Merry Belated Christmas!

Hey everyone! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We have been extremely busy the last few weeks so I will do a Christmas catch-up! We had 4 Christmas celebrations, so here is a little about each one!

Christmas #1 - Christmas at Mema's

Each year on the Saturday before Christmas we gather at my Mema's house with my family and my mom's two brother's families. We are all scattered in Scottsville, Louisville and Lexington, but this is usually the only time we all get together each year. Though this past year we were fortunate and celebrated Mema's 90th birthday party in June and most everyone was also able to come to Jamie's going away party in October. We had a great time, like always. Ella had a blast playing with her two older cousins, Sam and Bennet. This was her first experience opening presents since her birthday and after one or two presents she had the hang of it and wanted to open everyone's presents! The girls came away with new Christmas jammies for Christmas morning and lots of cute clothes and some nice toys. My cousin Jill's husband Jim is an amazing artist and graphic designer and he gave Mema a beautiful photo book he made full of pictures from her 90th birthday party. It was a wonderful present and we all enjoyed looking through it. Right after we finished opening presents we received a surprise phone call from Jamie in Tonga! Actually it wasn't a surprise to me...I happened to catch her on Facebook the night before and reminded her when we would be at Mema's...she woke up extra early just to give us a call! We all passed the phone around so everyone could say hi and Merry Christmas.

Christmas #2 - Christmas morning

The night before Christmas Ella and I continued in our tradition (which started last year) of making homemade cookies for Santa. It's a lot of work (mostly the dishes afterwards!) but we have fun using the cookie cutters and painting icing on the cookies. The funny part is that Ella has a blast with this, but doesn't care a thing about eating cookies! In fact, she paused halfway through for a snack...a slice of swiss cheese! After we were finished with cookies and Ella picked out which ones she wanted to leave for Santa, we read stories. Unfortunately Kendall had already conked out, so we only read with Ella. I read her "The Christmas Story". We had read it the past several nights and by Christmas she could "read" it to us. She especially liked saying "and suddenly an angel appeared!" and "and baby Jesus was lying in a manger" and "glory to God in the highest!" It was so cute! Then Ronnie read her "Twas the Night Before Christmas". My dad always read it to me, Jamie and Travis every Christmas Eve night. I remember one Christmas Eve when I was a senior in high school and arrived home late on Christmas Eve. Jamie and Travis had already gone to sleep but I, at 17, curled up with Dad and made him read it to me. In fact, Jamie called him from Tonga on Christmas Eve and she asked him to read it over the phone to her! :) Christmas morning didn't start out quite as we expected. I expected Ella to come flying into the living room attacking presents, but she actually woke up in a grumpy mood! She wasn't feeling well, and it took her awhile to get going, but once she did she became very excited! The present she first chose to open was her present from Aunt Jamie...Beauty and the Beast! As she ripped off the paper she said, "I think it's a movie!!" Her big Santa gift, a doll house, was actually the 3rd or 4th present she opened, but she was pretty excited about it! Kendall's big gift was a new carseat, and she also received some toys, her first Bible, a book and a few clothes. Ronnie's big gift was a new razor (thank goodness, his last one was loud enough to wake up our entire neighborhood) and I received a new jacket and some workout clothes. On Christmas morning I decided to do something I'd never done before - I made homemade cinnamon rolls, completely from scratch. They were delicious but it took FOREVER. It wasn't all that difficult, it just took so long waiting for them to rise, then doing something else to them, then waiting for them to rise some more. We didn't have "breakfast" until almost 1 p.m.! But it was definitely worth the wait!

Christmas #3 - To Mammaw's House we go!
On Christmas afternoon we headed to Glasgow to Ronnie's mom's house. Thankfully the girls were exhausted from a busy Christmas morning and slept most of the way down. We were excited to be with all of Ronnie's family and enjoyed a yummy Christmas dinner of Mexican food! Well, Pa wasn't too happy about Mexican food on Christmas, but the rest of us sure enjoyed it! We had a great time playing a new game on the Wii - Just Dance 2. If you are my friend on Facebook, please watch the video I posted of Ronnie and Rocky enthusiastically dancing. If you don't have Facebook let me know and I'll send it to you. If I can figure out how to post it on here I will. We did something new this year as far as presents go. It got pretty expensive buying for everyone in Ronnie's family so last year we drew names. This year we decided to play Dirty Santa instead with $30 gifts. We were a little skeptical about how it would go over but it went great and everyone seemed to leave with an appropriate present they were happy with! I think I got the best present, or at least the best one for me! It was a "date night" in a basket - complete with candy, popcorn, a movie, and a promise from Ross to babysit!! Sweet!! Ella had a great time opening presents, of course! She received a "Baby Alive" doll from Rocky and Rachel that came with a doctor's kit. She is a little Ronnie in the making, so she enjoyed playing doctor to her baby. Mammaw gave her a VReader, which I think is an awesome, educational tool and she has enjoyed playing with it. She also got her Dora's Backpack. As soon as she started peeling the paper away she said, "It looks like Dora!!" Tara and Daniel hooked the girls up with all kinds of stuff, cute monogrammed buckets, homemade blankets, matching outfits, and they gave Ella a Dora chest full of dress up clothes. After she opened that she had a different outfit on every time I saw her! Oh and Ronnie and I came away with some restaurant gift cards, so we need some babysitters! ;)

Christmas #4 - We're off to Grandma and Grandpa's!
Christmas night we got to mom and dad's house really late so the girls went straight to bed. When they woke up Sunday morning we did Christmas morning all over again with them. Mom and Dad had ordered the girls new monogrammed suitcases. They are soooo cute! They surprised us with a new storage ottoman for our living room, to take the place of our falling apart coffee table. We love it and it matches our couch perfectly! After church Laura, Tim, Charlie & Peyton came down and we all opened presents and stuffed ourselves silly with dinner and desserts. Ella received new accessories for her doll house and Kendall got a really cool Noah's Ark toy. We all tried to watch the movie "Inception" that night but I think Mom, Travis, Ronnie & Charlie were the only ones who finished it. Everyone else was too exhausted!

We had a wonderful Christmas and were so happy that Ronnie was off work the 24th through the 27th so we were able to spend quality time with all of our family. While we had a blast giving and opening presents, we tried to always remember the reason for celebrating. We are so thankful that God sent his son to die for our sins and that we have been saved by his grace. I know it is difficult for children to look past Santa and the presents, and we absolutely want our children to enjoy all of that, but we hope that they will always see the deeper meaning. Our biggest prayer is that, as they grow older and have a greater understanding, that they will always remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas and come to know Jesus Christ personally. We pray that you all have been blessed this Christmas season as we have! May 2011 be your best year so far!