Happy Everything~Christmas 2012

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year. I can certainly say that we had a perfect holiday. It was exactly what I wanted: quiet, relaxing, and fun. Of course we wished that we could have been with our families, but we made the best out of it just being the four of us. Christmas Eve started early, as usual! I can't wait for my boys to learn the art of sleeping in! We headed out to breakfast and to run a couple of last minute errands. We made it home early afternoon and got dressed in our pjs. I dreamed about just staying at my home in my pjs the week before Christmas break! We had company for a little while and I started my baking and treat-making for our neighbors. We rocked out to Christmas music and enjoyed each other's company. I was all nostalgic and thinking about my mommy so I decided to make one of my favorite dishes of hers~ chili. I'm sure mine didn't even come close to hers, but it made me feel like I had a little piece of her still right here with me. We ate dinner together and just hung out some more.

We set the timer on our camera to get a rare family photo.

Ryan and Evan took a few minutes to play with last year's Christmas present~finally!

We even had a white Christmas! It was the perfect kind of snow~ pretty to look at, but not enough to shovel and it was gone the next day. That's the kind of snow I don't mind. Finally, it was time to put the Peas to bed so we could set up for the big day. Let me tell you, toy makers today make sure that their products are secure! Took me forever to get some of their toys out of the package! I rewarded myself with a little play time for my hard work though. I'm just a big kid, and Thomas the Steam Engine sure was fun!

We knew they were going to be so excited! Those drums? My boys LOVE the drums! Ryan especially has a love of music and each Sunday after church he makes a beeline to the drum set if he can. We seriously want to get him in music lessons when he gets a little older. Here is where I should post a video of Ryan and Evan waking up and seeing their presents. Let's just say one of us ran into some technical difficulties and thought we had everything on camera. Turns out, we had nothing and only a few pictures!

It was hard to convince the boys to leave their toys, but we had a church service on Christmas morning. Afterwards we had a luncheon where we served lunch to the homeless and gave out presents. What a wonderful experience it was! It was an honor to be a blessing to others. What a blessing it was to just be together. After all, isn't that what Christmas is really about? I know that the boys are still too young to understand any of this, but I hope that these seeds we are planting will sprout later on. It truly was a very Merry Christmas.