We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Ben's family and had a great time. We played games, many of which being the kids games they got for Christmas, watched movies (including going to see Sherlock Holmes, which was awesome!!), and ate lots of yummy food. On Christmas Eve we had our traditional Advent celebration of reading the Christmas story in Luke 2 and singing lots of Christmas hymns. The kids attempted to follow along with the story by acting it out with a nativity set... I think the most successful part of that was the hee-hawing sound effects of the donkey.
Just as we finished up Advent, Santa Clause showed up! (We had to tell Becca that it was really just daddy dressing up to be funny, so she wouldn't be so scared... still, she refused to sit on his lap).
My mother-in-law made the most amazing Christmas dinner, which included three types of puddings - a savory butternut squash and sun dried tomato pudding, Yorkshire pudding, and an egg nog bread pudding to die for - all accompanied by a delicious Christmas roast. It was quite the festive feast!
For Christmas, the girls got matching bedding and cute little pink chairs from Ben's parents. We have matching twin beds ready to use for Emma and Becca, but now we just need mattresses to go with them. I hope to get that all put together in another month or two, at which point I'll be sure to post pics of their newly decorated bedroom. Santa got Jake curtains for his bedroom (because he doesn't know any better yet, so good ol' Santa went with practical, yet fun for me!), and Ben surprised me and got our botanical prints framed. We've had these prints for over 4 years with the intent of framing them for our master bedroom, but the project got put on the wayside, till now. It's so nice to finally have some pictures hung up in our room, since it's literally been the only room in the house without any.
Other presents included plenty of great clothes for all of us, a trunk we got the girls for all their dress up clothes, games, some jewelry for Emma, Beatles Rock Band from the Lee's to us (which we've already played quite a bit), puzzles, new crayons, books, and other little fun odds and ends to keep the kids busy for quite some time... at least hopefully through January. :)
We played an intense game of Operation...
I spent much of the day after Christmas sorting through all the Christmas loot and finding places for it all in the house, while also purging old toys... luckily the girls didn't see me throwing anything out because they were still too busy enjoying their presents and being silly...
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Here's to a happy New Year!
Nice photo album, I especially love the family photo at the end, out of Courier and Ives.
ReplyDeleteLots of love and generosity this year.
ReplyDeleteWhere on earth did Ben get a Santa suit from?!
looks like so much fun! Wow your mother in law seems to do tons of fun stuff with the grand kids. The dinner sounded awesome, and I can't believe how big your little boy is getting. Looks like you had an awesome Christmas
ReplyDeleteI just have to say, little Jake is so incredibly cute!!!!
ReplyDelete