Saturday, December 29, 2012

Christmas Morning ~ 2012

I woke up while it was still dark on Christmas morning (not a usual occurrence in our family ~ the children tend to sleep in since they are up late playing with their new stuff from the night before!) to take our second daughter H to spend some time with her first family.  She made a beautiful picture memory book for her family (with the help of Snapfish)  and was thrilled to present it to her mom.

 

Her mom gave her a tablet!!  Oh joy!


I got home to find all five of our children putting the finishing touches on the Lego Battle of Helm's Deep, and then playing with it!  Gotta love legos! 



 Then we opened stockings together....


 ...book of rocks and minerals for his collection....


....new stocking cap!


....spring loaded capo!


We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for brunch, and had a wonderful time!


Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas Eve ~ 2012

Our family Christmas worship time began with Bible reading ~ we read the entire story of Christ being promised in the Old Testament, to His eventual birth as recorded in the New Testament.  Three of the children helped with the reading, each with different parts.  Son G read the angel parts, son L read the part about Simeon, and daughter G read all the Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna parts.  Hubby was the "narrator."  This is a treasured time that I always look forward to each year.

 
 

After a time of prayer, we got ready to open gifts, when suddenly we had a visit from St. Nick himself!!  St. Nick was tickled just about as pink as his bag to be able to surprise the family with his appearance. :-)


Our second daughter H fit into the "flow" of our family time extremely well.  I had prayed (and many others had prayed) that this would be so, and God answered abundantly!


I was thrilled to receive camping/Grand Canyon themed stickers and paper, plus an album, to scrapbook our road trip this past summer!

 


Showing off my new cross earrings from second daughter H.  You can't see them very well, but they are very pretty!


Movies for dad from daughter G!


The always-wonderful lego sets!


This big one, The Battle for Helm's Deep, was for two boys.  The lego figures of Frodo and Sam are soooooo cute!!  And somehow those amazing lego makers managed to make the little plastic figure of Aragorn handsome!


Snowboard!


Madden 13!


Son L, building a small lego set from his brother while listening to his new mp3 player clipped to his shirt pocket.  He has hardly had those earbuds out of his ears since he got them.  Glad I sprung for a more expensive, more comfortable set!  We loaded music from the WOW 2013 cd's onto his mp3 player so it was ready to go.  This boy loves his music!


I managed to pull off another fun technology surprise for my hubby.  I had secretly bought him a blu-ray player about a month ago, and on Christmas Eve I hid it in the family room.  During the gift exchange he unwrapped the Star Wars complete set on blu-ray, but didn't notice that they were blu-ray.  He thought they were dvd's.  So I leaned over, pointed to the words "blu ray" on the top of the boxes, and said in a disappointed voice, "Oh no!  I must've bought the wrong ones!  I'll have to take these back and get dvd's."  To which hubby jokingly replied, "I just thought this meant you had gotten me a blu-ray player."  To which *I* replied, "actually.....I did!" and pulled it out for him.  The look on his face was priceless!!!  Soooo fun to surprise him.  He never buys new gadgets for himself, but deserves them (and so much more).  Love doing stuff like that!

Lord, thank you so much for the blessing of my family.  And thank you for the joy of giving them gifts.  And thank you for the best gift any of us could ever receive, which you gave to us when Jesus was born. 

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Jesus Came...

...to save us from our sin, heal our wounded hearts, and make us able to receive His love and give it freely to others....



Thank you, Jesus, for the work of Christmas you perform in us.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Go Navy, Beat Army!!!

These pics are two weeks old, but too good not to share!  As "required" by my die-hard Navy fan husband, our entire family watched the game ~ with faces painted, blue and gold clothing worn, and pushups done each time Navy scored.  They eked out yet another victory ~ I think that is ten years in a row.  It was an excruciating loss for Army, but we didn't feel too bad for them. :-)


 







Friday, December 21, 2012

Happy 8th Birthday Little Man!

Well, I do not know where the time has gone, but our Little Man turned 8 today.  In light of the events in Connecticut last weekend, it was such a joy for me to be able to hold my boy and celebrate another birthday with him.  I was filled with unspeakable gratitude all throughout the day as I watched him play and build.

We went to a lego exhibit, where there was a large area filled with tubs of legos for children to build city structures.  The boys happily built for about 2 hours (and the 15 year old daughter even built something too!).  :-)



Putting the tippy top spire on....


 Ta-da!  The tallest skyscraper there!






On this outing we celebrated the milestone of turning 8 by having Little Man sit in the regular seat of the car instead of in his booster.  WOW.

Back home, it was Little Man's choice for dinner, and he chose waffles.  After that he opened his gifts..... he had been desperately wanting a remote control helicopter, and was so happy when he got it!


Oh joy!


Some hex bugs from his sister, a Jenga game from his WA grandparents, and some cash from his other grandparents.... made for one happy boy.



A lego brick for a cake.



Happy Birthday sweet Little Man!  How we thank God for you!