Christmas Memories 2011

My parents finally got to live their dream of the last five years and spend Christmas morning with the grandchildren. Everyone had fun watching the kids' joy after discovering Santa's presents. The fun started on Christmas Eve with some family pictures.

Grace then got dressed in her finest for the Christmas Eve service. (She was, admittedly, a little overdressed since Archie and I were wearing jeans but oh so pretty!)

After church, we had a delicious ham dinner and the opening of presents. (In my family, all presents are exchanged on Christmas Eve. The only Christmas morning gifts are the kids' Santa presents.) Archie and Grace selected gifts for each other. Archie picked out a Dora book for Grace with my help, and Hunter helped Grace select a nice Spiderman hat and gloves set for Archie. They were proud to have their own presents to give.

Archie is into Superheros now, and Grace took a liking to his new Captain America mask. Grace's favorite presents were her Minnie Mouse set and her Dora stuff. She is the Dora kid.

More to come on other Christmas celebrations later. Hope your Christmas was great, too. Jesus is the Reason for the Season!

Christmas Joy!

What we love about pictures! Family photo fun!

What do the kids love about pictures? The blinking light on my camera timer. There is no way my kids would have wanted to take pictures this morning except...they remembered the self-timer light we used to take this family picture yesterday. (We didn't set out to dress all in red. First, Archie wanted to. Then, Hunter thought it would be cool to match him. Weird? No, father-son, cool. Grace, of course, wasn't about to be left out. I thought the whole thing was so funny I changed clothes to match.) I convinced Grace to leave her hair bow in this morning long enough to make this self-timer picture. Why will they pose for a light but not their mother?

Christmas Sillies

Archie wanted to wear a tie yesterday. Not quite sure why but he was insistent. He was equally insistent (as usual) that he wear a short sleeved shirt. He looked so ridiculously cute I let him parade around in the outfit all day. Along with the silly clothes, came a silly face pic.



Grace was also feeling a bit silly. She was excited to wear Archie's new camo pants. (I did not let her wear them all day because they're two sizes too big and I was afraid they'd fall down.)

Silent Saturday: Christmas Edition

Never Too Late to be Thankful!

So what if I'm a couple weeks late posting? I'm still thankful, are you? I'm really thankful this afternoon after the scare at Virginia Tech today. Of course, I'm terribly sad for the police officer who lost his life, but I am thankful more damage wasn't done. I paced around the house a bit this afternoon wondering what was going to happen next.

Archie's school Thanksgiving party was lots of fun! His Grandparents DeJ's joined us for the sing-along and feast. Archie's class was so precious when they sang "God Bless America."

Archie's teacher took this pic.

I snapped this one during the singing:

Grace, of course, loves any chance to go to Brother's school and was thankful for the drum!

Here is what Archie wrote in his class' Thanksgiving cookbook:

Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Kay are coming to my house on Thursday. The other people are going to have turkey, but not me. I don’t like turkey. I’ll have ham. Aunt Kay is going to cook the turkey. She doesn’t put nothing inside the turkey because it is empty. My Grandma and Grandpa live in Blacksburg like me so we will drive together to Aunt Kay’s house. They live in Blacksburg really far away so I have my slippers all packed up to go. Oliver went to Africa, but now he came back. I don’t want to go to Africa because it is too far away. On the next Thanksgiving we will have more turkey. I am thankful for drums because they can make music. I made a drum at preschool and I am going to beat on it at our Sing-a-Long and I will beat on it at Thanksgiving and on my other drum at home, it’s just a play one. Archie – (Chief Gray Elephant)

Another boy wrote that he wanted to name his new baby brother Archie. I thought that was sweet although I don't think it happened.

Santa Claus and Christmas Festivities

We had a lot of Christmas fun this afternoon beginning at four and lasting until nearly 8! Santa visited Blacksburg, followed by the lighting of the town tree, and the Christmas parade along with other festivities. We are having to make a really conscious effort with the kids to remind them every day of the real Reason for the Season so we're doing a Bible verse with our daily advent calendar.

Here's the pic I've been waiting all year to make:

Grace was scared of Santa. There was no way she was going anywhere near his lap. Mrs. Claus, however, was a lot less threatening. She is, after all, wonderful with kids.

Archie liked Mrs. Claus, too, and proudly showed her the letter he had written to Santa.

The line to see Santa was a bit long, but we enjoyed meeting this nice Elf along the way.

Before the parade, we stopped at a craft bizarre for some free hot chocolate and face painting. Both kids love getting their face painting, which is a bit surprising to me because I always avoided it.

Archie's Santa List

Archie is so excited to be going to meet Santa tonight. Even though he met Santa as a one- and two-year-old, he has no memory of it. We read the Berenstein Bears Meet Santa Bear in preparation and made a list. As you can probably guess by the spelling, Archie wrote all the words in green by himself with minimal direction from me.

Dear Santa,

I have tried to be a good boy. Please bring me Angry Birds and a pirate "shep" and a superhero car.

Lovei,

Archie