Taylor in her new princess outfit. As many of you know, Taylor is not one to get dressed up in dresses very often, but she was excited to put on her new princess dress, shoes, tiara, earrings, bracelets, ring, and necklace. She makes a very beautiful princess.
Every year, (well every year since last year) we have a family tradition where we all get new “Christmas” pajamas. We open our pajamas on Christmas Eve after we eat dinner and put them on and take a family photo in front of the Christmas tree. Who doesn’t love to get new pajamas? I especially like to get the kids matching pajamas, so much fun. This year I managed to find matching penguin pajamas for Taylor, Christian, Luke, and Scott. After we took the family photo, Scott read from the kids’ new Children’s Story Bible about the birth of Jesus. We are so blessed with what the Lord continues do for us and our family. Tonight as we were eating dinner I just kept looking at my 3 very beautiful and healthy children and felt so blessed and loved. My thoughts and prayers are with all of our friends and family on this Christmas Eve. God Bless!
On Saturday my good friend LeAnna and I ran a 6.1 mile Christmas Run. Her husband and cousin ran as well. We got all dressed up for the event. I wore a Santa hat, some trinkets that looked like Christmas lights, bows safety pinned to our clothing and I wore bows in my hair. LeAnna decided to be festive by wearing a red cap with reindeer antlers complete with pigtails. She wore bows on her clothing and ornaments. Oh, and I almost forgot, we wore knee high Christmas socks as leg warmers (picture will be posted soon). Now before I got to the race I thought I was fairly dressed up, but when I got there I realized there were far more runners who put much more time and effort into their costumes. It never ceases to amaze me how elaborate some people’s costumes are for this event. I saw a man sitting in a big steel cart wearing a Santa hat and another younger man pulling this cart while he ran, now this particular race has an almost 2 mile long hill, as I saw this young man at the beginning of the race I couldn’t help but wonder how he was going to manage towing this big cart up a long, relatively steep hill? I saw another group of people (maybe 8 all together) all tied together with rope dressed up like reindeer and pulling a wagon full of presents. There were others dressed as Christmas trees, gift bags, etc. It was fun, I had a good race as I finished in about 51 minutes. LeAnna and I ran this same race 2 years ago and the race did not go as smoothly for me then. I had not trained much (if at all) and struggled with the hill, but I still had fun. We did not run last year due to having babies, but we have decided from now on to make running the Christmas run an annual event.
Last night we received our 2nd delivery of Christmas gifts for the day. The second delivery was that of one very huge box complete with packing peanuts–loads of fun for very two active and excited kids. Taylor and Christian with much excitement proceeded to take all of the gifts out of the big box, run down the hall to the family room where the Christmas Tree is and in an orderly fashion place the gifts underneath the tree. You see they are skilled at this task by this time as they had done this task just hours before. Christian was so excited and working so hard that his breathing became a bit labored. I don’t know if it was from all the gifts he was carrying back and forth, or from trying to navigate his way down a hallway littered with toys, or from the prospect that at the end of all his hard work he would be able to play in that very gigantic box complete with packing peanuts! Not to my surprise, once the job at hand was completed, Christian went down the hall back to the front door one last time and halled that very big box into the family room where we found him inside (how he got inside we do not know–except for Taylor’s confession of pushing him into the box). Taylor then asked for help inside the box where they spent a good 20 minutes in pure bliss! I remember those days as a child myself, the excitement of playing inside the box the gifts came in! My parents often mused that they could have saved a lot of money by simply purchasing a plain old Big Brown Box.
The making of the “Gingerbread Man House” as the kids like to call it. They had a blast making this, or shall I say, eating all the goodies that was supposed to go on the house. They were far more interested in eating all the candies than actually making the house. As you can see by the picture it is not quite finished. We only have the windows shown, the entire backside of the house is windowless as Christian decided he would rather eat the windows…oh well! Mom and Dad had fun making the house as well and were thankful the supplies ran out….how long can 2 adults really decorate a Gingerbread house with 3 kids–4 years old and under and stay sane? I ask you and am here to tell you about 20 minutes or until the candy runs out…whichever comes first…and in our case…the candy ran out. So we are proud to display our half finished “Gingerbread Man House”, besides it is not about the house as it is about making memories!
Hello Everyone! Well, I think I may have figured out how to set up a blog. It will be fun to keep you all updated on what’s going on with us and the kids and keep you updated with new pictures, etc. That’s all for now….later.
