Christmas 2015

We had a wonderful Christmas.  It seems like it was here and gone so quickly. 

The weather was unseasonably warm leading up to Christmas, which meant lots of time playing outside.  Right now our boys are really into hockey. 

Before Christmas break, I enjoyed going into Adam's school to help with their Polar Express Day.  It was such a fun and magical day! I loved meeting his friends and classmates.

 

It's hard to believe our boys were wearing shorts to school at the END of DECEMBER!  It sort of freaks me out a little bit because it's just so strange.  The boys have been exploring the woods and creek around where we live... in DECEMBER. 

And because it's been so warm and they were wearing shorts while playing in the woods, poor Adam has "the worst case of poison ivy in December" that his pediatrician has ever seen.  We've been dealing with this poison since around December 16th and after two trips to the dr and a second round of stronger Prednisone, fingers crossed he is finally on the mend.  I feel like I have a baby again since I am up once a night giving him medicine and applying cream when he gets itchy.  We now have to treat the woods (for Adam) like you would someone with a severe allergy since he gets such a severe reaction to poison. 

Other than the poison issue, we had a great Christmas!  

 

Caleb stopped over for a visit.  Owen does a super job taking care of him.  He thought Cal was hungry so he fed him some applesauce.  Watching Owen take care of Caleb is one of my favorite things.  

Filling out Christmas cards to his teachers and bus driver.

 Owen in his festive jammies laying by the heater.  This is what he does every single morning when he wakes up.  He comes downstairs and if the heat isn't on, he asks me to turn it on so he can lay by the warmth. 

 Christmas Eve day the four of us spent the morning helping to pass out meals to families in our area that needed them.  Our church does so many amazing things and one of them is their Christmas Eve ministries.  In the past, Mike and I would help deliver gifts to children in Lebanon that had a mother in prison.  The mother would give ideas as to what her child(ren) would like for Christmas and people from our church would purchase gifts and then we'd help deliver them.  We did that for a few years, however we wanted to do something this year that all four of us could do together.  It's very important to us that our boys have experiences helping others.  What better time to help others than Christmas Eve?

We ended up having a bunch of meals leftover so we loaded up our minivan and drove around asking people we saw if they could use it.  Almost every person said, "Yes" and if they didn't need it, they told us of a family that could use it.  Mike went to a few homes of students from his school.  I have to say that the four of us driving around giving out meals to families was one of my favorite Christmas memories.  We can't wait to participate again next year. 

That evening we went over to my parents' house to open gifts.  Christmas is even more fun with Caleb!

Then we went out to my aunt and uncle's house.  What a fun night!  Adam loved his Japanese gifts from Fletcher. 

 

 When we were little, our Gamma would get us Hannah Anderson jammies and my cousin, Kate, has continued that tradition for all the cousin kids. 

 Our crew just keeps multiplying!

Even Santa made a visit to our Christmas party!

 After the party, we came home and sprinkled oatmeal in the grass and left cookies and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer. 

Christmas morning!

 We got Adam a zip line for Christmas.  Adam calls this tree our "Giving Tree" which I think is such a good name for it.  It now has our climbing rope, rope swing and zip line.  It is one loved tree :)

 The rest of Christmas day was spent visiting Mike's parents and then hanging out at home in our pjs watching movies and playing with new toys. 

Two days after Christmas we had my dad's side over for Christmas.  For my entire life we have always done this at 4pm on Christmas day.  This was the first year we did it a little differently and I have to say, I loved not cramming everything into one day. 

 We got to meet Amelia for the first time.  What a cutie!

 We were all missing my Uncle Walter and I wish so much he was still here with us and in this picture.  I know he and Ollie and Doc were smiling down on everyone. 

 That night we had Sam and Ella stay over night.  We love any chance we get to spend time with them. 

And now we get ready to ring in the New Year!