Merry Christmas.

I've been terrible at taking pictures of life lately. The last few years I've put together photo albums from our Christmas get togethers and I just realized I have no where close to enough photos for an album- and barely even enough for a blog post. (And what's worse is the ones I have for the post weren't even taken by me!)

But we did celebrate Christmas (of course) and I do want it documented (at the very least in my blog scrapbook). We had round 1 of Christmas two weekends before with my dad's side and 'the Oklahoma cousins' (you also know them as Amy's family). We were so excited to have them over (even Junior the elf found them all the way here and came to visit).

That Saturday, we had Christmas at Hillary's house. Mo & Madd sang carols to us and we tried to get the grandkids with great grandma shot. Not too shabby....

The next weekend we had Christmas at the cabin with R's mom's side. Other than the pictures of R and Colson and the cabin itself (from my 365 blog), I didn't get nearly enough pictures!

Once we were out of school, we headed south. They were still in school on Christmas Eve eve so we were able to get Mo & Madd after school and spend the afternoon with them. We even got there in time for some of Madd's school party. Lucky us. :)

They were shocked at their videos from Santa. Mo decided that Santa must have cameras EVERYWHERE watching EVERYTHING. "Pretty much like God." Umm.... or not. :)

That evening, we went caroling and handed out some goodie bags that Mo and Madd (mostly Mo) put together. We decided that next year we should include earplugs in the goodie bags. (We need to recruit more singers as well!) :)

Mo got to hold a REAL candle at candle light service this year- she was excited to hold a candle for Jesus' Birthday party.

Christmas day we had Christmas at mom's house. I think the kids made out pretty well in the gift department though Mo was worried about her new Baby Alive. Now that she was two she asked, "How am I going to take care of TWO babies???!?" Todd kept us pretty entertained in the dancing department. (Someone got Just Dance 2 for Christmas.)

Here is R&my Christmas photo for the year..... we're beautiful, huh? :)

The following day, we had R's family over for Christmas. It was the perfect laid back, relaxing Christmas to end all of the celebrating on.

Our nephew was on clean up duty....

Dakota is now Mal's buddy. He talked her in to staying and watching a movie with him (his favorite thing to do now is watch tv- we think with the new style now that he can actually see what's going on). We watched Inception. Have you seen it? What do you think of the ending? Is it real?

And that sums up our Christmas celebrating for 2010. It was a great time with family and one of our most stress free Christmases ever. Hope yours was the same!

Love.

2010 Christmas Card

I had good intentions of getting all of our Christmas cards out by now.... does the thought count? :) So in case you didn't get your card from us (there's a lot of excuses as to why... it might be easier for you to just stop by the house and grab one yourself...), here's our Christmas greeting to you. (I realize it's only slightly better than the year I changed our facebook profile pictures and had people print out their own cards. I apologize!)

Merry Christmas!!!

And for other cards, check out the Card Carousel... I'm guessing most of these cards actually got sent out to all of their list. :)

Oh, Baby

A college classmate just posted this on facebook. Like I said on my 365 today.... how can you listen to Christmas music and not smile? (This counts as Christmas music, right?) :)

Tis the Season

When you think of Christmas, how does it make you feel? What do you think of?
Do you get excited about seeing family and exchanging gifts? Do you look forward to Christmas pageants and church programs? Are you anxious and stressed about getting all your gifts bought and all your food made and all your Christmas functions attended? Do you picture Jesus as a baby and tell Him happy birthday? Are you running from store to store and cleaning your house for guests? Do you drop a dollar in the red bucket when you hear the ringing of the bells?

One thing that's been noticeable to me this season has been all the stressed out facebook comments. The people angry with family. Stressed about getting from one place to another. Fed up with gift buying. It can be so easy to let Christmas become what society has created. It's so easy to forget why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

This year I vow to not stress about cleaning, cooking, gifts, or family. I vow to enjoy the season. I vow to remember that it's still His birthday whether I come up with the best gifts or not, whether or not my floors are clean, even if I don't make it to every family function, and even if I don't come bearing gifts.
So you may see me as a little not put together this season, but I'll be a little less stressed while I'm there.
I wont be stressed about cooking and cleaning and gifting. I'll be thanking Him for coming here as a baby so He could go to the cross for me. For unprepared, owner of a messy house, scarcity of gifts under the tree me.