Christmas Top Ten

10. Two Adorable Girls in Christmas Dresses: The girls wore their holiday dresses on Christmas Eve. They looked so cute! We enjoyed spending time with my mom's side of our family. We went to church, had communion as a family (one of my favorite parts), and then played Bingo. This year we played Disney Bingo on the TV, the girls thought it was fun. Below Faith shows off some of her special Bingo prizes.

9. A Surprised Nana: This year we got Nana a Cricut. This wasn't on her list, but was something I thought she would really enjoy using for all those wonderful scrapbooks she makes us. The girls thought is was very fun she had such a big box to open. (for some reason even though its not that big it came in a HUGE box)

8. Snow & New PJ's: The girls were thrilled with the snow. Grace especially was concerned about having a white Christmas this year as she thought it was necessary for Santa's sleigh. Below they are checking out the snow the morning after Christmas in their cute new pj's from Cody & Erin. Grace took hers to put on in the bathroom Christmas night. She came back out to ask her daddy, "What do I do? It didn't come with a pull-up." They had fun playing in the snow with their uncles & Roxie.

6. Christmas Treats & Too Much Yummy Food: This year I did all of my Christmas baking in one day. It was quite the marathon. The girls loved getting to deliver the plates of goodies to our neighbors. We enjoyed all sorts of delicious food this holiday season. We had yummy appetizers on Christmas Eve, a huge meal at Grandpa Don & Grandma Kay's house, & Buffalo Wild Wings with Grandpa Rick & Grandma Leeanne. (a little late due to the flu)

5. Christmas Books: This year the girls had so much fun getting out and reading our Christmas books. Grace got a new Fancy Nancy one that I already have memorized from the short time between Christmas and when we put away the Christmas books! Jeremy and I got each of the girls and the baby a new Christmas book this year. One of Grace's new favorite things this year were the sticker books she received.

4. Special Gifts: The girls got so many fun gifts. Grace LOVED her dollhouse from Santa. Faith was very excited about her baby doll with stroller from Gramy & Papa. Both of the girls love their princess tent, easel, toy box, tea set & new movies. Jeremy's favorite gift was probably the nail gun he got from my dad & brothers. My favorite gift was from Jeremy and the girls, a mini-camera for recording video clips for my blog. (although it is still backordered)

3. Family: Due to the weather & sickness our Christmas celebrations ended up being a lot more spread out than originally planned. It was great to spend time with all of our family. We are VERY blessed with such an amazing family!

2. Sisterly Love: This year both the girls got to take a shopping trip to pick out a present for each other. Grace went with daddy and selected a baby doll & bottle for Faith. Faith went with Mommy and selected a Care Bear coloring book with some assistance. Then I let her pick out anything she wanted in the Dollar Store. She choose purple napkins & Grace actually loved them. She proudly told everyone that Faith got her purple napkins, her favorite color. We are planning to use them for her Birthday party.

1. The Simple Joy of Children at Christmas: This year I was reminded how simple and fun Christmas is when viewed through the eyes of a child. Christmas time can become stressful. Gifts are expensive, financial stress. Parties are a lot of work. Shopping can be tiresome, and the "to do" list is on over drive. But, my kids weren't worried about any of these things. They LOVED Christmas. They enjoyed going to see Christmas lights, opening our advent calendar, eating lots of yummy extra treats, spending time with family, and the pure delight of anticipating opening their gifts. Celebrating Jesus' birthday brought them joy and I loved seeing it in the way their faces lit up when they opened their gifts. Here were some of the great "faces" we captured.

Here the girls are playing with the packing material from Nana's gift. They have probably played with this stuff as much as their gifts. Simple joy-definitely!

Christmas 2009 was full of memorable moments, this "top ten" is only a sample of all the great memories we made.

Christmas Wrap Up

I have been working on this post for quite some time!! I know Christmas has been over for almost a month but this is my "scrapbook" so I still wanted to post some memories.

Christmas at Grandpa & Grandma's:

We went to spend the night at Grandpa Rick & Grandma Leeanne's house & opened presents the next morning. The girls big surprise was a puppet theater. Grace was very excited as she is very into puppets and pretend play. Grace helped pass out the presents & Faith even showed interest in opening her own gifts. Then we went to Jeremy's grandparents house for a huge meal & white elephant exchange. I actually got something good-a Christmas card holder. Jeremy won an old lamp (dust included!). But he snuck it in Aunt Shawn's van so we didn't get to put that one up at our house.

