our christmas

we had a great weekend celebrating Christ's birth! we are so blessed with generous and thoughtful family members! we celebrate as an extended family on christmas eve. all of the kids open their presents that the family has given them, we open the present from the names we drew as a family a year prior, watch a dvd montage i have put together to review our year as a family and we have a potluck. i love getting together as a family, but this night always seems extra special. blake drew his dad's name and made him an art piece of an american flag. this was lucas' first christmas and he had fun. my grandmother got the boys disney shirts and jack loved pointing out all of the characters. jack has had a blast with the classic hungry hungry hippo game my mother gave the boys. the millers (including my cousin amy) have a talent for gift giving. the dr. set they got for the boys was a huge hit, especially since it was a mickey mouse set. this year disney and thomas the train seemed to be a recurring theme. even blake's aunt irma and uncle rick are always so sweet and generous to send us gifts for christmas.

of course eunice and allen spoiled their only grandchildren. jack now has an official thomas the train set! blake is going to build him a special table to hold it. what is cool about the boys being so close in age is they play with each other's toys. the boys got a pop up tent with a tunnel which they instantly took to. even lucas figured out how to go in and out of it with ease.

lucas and jack got over croup just in time to celebrate christmas. unfortunately eunice and allen, as well as mom (who is visiting for a couple of weeks), got the cold virus just in time for christmas! i made most of christmas dinner, to give eunice a break! my mother has been such a help doing dishes, cleaning, baby-sitting and helping assemble difficult kid toys!

we read a special book of Christ's birth 'beyond bethlehem' as a family on christmas eve and did some other special things that opened up that special feeling this holiday has. now as this holiday winds down we are getting ready to celebrate lucas' 1st birthday this week, ring in the new year and celebrate my 31st birthday!