Advent #23-26

I didn't get picture of our advent devotions of our last week (our camera was too busy taking all those other pictures!), but just remembered that I should still update our journey through the advent season.
December 22 - We read about Mary and the beautiful song that she sang knowing about the great events that would take place, we opened an ornament that said NOEL on it, because it mean Christmas song it seemed very appropriate that it would go along with Mary's song.
December 23 - We read about the star of Bethlehem and opened a gift that let us create a glitter star magnet for our fridge (we thought about mailing it to you travis, knowing how much you LOVE glitter :0) but we kept it for ourselves)
December 24 - We read about the wise men that came to visit the baby, bringing special gifts. We opened sticker gift tags that we made for some of our presents.
December 25 - We read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and opened the Christ candle, a white candle that was put in the middle of our advent wreath.

A Family of Six

Meet our newest addition as of Christmas Day.....

Ginger-Bread House

I think this is becoming a tradition with nana and papa building a ginger-bread house. It's hard convincing them that the candy goes on the house and not it their mouths!

Merry Christmas!

We wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. We pray that the baby born over 2000 years ago still fills this day with wonder.

Nigh-Night

Bed-time at our house has been a little crazy lately - and with such a fun new friend it was hard to convince everyone to settle down. Rachel kept coming out in her new baby stroller, just not using the right end of it - ha!

then they thought they should all sleep on Max's bed. and finally they settled down to this...

More Christmas

Nana and Papa arrived a little before 5 with 2 puppies and some fun presents. One of the dogs is their Angel and the other is our new little guy, Max. Max is a one year old, male beagle that is about the sweetest dog I've ever seen. He is house broken, very affectionate, well trained, etc. He follows us around everywhere, and other then not really wanting to go outside very much (gee I wonder why in our cold temps!) he is very obediant. I was a little leary about getting a dog but I don't think we could ask for a better dog!

Sleepy-Tired

Aunt Pat sent this tent - the girl's love it! It fits great it their room as a little play place - thanks!

We went out to Monty and Lori's farm for Christmas dinner today. It was a wonderful meal and lots of fun with their family. The girl's were so tired that they fell asleep on the drive home. They got a little nap in before nana and papa arrived for more Christmas!

Presents!

We had Christmas fun after the stockings and 'santa' were done. I made each of the girl's a scrapbook for Christmas, both Gabie and Rachel got a prayer book (all of our family, godparents, etc.) and Eliya a scrapbook of our special weekend together at Little Lambs this past summer at camp. The morning was so exciting that Rachel fell back asleep by 9am (about the time Mark and I would've liked to be getting up for the first time!)

Santa Came!

Santa was good this year! The girls also got some stockings that grandma haase made for them. They loved them! They were filled wtih all sorts of fun things and they were so thankful that "santa" dropped them off for them on his way through. I think the only thing more that mom and dad could've asked for is a little more sleep - Eliya woke up at 5:45am! And that was that - our day began...yawn!

After Church...

The kids went on a hunt to find a special Christmas box following clues around the house.
Pepe watches from the best seat in the house! (it's a huskers rocker :0)

Rachel & Rachel opening presents together

All the kids in front of the fire. You can tell Pepe wasn't real

thrilled about this posed look, but it was a cute picture

Rachel, Curt, Pepe and Bobby came over after our Christmas eve service to hang out. They got us a new wii game that we all enjoyed playing together. The kids went on a Christmas hunt and we all ate way too much food. It was a great time of relaxing after a very stressful service. When I say stressful, just picture this - a nice candle-lite service with the congregation singing "Silent Night, Holy Night" (rachel starts to squirm and make some noises.)

"All is calm, all is bright" (rachel is now arching her back to try and get out of my clutches saying 'no! no! no!' repeatedly)

"Round yon virgin, mother and child" (at this point rachel is SCREAMING "daddy! daddy! daddy! daddy! and tries to get away - I had had enough at this point and promptly took her out of church) This same scenario played throughout the service. I guess 5 o'clock church just doesn't work for little people - I think it was a nice service though otherwise.

Christmas Eve

Slippers!

Elie and Gabie both have slippers and Rachie has been a little jealous - so we got her some Dora slippers. She was quite proud, but would only show off if someone else was in the picture showing off with her (do you like Gabie's Tinkerbells? :0)

Advent#22

Our Sunday devotions always have an activity of free choice to do something together as a family. We decided to wait till it's warmer (ha!) to go look at Christmas lights around town and started putting a Christmas puzzle together, I was quite impressed with Eliya's puzzling abilities! She did a great job - and of course Rachel helped to try to take apart everything we put together.

It's a Wonder-full Life

The girl's had their Christmas program at church on Sunday (the one that got snowed out last weekend). Sadly it was still SO COLD - of course what else is new here. I don't think we've had a positive temperature in weeks! It was an adorable program based on the movie It's a Wonderful Life - about a boy that wishes he didn't have to do the whole 'church' thing at Christmas, so an angel makes it so that Christmas never happened and the kids learn about what Christmas is and why it's important. Both Elie and Gabie were in it this year and they did a great joy.

Santa at the Mini Mall

Santa come to the mini mall each year - and it's not daddy! So Sunday afternoon we headed over to visit. They also have some junior high and high school kids there to do some activities with the kids. Rachel had NO LOVE for Santa at all. All she would do is say "bye-bye" to him while clinging to mom. She was very excited to see Pepe there and hung out with him - I'm guessing she thought he'd protect her from Santa. I had a great picture of Gabie telling Santa she wants a Tinkerbell skirt for Christmas - but I can't find the picture on the camera - I'm hoping it didn't get deleted! Eliya was being a bit chickenish and would only sit on Santa's lap if Kirstie would sit with her.

Bath Time!

Now that's the way to take a bath! It saves mommy having to do the laundry later :0)

Advent#21~Angels

Today we re-read Luke 2:8-20, this time focusing on the angels. Have you ever wondered how many angels are in a company? The girls had some guesses. Today we made angel wings with halos - unfortunately we couldnt' get a pic yet because it required some glue that is still drying. Maybe tomorrow.

Peek-a-Boo

Build a Bear

I could barely get my 7 mile run in this morning, the girls kept knocking on the door asking to make their bears. Once I got my shower in we got to work stuffing and the finished product was pretty cute!