Tuesday, December 27, 2011

christmas eve and christmas day 2011

This post will not be full of pictures, we did not take many.  It is hard to decide when to take pictures and when to just participate and fully engage in what is going on.  Rusty used to LOVE photography but he is burned out so now it is more me than him!  Back to Christmas...

We took it easy most of the day.  We went to a Christmas Eve service with Rusty's mom and his brother and his family (they were staying here with us).  And I might add that I loved it, the company!  Growing up there was always a crowd at Christmas and people sleeping on the floor (the kids anyway) and we did that here.  Truly my fondest memories revolved around cousins!  We had take out Chinese that night and then the adults watched The Nativity Story, we love that movie.  We went to bed entirely too late (like after 2am).  We got up Christmas morning and the kids opened their stockings and then we headed to church for an awesome service by Pastor Scotty Smith.  We came home, opened gifts, ate and then napped (the adults and Hope and Benjamin did).  We got up and went to my brothers and saw my parents, ate again and opened some more gifts. 

Rusty's mom made all the girls dresses... so cute but I do not have a picture of them in the dresses, so sad.  And the dress that Hope wore Christmas Eve... ADORABLE... a friend made it, I will have to get a picture of Hope in it soon.

Hope and Benjamin had fun all around.  Their favorite thing was having Allison, their cousin, spend the night... benjamin even asked today if we were going to Alli's house today.  He did not get enough of her!

Hope could take or leave presents.  She does have a new Cozy Coup that she LOVES, thanks P & A!  Benjamin wanted to know "where is my one more present"??  He caught on quickly!  I would say his favorite gift was a microphone, go figure (as if he isn't already LOUD enough)!

A good first Christmas for H & B being with us.  Not real sure what I expected but it was good!  Emotional at times.

The kids opened their gifts from MaSue Christmas Eve night...

Sunday, Christmas morning, we had to wake all of the kids up at 7:30!  Had to leave for church at 8:15!

After church...

No family pic:(

And upon noticing my gift from Andrew tonight, I had to take a picture and post it... this boy was SUPER excited to give this to me.  I love him!
Guess what it is????


Air Freshener!  He gathered some shell form a past trip to FL, put them in a pickle jar, poured in a bottle of air freshener, diluted it with water and then somehow attached a pump to the lid.  This kid cracks me up!  We had lots of handmade or hand altered gifts here this year but this wins the prize!

1 comment:

Greg and Donna said...

Awesome gift from your son! He is definitely creative. Love seeing pics of Stephanie's kids since I know them!