  We'll take a look at our gifts next year and see how we did.

And then it was game time.

Jilli made it til about 10:00am and then zonked out.  Christmas is hard on 3 year olds.

For Christmas dinner we headed out for our 5th annual Chinese dinner.  We had a great time and the food didn't disappoint.

Merry Christmas to all! We are so thankful for the Savior, His birth, His life, His death and to know that He lives.