Christmas

For our Christmas Party, we had the kids make Levi a snowman. He was such a good sport and a good source of entertainment for all of us!

Santa made a surprise visit, and Vance was on his best behavior!

Ari wouldn't even look in his direction!

Sweet Cole is just happy to be here. He didn't make a peep.

Our tree

Vance opening his gift

Uncle Levi with sweet baby Cole.

Staley boy got a new trainset from us and the kids loved watching him play with it. Jimmy thoroughly enjoyed putting it together!

Opening presents, Liv's helping

Candice opening her gift

Grandpa reading a story to Liv

Levi's new hat

This year, we had our Christams party a week or so before Christmas and we all played games and ate a lot of good food, and Santa also "surprised" us all by stopping by with some presents. Christmas Eve we got together and ate some more yummy food, then we went over and let the kids open a couple of presents (which were additions to their little people nativity scenes.) Then we got in our jammies and read the story of Baby Jesus' birth. Every year Jim and I do ornaments for everyone and read a letter of the symbolic meaning of the ornament for that person. Jim did one for me this year, which was a little boy and girl sitting outside their home, and in his letter he explained that I feel like "home" to him and the kids. It was very sweet. After all that, we opened presents. For our kids, we did one spiritual gift, which was a statue of Christ, one preperation gift, which was an emergency kit, one "fun" gift, which, for the married kids was a night to Anniversary Inn, and for Levi it was a Kindle. And then one clothing gift. Jim got a razor, for those of you who aren't familiar with them, it's kind of a mix between golf cart and a four wheeler. Now he can ride it to scrape the sidewalks, yay! He quite likes it and I hope he enjoys it. He spoiled me pretty good with some sassy clothes and some very special meaningful gifts. We feel so blessed to have our family so close so we can get together for these special times. I hope you all had a Christmas as memorable as ours.