Christmas 2011

Usually the children are up so early on Christmas morning it is dark.  Just like every other child in the world they are so excited they can not sleep.  Not this time though.  Me who went to be so very late, woke up exceptionally early, just a few short hours later, and could not fall back asleep.  However that was fine because this Christmas morning was going to be a little different than others, this Christmas morning was going to be on a Sunday.

We had actually not planned on going to church that morning.  Sunday school classes were all canceled and they were just have a few services in the auditorium.  We both thought it would be to hard to pull the kids away from what they wanted to do, presents, for Christmas.  And then the week before as we were talking to the a pastor he said they were having a terrible time finding anyone for the nursery Christmas day.  My husband said "I can do it.  I can stop by on my way home from work and watch the 8 Am service nursery. "    Since no one would volunteer 2 of the pastors were going to do it.  I believe for the other services too.  But now he was going to join them for the 8 am one.  He said if you want stay home with the kids and I will come by at 9:30.  Any mom I bet you could imagine what was going through my head.  Yeah right.  Keep the kids away from the presents from what I thought would be an early rising to 9:30.  That would be misearble and next to impossible.  I deiced we would join him in the nursery and then the pastors would be free too.

It wasn't even hard to talk the kids into.  A little complains right away but then I explained that God gave us Jesus for Christmas and our present to baby Jesus would be to watch the other babies first that morning and then come home to open our presents.  They were okay with that and never complained again.  And mind you they could not open anything before we left, not even there stockings.

So me up at 5 got the coffee ready and a shower.  The children had got there showers the night before and set there clothes out.  It was all rolling smooth except my early risers were sleeping!  They did not wake up early so I started waking them up.  They got dressed and then were allowed to go down stairs to see if Santa had come and YES he had been there!  Now they were jumping around in excitement.



I let them see what he brought and and fumble a moment with the keyboard.  They could not believe it.  They thought wow so many presents.  Evan said we must have been really good.  But we still had our plans so we drank a cup of coffee and ate our breakfast.  Just cereal and milk the normal routine.  I forgot I had bought orange juice and cinnamon rolls as something special, something Evan requested, something still sitting in my fridge.  We are stuck in our morning routine.  But it worked we were dressed, feed, and ready to go all 5 of ahead of time, and still in a good mood.

Then we went outside and the truck was frozen.  No snow, but sheets of ice everywhere.  Nothing we can't handle.  I just warmed up the truck and defrosted the windows and we were off.  We got to the church and headed to the nursery.  The children had a good time playing.  We ended up watching only 4 kids that morning.  Four of the most wonderful and beautiful children.  Four children that were all mine!  No other babies came.  Most the families that were there kept the kids with them and many others stayed home.  But it was fine the children played and we were able to watch the service on the tv.  It worked out well.  I was even able to sing loud to the many carols of that Sunday without embarrassing my family but having my oldest laugh along.











After the service you can believe the kids were now ready to get home and so we went.  They dove into there presents.



They got most of what they wanted. They got really nice stuff.





They also each got a ton of books.  Those my oldest who actually asked for more books than any other kid was getting disappointed at so many book and the fact that none of them were Magic Tree House.  He said those were the only books he wanted not these things.  He had to stop opening presents for a while with that remark until his attitude changed, which did not take to long.



I got many nice things my favorite being a kindle fire and a new camera!



Jay collected many super items and a few new shirts.







Evan got an art set he just loves.  He takes it everywhere.  He is happy with what he got and was so happy to give his brothers the fantastic presents he picked out for them on black Friday.  Evan is a great gift giver but terrible secret keeper.  However this year he did real good.  Usually you just say Evan what did you get me and he spills the beans.





We opened presents for what felt like hours.





Faith got many things she liked.  But needed help unwrapping.



And apparently she got things she did not want.



They played with there new treasures all after noon.  So far all week.



It was a great Christmas.  My favorite part was the meal.  Yumm.  No pictures of that we ate it too quick.  It is so special spending Christmas with the children I hold them so dear in my heart.  They have been establishing traditions making it more fun and actually easier.  It is like a road map of thing we always do.  And in that tradition and in winding down for the evening we snuggled on the couch and watched and evening of Christmas shows.