What a blessed Christmas season our family had! Before I get to the week of Christmas, let me catch up on earlier Christmas festivities. On Wednesday the 15th, I took the boys out to meet Graham at work and then to meet Santa at the mall. Nicholas really understands exactly how the whole Santa thing works this year. Especially since Buddy the Elf has been here for quite a while. Every morning Nick can't wait to get up and find where Buddy is hiding after his trip to the North Pole while he was sleeping. So he was so excited when I told him that Santa had come down from the North Pole and was going to be at the mall so we could go see him and get our pictures taken. Nick did great and sat right on his lap and told him that he wanted a Transformer, Skyfire (he made up this name) for Christmas. Nolan on the other hand was quite afraid of Santa and screamed anytime Santa looked at him. We did manage to get one good picture though and that's all I wanted!
Then on Friday was Nick's Christmas Program at school. Unfortunately there was an ice day on the day of the performance so it had to be rescheduled for Friday, Nolan's birthday. This made for a busy day for me with the doctor's appointment and then the program but thankfully I made it to both! Nicholas did such a wonderful job singing his songs and doing all of the hand motions! He had been singing the songs at home for the last month so I knew he knew them well. How he loves to sing and perform! In fact, he did so well that he didn't even notice when the little girl standing right beside him threw up everywhere! But of course that couldn't stop the show and the rest of the children did great. I'm so thankful that Graham got to come for it too on his lunch break!
After our birthday celebrations that weekend for both Nolan and Ashley, the Hensley's arrived into town on Monday. We spent much of the week hanging out with the entire family and enjoying lots of family dinners. After 2 nights out at restaurants, I was exhausted from the work that takes with the kids so Wednesday night I made dinner for everyone at our house--Tamale Casserole and Margaritas what fun! On Wednesday, Graham and Kristin and I took the boys to a new kids bouncey place called Catch Air right near our house. This place was awesome for both boys to play at! I will be spending lots of days here now that I've discovered it! On Thursday night, Papa treated us all to dinner at the club. This would have been lovely except that when we arrived there Nicholas started to complain about his tummy hurting. I spent the entire dinner taking him back and forth to the bathroom until he finally puked by the dinner table. We quickly left to go home. He got sick one more time at home and that was it. Very bizarre.
For Christmas eve we all attended the "Family" service at church. I have to say that it was kind of odd, I guess it was geared toward a bit older kids. I think it missed the mark and didn't appeal to either the boys or the adults. But the music was sweet and we all enjoyed singing Silent Night at the end with our glow sticks. We then came back to our house and had another yummy dinner and everyone enjoyed playing with the boys. The boys opened their Christmas PJ's and then we read the Christmas story from the Bible and it was bedtime. Santa got busy at work once the boys were in bed and we even had some help from Kristin. Christmas morning Nicholas did a great job of coming into our room first and waiting until Nolan woke up. The boys had fun playing with the toys from Santa and their stockings until the rest of the family came over a little bit later. We had a wonderful morning of gift giving and enjoyed a big Christmas breakfast. Around noon the snow started falling! This was the first time we've ever had snow on Christmas! We went over to Mimi and PopPop's house that afternoon for a delicious Christmas dinner. We got quite a lot of snow and the next day had to postpone our Christmas with the Garrison side of the family because of concern for ice on the roads.
This week I've enjoyed a relaxing week of having Graham at home. It's been so nice having him around for 2 weeks to do special things and also just to have fun and relax at home. We even got to enjoy some time just the two of us as the boys stayed 2 nights at Mimi and PopPop's house. We had a great date night and spent the rest of the time doing much needed projects around the house that never can get done with little ones at your feet.
It was such a special Christmas and I am so thankful for all of God's blessings in our lives. Most of all I am thankful for the gift of Christ--for his life and his sacrifice for me, and for this wonderful season to celebrate Him with the ones I love! It is also such a joy to share this with the boys and each year see them learn and understand more and more about Christ.
We are so thankful to God for all of the blessings of 2010 and look forward to a wonderful 2011. God is SOO good!
No comments:
Post a Comment