Merry Christmas!!!

        I love Christmas!  I have loved it since I was a little girl. The joy this season brings to my heart sings loudly within my heart.  This has been an extra special Christmas because my mom was able to fly down from Seattle to stay with us for a little over 2 weeks.  I haven't had Christmas with my mom since KK was a baby.  She has been so full of joy being here with us and getting to enjoy her 8 grandchildren.  My brother and his wife and my two nieces live right up the road so we have been able to spend lots of  time together. 
        Christmas Eve was a sweet time.  I made 2 different types of enchiladas and while we ate we read the final devotion in our advent book.  I have learned so many interesting things through the devotions we have done as we celebrated advent.  The most memorable was definitely that night.  We sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and then we talked about the reason that song was created.  We opened our Bible and went through what each of the twelve days represented.  It was so cool!  Then we opened our traditional gift of pajamas and watched the movie "Christmas Snow."  I highly recommend the movie because it was so so good.  The movie ended with Brityn in tears (I think we all cried) and Grammie and I had an opportunity to talk to her about heaven.  We talked about my step-grandpa (Grandpop) who passed away Friday night and how he is in heaven dancing with my Nana and praising Jesus.  While the death in the movie and the death of Grandpop is so sad, the reality is that they are so much better off.  What a day that will be when we get to look into the face of Jesus!  Brityn is slowly coming to really understand what Jesus did for us and how huge it really is.  She is so sensitive and full of so many questions.  We talked for a long time and prayed several times.  My mom (Grammie) read the Christmas story out of the book of Luke to all of us.  Precious memories!                                 
         Christmas morning began with sour cream twists and orange julius.  Yummy!  My mom was successful in her attempt to make gluten-free sour cream twists for me.  I definitely need to post a picture they were delicious.  We opened gifts and spent time laughing.  There was a lot of duct tape involved in the wrapping of some of the presents this year, which brought a lot of laughs with it.  Philip and Rachel and the girls came over and we opened more gifts and ate even more.  I think holidays are just a huge excuse to eat and believe me, we ate!  After getting everything picked up, we began preparations for our dinner.  The kids played with their toys and worked on setting up their Kindles.  We are truly blessed because our children love to read.  Grammie got each of the older four Kindles and they are so excited!  The younger girls played with their DS and sang in the new Karaoke machine.  I can't wait to get photos of them singing,  It makes me laugh just thinking about it.                   
          There were 24 for dinner tonight.  My mom is so fantastic and made the best turkey and ham.  Dinner was great and so fun!  We laughed and talked and enjoyed everyone's company.   It was a great day!  I am so grateful to have such an amazing family and group of friends.
         I think the best gifts that Jared and I received were the handmade cards that our children made for us.  I am going to post pictures of those also.  It isn't enough to re-write the words, you have to see them.  My sweet man got me a camera for Christmas so hopefully I can post lots of pictures.  That will be tomorrow though because it is much to late now.   More tomorrow.