Merry Christmas! (a month late)

I wanted to post about out little family Christmas this past year.

We spent Christmas Eve with Greg's family in Tyler, and I forgot my camera. oops!

But, we drove home that night and was able to wake up Christmas morning with just my 3 boys. We L-O-V-E-D it! It's just really fun and purposeful for us to start our own family holiday traditions.

Luke wandered into our room early that morning, and Greg and I looked at each other like, "Why is he not bouncing off the walls after seeing this:?"
I said, "Luke, do you think that Santa Clause came to see you?" His response: "Yes, he did. And he brought a new bike and a new bus!" Okay, not quite as excited as we thought he would be!

Then, we went to the living room and found that Santa had eaten the cookies, and brought some really fun stockings! (Luke's favorite part)


The umbrella. Oh, the umbrella. Sometimes I question what I was thinking when I purchased this. The boy loves it a little too much! ;)

Love this bedhead!


This was also exciting to him...his very own pair of scissors!




Then, I tried to get some good pictures of the two of them. Almost impossible with a two-year-old and a 12-month-old!



Oh, well. Good try!

Then, we read the Bible story, sang "Away in a Manger", thanked God for sending Baby Jesus, and opened presents! Fun, fun!

Concentrating:
This little man was sleepy on his FIRST CHRISTMAS!
Wow! A car transporter!


His first board game!


As cute as he looks on his new bike, it's going to take him awhile to learn how to pedal it. Who knew that was such a hard concept to learn? (Besides the fact that his feet barely reached the pedals!)
Jack, on the other hand, is the PERFECT fit for his little blue car. He LOVES it!
Luke playing with his new vacuum that he got the night before from grandparents:
Cutie crawling to the car:
Santa Luke!


Notice Luke in the background of this picture with that stinkin umbrella?! This is how he looked for about 2 weeks after Christmas...with an umbrella on top of him!

After this, we enjoyed the WHITE Christmas! What a blessing! By the time we took these pictures, a lot of the snow had already melted. The night before, everything was pretty much covered. It was beautiful and FUN!

Even Macie enjoyed playing in the snow!


Sledding down the hill in our front yard on the trash can lid. What fun!






Jacky boy loves the snow!
The house behind us randomly had a firetruck parked in front of it Christmas morning. No lights on, just parked. We weren't sure why, maybe someone got a real firetruck for Christmas?! Regardless, our little man enjoyed exploring.


After this, the lens from our camera came off, and it has been broken ever since. :( We are going to have to send it into Nikon for the second time. But, in my next post, I will use the pictures from my parents' camera when they came in town for JACK'S FIRST BIRTHDAY!

We played with toys throughout the day. One of the smartest things that I have done is that I kept some of their new toys stored away. Some are stored away to this day. This has kept the boys from being over-stimulated, and it makes for "new toys" later. Also, I purged the playroom and boxed up many of the old toys to play with later.

We had a great afternoon together, and then I realized that I hadn't prepared anything for Christmas dinner. When we left for Greg's parents' house on the 23rd, it was quite the chaotic day, and Greg had worked late. It was a miracle that I got the boys packed, dressed, and to our church's Christmas Eve service on time! So, the thought that we wouldn't be getting back until late on the 24th and that everything would be closed on Christmas Day didn't even cross my mind. Oh, well. I will know next year! We decided to load up and go to a restaurant in Dallas, which ended up being Humperdinks. Luke loved it so much there, and he asks almost daily if we can go eat at the "Humpedinks restwant". Then, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights in Highland Park and Lakewood...fun memories!

Before I end this post, I wanted to share my heart a little on Christmas. Wow, Christmas has become such a consumer-driven holiday. While Santa, presents, lights, etc. are all GOOD things, it can so easily consume us. I would walk into Toys-r-Us and automatically think that I needed to buy the entire store for my boys. The truth, my boys would have been happy with a coloring book and a matchbox car! (okay, maybe an umbrella, too!) On Christmas Eve, I showed Luke a "Night Before Christmas" video, and really tried to drill in his head all about Santa. I was almost disheartened because I pictured him lighting up and being ecstatic about all his new things when he woke up Christmas morning. While he was excited, what actually happened is that Luke taught me a lesson about Christmas. When he talked to people after Christmas and they asked, "Luke, who came to see you on Christmas?". He would say, "Jesus!" What more could a mom ask for? He was more excited about Jesus coming than Santa! I LOVE it...Lord, let this child-like heart and faith persist in my boys! And give them a heart of contentment.