Merry Christmas!!

We hope everyone had a nice Christmas! We had a fun and busy time, as usual! :) Christmas Eve we went to church as a family and then went to Daniel's parents' house for a nice Christmas Eve dinner. Then we went home and Christmas morning our kids slept in until 8:15!! Can you believe that?? They never do that:) So, we did the opening presents thing at our house and then went straight over to Daniel's parents' house again for Christmas waffles and more presents. Then, around 1pm, we went to my parents house joined by my brother and sister and all their children and opened more presents, ate more food and had more family fun! :) Reece had a hard time getting to sleep last night because she just wanted to play, play, play!! :)

Then, this morning, we bravely loaded up the kids in the van and hit the after-Christmas sales! We found some really good deals today. This was our first major "shopping for Indonesia" trip. I know we still have a few months, but we took advantage of the sales and bought some things we needed to take with us when we move. Daniel's favorite thing was buying kitchen knives. My favorite thing was buying SIX pairs of Crocs!! I've never even bought crocs before in my life, but today they had buy one get one FREE at the croc store in the outlet mall, so I decided to buy each child one pair for the next THREE years! I figure they would be good jungle shoes! I had to guess on the sizes, but I figure they will fit eventually. I'm SO not one who stocks up on things, so this is all very weird for me. But, we feel accomplished for beginning the process. Any advice from those who are good at stocking up?? It's really hard to stock up on childrens' clothes because even if they are on sale, the price adds up really quickly. I'll have to hit up some major garage sale/re-sale shops!

Well, Christmas wasn't all about presents and buying things for us this year. It was neat to see Reece absorb more of the true meaning of Christmas and Jesus coming to us as a baby, but then growing up to save us. I have been really overwhelmed the past few weeks of the thought of that precious baby Jesus. If you've had a baby, you know what an AMAZING, sweet, precious blessing it is to hold, nurture and love that little one. Can you even IMAGINE getting to be the mother of the precious baby Savior!?!?! To get to train, love, play with and feed that amazing child??? WOW! Such a neat thing to think about. Makes me want to have another baby! :) Just kidding, Daniel....not quite yet :)

I will be putting up Christmas pics later...for now, I must go recover from our shopping day!

Good night!