Christmas Day

After Santa presents on Christmas morning we went to church at Lamb of God in Humble.  This is the church that Papa (my dad) is a visitation pastor at.  He was preaching for the Christmas Day service so we went down to go to church with Nana and Papa.  After church we had Christmas dinner at their house and then opened presents as a family.

All this excitement is exhausting!

Gabie and Elie got a Nook for Christmas so Eliya was reading Micaiah stories.

Going to bed with her new babies - all she wanted for Christmas!

(a little later) Christmas Morning

Gabie opening her horse lamp

Eliya was so excited to get Princess Kate pawparrazi

Rachel got disney princesses (she wanted the castle....still to come)

Micaiah was SO TIRED (probably from staying up to see Santa....) but was so excited to get a baby!

(early) Christmas Morning

These pictures normally wouldn't be taken or published, but I couldn't resist this year due to the story that accompanies them.  As our kids get older it is harder to wait for them to go to bed.  They have the tradition of sleeping out by the tree on Christmas Eve which makes our "job" even harder :)   Well, this year we thought they were all asleep so Mark started by eating the cookies - well apparently Micaiah was NOT asleep because she sat straight up and started YELLING "No daddy No! Those are Santa's cookies!  Sister's wake up! (violently shaking Eliya) Daddy's eating Santa's cookies!"  Oops!  Daddy quickly apologized and said he forgot and was just hungry.  No one else woke up and within minutes she was asleep and we were able to finish the job.

Merry Christmas from K&K

Aunt Karen and Uncle Kyle sent gift cards for the girls to pick their Christmas gifts - Micaiah picked a shopping cart and used it to deliver all kinds of things all over the house!  Right now she's taking Gabie and Elie their gifts they picked out to them.

Nap Time!

One of my favorite things about teaching at the same school my kids go to is getting some extra moments with them.  My prep time on Wednesdays is during Rachel's rest time so I try to take 5 minutes of it to go lay down with her.  She almost always goes to sleep and I had to capture how sweet and precious she looks.  Hard to believe how fast she's growing up!

Micaiah's Christmas Program

Micaiah was old enough to be in the preschool Christmas program at Faith this year.

Before the program she was playing in Nana's classroom.

Then she got to lead her class in - this girl is very brave! :)

 

 

 

After her group was done she was cheering for the other classes.

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Peace on Earth!

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This song brought great comfort to me in the past few years of troubles for our family.  The truth is this world is full of trouble that sometimes threatens to drown us in our fear and sorrow - "in despair, I bowed my head, 'there is no peace on earth!' I said, 'for hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will toward men.'"  But we remember the truth, that God is Sovereign - "The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will toward men!"  We are so thankful that over 2,000 years ago God humbled Himself and came to earth for us that we might spend an eternity with Him!  May this peace that passes all human understanding guard our hearts and minds this Christmas season and always. (reference Philippians 4:7).

Christmas Goodies!

Both last weekend and this weekend we've been busy making all kinds of Christmas goodies.  Nana and Stephanie both came over to help and we had trays and plates of goodies to share with teachers, friends and neighbors.  It's a fun tradition we've had since I was a little girl and I love sharing it with my girls now.  We make our own candy and cookies as well as chex mix, ranch crackers, puppy chow, fudge, salted nut bars, and a bunch more stuff I can't even remember.  Each plate had their name made in chocolate - unfortunately Micaiah decided to eat a few names before some of the plates got covered! 

New blog!

If you are reading this then you have found our new blog!  Don't worry, the other one won't go away.  I am going to hopefully download it to cds/dvds for the girls to keep since that will probably be the only "scrapbooking" I do for them :)  But apparently blogger has rules about the number of pictures one can upload and we have officially reached that max on our other blog.  Thanks for checking out our new page!

1st Grade Chapel

The first graders at AOA lead chapel today.  We were so honored that Gabie was chosen to say the prayer!  I got a video of her prayer and her speaking part, but can't seem to upload videos right now.  They did the Christmas alphabet!

Gabie was the letter E

Christmas Program

The church Christmas program was an alphabet of the Christmas story - it was very cute!

 All 3 of the older girls were angels

 Micaiah went to check out the manger

 Singing in the program

 Trying to get a family Christmas card picture after church - didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped.

Sunday afternoon

Snuggle time! Don't think she was very happy with me for taking her picture :)

The Cuteness of Micaiah

Micaiah wasn't feeling the best, but she can still ham it up for the camera....

 Playing the piano with Mr. Snowman.

 Opening an early present to celebrate our traditional white elephant day!

Christmas on the Square

Bright and early I joined the Christmas in the Pines 5K for it's second annual run - this was my first post-surgery run last year, and I can happily say that I ran quite a bit faster this year! :) (although no where near my best 5K time).

Me, DeeDee and Ava Before....

and after.... (still smiling!)

Afterwards we took the girls (including a friend who spend the night) to Christmas on the square.  This was so cute - when the guy asked who ordered a funnel cake the girls raised their hands :)

Face painting

Gabie writing her letter to Santa

Watching kareoke

And participating

Micaiah singing along with Gabie was a hoot - although I don't think Gabie appreciated it too much