December in Pictures ~ Part 5

We spent the afternoon of Christmas day with friends.

Then we came home and made a special birthday cake!

Then we sang a very special Happy Birthday song and blew out the candles.

We put a bow on our best Christmas present this year.

And the kids fell asleep watching a Christmas movie (and now that a month has gone by I have no idea which one it was!).

I didn't really take too many pictures after Christmas as my camera has become the most obnoxious thing and takes forever to get a good picture. Once and while I will get it out and play around with it, but that final week of Christmas didn't get any pictures.

New Year's Eve the kids and Yohn went with friends to a movie. 

Then we played a few board games to ring in the new year! Happy 2013!

One Way

Elisha and Bethany are a part of the children's church worship team. This morning they got to perform One Way in "big church".

WARNING: My cameras were both acting up this morning and this is the best I got. During first service the video ended up grainy because the camera kept refocusing. This one is on my regular camera, which is crazy, and rarely ever cooperates anymore. It was fighting with me so I missed the intro. The beginning of the video is shaky because I was jostling the camera around pressing the buttons trying to get it to work, not realizing that it was already recording.

If this doesn't play I do apologize as this is the first time I have posted to youtube and I have listed it as private because not all of these children belong to me. It looks a little "squished" compared to how it should actually look, so if anyone is cut off of the sides it's not my doing, it's youtube's.

So after all my ramblings, I hope you enjoy it! Elisha is third from the left and Bethany is next to him, fourth from the left.

December in Pictures ~ Part 4

On Christmas Eve we went to my MIL's to have dinner and open presents.

We also attended a candlelight service at her church.

New pajamas, a Christmas Eve tradition!


Here's some Christmas morning pics:

Bethany and her new slippers.

Elisha and his "Beardo".

Yohn's new Superman sweatshirt.

My new little indoor fountain.

Bethany's favorite present of the day!

Elisha's favorite present - a Miami Heat hat!

December in Pictures ~ Part 3

We finally got our Christmas tree put up a week and half before Christmas. We just had a hard time getting motivated to do it this time around. Then it was over before you know it. This year I am going to stick to my original plan of the weekend after Thanksgiving. Then we can enjoy it longer.

The kid's Christmas performance was awesome. It came right on the heels of the tragedy in CT and I'd have to say that to a lot of us this performance took on an even "specialer" meaning (I know that's not a word, but it was the best way I could think to describe it). Bethany is in the front row second from the right. Elisha is in the back row, middle right.

Elisha and the boys jammin' out on the air guitars. This year the kids sang "Children of God" by Third Day and I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.

The school band performed at the end of the Christmas Program. Bethany and Elisha are side by side in this picture. Bethany on the xylophone and Elisha on the trumpet. Please forgive these pictures. My camera was seriously acting up before the battery died and I had to use my little bloggie, which does not take the most excellent of pictures!

Elisha and his friend "I" having a jam session after the performance was over.

Our favorite Santa Claus visited on the last day of school before the break!

We went to see Mr. Christmas' house for the first time ever. We hear about this house every year and yet the season always slips by before we have a chance to go see the house. This year, we made sure to make a special trip over. It was pretty cool, in addition to these lights he had a light show on the side with moving pictures. He also had all sorts of 3D glasses that would change the effects of the lights. We were there about 15 minutes and still the kids weren't ready to leave. 

We took the kids' Book It reading certificates with us and got pizza to enjoy while we drove around looking at other houses and their Christmas lights.

Remember the goodies the kids and I were making earlier? We made several plates and took them to the local fire and police stations on Christmas Eve day. We really enjoyed being a blessing and had decided we want to do this again. We're going to attempt to do it every few months, but if we don't then we'll do it at Christmas time again this year for sure.

December in Pictures ~ Part 2

Here's more of December...

Remember him? We've had Lynx for more than a year now. Bethany took this picture of him cuddling with her stuffed animals. You can't really see it in the picture but his paw is wrapped around one of her toys. He's a crazy cat!

Diamond had her first bath! Well, first with us anyway. I don't know if her previous owners gave her a bath or not. Doesn't she look pathetic?

Just another picture of the silly pup!

We attended a Living Nativity that one of the local church's put on. It was cold outside, but so much fun. We had only been there about ten minutes and the kids were asking us if we could do it each year around Christmas.

Believe it or not, this was their favorite part. They are hammering nails in a large block of wood, and they kept coming back to it over and over again. I guess we should have gotten them wood and nails for Christmas, eh?

Bethany performed with the school band on a Sunday morning in church and did great. This was her second to last performance on the xylophone as her clarinet is finally ready for her. She is extremely excited about the move up too.

 Sadly Elisha was not able to perform due to uh, well, injury. One he would never let me tell you about, so let's just leave it at that okay. No worries, he's been to the doctor and checked out fine.

That same Sunday morning Bethany and Jewell got certificates for reciting more than 200 verses. Way to go girls!

Had Me Crackin' Up

This is cute!

Hope you enjoyed it too!

December in Pictures ~ part 1

As usual, I'm a little behind on keeping up with family events. Here's a peek at December:

In our area there is the annual tradition of Santa parachuting into our little airport. We've never gone but always wanted to. This year we actually knew the date and had nothing going to stop us from seeing him. However, the weather had other ideas and Santa came in an emergency vehicle instead. We were a little disappointed but it was still fun to watch him come in such an unexpected way.



My children have never really believed in Santa, but they have fun visiting him every year. They said since we were already there we might as well get their annual picture taken too. My daughter is cracking herself up because the hotel that is nearest the airport is where Santa visits the children. Bethany asked Santa if she could be the owner of the hotel as her Christmas present. He thought that was pretty funny too!

We celebrated Yohn's birthday in December too!

The kids and I found this awesome Superman shirt on sale back in August while we were back to school shopping and had a hard time not giving it to him before his birthday. But we did and he loved it! This is the shirt he is wearing in our New Year's Day pictures.

Jewell was caroler in the opening of our church's Christmas play this year.

Elisha and friends watching the play. Can you tell I took T by surprise?

Gene played the part of Satan in the Christmas play.

Of course pictures had to be taken afterwards!

I found some delicious, completely simple Christmas goodie recipes on the internet this year and "pinned" them to do with the kids. They were happy to be able to do a lot of this themselves to give out to the people they love.

Super

Hope you have Super New Year!