A little late...but, Christmas 08

Sorry for the cheesy title. I know that I'm a little behind the times for posting Christmas pictures, but c'est la vie. We had a crazy, but awesome Christmas. We travelled a lot. First to Hutto, then back to College Station for less than 48 hours--but an important 48 hours because we had our first Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning in our own house, then up to Ft. Worth on Christmas day and then off to west Texas to Menard to spend a couple days at the "Big ranch". It was a crazy two weeks of living out of our suitcases, but it was worth it to spend all that time with our families.

We did absolutely love doing our own Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we had a service at our church, which of course was totally awesome, then we came home and got to do all of the fun stuff to prepare for Santa. We baked cookies, set out 'reindeer food' and finished a fun new tradition called "What God wants for Christmas." It is this awesome little book and kid-friendly nativity scene that I heard about through my MOPS group. It was such a blessing to us. For 7 days, you open up a little present each day and read a part of the Christmas story. The whole time, it continues to ask the kids to think about what God wants for Christmas, and then on the 7th and final day, you find a mirror in the bottom of the last present, and the story talks about how the ultimate gift God wants is you. Caleb was totally into it, and I loved the message that it sent to him.

Anyway, we had a great time. The kids LOVED their little gifts from Santa (which I'm totally convinced that 'santa' is really for adults because it is more fun being santa than just getting gifts from him) and we were blessed with many wonderful things from the rest of our family. Here are some of my favorite pictures...


1 of the 65 pictures taken in front of tree for Christmas card--but the hard work paid off!


My two favorite gifts!


Making the cookies for Santa!


What God wants for Christmas...


Setting out the cookies for Santa..but contemplating if we really want to sacrifice two whole cookies for him. :)


The long awaited castle from Santa (with 'good guys and bad guys' :)


Ellie's gift from Santa, a Cabbage Patch now named "Princess" (I don't know who is more excited about her, Ellie or Mommmy :)


Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, with some celebratory monkey bread on Christmas morning (so delicious--thank you Missy and Jan Carder for the recipe!)