Christmas Eve:

On Christmas Eve we went to our church and then arrived at Bowen just in time for the end of the service at my home church. Jeremy and I make this a priority every year. My home church has a tradition of taking communion as a family on Christmas Eve. It is one of my favorite moments each year. Our entire family on my mom's side takes communion together. It is a really awesome visual reminder of my grandparent's legacy of faith. It is a moment Jeremy and I are dreaming about for our family someday. After that we headed to my parent's house for one of my favorite meals of the year. It is entirely finger foods & really yummy. We always play Bingo instead of doing a gift exchange. This was the first year Grace was interested in participating. She actually enjoyed marking her card and picking out prizes. She still says, "I said BINGO for this," when we use something she won as a prize. We also got to meet the newest member of the family, baby Elise.

Christmas Morning:

 It was really fun waking up at home with our girls for Christmas morning. Grace came in our room to wake us up. But still didn't really "get" Christmas morning. She wanted to know when she could see Santa. We go pretty simple on gifts since we are VERY blessed with generous grandparents. Grace and Faith got a tool bench (Grace likes to hammer my walls-so I thought it was time she had her own tools!), a set of alphabet letters for the fridge, & play dough. I opened up my first official Christmas gift from Grace jingle bells. Grace also picked out a purple ball for her sister. Jeremy & I had exchanged our gifts to each earlier because we wanted some "us" time. Jeremy totally surprised me with this awesome frame. I LOVE it!

Christmas Day:

We  headed to my grandma's house for brunch & presents. It was fun spending time with family, but different without my grandpa there. I think we all just keep waiting for him to show up. Faith got a baby doll & Grace enjoyed dressing magnetic dolls. Later in the day we went to my parents house for our "Christmas Morning." It is one of my favorite times because everyone sits around and we take turns opening presents. The girls got LOTS of really nice gifts. Grace got one of those video game bicycles from my brothers. They were quick to point out that it won educational toy of the year.

Christmas with Nana:

Jeremy's mom came to stay with us for our Christmas. It was lots of fun. Faith received her very favorite present. A  Zebra she can bounce on. She bounced on it for 20 minutes before getting off. She really loves to bounce. Grace & Nana tried out her puzzles & new dress up shoes. The girls also got a new dress up trunk to hold there expanding dress up collection. Later Jeremy, Charlene, & I watched home movies from Jeremy growing up. It was pretty entertaining.

We had a great Christmas!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This Christmas has been the most fun yet. We had lots of fun celebrating the season with family traditions. Grace really got into Christmas this year. Here are some of the fun things we have been up to.

-Grace enjoyed helping decorate our tree and hearing the different stories about her ornaments. (We give the girls one each year)

-Having family movie nights. We did a movie night & made "hot" chocolate. Grace got to try it for the first time. One night we watched the Muppets Christmas Special on TV. Jeremy loved the Muppets when he was little and Grace does too. My favorite comment, "Where did the waubi go?" She doesn't know what a comerical is, we only watch movies & the Disney channel.

-Making special homemade Christmas gifts. This year we were "green" and made reusable shopping bags for the grandmas.

-Grace was so excited about the snow. She wanted to go sledding. She also made a snow angel.

-We made a Birthday cake for Jesus. Faith checks out Baby Jesus on top.
-For the second year we made cookies for our neighbors. This year we all bundled up as a family to deliver them. It was freezing outside (literally, the temperature that night was in the teens!)
-Each year I have expanded my candy making. This year we made Tiger Butter, Peanut Butter Balls, Toffee, & Christmas "Buttons." Grace made the buttons herself.
-One night we all loaded in the car in our pj's with blankets and went to look at Christmas lights. The girls both enjoyed this. We went out to Mark Twain Cave to drive through the lights display.

-Reading LOTS of Christmas books. We have a collection of Christmas themed books we only get out at Christmas time.

I LOVED having so much family time in December. It was a lot of fun seeing both the girls enjoy some of the same things Jeremy and I did as kids. I am looking forward to having a little more time to do all these fun things next year (Since we were gone for 5 days in December this year).  And I am hoping to add some type of Advent/Countdown activity to our celebration. More on Christmas soon...