Humbling...

As I prayed for bedtime with Calla and Amelia last night, I asked God to help us remember the reason we open gifts and have a celebration at all. I prayed we would "remember" Jesus and His gift to us.
When I kissed Calla goodnight, she said she already knew that Jesus was born. She already knew that he was sent to die for our sins. Why did I pray that we would remember? I tried to tell her that sometimes we forget on Christmas morning that Jesus is the reason for Christmas. There is so much going on. SHe told me, in her childlike innocence, that she "never forgets Jesus!"
Oh! that this would be true in all of us and in her life in years to come.
Merry Christmas to my blog friends. May God be glorified in our hustle and in our quiet moments. Praise Him for our most precious gift. His Son sent to die that we might be saved.

Christmas morning...

We hang the girls stockings on their beds before they wake up Christmas morning. We spend our first waking minutes in their room digging through the stockings. Amelia was so excited at each new thing she pulled out. I think her favorite was the Tigger PEZ dispenser. She also wanted every thing opened to play with or try on. Calla loves her stocking. She was so ready the night before that I went into her room and she was already tucked into her bed waiting. Bubble bath, matchbox cars, PEZ, dress-up jewelry. Stockings are fun. Now onto the tree...

New markers.Notice the Tigger behind her. She didn't let it out of her sight!
The girls' big gift this year was a dollhouse. Lots of little pieces, as we soon found out. A mom, a dad, and twin babies. It is all sprawled out on the living room floor and they are loving it. Now we get to practice cooperative play...

A rare thing...

Calla wanted to take a picture of us after she got her new pajamas on. It turned out pretty well. A picture of Cory and I alone is such a rare thing.

Christmas Eve...

We let the girls open a new pair of jammies on Christmas Eve every year.

This year they got horsie nightgowns. So pretty and soft. Off to bed for the hardest night to fall asleep. Good thing we had a church service and the Great-grandparents family gathering to fill up our evening and wear us out.

The steam train...

Ok. Here was the hype for this event. The "Santa Train" is coming to town for one morning only. Every major ticker in town told times. The local paper did a big two page write-up. The steam train. Fully restored from 1912. (Also the year our house was built, FYI) Hasn't been a steam train in town for 64 years. Be one of the first 400 kids in line and see Santa, get a free picture, and a goodie bag. 8:00. In the morning?! We got there at 8:15. The line apparently had begun to form at 7 a.m. We were about 200 people past the first 400. We stood in line for about an hour in the 23 degrees. Met some friends who also showed up too late. Took some pictures of the "great train." Took our frozen children, with their frozen toes and frozen fingers, to McDonald's playland. We saw the train and we get McDonald's breakfast. All is well.

What do you do with lots of snow?...

Since our first few snowflurries fell a couple weeks ago, Calla has been asking to go sledding. Last week, we had a consitant snowfall several days in a row. This week, the weather was sunny and in the lower 30's. Warm, by our accounts! Cory took the day off on Wednesday, and we took the girls sledding in the morning. I actually took a few trips down the hills as well. No pictures or video though.

This was Calla braving "the jump" by herself. She loves sledding. We had a great morning.

Sledding...

This is Amelia's first trip down "Cardboard Hill." She wasn't too scared, but didn't want to go down again. Her snow adventures are usually contained in our front yard. Even then, she mostly stands around and eats the snow. On the second, and last, trip down the hill, I pushed her too close to Calla and Cory. She missed Calla, but Cory had to jump over top of her sled to miss getting pummeled. That sent Amelia over a small jump and onto her face. That was the end of her sledding adventure.

This is the hill closer to our house that Cory dubbed "Hospital Hill." I told him he might want a different name, but it has stuck. Cory and Calla spent the evening before sledding down this hill for a few hours. Neil, and Abby and Zach were with them. Grandma and Grandpa even stopped by for some sledding fun.

We got Amelia to go down with Cory once. Then she was done for the day. Calla and Cory liked going down and hitting the jump. All in all, we had a fun morning.

The last video is of Cory trying to "board" down the hill. Always a kid at heart.