Christmas {Kendall's Family}

After Druber's and Santa, we drove to El Dorado for our Christmas day there.

I love holidays when we can spend all day with my parents, sister, and brother and his family. It's so fun! (And getting to be quite a crowd!)

My new nephew Elias (who is 2 months old and 17 lbs!!!!)

Lily and Asher played well together, finding random places to hide and get into things...(they were discovering Grandma's purse)

Oliver and Addilyn had tons of fun on the computer and making crafts. Weirdly, my mom was the one who led this activity. (She's NOT the craft-lover in the family)

Asher gave his dad a piggy-back ride

Opening gifts

(*sigh*, and yes, my brother ALWAYS looks scary in photos...)

Courtney's new hat

Cousin's picture in their new pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa

That evening, we went to my parent's Christmas Eve service at their church. I even got to play an Andrew Peterson song with Jim and Evan! (for all you Grace people) Definitely a highlight of my month!!!

Christmas Morning, we woke up and opened stockings and had a delicious brunch together.

Then, we left again for our Indiana Christmas. (and the promise of snow!)

All of us--we're 12 people now!!! What a FUN time we had!!!

Lily Turns 2!!!

Lily is TWO today. And wow, is she the spunkiest thing we've ever met!

People always told us boys and girls were different...and I'm sure they are. But Lily is just as active, ornery and loud as Oliver! Here are few differences we've noticed:

*Lily LOVES baby dolls
*Lily loves to look at the 'people' pages in books (as opposed to the trucks)
*Lily has slightly longer hair
*We dress Lily much cuter.
*Already, I fear for the day she turns 13.
Seriously, though, she is such a sweet gift.
I hope I always remember:

*The way she asks, "Wuh-eye??" (why?)
*How she grabs my hand and says, "Tum, mommy!" (Come, Mommy!)
*The way she cuddles when she first wakes up
*The sound of her calling "Ah-bee!" (Ollie!) while
she and Oliver are supposed to be going to sleep.
*The way she scrunches up her eyes to look mad. And she's added stomping, too.
*The fact that she yells, "No fair!" when she doesn't like something
*How she often replies, "No!" to Ollie's pleas for forgiveness
*That she and Ollie love to dance to music...while dressed up in costumes
*The sweet way she runs to Daddy when he comes home.
*How she pats my back when I'm holding her, as if SHE'S comforting ME.
Lily--you are SO special to us!!!
Happy 2nd Birthday!

Christmas {Our Family}

We have yet to create our 'official family Christmas traditions'. That may come. For THIS year, we decided to open gifts Thursday evening (since we'd be leaving town Friday).

After supper, we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 while the kids used our Little People Nativity set to act it out.

Then we opened gifts! I could HARDLY wait to give Oliver his Legos. This particular set was a city set with a trash man (among other things) and he had just been building a city with trash men with his old legos!!! Now he had the official "Big Boy Legos" and wow was he excited.

Oh, and the absolute cutest thing: with every gift he opened, he'd yell, "THANK YOU!!!!" with this gigantic grin on his face.

Lily got things to go with her dolls--bottles, diapers (which she is constantly trying to throw away because they're "dirty"), and a stroller. She is SO into babies.

After the presents (and a surprise visit from friends!) we bundled up, got our hot cocoa, and headed out to look at Christmas lights. As usual, the most exciting (read 'gaudy') house is 2 blocks from our house. So we start with that one, and then end with it. Very exciting stuff.

Christmas Eve morning, we opened stocking gifts, and then headed to Drubers for our yearly donut and Santa visit. Ollie was less scared and there was no crying involved--although we almost fell over when he simply requested a 'glazed donut' and then barely ate that. He was pretty nervous about going to see Santa. Poor guy. (For those of you who don't know, Oliver usually eats a giant nut roll by himself--seriously, those things are about that size of my head.)
Lily wasn't so thrilled with Santa yet.




Then, we headed to El Dorado for our Johnson Family Christmas...

Christmas {the week before}

Oliver was SO into wrapping gifts this year. He spent two days finding gifts, wrapping, taping, cutting, tying, and sticking gifts under the tree. He was so proud!!

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

I'll start with the bad:

While we were in Indiana, Lily suddenly showed up covered in my makeup. Concealer, to be exact.
It was all over her face, fingers, and my makeup bag...

The good news?

She put it all away (including the mineral powder foundation she also found), screwed all the lids on, and stuck them back into my makeup bag.

Apparently, she's seen that stuff used a time or two...

For the New Year...

I am planning to read through the Bible in a year. I've done this twice and so far, has been one of the most amazing things I've ever done to grow spiritually. It's crazy how the story of God's love feels much more cohesive when you read the whole story. It's amazing.

I use this reading guide which goes through the bible chronologically. I also am going to use The Message again this year--I LOVE the way it reads.

So if you DON'T already have some way to get into God's word daily, try this! It is SO worth it.

Shepherds

Oliver's best friend at preschool is Cooper.

These two are so funny together.
And boy are they ornery!

And these? The night of their Christmas program, I was trying to get a nice smiling picture...and this is what I got. I stopped after three tries...