It's About the Cross

We watched this in church today. One time was not enough.

Celebrations

Celebrations were underway early Christmas Eve!!  

We had a wonderful morning brunch with Aunt Cindy and her family.

We were extremely thankful to spend Christmas  Eve Evening with Papa and Grandma.  Grandma gave us a little scare by spending all day in the ER after waking up with chest pains and breathing difficulties.  All seems ok now.   Praise the Lord!
The long awaited Nerf Vulcan!! Unfortunately, it's already broken!  He's willing to return it and try his luck on another!
This was the most touching moment of my day!  Two weeks ago, Rachel agreed to clean out the game closet for some extra Christmas cash!  When she was done she told me she had another gift for Lilly - a surprise!!  All evening she looked forward to Lilly opening the gift!  When she did I was moved to tears!  This is Bunny!  The stuffed animal that Lilly never parted with, until we lost her this summer.  On our recent trip to Visalia we asked our cousins if we had left Bunny at their house during the Crew reunion.  We searched their toybox, but he wasn't to be found!  The strangest thing is that when I woke up Christmas Eve, one of the first things I thought of was Bunny and how sad I was that he was gone for good!  I have no idea why I even thought of him, but here he is reunited with Lilly, and in great need of a bath!!!

Daddy was pretty excited about Bret's gun too!

Christmas morning, all that's left is stockings and a big surprise!  Instead of us going to the cousins, they are coming to our house!  Unfortunately, Aunt Amy wasn't feeling well enough to have us at their house.  But we're so glad they could come to ours!

Here they are!!

Grandma's pillow cases are always fun to look forward to!  She makes one for each grandchild every year!

I think Garret is wearing the George Washington hat because he was pretending to be a policeman (his brother gave him a pair of handcuffs from the Dollar Store)!  He had a great time arresting his girl cousins!!

Merry Christmas

She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”  Matthew 1:21

In all our Christmas fun, we will not forget the birth of our Savior, or the reason for His coming!  We rejoice that through His birth, death and resurrection we are redeemed!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Recital

Rachel played "Toyland" and "Sing Noel" - beautiful!
Bret played, "The First Noel" and "Joy to the World". What a performer!

The recital followed Mrs. V's annual Pizza Pepsi Party! The boys ended the evening with a good game of chase around the church foyer - great!

Once home, we made popcorn, and hot cocoa then settled down to watch Episode One of the "Horatio Hornblower" A & E Series. Loved it, and highly recommend it. It's fiction through and through, but fun for us to watch. Bret is extremely informative throughout the movie, filling us in on definitions, etc. Tonight I learned what "grappling" is! Very Cool!

A Good Shot

Christmas Card Poses

"The Winner!"
Other Choices...

Too Fun!

Yum!

Goodbye Clean Room!

After 6 viewings of "Wall-E", 2 "Prince Caspians", and numerous library videos - Lilly mustered the strength to scoot to her bedroom and do something more familiar!

She is our principal mess maker! We're glad to see her back at task! Once again, thank you for your prayers. She is almost completely off pain meds and is sleeping well at night!