A Very Merry Christmas!

Benjamin the shepherd and baby Jesus

Dustin the Wise Man

All the kids in the Nativity. Jenni was Mary, Lucas was Joseph, Britton was a wise man and Benjer was a shepherd

Britton the wise man

Me the Angel appearing to the shepherds

Benjamin and baby Jesus The boys in their new Christmas jammies

Christmas family picture

Merry Christmas! This was a Christmas we will never forget, that's for sure. On Christmas Eve, half of our family woke up vomiting and/or nauseous. But, we didn't let that spoil our Christmas cheer. We powered through and went to grandma's for the traditional Christmas dinner of game hens. Unfortunately I think only two of the 11 people at the table really ate their dinner. It was sad because it's our favorite meal of the year. There were a lot of game hens sent home. Aside from the lack of appetite and illness, it was a great night. Unfortunately Britton doesn't feel that well today.

The kids performed the nativity story and it was great. After dinner my sister and her family opened all of their presents because they had to drive back to Twin Falls. The boys also got to open their traditional Christmas pajamas.

Christmas morning Dustin and I both woke up and waited for our boys to get up. In the end, we were too excited and woke them up ourselves! The boys came down the stairs to see that Santa had brought them both a Nintendo DSi. They were two very excited boys! Benjamin hardly noticed that he opened any other presents other than games. He's been playing ever since. We will have to have some serious limits after today. Britton loved all of his gifts and has played with everything already and is back to the Dsi. We really enjoyed watching the boys excitement this year.

Our boys were extra good this Christmas and we worked really hard on keeping Christ the focus of our Christmas (with the exception of the presents, of course). We had a little manger and the boys got to put a piece of straw in for each good deed they did. These were our presents for Jesus. They were so sweet and thoughtful. They loved adding to the little manger. Last night before bed we put our baby Jesus in his manger filled with our straw gifts. I hope our boys always remember that tradition. Merry Christmas!