Christmas

Turns out I was really bad at taking any pictures of Christmas this year. I tend to take videos and since everything is pretty chaotic I have to be in the moment or  I will miss it all.

Once again my pictures are in reverse order. Here is a picture Adele requested with her favorite doll Marie, not a Christmas gift, she just loves her. 

After Christmas we went to my parent's house. The kids had fun with their cousins and getting so much adult attention. The girls decorated a gingerbread house with Grandma. 

Christmas dinner at our house, we had ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, sweet potato pie and "heyrend punch".

Santa came!

Julian's first Christmas felt special and a little sad, as with all things adoption. Still I feel so blessed to be his mom. 💗

The girls were VERY into their Nativity play this year. The boys were along for the ride and kept messing it up of course. I'm sure by next year they will have their roles of Joseph and Shepherd down, plus we will have a real baby to use. :)

The girls decided to write Santa letters on Christmas Eve. Not 2 hours after we had put these in the mailbox the mailman delivered two typed letters addressed to each of them from Santa. It was some real Christmas Magic!

Some other highlights from this year. 

+The kids were really into their sibling gifts this year, especially the girls. They happily did extra chores all month long to earn enough money for their sibling gifts. They were all so excited to see their recipient open their gifts, they all opened them first on Christmas morning. I love this tradition, it so adorable to see them choose gifts for each other. 

+We kept their gifts to a smaller number this year, and it seemed to make Christmas less overwhelming. They were all in love with and grateful for what they got. They got some big gifts from family, a trampoline, a playhouse and an airfort. Leland got the first two set up yesterday and they are a big hit so far, I'm sure they'll love them all for years to come. 

+ We did our Christmas book advent, and "chocolate doors", as well as memorizing Christmas scriptures (Luke 2:7-11) and reading a story a day from a collection of Christmas stories. These things really made the countdown fun and meaningful, and sometimes I think the wait is even more meaningful than Christmas itself. 

This Christmas felt different of course, we didn't see as much family as we usually do, and there weren't nearly as many events as normal. Although I missed some of those things, it felt nice to not have to worry about those things so much, and just slow down and enjoy a simple Christmas. Every year I am so blown away by how kind people are to our family. It must be something about this ward, (or other people, I don't even know!) but people are just so generous with our family. If we're not careful the girls are going to expect that the 12 days of Christmas anonymous gifts on the porch is a given every Christmas. 😄 Really though I'm so humbled and grateful by all the love people show our family at Christmas time. I hope if anything it can teach our kids how fun it is to receive unexpected generosity and help them want to do that for others.