I feel like we have been running around crazy since before Thanksgiving! But today, the madness has totally come to a stop and it is just the 4 of us and we are lounging around in comfy clothes enjoying the day together. I miss my family something fierce this time of year, and I face-timed into their Christmas Eve party last night, but this is the first Christmas that I feel content and good about where we are and how we've spent it - a very big answer to prayer. I have not felt content about living in Wichita for, I don't know, the past 5.5 years, especially around the holidays and birthdays and anytime our families are getting together without us. But for right now, I feel alright, and that's saying something. I can't promise what tomorrow will be like, but I'll take today.
The kids have made some awesome ornaments this year at school, Willow made this really pretty red and gold one with her hand print on the bottom.
Jayden's snow globe ornament is one of favs! I'm thinking grandparents might be getting something like this next year!
We started our Christmas celebrations by spending last weekend up in Kansas City with our friends who just moved there, Kerri and Beau and their two kids Kyle and Briley. They invited our family to be a part of their family's Christmas party. I was a little nervous at first that I would feel like I was crashing in on someone else's tradition, but they welcomed us right in and we had so much fun with their family. Royal even got volunteered to participate in a Reindeer Game - vaseline on his nose, then he had to move cotton balls from one bowl to another without using his hands. It was hilarious!
It snowed while we were up in Kansas City, so when we got home, we had lots of work to do to get ready for our own Christmas celebrations, and while the kids helped make Chex Mix and chocolate covered pretzels, they spent most of their time outside playing in the snow which made it much easier for me to cook and clean the house! Until they came in covered in snow, asking for hot chocolate and dragging snow all over my clean floor.....
Christmas Eve morning, the kids were at each others throats something fierce, so I sat them down and gave them a craft to do. Pinning sequences on styrofoam balls to make ornaments. It lasted for about 20 minutes, but I'll take 20 minutes...
We went to church that evening and then afterwards, we had a bunch of our friends over to our house for dinner and Christmas songs and the kids pretty much played in the snow in the dark and jumped off the swings into piles of snow. Everyone eventually left, the kids put on their Christmas jammies and I finished gluing eyes onto the knitted creatures my kids picked out for me to make - a squid for Jayden and an owl for Willow, while I face timed into my family's crazy Christmas party back in Washington. They were so loud, I had to call 3 different phones before someone finally heard me and answered the phone!
The kids were asleep fast and Christmas morning came way faster! We spent the morning opening presents and taking pictures and sending them to the people who gave them the gifts. This is how Sam spent the morning...
Pretty sure he'd crawl into the fire if he could.
And then we went outside to try out some presents.
It was a fun Christmas and I am enjoying the low-keyness that is going on in the house right now!
After dinner, we made a birthday cake (mint chocolate chip ice cream cake) for Jesus and sang Happy Birthday!
And we are now sitting down to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol because for me it's just not Christmas without it. (Well really I grew up watching it on Christmas Eve, but better late than never!)
