A Wonderful Christmas

This is the song our angels sang at our Night in Bethlehem.  We have LOVED our Sunday School lessons and songs from Faith Ink.  It is great to see our kids learning some sign language and it sure reinforces the scripture songs we learn each week.  This song brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it... especially when it is sung by a bunch of little angels and shepherds :)   God Is With Us!! Hooray!



What a wonderful celebration of Christ's birth this year.  The presents were kept to an absolute minimum (each child received a game, a deck of cards and a present from the drawing they did with their siblings).  Mary got a pair of parakeets from Mom and Dad, and Kelly received a plane ticket to Florida with Mom in February!  Our children gave us several great gifts including an Applebees gift certificate,  a couple of Lost and Found CDs, a fantastic bird feeder handmade by the Old Guy and Reuben, a beautiful lettuce bowl from Jackie, and Apples to Apples from several of the other kids :)   Kelly gave me a Joe Mauer (woot!) jersey that I will bring to Florida in hopes of getting a signature when we go to Twins Spring Training camp in March.

I sat with 12 of my 14 children in church for the Candlelight Christmas Eve service.  How absolutely great to hear again the story of God With Us!  Afterwards we went through our little town and looked at Christmas lights and planned different ways to grenade S. Claus whenever we saw him...

We spent a couple of days waiting for a blizzard that never happened (EVERYwhere else in Minnesota they got 12-24 inches... we, who really wanted to get snowed in and were glued to the sky waiting for a flake or two to fall got but an inch, two tops...)

We have had very little adopted kiddo drama... either that or I am just used to it :D  I got my bedroom clean after several weeks of being dumped in while I was sewing for the program.  The Christmas turkey (actually two of them... I used BOTH my ovens!) was deeelicious.  We played lots of games, stayed up way too late talking and laughing, ate too much junk and just had an overall great four days. 

Now it is crunch time as I want to get totally packed and ready for CANCUN by Tuesday night.  On Wednesday our dear friends the Palmers are coming and I don't want to have anything that needs doing besides eating too much junk, staying up too late talking and laughing, and playing games with the kids... Truly doesn't get much better than that... Thanks, Lord, for these happy times with nothing to do but have a relaxing good time with the people we love!