Merry Christmas~one and all!

well merry christmas!

i hope everyone had a wonderful day full of family and friends. we had an amazing last 2 days. on christmas eve we wrapped our last presents to family, baked a little, enjoyed the crisp winter weather. we had clouds and chilly air! we attended the 5:00 family service at church. it was beautiful, the kids get to pick figurines from the nativity set and throughout the service carols are sung and as one finishes father john asks for parts of the nativity to be brought up to a table to be assembled. the kids had fun doing it. i got to see all my sunday school kids and they all gave me high 5's and big hellos. later in the service when father john is doing the thanksgiving blessing he invites EVERY child up to the alter to be with him to celebrate. there were probably 50 or more kids up there with him. he asked us all to pray for him LOL. the kids did great considering there were burning candles everywhere.

we had a great dinner at mimi's cafe and headed to shane's dad's house for gifts. my brother in law and sister in law, niece and nephew were there too. we had a great time. we kept hearing santa's jingle bells outside. shane's dad kept taking the big kids outside to investigate. finally, at 8:15 we decided if santa had made it to papa's house already then we needed to get home and get to bed!

all the kids were in bed by 8:45 and asleep by 9:15!

santa came and left an AMAZING amount of presents! the only topper to santa's gifts was the bags and bags and bags of gifts that mimi, gumpy and auntie brought over! everyone was very blessed with all their gifts.

we had wonderful dinner, honeybaked ham, green been casserole, french squash bake, scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn. we had cherry pie and peppermint candy cane pie. i am still stuffed 5 hours later!

little miss alyssa is in bed already. i gave the other kiddos a few extra hours up since everyone is so involved in their playing.

so take care and merry christmas, God bless us, everyone!

xoxoxoxo
susan