We had a great Christmas/Christmas season and hope you did too!!!! We started the Sat after Thanksgiving by putting up our Christmas tree (oh and of course listening to Christmas music which is pretty much on constantly thanks to my Pandora Christmas stations!). We have started giving the kids an ornament each year so you can see Micah is really excited about his motorcycle! (he also got a train and a hot dog ornament from his grandparents/aunt). Our tree leaves a bit to be desired but that is ok as neither Corey not I are overly picky about it. I was just happy to have one up this year!!! We are still in the phase of trying to figure out our own family traditions as the kids are young. The biggest thing we wanted to emphasize is that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birthday and when God came to earth. We did that through reading the Christmas story lots and learning new Christmas songs (Micah knows Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Angels we have heard on high), watching Christmas movies of Jesus' birth, and you have already seen in my previous post how much fun Micah had "playing nativity". We also did our version of a Jesse Tree for advent by reading and talking about scripture each day and hanging a corresponding ornament on the tree. (FYI The Jesse Tree represents the family tree, or genealogy of Jesus Christ. It tells the story of God's salvation plan, beginning with creation
and continuing through the Old Testament, to the coming of the Messiah.
The name comes from Isaiah 11:1, "Then a shoot will spring from the
stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.").
We know of course kids are excited about getting gifts at Christmas so we really tried hard to help Micah be excited about GIVING gifts and be excited about Jesus being born.
(This is the Jesse Tree Ornament that represented the first day of Advent and Genesis 1-God creating the world)
Corey always has quite an interesting design
Nancy's Birthday is right before Christmas so they were all over for dessert to celebrate!
Jori came down the Friday before Christmas and stayed thru Christmas Eve. We had so much fun with her. She is AWESOME with the kids and they love her and I loved having her around!
Christmas celebration with my dad's side at our place the Sunday before Christmas!
GiGi and Grandad
We will be celebrating Adelyn's birthday when we do Micah's in Feb (she won't know the difference this year) however we still wanted to do something special for her. I think she was perfectly happy with her chocolate cupcake, birthday balloon, and her present (Scout).
Christmas Eve day we went to Corey's parents and celebrated with his mom's side of the family.
Christmas Eve we had a candlelight service at chruch. Look at how handsome my boy looks (notice the tie--he was not a fan but I told him I bet Corey would wear one if he did and that worked) and how beautiful my girl looks (Corey maybe thought the dress was a bit much but I thought she looked adorable plus its not like she will always let me dress her like that!)
Christmas Morning we read the Bible account of Jesus birth, sang a christmas carol and sang happy birthday to Jesus (along with yet another cupcake) and opened gifts. Micah had picked out gifts for daddy (a MSU gnome) and Adelyn ( a puzzle) so he had fun giving those and of course had fun opening more gifts as well.
Late afternoon on Christmas Day we celebrated up at Gull Lake with my mom and everyone.
So thankful for such a wonderful Christmas Celebration!!!!!!!!!!
