Our Christmas!

I thought I would fill everyone in on how we celebrated our Christmas. We started by traveling to Gainesville, GA on Saturday the 22nd to visit with James' brother and his family, his sister, and his dad. We had a nice but very busy visit. After arriving and eating lunch, we all headed out to an interactive children's museum (we had opted on skipping nap and putting the boys to bed early, so they would have more time to play with their cousins during the day). Everyone had lots of fun, especially the little ones. Paul & David really enjoyed playing with their cousins, Katie, John, & Timothy. When the museum closed and we were ushered out the door we headed to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner. I was a little concerned about how the boys were going to react to the "cooking show", and even more concerned that I had forgotten food for my picky little eaters!! Well, they enjoyed everything except the BIG fire, and ate absolutely nothing!

After dinner off we went to look at some magnificent Christmas lights. It was getting close to the boys bedtime, but we thought we would be ok since they could just fall asleep in the car while we were driving if they got too tired. Little did we know that these were famous Christmas lights that everyone else in Georgia were also going to see! It took us about 45 minutes to get to the entrance to the lights, and we had already stopped once so the boys could go potty on the side of the road (thank goodness we have boys!!) Just as we get to the entrance David says, "I need to go poo-poo," and this nice aroma filled the car! James quickly gets out of the car and gets David to go find a bathroom, I get in the drivers seat and continue to go with the flow of the traffic, praying fervently that James will make it on time and that I will be able to find them again in all this madness. I call James a few times on his cell phone and he still hasn't found a bathroom, and he is having to carry David, who is barefooted, in the drizzling rain. We finally catch back up with each other after James has walked about a mile and a half, and they get back in car, not yet having found a bathroom. We drive a little further and finally see a sign for the bathroom, and quickly follow it. Well, at this point David was very stressed so he was unable to relax and go potty, so off we went to see the rest of the lights. They were absolutely gorgeous and we all enjoyed them after our ordeal was over. They even had a very nice live nativity that we were all able to enjoy. Paul & David finally fell asleep right as we were leaving the lights.

The next day we went to church with the Bill Schmid's, and then enjoyed a nice brunch buffet at a really nice restaurant. The kids then played all afternoon before we left for home.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent here at our house, my parents and sister came over Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with us. We went to the Christmas Eve communion service at our church and then came back to our house for soup and sandwiches, and just had a nice relaxing evening at home.

Christmas Day Paul & David slept late!! Can you believe it? I woke up at 7:30 and no one was awake yet, so I got up and made some apple cider, then went back to bed for a while. Closer to 8 I decided to get up and go ahead and put the quiche for breakfast in the oven, and not long after that Paul & David decided to get up. While everyone else was still asleep we sat on the couch and read the Christmas story and opened all the flaps on our Advent calendar. After waking everyone else up they were very anxious to have Jesus' birthday party and open all their presents. (We do not do Santa at our house, we just have a big birthday party for Jesus!) Their favorite gifts are their new big boy bicycles, and their big boy "measure" (a tape measure). They love to help their daddy work and now they have their own tape measures so Daddy can use his (thanks Aunt Cristi!).

We just played all morning and prepared lunch. I cooked my first ever standing rib roast and it was very yummy. After lunch we put candles on Jesus' birthday cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus, with the boys blowing out the candles. It was a great Christmas and we made lots of good memories. I pray each of you had a wonderful Christmas also!