Happy Holidays!

We had a great time this Christmas. It didn't have to be that great to be better than last year when I was SO sick the whole time. But it really was great.

On the 23rd, we made some candy for our neighbors and went around delivering little bags of it with an ornament for each neighbor on our culdesac and it was way better than I even thought it would be. Most of the neighbors invited us in and wanted to visit for 20 minutes or so and our girls are quite popular now, especially with the older couples who are empty-nesters. :) It was a great experience and I'm glad we did that because we've been here for 10 months but we hadn't met most of our neighbors yet. This was the perfect opportunity.

On Christmas Eve, we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast (a new tradition we started this year and Ben voted to keep) and enjoyed reading Christmas stories and singing carols with the kids. A nice, low-key day. Ben got off at noon and got to spend most of the day with us! We drove around the neighborhood that night looking at the Christmas lights while I read the original Christmas story from Luke 2 and then we listened to Christmas songs from Trans Siberian Orchestra. I think the girls have a pretty good understanding of what Christmas is truly about and that the lights, presents, and singing are just a fun way that people have come up with to celebrate the most wonderful gift the world has received -- the birth of our Savior. It was a really special night for our family.

Christmas was a blast! Jill & Miranda didn't wake us up until 7:30!!! Yay! We did have to wake Natalie up but she was all for it when she saw the presents. Since we have a kid at the "unwrapper" stage, we can't put our presents under the tree until Christmas morning. Our kids were amazed at one of the neighbor's houses because they already had presents under their tree two days before Christmas! :) The girls all loved what they got (yay, we did good!) and then we were going to have a big pancake breakfast, then pack and go to Grandma & Grandpa Bryner's house. But since we all were excited to get going, we opted for frozen waffles and a quick pack up. We had a great drive over (thanks to new Christmas presents to play with -- DS & Leapster!) and were able to enjoy the next few days with ALL of Ben's family. We had people visiting from Georgia, Minnesota, and Nevada and it'll probably never happen again, so we took family pictures, played games and did puzzles, had a talent show, and of course there were more presents and lots of food.

Fun was had by all and the fun doesn't stop yet. We are home for two days and then we will head out on New Year's Eve to go see my family in Kansas. The driving is not my favorite but it is so nice to see family and have Ben and Jill home with us so much. We love the holidays!!!