Merry Christmas Grandma and Grandpa!

We wish we could be together, but you are in our thoughts and in our hearts today. We're glad you get to be with at least some of your grandkids and kids today celebrating the birth of our Lord. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Carols

The kids enjoy singing Christmas carols. We're still working on figuring out all the words. :)

Christmas Sunday

I took several pictures of the kids dressed up for Christmas Sunday but because it seems that it takes a near miracle of God to get all the kids looking in the same direction, at the same time, smiling, etc. etc. this is the only one that turned out decent. Thanks to Mark Kraft, one of the deacons at church, who helped keep the kids attention while I took this one.
Emery loves to sit in the adult service with us but I for now I think she gets more out of her age appropriate sunday school class, but we do let her come in and join us for the singing which she loves to be a part of.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Every year, I think since we've been married, we've gotten our Christmas tree the weekend of Thanksgiving and spend the weekend decorating the tree and house for Christmas. We love the Christmas season! However, we weren't in town for Thanksgiving and for almost 2 weeks after that so we're a little behind in getting ready for Christmas. But, better late than never!

Emery helping me put lights on the tree.
Our resident electrician setting up our Christmas village.
Matt putting ornaments on one of the several trees in the living room.

Dancing Shoes

Andrew's shoes we bought in August right before school started already have holes in them so we stopped in at an outlet mall on the way home in hopes of finding him some sturdy sneakers for a good price. I did find a pair of plain black sneakers that looked like they could handle all that Andrew could dish out but Andrew found this pair at the same time. He really had his heart set on basketball shoes and the ones I picked out were not. His were a little bit more but he liked them VERY VERY much and when he tried them on he started dancing in the store and said they were "dancing shoes." They aren't the "sensible" shoes we'd pick but decided to let him have those since he seemed incredibly excited about them. He's enjoyed them ever since that day and doesn't regret buying them one bit even though they do take a long time to put on (Peter warned them that they would). I wonder what his wardrobe is going to look like when he's a teenager!

Disney world part 3

I promise this will be the last Disney post. :) There were usually 2 parades a day and the kids really enjoyed them, dancing and bopping along with each one, as you can see here with Matthew.

Disneyworld part 2

There are a lot of shows at Disney world and one of them is specifically for preschool aged children and features the characters of preschool geared shows on the Disney channel. Even though we don't have cable, my kids have seen enough of the shows at my parents' house to enjoy the show as you can see here. Matt and Emery had a ball dancing and clapping along with the puppets on stage.

Disneyworld!

In 2000 Peter and I drove 16 hours to Orlando and visited Epcot, at Disney World for the first time and loved it. Ever since that we've always wanted to go back when we had kids. That wish was finally fulfilled these last couple of weeks. We had a "magical" time at Disney World watching the kids enjoy themselves to the fullest riding rides, eating junk food, watching shows and parades. Thank you God for a very undeserved blessing!

Here are just a few highlights:

Looking ferocious at the Animal Kingdom.
The Jungle Cruise was Emery's favorite.

"New York City" at Hollywood Studios.