A Very Merry Christmas!

For the first time in our four years of marriage, we celebrated Christmas...at home. It turned out to be the most memorable Christmas for me as a mother, from making a Dr. Suess "green eggs & ham" (and spam) Christmas Eve dinner...giving the kids new Christmas jammies...watching "It's a Wonderful Life" 'till midnight, snuggled up together with popcorn, hot chocolate and iced sugar cookies...wrapping a gag gift five times over and having the kids take turns opening the present with oven mitts (so fun!)...and a family dance-off thanks to Just Dance 3 on the Wii!
Jeff & I had the pleasure of attending three Christmas Eve services, two by candlelight...to remember the reason we get to celebrate such a special season. Immanuel, God with us. God bless you all as we prepare to ring in a new year!

Gingerbread House

I try so hard to make the holiday season special for the kids. Perhaps TOO hard.
My attempts for Christmas 2011 include spending less money on presents so that we could give more to those in need (didn't go over so well with the kids); serving the elderly as a family (more on that later); and making a GINGERBREAD HOUSE. It's practically a rite of passage for every family at Christmastime, so I thought we'd give it a go. I mean, how hard could this be?
Well it's not hard if you're the kind of person who likes to pay attention to silly little details like INSTRUCTIONS. I didn't realize that (a) the kit didn't contain everything like I assumed; (b) the icing dries out in 30 seconds; and (c) it would take hours to make. Instead of building the house, I proposed giving each kid a slab of gingerbread to decorate with icing & candy to their heart's delight. But my husband insisted on following through with the construction.
It was a tense couple of hours with Max & Jeff trying to construct (not curse) the house...while Delaney & I poked fun at their futile attempts and captured them on camera! :) While it was a memorable time...I'm pretty confident this will NOT become a family tradition to be repeated for Christmas 2012!
Merry Christmas, everyone!!! --Catherine

A Christmas Miracle Moustache

My brother shaved his beard in honor of our family Christmas and gave us the gift of a moustache although his wife doesn't really see the Christmas miracle in it yet. There were a lot of gifts games and fun this Christmas. Delaney enjoyed her homemade American Girl doll clothes from her Grammy and Max spent the day enjoying his Origami set. Hayes was a bit of a scrooge this Christmas for reasons unknown, but all the boys enjoyed playing with the Barbie Dream Car.

One Three King

Max did a great job as one of the three kings in the Richwood's kids Christmas play.   He enjoyed learning his lines and even put on a bit of an accent.   I'm not sure what accent the real Three Wise Men had, but Max's was vaguely British.  Haye's on the other hand had trouble sitting still for the over one hour production, but was happy to find his friend Keegan was also not able to sit still so they were able to play together in the foyer.   So I was able to go back and forth...Luckily the church posted some photos to supplement what I missed.  Congrats to King Max.
~Jeff