Christmas 2008

It always seems like we have a million Christmas celebrations, which is wonderful and exhausting at the same time!

We started with a wonderful Christmas Eve service at church and Noah loved all the singing and stories.

Christmas morning we woke up as a family and opened Noah's gifts.

We got him a great wooden kitchen play set because he loves all the kitchens everywhere we go. He got right to work making us sandwiches and eggs. He kept putting everything in the fridge and saying that it was cooking!




After some playtime we headed to my mom's house in Reading.


We had a great brunch and headed downstairs for more presents! It was quite a whirlwind but Noah did so incredibly well. He never got greedy and was polite and excited about every gift. I was also really happy with the gifts that he got... both in size and quantity. Lots of puzzles and challenging things for him. My brother got him this thing called a billibo which is a European toy that children are supposed to do whatever with... they can sit in in, use it as a hat, or twirl it. It was designed to encourage creativity among children. We all played with it....

We also got the Elmo Live which, I must admit, was much cooler than I had anticipated.

After my mom's we headed to my grandmother's house where he proceeded to be gifted with a keyboard and an indoor t'ball set.... the loudest and most dangerous gifts! yipppeeeee! My cousin Kris played ball with him forever and everyone loved watching Noah giggle with delight.

We left there and headed home for the day. Friday we got up and headed to the Waters house for Christmas there. Noah got a great easel and we had a really great lunch with them.

We left that house to go to my mom's family's Christmas! I know, are you exhausted? I am! My cousins got a new version of Monopoly that you don't have to use money for.. it's all credit! Noah thought it appropriate to come over and move all the pieces every once in a while and everyone called him godzilla.

We got home late Friday night and crashed. then we got up Saturday morning to go to Paul's sister's house to see their family and exchange gifts with them. Nina's boys are always SOOO good with Noah. They play with him and take care of him and it was wonderful!!!!!


We came home Saturday afternoon to be greeted by the FedEx man who brought Noah a gift that arrived late from my grandmother... his first big wheel. He loved riding it around the house!



Then today we welcomed our friends the Evans who we see once a year or so. We were glad to be at home! The kids played so well together but when it came for gift exchange time, the lion I got for Gavin scared him and he started screaming and then his older brother started chasing him with the RC car we got him which made him cry more... i definitely bombed in the gift department!

So, here we are, finally relaxing and basking in all that we know as friends and family. We are beyond blessed and so thankful for all that God has provided for us. It was a really, really great Christmas.