December 30, 2011

First Snow of the Season!

Can you believe it? We didn't get our first snow until December 30th!

December 25, 2011

Christmas 2011

What a wonderful Christmas!

Jenny & Matt, and Jamie, Ryan, Sierra & Brooklynn and Dave & I went to church together. I think that it is so important to celebrate Jesus' birthday before we celebrate the other Christmas stuff. (Priorities) It just warms my heart to be in church with my kids. I feel like a unified force telling Jesus that we ALL love him and that we acknowledge that He also is a member of the family.

After church we all came out to our house. Everyone brought snacky food and everyone ate and ate and ate. Chips, dip, veggies, more dip, cheese sticks, more dip, meatballs, little weinners, cookies, candy, and more.

We did something different this year. Jason, Bekki & Farrah are in Colorado so they joined us while we opened presents via Skype. I set up my newest webcam on top of our large TV. It felt as though they were in the same room as we were. Cool! (gotta love technology)

Everyone slept over. I just thought of some thing funny. This was the first time that Matt has slept in our house. He and Jenny are married this year.....

We all slept in until 7:30/8:00 and then checked out all the Christmas stockings. I had previously said that I wasn't stuffing stockings anymore... (no one spent the night last yr so all the stocking stuffings were sent home as a gift.... which kind of defeated the purpose) But! When I heard that everyone was staying over night this year I bought stuffers. I sooo enjoyed it. It FELT normal.... like Christmas.

We also did something else different this year. We drew names instead of buying for everyone. That was different! I didn't think that I would like it. It felt strange not buying all our kids Christmas presents.... but it turned out okay. (My bank account likes this idea) Filling the Christmas stockings helped make Christmas feel more normal. (BTW, the little ones got gifts from everyone)

Another thing that made Christmas seem abnormal was that we didn't have any snow this year, a brown Christmas.  Now that's something that doesn't happen very often in Kindred, North Dakota. I'm not complaining! I love it. It's warm outside and the dry roads make driving my school bus really easy!

Dave made eggs benedit (sp?) for everyone Christmas morning. That's always a hit.

Everyone gathered their things together and went home about 11:00 AM. We got the house back to normal and Dave put a prime rib in the oven. Mom came out for a quiet dinner. We also had some of the lefse that I made the other day. We read the Sunday paper, ate dinner, and Skyped with Jason & Bekki so that Mom could see Farrah. (First time for her to see this great grandchild)

It was a wonderful Christmas.... family, good weather, good food and a Savior. Happy Birthday, Jesus!