Just One More

I feel like my Christmas posts are going on forever, but since this is my way of journalling what's happening with my family, and December was a busy month, I needed to squeeze in one more and post about our wonderful Christmas Day.

I heard movement about 4:30am.  Thankfully, our sweet kiddos waiting until a little before 5:30am to wake us up.  They were excited!  We pushed brew on the coffee pot, had everyone wash their faces and brush their teeth, start the Christmas music and then met together in the living room at our appointed spots. 

Then, we stopped and had some time praying together.  It still amazes us that on Christ's birthday, He bestows many gifts upon  us.  Not just all the wrapped presents, although those were many and wonderful, but He gave us the greatest gift of all....a relationship with God.  Not only do we have eternal life in heaven, but we have a constant friend anytime of day, we have peace that only He can give, we have brothers and sisters in Christ....I really could go on and on.  It was great to pause and tell Jesus "Thank you!"  and "Happy Birthday!"

Then, we passed out all of the gifts from  under the tree.  There were a bunch!  We don't yet do the exchange the name thing between our children,  So they each have gifts for each other.  And there are gifts from Patrick and I as well.  So there are plenty!

Then, the opening begins.  I know every family does it a little different.  We start with the youngest person and they give all the gifts to people they bought.  We open them one by one starting with the youngest.  So, Callie always goes first because  the youngest is Micah and he gives the gift he bought, first, to the youngest person.  Does that make sense?  We all watch as that person opens their gift. They oooh and ahhh, maybe unwrap it and turn it on.  It takes a bit, but it's fun!  Then, Silas would be next to open from Micah.

Slingshots for our boys.  What in the world were we thinking?

We usually pop in a couple of cans of cinnamon rolls in the oven and take an eating break halfway through.  After we are done opening, it's play, play, playtime!  I love it!  We usually jump from one thing to the next and it's great fun!  

Joshua, Tabitha and the girls came over midmorning to say Merry Christmas.  Liberty asked if I could make her some hot cocoa.  Of course!  So, I was able to have hot cocoa with my grandbabies on Christmas Day.  That was such a treat and a blessing, I can't even describe it!  

Then, Josh brought over one of his gifts for all the boys to play.  They had fun together!

After lunch (we had shrimp cocktail, yum!) Callie and I made the birthday cake for Jesus.  We had been watching videos on mirror glaze cake.  We knew we wanted it to be red and green. We used this recipe for the cake and made it a yummy peppermint cake.  We used the white chocolate buttercream recipe from my Cranberry Cake, and we found this mirror glaze recipe on food network.  It was so fun!

Although the red and green ended up meshing into a brown in some places, and someone referred to it as a grinch cake, we had fun making it.  And it was yummy!!  So so so good!  I love the tradition of having birthday cake for Jesus at our Christmas meal!

Micah started building with a kit he got for a car.  And Silas started whittling with kit he got.  He was so excited about learning!

And when you learn to whittle, you usually have a slight injury.  And fingers tend to bleed pretty good!  Needless to say, he now wears gloves when he whittles!

After a wonderful afternoon of playing, we went over to Denise's house for Christmas Dinner.  She made a turkey, ham and all the fixins'  It was sooo good!

And being around the table with ones that you love is a treasure!

Then, it was more gifts!  Wow!

 We ended the evening playing a game we got for Marc called Shock Potato.  Crazy!

It really was a great day!