Our Christmas celebrating began early in December as my dad and stepmom came over to take the girls & me out to eat. They even spent the night with us and watched the girls be silly. It was a wonderful 48 hours; the only thing that would have made it better (besides being able to spend more time with my dad) is if Warren had been able to be with us. PawPaw & Ms. Cathy gave the girls some money so that they could pick out whatever they wanted. That proved to be an interesting shopping experience in Toys R Us when choosing whatever they wanted was a never ending process (or at least that's what it felt like to ol' Mom and Dad!).
Warren's parents came over on Christmas Eve. The girls were ecstatic, and so were we. In the past, Warren's parents have usually come to our house the weekend before to celebrate. This was the first time that they were with us on Christmas Even AND Christmas morning. I'm not sure what the girls were happier about--the fact that BopBop & DamDam were at our house or the amount of presents they brought. Who are we kidding? At Christmas time, you know it was all about the presents. We let the girls open ONE gift that afternoon, and telling three little ones that they can open only one is no small endeavor. One should always lead to two and so on, right? We all went to our church's Christmas Eve service where we sang carols and heard the Christmas story and took part in the Lord's Supper. Reese was full of questions and I just know that the Lord is beginning to work on that precious heart of hers. She is really beginning to understand, and I just hope that I can be a better example to her.
Once we got home from church, we let the girls open the rest of their gifts from BopBop & DamDam. Talk about chaos. I tried so hard to get "good" pictures, but I just take what I can get. I just left my finger on the shutter button and kept snapping away.
Santa came and spoiled the girls as always, but that's just part of it all, right? Warren and I spent a few days telling the girls that if they didn't act right that Santa would fly right over our house without stopping to leave anything. This of course set Reese to worrying, but I told her that Mimi & PawPaw (my folks) always told me the same thing but somehow Santa always came and left wonderful presents for me anyway, and that I was certain he'd do the same for her.
My mom and stepdad came over early Christmas morning and watched the girls go through all their Santa loot. My mom made breakfast for all of us, and it was wonderful. Then the girls were able to open their gifts from Mimi & Pop. The biggest thing they got was a Wii system with enough controllers for them all!!! We have had a great time with it, except when someone gets upset they they're losing and restarts the game. :) We are VERY competitive around here!
My brother, sister in law, and sweet, precious niece came over, too, so we had a house full of people. I don't think we've ever had that many people in our house before, and I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED it. It brought back memories of Christmases when I was little, and I hope to be able to continue it so my girls will have memories like mine when they are my age.
As if the day weren't special enough with it being Christmas, the birth of our Saviour, and special times with family, but it was topped off with........S-N-O-W!!!! We couldn't believe it!!! A White Christmas!!!! In all my thirty four years, I had never ever ever experienced a white Christmas. And the flakes that were falling weren't just baby flakes; it was really snowing. We didn't waste anytime getting outside to play. Snow angels were made and snowballs were thrown. It was terrific. Pictures were also taken, naturally. I hope my girls will never forget the Christmas of 2010! I know I won't.
I took a ton of pictures, so I put together a slideshow of most of them. I did try to weed out the bad ones, but there were still a lot. I hope your Christmas season was filled with blessings, family and love, and I hope your 2011 is off to a wonderful start.
I have no idea how that annoying background music got on the slideshow----will remedy that in the future. Just hit your speakers mute button if it's too annoying! :)
Enjoy.....
