Our Christmas!

Here is a little update on how our family spent Christmas this year. Since we have made the decision to stay at home as a family (instead of traveling to visit our extended family), we had a pretty low-key time. On Christmas Eve we went to our neighbors house for light food and a play. Carrie & I decided that this would be a good way to keep the focus on celebrating Jesus' birthday. So we selected the parts but at the last minute certain kids didn't want to be what they had been assigned to. Jameson didn't want to be a wise man and Price didn't want to be Joseph. So the dads stepped up, and due to this I will not be sharing a picture of the cast. Just imagine lots of laughs with James as a wise man in a pink robe and Jay in a sheet with a rope wrapped around his waist. Here is a picture of Tegan, who played the part of Mary with baby Jesus. We video taped the whole thing so if you're ever at our house, let me know and I'll share it with you (lots of laughing). The inn keeper asked if Joseph had his american express to pay the bill and the wise men presented gifts that were important to them (two toys and a hands free ear piece). We put a modern day twist on it! Later that night we sang happy birthday to Jesus and enjoyed some cupcakes.

Then the 3 of us headed back to our house so Jameson could get to bed. Being the curious little boy that he is, he almost couldn't stand it to go to bed without waiting up to see when Santa would be here. Throughout the night he got up a few different times, James finally just stayed in Jameson's bed so that he could keep him upstairs. At 7:02 we headed downstairs to see what was waiting for us. Quite surprisingly Jameson reached for one of the smallest gifts, a lego 4-wheeler. We kept telling him to wait just a few minutes as Uncle Greg was coming over so he needed to wait. I think he ended up opening about 3 things before Greg made it over. Then he started to tearing through the gifts. Big difference to last year, it took him almost all day last year to get through his gifts (open, play, open another, play lots more, etc). Not this year, he was through opening in about 30 minutes because he couldn't wait to see what was inside the next package. He did a pretty good job of passing out gifts for other people. He picked out things for both me & James. And he was so excited about them. James got a massage pad for his chair and I got a pink roll-up keyboard. After all of the gifts were opened from under the tree, and a few were set up, he realized that there were gifts in the stockings. He was so excited to see that Santa brought him a stuffed Mickey Mouse. Overall his favorite gift was the Wii, especially Mario kart. This has been the scene around our house on and off since Christmas morning.

The weather was amazing, it was about 70 degrees so after we had dinner, with Greg & Vince. Jameson & I took a walk. We were gone for almost an hour exploring the neighborhood. We were down by the lake picking up some trash and throwing rocks into the water. The water level is so sad to even look at, we can't even skip rocks because it is down so far. When we got back to the house, James had the whole kitchen cleaned up and then he headed outside to wash my truck.

Yesterday I got up early to get some Christmas deals. I was at walmart at 6:10 am then headed to Target, Home Depot, Kohls, Kmart & Pier One - and I was home by 9:15. All and all I was happy with my finds. I like to get wrapping paper, gift bags and that type of stuff now so that I'm ready for Christmas next year. After I got home we went through all of the Christmas things that we hadn't put up this year and cleaned out. In years past we've changed the color of our main tree. This year we decided that we really like the gold and red so we're sticking to it. We took a load to goodwill today so now we're in a good spot to take down the Christmas decorations next weekend.

We hope that you also had a wonderful Christmas and had a chance to reflect on what really matters.

One more thing, Rhonna Farrer - an awesome designer is having a giveaway on her blog. Check it out!