Merry Christmas

It was our year to spend Christmas is St. Louis with Shane's family and we had a fun and special holiday.  Shannon & Becky and the boys and Uncle Shad were with us to make things a lot more exciting.  (I really wish we got to see Shannon & Becky more often, but Kansas City is far away :-(

Avery is still the only girl among 7 boy cousins.  Becky tried for that last girl, but baby Isaac came instead (who we wouldn't trade for anything; oh yeah, and baby Daniel is on the way).  But it doesn't seem to bother her at all.  She gets lots of attention.

Parker & Venice...only 3 months apart.

Avery & Nicolas

We spent the day out at Paw Paw & Jo Jo's and Paw Paw's tractor is always a big hit, even if it's freezing cold outside :-)

And Jo Jo's "pretty-pretties" are always a hit with Avery...again, lots of attention!

And despite all the $$$ spent on Christmas presents, Parker's favorite was this 50 cent piece of wood that PawPaw used to carve out a sword.  He played with it all day and even crashed with it at the end of the day.

While discussing our plans for Christmas this year Shane & I both agreed that now that the kids are getting older we want to be home on Christmas Eve and wake up at our house on Christmas morning.  Now granted, we love our families and the Christmas season wouldn't be the same without them,  but even our own families agree how important it is for us to start forming some of our own Christmas traditions.  We'll still visit our families...just either before Christmas day or after. 

So this year we decided to drive back home from St. Louis on Christmas Eve and be home Christmas Day.  We got up bright & early and opened some of our presents before going to the Christmas service at church.

Parker's STOMP shoes...this deserves a whole journal entry in and of itself.  The boy wanted shoes that light up when you take a step, thus the name "stomp shoes" as he calls them.  I refused to buy the Target/Walmart brand with the characters all over them (not my style), so I paid more than I usually would on a pair of tennis shoes from Stride Rite...the Star Wars stomp shoes!

It was a very special day, and over and over and over we tried to impress upon our children's hearts what Christmas REALLY is all about.

Happy Birthday Jesus!